Chaves vs A Yates

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Re: Re:

No he hasn't. You could argue he produced a better result, but his performance was not indicative of a future Tour winner; he hung on to the back of the main group riding at tempo, almost never attacking and finished third as bigger name rivals tried to attack and lost time.

He is 23. The difference between him and most recent GT winners at 23 is not that he was clinging on to the small leader's group while they were attacking that group. It's that he was clinging on to the small leader's group, while they were somewhere back down the mountain. The fact that he was able to cling on does not make him a less likely future winner.

He wasn't, with the exception of the last Saturday, clinging on.

He rode at the back by choice, and when someone important attacked he typically responded better than most people in the group. On stage 9 he was 'clinging on' at the back but when the attacks then came he ended up leading home Froome & Porte with everyone else time gapped.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

No he hasn't. You could argue he produced a better result, but his performance was not indicative of a future Tour winner; he hung on to the back of the main group riding at tempo, almost never attacking and finished third as bigger name rivals tried to attack and lost time.

He is 23. The difference between him and most recent GT winners at 23 is not that he was clinging on to the small leader's group while they were attacking that group. It's that he was clinging on to the small leader's group, while they were somewhere back down the mountain. The fact that he was able to cling on does not make him a less likely future winner.

Sure, I don't want to dismiss his achievements at all. As I said further upthread, I think he is already significantly better and more talented rider than Chaves. But GT's these days are won by riders who are very one dimensional. They can't sprint, they don't have great anaerobic ability, but they have the genetic make-up and muscle fibres to put out 6w/kg for an hour. A rider like Yates is too good anaerobically, too explosive to be able to reach the very highest aerobic level. He's too rounded and not one dimensional enough.

He's more like Valverde or Rodriguez in his power profile, whereas Chaves is much closer to a rider like Quintana or Contador. Unfortunately, GTs are now massively skewed in favour of these one dimensional aerobic riders.