contador's(riis) request

[danjo007]

i wouldnt put it past someone like riis AND contador, to have a teammate "fall over" after they towed AC back within the 3km mark.
i will admit that was my first thought when it happened.

 

[thehog]

i wouldnt put it past someone like riis AND contador, to have a teammate "fall over" after they towed AC back within the 3km mark.
i will admit that was my first thought when it happened.

what? The one team mate he had with him at the time? (Porte)

 

[danjo007]

yeah, and bjanne was probably screaming down his radio to crash with 3km to go.
so whats wrong with that assumption? this IS the site to make outlandish statements with no proof.

 

[Clemson Cycling]

If they adjusted it for Hesjedal, VDV and Casar there's no reason why they can't do it for Contador, Sammy and others.

I don't think they did adjust it for these guys

 

[dlwssonic]

its riis fault so contador probably thought that he wouldnt lose time that day and strolled into the finish. probable losing 30 secs on the way. it was a very costly mistake.

 

[ElChingon]

what a lame reference to a situation ( zulle 1999) that has nothing in common with this one. 1999 crash did NOT lead to discrepancies in time allotted to the riders like Saturday because in 1999 riders from one crash were not hindered by riders from a second crash who ended up arriving behind them at the finish but only got 6 seconds time deficit. just because two situations involves crashes doesn't mean you can refer to them to distort the reality of Saturday.

I can and will make it.

Any lame whining complaint for time back on a stage that's past from a team/rider is just that lame. The way its going some riders will get time for waking up late or just feeling sleeping/tired. This BS needs to end, they just need to race and if they fail well they fail, once any GC riders loses time due to crashes, bad team TT, relegation or rules they start to whine about it like its unfair with those rules are listed and known. When will this Andy Schleck-ness of racing end! We need Bernard Hinault to be the race director so they can be yelled at for even bringing these lame whines to the race!


PS: I know its not real (now or after my first post), but still if he (Contador) were to get the time so should Zulle, it was un-fair as well so pffftttt...

 

[inri2000]

I can and will make it.

Any lame whining complaint for time back on a stage that's past from a team/rider is just that lame. The way its going some riders will get time for waking up late or just feeling sleeping/tired. This BS needs to end, they just need to race and if they fail well they fail, once any GC riders loses time due to crashes, bad team TT, relegation or rules they start to whine about it like its unfair with those rules are listed and known. When will this Andy Schleck-ness of racing end! We need Bernard Hinault to be the race director so they can be yelled at for even bringing these lame whines to the race!


PS: I know its not real (now or after my first post), but still if he (Contador) were to get the time so should Zulle, it was un-fair as well so pffftttt...

You can and will be ignored by reasonable people.

 

[ElChingon]

You can and will be ignored by reasonable people.

I'm gonna cry

Contador isn't going to get one millisecond back as he came in down that minute and something so that's what he'll get, and no amount of whining will get him anymore!

 

[Barrus]

I'm gonna cry

Contador isn't going to get one millisecond back as he came in down that minute and something so that's what he'll get, and no amount of whining will get him anymore!

UUhm, he is not whining, SBS did not even made this request

 

[2wheels]

By the way that was probably the only time in this years race that RS will attack and that was after a crash...

+1 Love it! And so true (with the exception of Horner, whose tactical sense I have a lot of respect for).

 

[movingtarget]

If the stage did not have the 3 km rule which it should not have had due to the uphill finish Schleck and co would have lost time. I hope they change it for future races as the riders in the first crash were definitely hard done by. All finishes on a hill or mountain should not have the 3km rule.

As for for Riis and Contador not being worried about the time lost already, it's empty talk. Evans lost two Tours by less than a minute, Contador won last year by 40 odd seconds and Lemond wins one by 8 seconds !

 

[ElChingon]

If the stage did not have the 3 km rule which it should not have had due to the uphill finish Schleck and co would have lost time. I hope they change it for future races as the riders in the first crash were definitely hard done by. All finishes on a hill or mountain should not have the 3km rule.

As for for Riis and Contador not being worried about the time lost already, it's empty talk. Evans lost two Tours by less than a minute, Contador won last year by 40 odd seconds and Lemond wins one by 8 seconds !

You're right the 3K rule should go back to the 1K rule. At the rate they're going it will be the 100k rule.

 

[spanky wanderlust]

Got to say, this is also not the first time Alberto has been caught out by being in the wrong place.

I got slated when i suggested that he was tactically inept when he got seperated from armstrong in the echelons. But hes done it again.

He really needs to learn to be at the front in the final 50k

funny thing about the front is that not everyone can be there all the time. you rotate in and out. especially on a narrow road. this could have happened to leopard just as easily.

did you see the crash? it's not like it happened at the back of the bunch. i know this was discussed in the stage thread.

in any case this thread is about whether the neutralised crash at the 3km marker can hold up a bunch behind without their subsequent time losses being neutralised. and it seems perfectly reasonable that no, it should not. i struggle to find a reasonable argument to support otherwise.

imo, if alberto were not in the bunch behind the losses would have been neutralised immediately without anyone having to ask. because it is the right thing to do.

 

[spanky wanderlust]

You're right the 3K rule should go back to the 1K rule. At the rate they're going it will be the 100k rule.

i wish you guys would stop blaming the 3k rule. the real problem is that the 3k rule has to be applied to EVERYONE affected by the neutralised crash.

the rule is the rule. it's just that in this case they didn't apply it to all of the riders, which is unfair.

and your joke about the 100k rule is funny, except that that is basically exactly what cancellara did last year for andy. again this was not applied evenly in all situations--the frank accident that held up contador, contador flatting on the cobbles, etc.

 

[Ryaguas]

I can and will make it.

Any lame whining complaint for time back on a stage that's past from a team/rider is just that lame. The way its going some riders will get time for waking up late or just feeling sleeping/tired. This BS needs to end, they just need to race and if they fail well they fail, once any GC riders loses time due to crashes, bad team TT, relegation or rules they start to whine about it like its unfair with those rules are listed and known. When will this Andy Schleck-ness of racing end! We need Bernard Hinault to be the race director so they can be yelled at for even bringing these lame whines to the race!


PS: I know its not real (now or after my first post), but still if he (Contador) were to get the time so should Zulle, it was un-fair as well so pffftttt...

Yawn...

I'm gonna cry

Contador isn't going to get one millisecond back as he came in down that minute and something so that's what he'll get, and no amount of whining will get him anymore!

Da troll is in da haus!!!

 

[luckyboy]

I guess this should happen seeing as he was held up by the crash within 3kms. Never thought about it like that until now.

 

[Vortex Surfer]

I think the initial question raised in this topic is a very interesting one, which isn’t (at least shouldn’t be in my book) as clear-cut as some of the media present the request supposedly made by Bjarne Riis. Article 20A of the TdF rules states that:

"In the event that a rider or riders suffer a fall, puncture or mechanical incident in the last 3 kilometres and such an incident is duly recognised, the rider or riders involved are credited with the same finishing time of the rider or riders they were with at the time of the incident."

Looking at this, I’d argue that there is room for interpretation. If AC was actually held up by the incident and HAD to stop, one could make a case for AC ‘suffering’ the effects of a fall or at the very least ‘being involved’ in a fall in the last 3 km. And hence AC’s time lost being frozen at the time he arrived at the ‘blockade’ in the final three. I believe that this could be a valid interpretation of the rules (the rule by the way explicitly acknowledges the need for interpretation by mentioning ‘duly recognised’, albeit interpreting the incident itself rather then the definition of involvement).

However, because this is an interpretation and I’m aware that it might very easily be tipped the other way. AC soft-pedalling towards the finish line in my book is a tactical mistake. Either he doesn’t know the rules or he assumes that he’ll be granted some slack by the organisation, the former being unprofessional for a rider earning well over 4 million a year, the latter being stupid. There is really no justifiable reason for not riding for every second to the finish line. Safe for being confident to easily make up the deficit on mountainous terrain (which I hope is the case).

The suggestion that the GC riders involved in the second crash had an advantage over the ones that could ride for the stage victory as voiced earlier this thread, is plain and utter nonsense. I bet every single one of those riders would have preferred to ride to the finish line without tumbling to the tarmac. Evans did in fact take some time, Van den Broeck might have done so as well, what’s there to win for the likes of Schleck, Gesink and Wiggens to go down other then saving the energy involved in ... well, an easy 2 km climb? Seriously, the suggestion is just ludicrous.

 

[Lanark]

I think the initial question raised in this topic is a very interesting one, which isn’t (at least shouldn’t be in my book) as clear-cut as some of the media present the request supposedly made by Bjarne Riis. Article 20A of the TdF rules states that:

"In the event that a rider or riders suffer a fall, puncture or mechanical incident in the last 3 kilometres and such an incident is duly recognised, the rider or riders involved are credited with the same finishing time of the rider or riders they were with at the time of the incident."

Looking at this, I’d argue that there is room for interpretation. If AC was actually held up by the incident and HAD to stop, one could make a case for AC ‘suffering’ the effects of a fall or at the very least ‘being involved’ in a fall in the last 3 km. And hence AC’s time lost being frozen at the time he arrived at the ‘blockade’ in the final three. I believe that this could be a valid interpretation of the rules (the rule by the way explicitly acknowledges the need for interpretation by mentioning ‘duly recognised’, albeit interpreting the incident itself rather then the definition of involvement).

The rules are clear. It says you get the same finishing time of the group of riders you were in when you were held up. That's exactly what Contador got, he was in the group the finished at 1.20, so that's the time he got. It doesn't say antyhing about measuring time gaps at the 3km point and using them as the final time.

The rules are extremely clear, and they leave only one interpretation, Contador should be 1.20 behind Gilbert in the stage 1 results. If the 'Contador-interpretation' was correct Andy Schleck et al. shouldn't have lost 6 seconds either, because they had a 0 second disadvantage to Gilbert when the crash happened. But that didn't happen, Schleck got the time of the group he was in when he was stopped by the crash (6 seconds), just like Contador got the finishing time of the group he was in when he passed the site of the crash.

 

[mr. tibbs]

The rules are clear. It says you get the same finishing time of the group of riders you were in when you were held up. That's exactly what Contador got, he was in the group the finished at 1.20, so that's the time he got. It doesn't say antyhing about measuring time gaps at the 3km point and using them as the final time.

The rules are extremely clear, and they leave only one interpretation, Contador should be 1.20 behind Gilbert in the stage 1 results. If the 'Contador-interpretation' was correct Andy Schleck et al. shouldn't have lost 6 seconds either, because they had a 0 second disadvantage to Gilbert when the crash happened. But that didn't happen, Schleck got the time of the group he was in when he was stopped by the crash (6 seconds), just like Contador got the finishing time of the group he was in when he passed the site of the crash.

Yeah, pretty much this. I don't really like seeing any top competitor for the GC lose time like this--especially when they cross they line with riders who get a minute+ on them--but hey, them's the rules. What a crazy stage!

I'm really hoping Contador has enough in his legs after the Giro to contend for yellow, but we'll see.

Oh, and more than one person has pointed out that the request in the subject line of this thread apparently never occurred. Just so we're all on the same page.

 

[Merckx index]

The rules are clear. It says you get the same finishing time of the group of riders you were in when you were held up. That's exactly what Contador got, he was in the group the finished at 1.20, so that's the time he got. It doesn't say antyhing about measuring time gaps at the 3km point and using them as the final time.

Actually, the rules are not that clear. As your post goes on to point out, Andy and the others in the second crash did not get the same time as Gilbert or Evans. They could not be given that time without leap-frogging over other riders who avoided the crash, but who trailed Gilbert and Evans to the line.

It’s possible (though of course unlikely) that AS or someone else in the second crash could have beaten Gilbert or Evans had they not crashed, and if they could have, the crash cost them a few seconds. But there is nothing that can be done about that. The 3 km rule doesn’t prevent a rider from losing a race he might have won, or from losing time he might have not lost. It does NOT guarantee him the same time as ALL the riders in the group he was in when he went down. it only prevents him from losing all the time he is held up by the crash. To make this process as fair as possible, the time benefit is defined as a minimum (the time of the last rider who avoided the crash) rather than as a maximum (the time of the first rider who avoided the crash).

So the clear intention of the rules, as I read them, is NOT to give a rider in a crash the same time as other riders who were not in the crash. It is to prevent the rider from losing time clearly caused by the crash, while being careful not to give him any advantage over any rider who avoided the crash.

I invite anyone who disagrees with this interpretation to consider the following scenario: the second crash was far more horrific than it actually was, carnage all over the road, nobody able to get past for more than five minutes. If that had happened—and it could have happened—the same application of the “rules” would have definitely eliminated Bert from the race. Does anyone here seriously think this would have been allowed? You’re going to allow Andy, held up for more than five minutes, to finish in about the same time as those who missed the crash, while Bert, who would have finished far sooner if not for that same crash, has to take those five minutes?

What if Andy had been seriously hurt, and limped to the finish line ten or fifteen minutes after the race was over? Is he still going to get the same time as the leaders, while Bert, who might have actually crossed the line minutes earlier than Andy, is still going to lose five minutes on him? Surely anyone can see that the logic behind this leads to absurd situations.

If the 'Contador-interpretation' was correct Andy Schleck et al. shouldn't have lost 6 seconds either, because they had a 0 second disadvantage to Gilbert when the crash happened. But that didn't happen, Schleck got the time of the group he was in when he was stopped by the crash (6 seconds), just like Contador got the finishing time of the group he was in when he passed the site of the crash.

I have already pointed out why he has to be given 6 seconds in this case. The “Contador interpretation” is quite consistent with that. This interpretation doesn’t say that Bert should have had the same time as Andy. It just says that the time he lost in the second crash should not count in his total time to the line. Again, the proposed time benefit is defined as a minimum (the time he trailed the first group when it went down) rather than a maximum (the time of Andy and the others in the first group). Just as Andy had to be satisfied with the same time as the worst of the riders who avoided the crash, without being given a chance maybe to beat some of them to the line, what is proposed for Bert is that he would be given the same time as the worst of the riders in his first crash group, without being given the chance to gain further time on those who were in the second crash.

 

[veganrob]

Seems to me that would be a crystal clear logical explanation of how the rules SHOULD be applied.

 

[Vortex Surfer]

The rules are clear. It says you get the same finishing time of the group of riders you were in when you were held up. That's exactly what Contador got, he was in the group the finished at 1.20, so that's the time he got. It doesn't say antyhing about measuring time gaps at the 3km point and using them as the final time.

The rules are extremely clear, and they leave only one interpretation, Contador should be 1.20 behind Gilbert in the stage 1 results. If the 'Contador-interpretation' was correct Andy Schleck et al. shouldn't have lost 6 seconds either, because they had a 0 second disadvantage to Gilbert when the crash happened. But that didn't happen, Schleck got the time of the group he was in when he was stopped by the crash (6 seconds), just like Contador got the finishing time of the group he was in when he passed the site of the crash.

I don't disagree with you really and you're totally right regarding measuring time at 3km and stuff. The argument I tried to make was about defining 'being involved' and/or 'incident', since I feel that AC was somehow involved with the crash within the 3 km, and that his involvement is in no way reflected in the GC, while the intention of the rule is to protect GC contenders from being disadvantaged by final kilometer incidents. The rules do leave room for interpretation if you ask me, as nowhere it's is said that being involved is actually lying ground. Would you say AC was involved in the second crash, given the premise of him being fully obstructed?

This is assuming he couldn't pass the crash site, something I believe to be Riis' argument, but weren't able to judge by what I've seen on television. If this were the case, it for sure makes for a rather unique situation in TdF history, where GC contenders are able to legally and physically obstruct the competition, ... that's spectacular.

Let's hope AC is strong and will put on a good show attacking Andy et al at Luz Ardiden, ... now that would be even more spectacular.

 

[Vortex Surfer]

I invite anyone who disagrees with this interpretation to consider the following scenario: the second crash was far more horrific than it actually was, carnage all over the road, nobody able to get past for more than five minutes. If that had happened—and it could have happened—the same application of the “rules” would have definitely eliminated Bert from the race. Does anyone here seriously think this would have been allowed? You’re going to allow Andy, held up for more than five minutes, to finish in about the same time as those who missed the crash, while Bert, who would have finished far sooner if not for that same crash, has to take those five minutes?

This pretty much exemplifies the point I am trying to make. Thank you.

 

[Lanark]

I have already pointed out why he has to be given 6 seconds in this case. The “Contador interpretation” is quite consistent with that. This interpretation doesn’t say that Bert should have had the same time as Andy. It just says that the time he lost in the second crash should not count in his total time to the line. Again, the proposed time benefit is defined as a minimum (the time he trailed the first group when it went down) rather than a maximum (the time of Andy and the others in the first group). Just as Andy had to be satisfied with the same time as the worst of the riders who avoided the crash, without being given a chance maybe to beat some of them to the line, what is proposed for Bert is that he would be given the same time as the worst of the riders in his first crash group, without being given the chance to gain further time on those who were in the second crash.

I'm sorry but you seem to be just making up interpretations of the rules as you go along. The rules clearly state that Contador should get the finishing time (again, read those words) of the group he was in. It doesn't say anything about keeping the same time differences between his group and the group in front of them that they had at the time of the crash. You can't give Contador the same time as the worst riders from the first crash group, because he wasn't in that group, he was in the group behind that, and he got that time. Anything else would be a complete violation of the rules. There was no group with a finishing time of 36 seconds, so Contador can't get a time of 36 seconds at the finish. That's the end of it.

If you want to prevent the situation we had with Contador on saturday, you should change the rules. If they had a completely different intention with this rule, they could have easily formulated it differently, and devised a rule that had Bertie at 36 seconds back. But they didn't, and until then the only way you can say that Contador didn't deserve his 1.20 is by ignoring half the part of the rule that's in place right now. Can you give me one example were the jury interpreted the rule like you do? And why didn't they do so last saturday?

 

[Kender]

if AC wants to protest anything it should be to his boss for not telling his riders to pull the chase group. instead they just followed the carrots who aren't built for the flats