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Actually, no, I don't want to make insinuations if they are not true.
TT records, just like climbing records, are all about wind. We just happen to have more tailwind the past year.
Ba-dum-tshhh
No, the past year Ganna only faced van Aert once, who had to ride in less than optimal conditions and he beat him with the smallest difference at a WCC per km since Kiryienka. He never faced Evenepoel after San Juan, who was injured. And both Dennis and Dumoulin didn't have their best year. Amazing how you still want to make fun of the theory that there were abnormal conditions that day, when 4 people broke the previous record, and 2 others came very close to it on the same day. They all must have ridden the TT of their lives. Or maybe there was something in the water.
Comparing times this year to last year, of riders present both times and finishing either or both times in the top 20:
winning time 24s slower
Ganna 35s slower
Thomas G 24s slower
Ludvigsson 19s slower
Thomas B 6s slower
Van Hooydonck 30s slower
Tratnik 17s slower
van der Poel 39s slower
Yates S 33s slower
Affini 6s slower
Hepburn 3s faster
Bodnar 7s slower
11 riders, and only one managed to ride faster this year, and only by 3s. These 11 riders rode on average over 19 seconds slower than last year, on a 10k ITT. But sure, make fun of the proposition that conditions were not the same. That's more than the gap between Ganna and Campenaerts last year, 1.9s/km. If you want to take out those who did not finish in the top 20 both times, in order to pick those who really went all out both times (like van der Poel who seemed less motivated than last year, which might skew the result), you can scratch Van Hooydonck, van der Poel, Yates, Hepburn and Bodnar and your average comes down to 17.8s slower per rider.
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Same route. One deviation that could explain 1 or 2 seconds. Not 19.
Whatever they reason, be it wind, different spot in the calendar, circumstances were different, hence the achievement of Ganna in 2020 can not be compared.
I think he's talking about the entire route of the race.
If you think it means that much, that Ganna didn't win the WC by a huge margin, shouldn't it, by your standards, also count against van Aert that his winning margin in Tirreno was smaller than Ganna's from last year?
Which is completely not the point i'm making. Please read the discussion if you want to join in. I never claimed van Aert was the one true TT god as people were doing with Ganna last year. Also van Aert this year was riding for GC and had to fight every day, while Ganna didn't ride for GC and measured his efforts to strike on the TT.
I didn't think, you were thinking that he was a TT god, but you did use his results to talk down Ganna's performances last year. So I think it was reasonable to add that Ganna blew his opposition away during that TT, even though he wasn't the only one who beat the previous record.
And i agree and acknowledged that fact. But the thing is him beating the record by a landslide should not be an argument in the discussion, since clearly circumstances were different when the average time of competing (top 20 in the stage) riders was 19s faster as well. Then clearly conditions were extremely favorable, and you can not compare his effort to that of other riders in different years. That was the point. As such, the only thing we can go by is him beating Campenaerts by 18s. Which is a great win, but Campenaerts didn't win any TT last year, and Küng, van Aert & Evenepoel weren''t present. My point is that while Ganna was clearly the best ITT'er of last year, that the gap with others (like van Aert) was never that big as people made it seem or thought it was. Ganna was lacking competition in most races, and made the WC a season goal, while his nearest rival then was sprinting on the Champs Elysée a few days before. Ganna seemed untouchable, but if you look at the context, the gap was never that big.
You know Ganna beat Dennis by 30 seconds at the last 2 time trials at the Giro right? And in the opening TT, Dennis, Thomas and Campenaerts were nowhere close to him. And in Tirreno he blew away Dennis and Campenaerts. Then this year at the UAE he beat Pogacar by 24 seconds in 13km.
Also you're acting like winning by 26 seconds is nothing on a 30km Worlds course against maybe the most in-form rider in the world.
He beat all of the world's other top time trialists - including the double reigning world TT champion - several times, mostly quite easily, over a year. If that isn't strong competition then what is...
It was obviously quite reasonable to think he would win the Tirreno TT and weird to argue otherwise..
Also you're acting like winning by 26 seconds is nothing on a 30km Worlds course against maybe the most in-form rider in the world.
He beat all of the world's other top time trialists - including the double reigning world TT champion - several times, mostly quite easily, over a year. If that isn't strong competition then what is...
It was obviously quite reasonable to think he would win the Tirreno TT and weird to argue otherwise..
Dennis is not a reliable TT'er. He won the 2019WCC, but between that and the 2018WCC he only won the TDS prologue, and he hasn't won any ITT since 2019WCC. Dennis had also already lost to Evenepoel in Algarve earlier last year. Campenaerts has not won an ITT in 2020, and Ganna wasn't the only one to beat him in case you're wondering. Van Aert just came out of the TDF where he worked his balls off, had 4 days to take a plane home, get some rest and travel to Italy, while Ganna had been preparing for weeks. Pogacar is not a worldclass TT'er in my book, and at UAE Ganna beat Bissegger by 14 seconds.
It is quite reasonable to think he would win the Tirreno ITT and would be weird to argue otherwise... which is exactly why that is not what i was doing and also thought that he'd win, like i stated multiple times already, lol. In each generation, there are very good TT'ers, but there are only a select few that can rise above that. Campenaerts is not one of the latter, neither is Roglic or Pogacar (yeah, i know, i'll wait for confirmation of his PdBF TT). Dennis CAN be, but since the 2018WCC, he only won 2 ITT's, so currently he also isn't at that level. So when i'm talking about competition, i'm talking about the strongest competition there is, like the guy who beat him 3 times consecutively before, or the in-form rider you spoke of but without the handicap of riding the TDF 4 days before. He obviously had an amazing year, but there were too many unknowns last year in a crazy season with crazy races that assuming he'd be unbeatable was premature.
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Jose Been was funny yesterday. Said the final of Nokere Koerse you can't sprint out of the saddle. As she is saying this Amy Pieters stands for the sprint.
When she is saying names in Dutch.....ooooo I get goosebumps.
When she is saying names in Dutch.....ooooo I get goosebumps.
Speaking of people that haven't appeared on Eurosport in a while, is Declan Quigley still part of the Eurosport team? I've noticed he's taken over from Ned Boulting at being the lead international feed commentator at the RCS organised events, alongside Rob Hayles (a roll Carlton Kirby and Dan Lloyd used to have). However I've not heard his voice for awhile, although scrolling back through this thread, it looks like he only did Vuelta San Juan and the Spanish Nationals last year.
Jose Been is doing the types of races he did in 2019. I would assume getting the RCS gig limits his diary somewhat.
I believe argyllflyer referred to Declan Quigley and not Jose Been with those pronouns. He clearly replied to a post by lemon cheese cake without actually quoting it.
Kirby is insufferable. The about of gibberish that spews from his mouth is intolerable. Not to mention he gets a lot incorrect.
I totally agree.I can't watch any race with Carlton Kirby.Last resort i mute the volume.All the other commentators seem as though they have prepared notes,have knowledge and are into cycling.
Kirby is sarcastic,not prepared and clueless.Ive given up on Volta Catalunya.
Jose Breen,Maggy,Brian Smith,Adam Blyth,Rob Hatch,Sean Kelly,Matt lloyd are all great.
Why do they keep using CarltonKirby?
Oh, man. I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, and I know coming back here time and time again to defend me man Carlton is a masochistic exercise. I'm not going to win. I get it.
But with that said, I can't help defending my man Carlton from random abuse, especially after his brilliant performance in today's stage of the Volta. How many commentators do you know have come up with the phrase "drowning not waving" to determine whether a rider is in trouble? To ignore that off the cuff remark is akin to saying you don't appreciate the English language and the various ways words can be combined.
That doesn't make you a bad person, but you might fall into the "boring' level in terms of the criteria used to determine how interesting an individual might be. But that's just me! I don't hold a monopoly on making those determinations, and I might be wrong to suggest anything other than the possibility that you are the most interesting person on earth. Who knows?
I wish I had a note pad with me to write down the amount of times he used a clever metaphor as a segway before handing things off to his colleague. And this stuff is off the cuff, not scripted.
Speaking of scripts, of course every commentator has a list of information in front of them before going on air. To suggest my man CK doesn't is just silly. Even more silly is the suggestion that he doesn't like the sport. That is absurd.
P.S. If anyone is annoyed by the length and content of this message, blame the pandemic, not me. I happen to have a lot of time on my hands.
You might have a notepad for clever metaphors he says.
Rest of us have notepads for all the moronic things he says.
Example today when he was orgasming about Yates winning "He blew them away like the hairs on his chinny chin chin". Bloody infantile talk.
Rest of us have notepads for all the moronic things he says.
Example today when he was orgasming about Yates winning "He blew them away like the hairs on his chinny chin chin". Bloody infantile talk.
I'm with the delgados, Kirby is the best of the english speaking commentators I have stumbled into (Sean Kelly the best expert of course).
That could be a KMD 'Peachfuzz' quote.
But if that's what you and some others care for there are many good poetry slammers and theatre people who know absolutely nothing about cycling but who sure could be taught some basics and would probably do the job... Why Kirby?
Just out of curiousity - only started watching with English commentating relatively recently - does he ever correct any of his mistakes live?
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