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Euskal Herriko Itzulia 2018 - April 2-7

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Re:

Red Rick said:
So why is april supposedly indicative of anything then?
Because it is a very prestigious stage race; especially for Movistar as its basically their home race. And their leader is a Basque rider. They will absolutely want to win this, probably more than any other week long stage race. And they are losing it by a big margin to a bloke who has never won a WT race before.

It's not a great sign for them. Although at least they will know a lot more about Landa's limitations now.
 
Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
So why is april supposedly indicative of anything then?
Because it is a very prestigious stage race; especially for Movistar as its basically their home race. And their leader is a Basque rider. They will absolutely want to win this, probably more than any other week long stage race. And they are losing it by a big margin to a bloke who has never won a WT race before.

It's not a great sign for them. Although at least they will know a lot more about Landa's limitations now.
If anything Catalunya is their bread and butter race, where they went 1-2 with 2 stages.

You can only play the cards you're given. Sometimes it's impossible to win. Roglic is a very strong rider, reducing him to 'never won a WT race before' is nonsense. By that logic, they lost the Giro last year to Tom 'never won a WT race before' Dumoulin.
 
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Re: Re:

LaFlorecita said:
jaylew said:
Why does Roglic even care about Nairo?
If Nairo bridges to his teammates up front Roglic could be in trouble. But yes, for the final climb he should only mark Landa and Izagirre.
He shouldn't mark anyone, but just TT up the final climb. Only way he loses 2 minutes is if he implodes.
 
Re: Re:

Red Rick said:
DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
So why is april supposedly indicative of anything then?
Because it is a very prestigious stage race; especially for Movistar as its basically their home race. And their leader is a Basque rider. They will absolutely want to win this, probably more than any other week long stage race. And they are losing it by a big margin to a bloke who has never won a WT race before.

It's not a great sign for them. Although at least they will know a lot more about Landa's limitations now.
If anything Catalunya is their bread and butter race, where they went 1-2 with 2 stages.

You can only play the cards you're given. Sometimes it's impossible to win. Roglic is a very strong rider, reducing him to 'never won a WT race before' is nonsense.
Roglic may be strong right now, but he's never won a WT stage race - so it's not nonsense. The fact is that a team containing Landa and Quintana should be, at the very least, within two minutes of him going into the final stage of a very hilly stage race.

They won't get many chances (if any) to race together before the Tour now; this is a dry run for their tactics and team dynamics. And they have hardly set the world alight. Maybe it's just because Landa isn't good enough to be a leader - but they haven't got too long to find that out for sure before the Tour.
 
Re: Re:

Tarnum said:
LaFlorecita said:
jaylew said:
Why does Roglic even care about Nairo?
If Nairo bridges to his teammates up front Roglic could be in trouble. But yes, for the final climb he should only mark Landa and Izagirre.
He shouldn't mark anyone, but just TT up the final climb. Only way he loses 2 minutes is if he implodes.
I think he can't even lose this if he implodes. He should ride for the stage win.
 
Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
So why is april supposedly indicative of anything then?
Because it is a very prestigious stage race; especially for Movistar as its basically their home race. And their leader is a Basque rider. They will absolutely want to win this, probably more than any other week long stage race. And they are losing it by a big margin to a bloke who has never won a WT race before.

It's not a great sign for them. Although at least they will know a lot more about Landa's limitations now.
If anything Catalunya is their bread and butter race, where they went 1-2 with 2 stages.

You can only play the cards you're given. Sometimes it's impossible to win. Roglic is a very strong rider, reducing him to 'never won a WT race before' is nonsense.
Roglic may be strong right now, but he's never won a WT stage race - so it's not nonsense. The fact is that a team containing Landa and Quintana should be, at the very least, within two minutes of him going into the final stage of a very hilly stage race.

They won't get many chances (if any) to race together before the Tour now; this is a dry run for their tactics and team dynamics. And they have hardly set the world alight. Maybe it's just because Landa isn't good enough to be a leader - but they haven't got too long to find that out for sure before the Tour.
This is a 1 week race with short stages and not long mountains and 1 deciding TT. So Roglic is in the driver seat and Movistar cannot do anything about it regardless of anything pretty much.
 
Re: Re:

Gigs_98 said:
Tarnum said:
LaFlorecita said:
jaylew said:
Why does Roglic even care about Nairo?
If Nairo bridges to his teammates up front Roglic could be in trouble. But yes, for the final climb he should only mark Landa and Izagirre.
He shouldn't mark anyone, but just TT up the final climb. Only way he loses 2 minutes is if he implodes.
I think he can't even lose this if he implodes. He should ride for the stage win.
I agree. 2 minutes is a LOT.
 
Re: Re:

Escarabajo said:
DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
So why is april supposedly indicative of anything then?
Because it is a very prestigious stage race; especially for Movistar as its basically their home race. And their leader is a Basque rider. They will absolutely want to win this, probably more than any other week long stage race. And they are losing it by a big margin to a bloke who has never won a WT race before.

It's not a great sign for them. Although at least they will know a lot more about Landa's limitations now.
If anything Catalunya is their bread and butter race, where they went 1-2 with 2 stages.

You can only play the cards you're given. Sometimes it's impossible to win. Roglic is a very strong rider, reducing him to 'never won a WT race before' is nonsense.
Roglic may be strong right now, but he's never won a WT stage race - so it's not nonsense. The fact is that a team containing Landa and Quintana should be, at the very least, within two minutes of him going into the final stage of a very hilly stage race.

They won't get many chances (if any) to race together before the Tour now; this is a dry run for their tactics and team dynamics. And they have hardly set the world alight. Maybe it's just because Landa isn't good enough to be a leader - but they haven't got too long to find that out for sure before the Tour.
This is a 1 week race with short stages and not long mountains and 1 deciding TT. So Roglic is in the driver seat and Movistar cannot do anything about it regardless of anything pretty much.
I'm aware of that The point I was making is that the problem is not their inability to crack Roglic today. It's the fact they've gone into the stage today 2 minutes behind. They needed to put pressure on him earlier in the week, because they knew about the problems with the Time Trial.

Misjudging the impact of a TT - particularly in terms of not racing aggressively enough to gain a big buffer before the TT - has cost them heavily in both the Tour and the Giro in recent years. And it's cost them a shot at this race as well. Which would be very concerning to me if I was a Movistar fan, ahead of the Tour. They don't seem to have learned.
 

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