El Pistolero said:
Is it really that much to ask for a tenth place in a Vuelta or Giro tt? Flat one of course.
And besides, I think he's overhyped in the classics department, I never said a word about his tting abilities before theyoungest started to whine about it. Beating Leipheimer in an event he probably didn't peak for is not impressive what so ever.
Make it a top 10 at a P-N or T-A tt then if you think a GT is too much to ask for.
Uh... yeah it is when he hasn't riden in the race yet.
And you said he was overhyped... not overhyped as a classics rider. If you had sat the later, I would have agreed with you.
If he gets healthy and doesn't get consistent top 10's in ITT's over mostly flat ground, then it would be fair to say he's overrated. But so far what we know is he beat a guy in Levi Leipheimer last year who managed five top-5 ITT finishes in pretty big races (P-N, Catalunya, TDS, Algarve, California). And he beat him three times... not just in one race.
Until we have more data showing us something one way or the other, the evidence supports him not being particularly overhyped against the clock.
He hasn't backed up any claims for northern classics or sprinting excellence (though he had a couple of decent top 10 sprint finishes in Qatar last year). He hasn't contested a sprint or ridded a cobbled race yet this year due to injury. He hasn't been proven as an overhyped talent yet... pretty much all the evidence still points to much of the hype being warranted (unless you think he'll be an Ardennes rider or win a race with climbing involved... then you're crazy).
When results start showing that he's not living up to they hype... attack then.