Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives

[cen]

He should either DNS asap or maybe wait for the rest day+1, if he can survive the weekend.

 

[Bonimenier]

You're kidding, right? When Roglic crashed, no one knew how badly he was really hurt. So he could have just had scratches & recovered that night (JV didn't know, no one did). So you would have had Vingegaard say "scr*w you Roglic, I'm going for myself now"... as soon as Roglic crashed, without knowing the full extent of the injuries?

That's not how a team wins the Tour. And that's the point here, i.e. JV could only win the Tour with Roglic. By aiming for auxiliary honours with Wout van Aert, they weakened that GC objective. And yeah, those objectives (GC & stage hunting with other riders) pretty much always are in contradiction, hence why it's only the lower GC hopefuls (young prospects like Gaudu or older guys who're no longer at their best like Quintana) who have to put up with a team with split objectives.

Only partly kidding. Vingegaard was appointed to give his bike to Roglic in case of bike problems, so in that regard it was right that he stopped. On the other side Roglic didn't need 4 guys for the final 10 km on those twisty roads after his crash. One less rider wouldn't have made the difference.

 

[Carols]

The rest of your post is just moralism about the perceived wrongs of domestique duties behind a leader in a Grand Tour (the leader in this case being Primoz Roglic aka number one rider in the world & winner of a GT + Basque Country over the past 8 months).

Plus LBL in October 2020

 

[Rollthedice]

Chapeau!

 

[bNator]

If anything it means that I want the best riders to do what their capable of. Or is that you disagree with my top 5 statement? In my eyes both Roglic and van Aert are top 5 riders in the current peloton, and as a team you want to keep your stars happy. The way you do that is by allowing them to chase their goals and not keep them on a leash.

Roglic going for GC and van Aert trying to go for yellow in the first week aren't mutually exclusive, especially when the latter was working for the former in both stage 1 and stage 3. And now it looks like JV made the right choice in that regard since Roglic going for GC is out of the question after today. The only thing you could criticize them for is that they let Vingegaard wait for Roglic in stage 3.

Your observation is logically inconsistent. Roglic being in trouble is a consequence of their decision to let Wout pursue his goals, so claiming that it was a good decision because Roglic is now in trouble - do you see where this is going?

 

[Red Rick]

It's not Van Aerts lack of work that let Roglic crash.


As for what now, just sit in grupetto and see if he gets better in a few days hopefully?

 

[bNator]

It's not Van Aerts lack of work that let Roglic crash.


As for what now, just sit in grupetto and see if he gets better in a few days hopefully?

Probably… I don’t see him leaving the tour - if nothing else he’ll try to be there for the team.

 

[saunaking]

As for what now, just sit in grupetto and see if he gets better in a few days hopefully?

With the goal being???
..stage win later??
pointless. he should go home and target something else for this year

 

[JosefK]

With the goal being???
..stage win later??
pointless. he should go home and target something else for this year

I concur, but I wouldn't be surprised if he guts it out all the way to Paris.

 

[johnymax]

He should do whatever will put him in the best position to arrive in Tokyo as good as possible. One option is to pull out now, rest, recover, train. The other option is to ride in gruppetto the next two stages and try to recover during the rest day as much as possible. If he gets better, he can choose a couple of stages and try to get a stage win (and keep the streak "stage win in every GT he enters" alive). In the meantime he can still help Vingegaard achieving a high place in GC.

Anyway if he continues it'd probably be best to drop out before Paris to have more time left until the Olympics. On the other hand I'd really like to see him in the ITT on stage 20. If he couldn't follow 50 riders on a 2nd category climb today, but he was still able to come in 7th in the recent ITT, I'm trying to imagine what he could do in the ITT if fully recovered.

 

[jmdirt]

I didn't see the moment on TV, as far as I know the camera wasn't on it then, but Roglic seemed to almost lose van Aert's wheel earlier already - so either he just lost van Aerts wheel or he even deliberately let go of it, anyway you cannot put the blame on van Aert. After all van Aert is a crosser, not a guy with 10years of experience in bunch riding and only in the team because of these qualities.

He's been doing Belgian 'crash up derbies' (kermesse) for ~10 years so he can ride in any bunch.

 

[BlueRoads]

He's been doing Belgian 'crash up derbies' (kermesse) for ~10 years so he can ride in any bunch.

Yes, sorry, I meant leading his main guy through a nervous peloton.

 

[jmdirt]

I didn't want to see this today even though I knew that it could. Good luck looking forward PR...its still a long season!

 

[Mayomaniac]

Time to pull a Landis, as his teammate George Bennett would call it.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Rominger holding Roglič back?

P.S. Nah.

 

[CyclistAbi]

As for van Aert. It's obvious Roglič and the team don't demand 100% support at all times. JV is not Ineos. Is that good or bad? In my opinion it doesn't make that much of a difference. Somebody like van Aert needs to have a bit of a freedom to stretch his legs. That only makes him better.

Could see their train tactics being used again in the future, though.

What killed this Tour, not just for Roglič, was the safety fiasco, as seen on stage 1 and 3. Organisers where just not up to the task this year. Hopefully they learned something and we will still get to witness what was promised for this years edition. But that is like a year or more away.

For me hence healthy and happy Roglič and that will do just fine. I don't care anymore if its called Tour or Mur. Likely around 3 years of racing on the highest level and i just want to enjoy that as after nothing will be the same again.

 

[Amazinmets87]

If VA is a legit GC contender, isn't Roglic a pivotal domestic? Heck, even if VA isn't riding for GC, Roglic should continue to assist him in his quest for stage wins.

All this is assuming Roglic isn't at serious risk of aggravating his injuries. If that's the case, it's an obvious abandon.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Based on social media it looks like he won't abandon for now.

 

[lenric]

I'm sad for Roglic, I would like to see him getting a medal in Tokyo and winning a third Vuelta, if possible.

 

[IndurainsTdF1994]

If VA is a legit GC contender, isn't Roglic a pivotal domestic? Heck, even if VA isn't riding for GC, Roglic should continue to assist him in his quest for stage wins.

All this is assuming Roglic isn't at serious risk of aggravating his injuries. If that's the case, it's an obvious abandon.

WVA is not a GC contender. And even if he were, I don't see how Roglic in his current shape can help him.

 

[IndianCyclist]

At this point, the tour is a failure. He would be continuing in pain for at least 4 days- 1 week before healing. He may return to win a stage but that would be so irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. He may try to help his teammates in the third week but his teammates are not going to beat Pogacar. Abandoning or not , both options have their own merits as he is unlikely to injure himself even if he continues. I would be in the favor of continuing so that he does not lose the base fitness as long as the injuries are healing and the pain is reducing day by day

 

[Rackham]

At this point, the tour is a failure. He would be continuing in pain for at least 4 days- 1 week before healing. He may return to win a stage but that would be so irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. He may try to help his teammates in the third week but his teammates are not going to beat Pogacar. Abandoning or not , both options have their own merits as he is unlikely to injure himself even if he continues. I would be in the favor of continuing so that he does not lose the base fitness as long as the injuries are healing and the pain is reducing day by day

The Tour isn't just a "failure", it's a total disaster & pretty much the worst moment of his cycling career.

It's one of those moments where an athlete in his prime suffers a setback which puts a question mark on whether he will ever win the goal he's aiming for, in this case the Tour de France. It's all too fresh right now (including the wounds) to even consider taking any positives from this garbage race.

I'm not even sure winning the Vuelta would be any consolation either. I also hope to God Pogacar destroys the remaining field because "if" he's shown to be vulnerable over the next two weeks, it'll just make the whole ordeal worse. The "what could have been" would be pretty sht to be honest.

 

[CyclistAbi]

My prediction for the stage 8. Basically Roglič to survive.

Lets see if that was a reasonable expectation.

 

[mangart]

The Tour isn't just a "failure", it's a total disaster & pretty much the worst moment of his cycling career.

It's one of those moments where an athlete in his prime suffers a setback which puts a question mark on whether he will ever win the goal he's aiming for, in this case the Tour de France. It's all too fresh right now (including the wounds) to even consider taking any positives from this garbage race.

I'm not even sure winning the Vuelta would be any consolation either. I also hope to God Pogacar destroys the remaining field because "if" he's shown to be vulnerable over the next two weeks, it'll just make the whole ordeal worse. The "what could have been" would be pretty sht to be honest.

I agree with that, I would just define it differently. It is a turning point in his career.
I know he desperately wants to win the Tour, but so many great riders have never won it . So this ... after all, it's just not a disaster. Primož has two or three more years of top cycling ahead of him. But he needs to calm down and think about what he wants to achieve in the coming years . And so must Jumbo Visma.

 

[johnymax]

Nothing to see here...