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Teams & Riders Fabio Aru discussion thread

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Yes, riding the whole Tour for gc pretty much right after coming back from such a big surgery with a lack of training and racing km was a horrible way to prepare for the Vuelta, the Nibali approach would have been smarter.
Still, he finished 14th on gc in the Tour after coming back from a surgery with a totally improvised preparation, he isn't finished as a gc rider. I'm not talking about fighting for the win, but top 10 or top 5 (against a weaker field) is still a realistic goal with a proper preparation.
 
Aru is an idiot if he really thought it was a good idea.
Aru is a bit irrational. The guy moved in together with his girlfriend after dating for 2 weeks. Of course that's his own buisness, but it says a lot about his character.
The team probably only gave him green light for the Tour because of Gaviria's knee problems and when he was doing better than Dan Martin they had no real reason to tell him not to ride for the gc.
 
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Aru is a bit irrational. The guy moved in together with his girlfriend after dating for 2 weeks. Of course that's his own buisness, but it says a lot about his character.
The team probably only gave him green light for the Tour because of Gaviria's knee problems and when he was doing better than Dan Martin they had no real reason to tell him not to ride for the gc.
this is the reason why so many people like him
 
Yes, riding the whole Tour for gc pretty much right after coming back from such a big surgery with a lack of training and racing km was a horrible way to prepare for the Vuelta, the Nibali approach would have been smarter.
Still, he finished 14th on gc in the Tour after coming back from a surgery with a totally improvised preparation, he isn't finished as a gc rider. I'm not talking about fighting for the win, but top 10 or top 5 (against a weaker field) is still a realistic goal with a proper preparation.

From what I gathered it wasn't exactly a big surgery but "just" an endovascular intervention, usually it's done on one day and you go home the next.
 
In today's interview with Gazzetta Fabio says he had a debilitating virus in the Vuelta. (in Italian)

...but after the Vuelta you collapsed.

"With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps too much has been asked of my engine.
But it is easy to talk about later/now.
And anyway in Spain a virus really weakened me. I am still paying the consequences".

What do you mean?

"Even today I can only do short outings, maximum two hours.
It not a little thing, but I am getting better.
In January I'll start again at full capacity".
 
No idea what happened to him, he actually looked decent and on the right path before Lombardia.
It is worth mentioning that the operation that he had wasn't the more conservative approach, they implanted a stent into his artery, you're back on your bike quicker, but the risk of things not working out as planned is also higher.
Source: https://www.sportal.it/ciclismo/l-operazione-di-fabio-aru-divide-i-medici.html
He finished 14th on gc in the last Tour, after coming back from an operation and with an improvised preparation, I think he's not done as a rider.
The bigger problem is that they had him race a gt when he was already cooked for 3 years in a row.

2017: Probably peaks too early (NC and first week of the Tour) and clearly fades at the end of the Tour, somehow still manages to defend his 5th place from an injuried Dan Martin. He's leaving, so Astana send him to the Vuelta right after hit, he fades and cracks on the Angliru stage. They also send him to the Italian Autumn classics, he actually does pretty decent.

2018: New team, nobody but Tiralongo follows him to UAE (shows that he's not easy to deal with). Multiple meltdowns at the Giro and once again he cracks at the end of the Vuelt, the team still sends him to the Italian autumn classics and to Guangxi.

2019: Rushes back after the operation and they send him to the Tour. For no reason he actually tries to ride for gc and holds on to a 14th place on the gc. Then they send him to the Vuelta, not a problem, if he had actually used the Tour as a training race to ride himself into shape instead of hanging on for dear life. Test yourself on a few stages and take it easy on the other ones. I really think that he could have done a good Vuelta, if he did that, top 10 on the gc was possible (the field at the Tour was a lot stronger, the Vuelta had a good top 5, but the 2nd half of the top 10 was pretty shallow).

Of course Aru himself is also to blame, he signed a big contract with Saronni (who has buried many Italian talents, just look at all the great u23 riders who turned pro with him) and wanted to be in charge. I don't really think that Tiralongo being his coach was that muchh of a problem, they both know how he used to train at Astana and what works for him. You can mess up once by trying to mix things up, but I really don't think that Tiralongo was the big problem. It also seems really hard to convince Aru to do something when he isn't 100% behind it, he's really impulsive and a hothead.

So, where does he go from here? Saronni buried him on live TV yesterday (kinda ironic that Saronni of all people talks about someone who faded badly after turning 27...) and I can't see UAE resigning him.
Maybe Savio can save his career, if he's willing to accept a huge paycut (he's pretty much set for life and I always had the impression that Aru's family wasn't exactly poor either). Otherwise a return to Astana could work, if he hasn't burned too many bridges. Otherwise I can't see too many teams going after him, maybe only Israel would actually be willing to overpay him.
 
It could just be that he needs to refind his love for cycling again and all that, but he seems incredibly stubborn and hard to help to me. The only positive I see is that he's only failed at one team, but without the stories of how impulsive and stubborn he is, I'd have a lot more hope he could revive his career. How'd it end up with that girl he moved in with after knowing her for like 2 weeks?

I guess some teams would take a gamble on him, but I doubt he'd get a leadership role anywhere or that he'd get paid much more than a half decent domestique.
 
It could just be that he needs to refind his love for cycling again and all that, but he seems incredibly stubborn and hard to help to me. The only positive I see is that he's only failed at one team, but without the stories of how impulsive and stubborn he is, I'd have a lot more hope he could revive his career. How'd it end up with that girl he moved in with after knowing her for like 2 weeks?

I guess some teams would take a gamble on him, but I doubt he'd get a leadership role anywhere or that he'd get paid much more than a half decent domestique.
They are now married and he became a dad durning the last off season.
 
I think the bigger problem is that more often than not he chose what to ride, he was not forced to.
Shows he really doesn't have any idea of his limits and overall form.
Yes, that's also a big problem, he's impulsive and doesn't seem to be aware of his limits/form, he just wants to force things because he's too eager. Maybe I should have phrased it differently, it's him and the team. After his meltdown durning Lombardia and with no races afterwards he had no business racing the Tour, but they still send him to the Tour. He was actually realistic and said that riding for the gc was not an option for him at this point and that he was just here to help Pogi and maybe to win a stage.
At this stage he probably needs a team that forces him to do things their way, the Sunweb approach.
 

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