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Teams & Riders Fabio Jakobsen thread

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Somewhere on this forum a few years ago i predicted both Philipsen and Jakobsen could start winning a lot of races. Philipsen in case he would grow a bit strong because he has always been great at positioning and a really skillful bikehandler. He easily finished in the top 5-10 back then but just needed that bit of extra speed. In case of Jakobsen, he already had that extra speed earlier on, but he was rather bad at positioning, and either finished top 3, or somewhere outside of the top 20. This season he was well (enough) positioned in 6 out of 7 sprints and he won 6/6 of those. Philipsen on the other hand has taken an extra step in his physical development, and has been the 2nd most successful sprinter so far this year.

Anyway, my point being that fighting for position is a race on it's own, that often also costs energy. As such, saying someone else would also have been able to win under the same conditions is not fair. It's a bit like saying Sosa could beat Pogacar on a MTF. He could, if the race were only 140km long and has an easy route to the final climb and the stage was not raced hard.

For me, i think the ease and dominance in which Jakobsen has won his sprints this year, shows he is the strongest sprinter at the moment. Maybe peak Ewan could match him, but i haven't seen that this season so far.
 
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The situation was exactly the same with Bennett this time last year, ripping up the early season sprints on the end of the QS train. You have to be very fast to be that successful. Jakobsen is very fast right now. Bennett was very fast then. But in neither case can you just conclude that this is the very fastest guy. You have to see the top guys, in good form, against each other in a range of different situations in any given season before you can confidently say much beyond “this guy is very fast”.

My view of Jakobsen has for quite a while been that the guy is the most likely of the current crop to be the first, clearly dominant, best sprinter in the world we’ve had in a long time. But there’s no way of really knowing where he ranks at the moment, at least until we’ve seen all of the big guns in good form and in circumstances where the leadout isn’t relevant. I would fully expect an in form Ewan, Bennett, Merlier, Philipsen or Groenewegen and possibly others to also win these early season races on the end of that train.
 
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Fabiolous win today on stage 2. Great to see such return from life threatening injury to being on the top of the game again.
 
There were those who called Cavendish's performance last year "the greatest comeback in the history of the sport." What does that make this win today?
If this was last year Tour it’d have been everyone’s favorite comeback, and he already was everyone’s (or mass majorities) favorite comeback last year.

Incredible result knowing where he was in 2020. How many stages could he win in this form?

I loved Cavendish last year but this too is inspirational.
Hopefully all of the ones he competed in. Not only to show how good he is and that he’s the best right now when some of said he’s been winning against week competition but all the people saying Cav should have been brought or taken over him. It’s a great moment. Hopefully he can continue winning Tour stages at a high pace as it has been getting shared pretty evenly without Kittel, Greipel, or Cav.
 
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