Yeah, I don't understand why he doesn't ride it this year. Not only for experience, but also the timing is perfect. He doesn't have to specifically peak for it since it's so close to the WC TT.
- Feb 20, 2012
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He might drop some sprinters off his wheel but that's it probably.
Honestly I don't know how aero Ganna is on a road bike, but being taller than almost the whole peloton won't help saving energy in the bunch in the first hours of a race.
- Jan 4, 2020
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Ganna is great, I thought he also did a great job for Bernal downhill on the sterrato stage and he's not climbing too badly for a guy of his size. His sprint doesn't seem amazing but also not terrible. I think if he wants to, he can totally become a great classics' rider or allrounder. Winning a big race like P-R is always something else and not as easily planned, but I'm looking forward to seeing him in the coming years, whatever he decides to do. He really seems to know what he wants, what his major goals are and what he wants to sacrifice for that, so he will very probably make good, mature decisions in the future as well.
Yeah, I'm quite a fan.
Yeah, I'm quite a fan.
- Jul 28, 2015
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No one consider that but Cancellara, even if i remember him botching some important sprints, was also really fast in a flat sprint (if he wanted he could even crack the top 5 in bunch sprints) and that's a really useful weapon in cobbles races where the finishes are always flat and is not unusual to have a small group with someone fast in it contesting the race.
Ganna, for what we know, can't sprint so he has to go solo but probably isn't even explosive enough to drop people on short hills. Focusing the spring on cobbles races when you can do well only in Roubaix (and even that isn't certain) could be a really big gamble if you are a rider that can win ITTs for fun and also be a stage hunter in hilly/medium mountain terrain.
Filippo finally plans to ride TdF in 2022...
It depends on the GC situations. If Pogacar needs to go full gas in both ITTs, Ganna won‘t have a chance, in both, IMHO. (In 2021, Pog didn‘t have to go full gas in 2nd ITT any more, so WVA won).
Same thing as the Tour when Contador beat Cancellara in an ITT - and Pogacar is a far better time trialist than Contador (btw, also a better climber and puncheur).
I would love to see Ganna in Paris-Roubaix every year. I hope he has an even bigger engine than Cancellara, and I hope we‘ll see MVDP vs WVA vs Ganna in Roubaix for the next ten years. Ganna certainly still needs time to develop his engine for these 250+ km races. He has good bike handling skills, and will still improve these skills.
Boonen was the sprinter guy winning Roubaix, Cancellara was the time trialist winning Roubaix. WVA and MVDP are similar to Boonen, Ganna is similar to Cancellara.
It depends on the GC situations. If Pogacar needs to go full gas in both ITTs, Ganna won‘t have a chance, in both, IMHO. (In 2021, Pog didn‘t have to go full gas in 2nd ITT any more, so WVA won).
Same thing as the Tour when Contador beat Cancellara in an ITT - and Pogacar is a far better time trialist than Contador (btw, also a better climber and puncheur).
I would love to see Ganna in Paris-Roubaix every year. I hope he has an even bigger engine than Cancellara, and I hope we‘ll see MVDP vs WVA vs Ganna in Roubaix for the next ten years. Ganna certainly still needs time to develop his engine for these 250+ km races. He has good bike handling skills, and will still improve these skills.
Boonen was the sprinter guy winning Roubaix, Cancellara was the time trialist winning Roubaix. WVA and MVDP are similar to Boonen, Ganna is similar to Cancellara.
- Apr 10, 2019
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I agree about the 2nd ITT, but in the first one? Ganna will be the man to beat in the opening ITT (alongside Van Aert).
Ok, agree, good point. In the first one, Ganna will still be fresh, and should be even able to beat Pogacar... But I guess only few seconds will be between these two...
- Nov 17, 2020
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*best time trialist in the world, as long as it's the Tour.
- Jan 4, 2020
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No. I surely don't think he's a better time trialist in general. But history has shown so far that the probability of Pogacar finding his super powers when needed is pretty big.
Exactly. He reminds me so much of Armstrong. On a good day, both were/are unbeatable.
Difference is, Pogacar seems to be even stronger, and wins from February until October.
Lance would never have been able to do what Pogacar did on the second Saturday in this years‘ Tour (gain 3:20 mins on ca. 35 kms)...
- Jul 28, 2015
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If you say that there is the possibility of him occasionally winning an ITT on certain circumstances i agree but thinking that Ganna by default doesn't stand a chance against him is crazy, he has won four ITTs in his career, two of them being the NC, and as of now there isn't a bigger probability of him winning an ITT at WT level than riders like Cavagna or Bjerg. If i have to list the best time trialists in the world i'd barely put him in the top 10 after not only Ganna but also van Aert, Roglic, Evenepoel, Kung, Asgreen, Dennis, Bissegger, Dumoulin and there are as many i'd put on a similar level to him.
- Apr 30, 2011
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Sure he would. On both Hautacam (2000) and Alpe d'Huez (2001) he was similarly dominant. He just never had the terrain and opportunity to do so over a similar distance.
Maybe, but so far the Boonen/Cancellara fest hasn’t really been repeated. And allthough Wout & Mathieu are surely great riders for P-R, there is quite a lot of competition around these days. Competition that at this point are better than Ganna for the specific race we are talking about.
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- Apr 30, 2011
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I'm dead certain that won't be the case. That's (at least) 6 wins between those riders, and it's unlikely (< 20 %) that Ganna will ever win it once.
- Feb 20, 2012
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Yeah I'm not a huge believer in Ganna as a classics rider for some reason.
- Apr 10, 2019
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Yeah, but this season I've been impressed by his bike handling skills (in the TTs and on the sterrato) for the first time, so you never know.
Ganna could win it one day. But for now I would rate a guy like Asgreen quite a bit higher. Also Pedersen, Mohoric have similar chances to Ganna I think. And then we are not even considering the riders a bit older.
And there will be youngster in the current peloton who will reach this level as well.
And there will be youngster in the current peloton who will reach this level as well.
- Apr 10, 2019
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The big difference is that Ganna doesnt hav the sprint that most of the other cobbles specialists have, he has to win solo like Terpstra.
- Aug 6, 2010
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This.
Actually I think Lance put a few minutes into Ullrich on Hautacam anyway (2 minutes on Huez).
True, and even in terms of soloing it is hard to estimate how good he is exactly after having ridden 200K+ already. At least with a guy like Asgreen we already know his engine doesn’t get worse during the race, but with Ganna that is also a bit of an unknown.
- Feb 20, 2012
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It's got nothing to do with bike handling for me and it's all about physiology. To me seems like a guy with a power profile massively geared towards TTs and not classics, and even if he can manage distance it will blunt his edge. Also I think his main advantage over a guy like Van Aert is gonna be aero which largely evaporates on a TT bike.
For every Cancellara there's a bunch of top TTers that do nothing in classics, and I think Cance was a highly underrated puncheur.
An ITT like the WC, one day and one race is one thing.
An ITT on stage 12 or stage 20 is a different type of thing.
But Ganna is great and could very well win either way. Not a given though.
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