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Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

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Lost another 20 mins today, think he'd be better off running up the climb ala Ventoux 2016.

so we´re at stage 10 and you still havent understood he´s not there for GC and it doesnt matter if he loses 4 7 or 12 minutes every day? it´s his first GT in 2 years. he didnt come for GC, unlike Dumoulin that retired yesterday. he said, like Pinot, he had no goals in GC.
 
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Lost another 20 mins today, think he'd be better off running up the climb ala Ventoux 2016.


One of these days I recommend actually watching a race rather than just looking at a results sheet. You would learn a lot.

In the meantime I'll let you into a little secret. Not all of the riders are trying to win the race themselves, some are just riding to help a teammate. Here's a little bit of jargon for you to impress you friends - domestique. That is a rider working for a teammate. They will do things like setting the pace. Once their job for the day done they will take it easy as they don't really care what time they do, just that they're ready to do a job the next day.
 
he didnt come for GC

When did he announce that? Was that before the Vuelta started? Do you have a link?

Of course he isn't riding for the GC now. He went into the Vuelta as the team leader or co-leader, Ineos was very clear about that.

Right up to the time it was announced that he wouldn't be riding the Tour, he told us he felt strong, that he thought he had a legitimate chance of winning it. And now that it's clear he was nowhere remotely close to being in that condition, suddenly the narrative has been back-dated.

Here's a little bit of jargon for you to impress you friends - domestique. That is a rider working for a teammate. They will do things like setting the pace. Once their job for the day done they will take it easy as they don't really care what time they do, just that they're ready to do a job the next day.

Here's a little bit of history for you to impress your friends with--Vuelta 2011; TDF 2012. Domestiques can contend in a GT; if they're strong enough, they can even win it.
 
When did he announce that? Was that before the Vuelta started? Do you have a link?

Of course he isn't riding for the GC now. He went into the Vuelta as the team leader or co-leader, Ineos was very clear about that.

Right up to the time it was announced that he wouldn't be riding the Tour, he told us he felt strong, that he thought he had a legitimate chance of winning it. And now that it's clear he was nowhere remotely close to being in that condition, suddenly the narrative has been back-dated.



Here's a little bit of history for you to impress your friends with--Vuelta 2011; TDF 2012. Domestiques can contend in a GT; if they're strong enough, they can even win it.

Froome said:
“I think, I can only speak for myself but I mean I would have been more than happy to have gone to the Tour and helped as much as I could. But I think it made a lot more sense for me to not be under that amount of pressure right now, obviously with where I am at trying to get back to my old level.



"Among those big names are Richard Carapaz and Chris Froome. According to the latter in a pre-race press conference, the Ineos Grenadiers team is built to support the former."

 
Froome said:
“I think, I can only speak for myself but I mean I would have been more than happy to have gone to the Tour and helped as much as I could. But I think it made a lot more sense for me to not be under that amount of pressure right now, obviously with where I am at trying to get back to my old level.

Froome said this after he was told he would be left off the team. What's he supposed to say? I think I could have contended for the win, and am very upset I wasn't given the chance? Come on. He went along with the team announcement. Before that announcement, he never gave any indication that he would have been willing to start the Tour as a domestique, with no chance at contending. It was easy to say after the fact that he would be willing to play that role, because he no longer had to make that choice.

"Among those big names are Richard Carapaz and Chris Froome. According to the latter in a pre-race press conference, the Ineos Grenadiers team is built to support the former."

The link also describes Froome as a contender, and quotes him as saying the team will take it one day at a time. That is basically the same thing he was saying about his relationship with Bernal and Thomas in the run-up to the Tour. Let the best man win. All that was different was that he was a little less confident in his form, so he was hedging his bets. But very clearly, Froome was expecting to contend if he thought he had the form. He was not going to defer to Carapaz automatically. He didn't lose all that time on Stage 1 because he wanted to rest up for critical domestique work later.
 
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Here's a little bit of history for you to impress your friends with--Vuelta 2011; TDF 2012. Domestiques can contend in a GT; if they're strong enough, they can even win it.

OK. You're ready for lesson 2. Now not all domestiques have the same job to do. Some are there to be of assistance in the mountains and may end up high on GC and may act as a back up. However, there are also those that just spend lots of time on the front of the peloton. Now today when the Eurosport coverage started, there was a rider on the front and he stayed there for nearly an hour. He wasn't worried about his time. Others may have been, but not so much in this race.

Tomorrow we will look at how team leaders get their food. We'll investigate the word musette.
 
Froome said this after he was told he would be left off the team. What's he supposed to say? I think I could have contended for the win, and am very upset I wasn't given the chance? Come on. He went along with the team announcement. Before that announcement, he never gave any indication that he would have been willing to start the Tour as a domestique, with no chance at contending. It was easy to say after the fact that he would be willing to play that role, because he no longer had to make that choice.



The link also describes Froome as a contender, and quotes him as saying the team will take it one day at a time. That is basically the same thing he was saying about his relationship with Bernal and Thomas in the run-up to the Tour. Let the best man win. All that was different was that he was a little less confident in his form, so he was hedging his bets. But very clearly, Froome was expecting to contend if he thought he had the form. He was not going to defer to Carapaz automatically. He didn't lose all that time on Stage 1 because he wanted to rest up for critical domestique work later.


While were having a break from Domestique training we can have a diversion into PR. It maybe a surprise to you but press interview are not considered to be the same as legal depositions. Also media outlets may also exaggerate things to generate interest.

For a case study look at some films. The actors will appear on TV saying how great the movie is and then cinemas will tweet how this as a 'must see'. But then it turns out to be rubbish. Were they all wrong. Inside tip - no they weren't. They knew it was good but part of their job is to get you interested.

Next month I will explain why you don't have to worry about whether Santa Claus will be stopped by Covid 19.
 
You have to allow for the possibility that there's nothing to rat out. I know this is difficult given how much time you have devoted to the opposing opinion. But they are opinions almost entirely based on riders not fitting the very narrow standard career path that you think is acceptable.

Also do we know Contador was doping? We know he had a minute amount of a banned substance in his body, but he can't be sure how it got there.

You claim there are some alternative facts that defy 100 years of humans racing bicycles. Please explain the "how" an average elite cyclists with no meaningful results at the end of his contract goes from zero to grand tour hero, and ONLY a grand tour hero.

Yes, we know Contador was doping. His CAS judgement rejects his "butcher" excuse. Nevermind the simple fact clenbuterol doesn't fall from the sky into your blood stream, in the EU no less.
 
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One of these days I recommend actually watching a race rather than just looking at a results sheet. You would learn a lot.

In the meantime I'll let you into a little secret. Not all of the riders are trying to win the race themselves, some are just riding to help a teammate. Here's a little bit of jargon for you to impress you friends - domestique. That is a rider working for a teammate. They will do things like setting the pace. Once their job for the day done they will take it easy as they don't really care what time they do, just that they're ready to do a job the next day.

What is this post LMAO. What's it like up there on that high horse of yours?
 
That is just nuts. Brady is generally regarded as the best QB of all time, and James the no. 1 or 2 NBA player of all time. Even Froome's staunchest defenders wouldn't claim that he is the best or close to the best rider of all time. His legacy is all about GTs, and he's tied for fourth in those, fifth in TDF wins. He has nothing to add in terms of classics.

You could make a case for Froome as a top 10 rider all time, though I'm sure it would be vigorously disputed by many cycling fans, but Froome is nowhere remotely close to the standing in his sport that Brady and James have in theirs.

But then Marca's list is a joke. They have Kobe Bryant ahead of James--there is almost no NBA fan in the world who would claim that. Pacquiao ahead of Mayweather--when the two were both active, Mayweather was consistently ranked over him, and defeated Pacquiao in their one, sadly past their prime match. Wiggins ahead of Barry Bonds!!! I can't take their list seriously, not unless by sportsmen, they are referring to the athlete's personality or public demeanor, it certainly has no relationship to athletic accomplishement.
The thing is though, a lot of these lists are massively biased by the sports that that country's catchment includes. Spain has a pretty good basketball league of its own and some interest therein, but much of the league is made up of imports, and it has nothing like the pull of, say, football. People like Barry Bonds? MLB has, of the four big American sports, easily the least currency in Europe. The NFL used to have NFL Europe and retains a cult audience in some countries, especially the UK which sells out game after game in London. Most of southern Europe has a decend level basketball league, including small countries in the Balkans. Ice hockey is wildly popular in a number of countries, most notably Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, Finland and Russia, with also decent interest in Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and a few ex-Soviet countries further east. Baseball has very little of that; Spain has the biggest likelihood of there being enough of an interest to fairly rate baseball players in a list like this, thanks to a sizable population of Latin American origin from countries where the sport is king - Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and so on - whereas NFL is comparatively small. In a country like Germany or the UK where there is a bigger NFL following, you might see them higher, similar to how you would seldom see soccer given the level of prominence in a US equivalent article that it has in Europe or South America. I'd be willing to bet that a Marca equivalent in the US would not name Chris Froome 17th best sportsman of the 21st Century. He might be in the list, but he'd be some way down it, granted the same credit as part of a largely European-dominated niche sport that the likes of Bonds have got from Marca.

Similarly, there was a US 'best sportsmen and sportswomen of 2010' list back in the day. It included Ole Einar Bjørndalen but not Emil Hegle Svendsen despite the latter doing better in the Olympics and the World Cup that year. This was largely because after his heroics in Salt Lake City, Bjørndalen was better known to the pundits and compilers eight years down the line when they felt they needed some Winter Olympians in there. And yet, no Magdalena Neuner, who was more dominant in the women's competitions than either of the male biathletes there, took multiple Olympic golds and the World Cup overall, and won outright in Germany in the sportswoman of the year competition, because in Germany, biathlon is a hugely important sport with massive TV audiences.

Quite a lot of the time, therefore, a sport that has little currency with the compilers or the audience it is intended for will receive a sort of token interest, in a sense of 'yea, this is a big sport so we ought to include somebody, but we don't know much about it, let's find a couple of big names and find a spot for them somewhere'. Would a list compiled in, say, Brazil, include Martin Fourcade, Sidney Crosby or Dan Carter? Likely not. But to those who follow those sports, those are names who would be considered essential. A similar list compiled in India would be full of cricketers that most of North America outside of the Caribbean islands and most of Europe outside Britain and Ireland would struggle to name or rate objectively. A list compiled in Australia would include AFL players that nobody outside of the Antipodes would likely have any knowledge of. A German list would be full of wintersports athletes like lugers, biathletes and ski jumpers that have niche interest only in any country outside of the select 10-12 that compete at the highest level in it.
 
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ESPN has done a few top 100 athletes lists. Now some are sports specific but a few are not. They did a top 100 20th century US list. That one included at 2 race horses if I remember correctly (Man-O-War and Secretariat) while not a cyclist to be seen anywhere on the list. (Greg Lemond did win the Tour in '89 so qualified). They also did a World list last year which did not include a single cyclist either. That list did include Olympians as well as the more main stream athletes. Basically a list of top athletes in the US will include horses before cyclists.
 
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What's he doing as a domestique, admiring the views to tell his teammates about the scenery?
I can't really figure it out. Either an attempt to force himself into fitness, simple face-saving, a contractual obligation, or likely some combo of each. He's adding nothing as a domestique, that's a term being used by folks seeking to help re-write his approach to the Vuelta. As far as I can see he's not serving anyone else. He's just logging miles for his own sake. Which is fine, I guess, if you're Ineos and you have plenty of riders who can actually contribute.
 
While were having a break from Domestique training we can have a diversion into PR. It maybe a surprise to you but press interview are not considered to be the same as legal depositions. Also media outlets may also exaggerate things to generate interest.

For a case study look at some films. The actors will appear on TV saying how great the movie is and then cinemas will tweet how this as a 'must see'. But then it turns out to be rubbish. Were they all wrong. Inside tip - no they weren't. They knew it was good but part of their job is to get you interested.

Next month I will explain why you don't have to worry about whether Santa Claus will be stopped by Covid 19.
"Describe GoT season 8 in 1 word?"

"Disappointing"

~Kit Harington, mad lad
 
The thing is though, a lot of these lists are massively biased by the sports that that country's catchment includes.

Oh, I understand that. That's why there are only two baseball players and two NFL players on Marca's list. I get that. But baseball is an Olympic sport, and certainly watched more than swimming, which has more representation with Marca. (As an aside, I'm a former swimmer, and probably appreciate Phelps more than most, but I would never regard him as the greatest athlete, sportsman, or whatever. Swimming, even more than cycling, is mostly about getting oxygen to the muscles. There is very little skill involved). And Marca lose all credibility for me by not including Mike Trout, universally recognized as the game's best player since he was a rookie, eight years ago.

There's also the issue of doping. The two MLB players they include, Bonds and ARod, are both established juicers. I don't have a problem with that. People can differ on how much weight they put on doping, or whether they pay attention to it at all. But if you have those players on your list, then to be consistent, you should include LA, too. I know, that would cause an uproar, Marca would probably be boycotted, etc., etc. But the fact remains that LA didn't cheat any more than Bonds and ARod did (and if you think LA deserved everything because he was such a jerk, you don't know Bonds, or the incredible scenes ARod made, threatening to sue everyone in sight). Most people would probably argue that Bonds was a great player regardless of the PEDs, but that isn't so clear with ARod, who was known to be doping fairly early in his career. Their accomplishments were not stripped, as was LA's, but that's because you can't do that in baseball. If you voided any single player's stats, you would have to change the stats of all the players he interacted with, both teammates and players on opposing teams. It's easier to strip cyclists of results.

There are many other inconsistencies on that list. Parker and Ginobili over Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul, James Harden and Giannis? I think their U.S. correspondent must live in San Antonio.
 
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Quite possibly. Or, much like the US list I referenced with "oh, there was a Winter Olympics this year, we should name some Winter Olympians' rather than looking at who was actually the best Winter Olympian that year, they've probably gone with something like "oh crap, we need to get some baseball players in here. Who are big names? looks up home run records Barry Bonds and Alex Rodríguez? Cool, put 'em in somewhere". I don't dispute your statement that if we include the two of them we should include Lance, I agree with you there. The other alternative is that their frame of references is obsolete (much like the biathlon I mentioned, where Bjørndalen was included over Svendsen who had been better than him all year, more because of what Bjørndalen had achieved 8 years prior when the Games were in the US than what he had done in 2010) and there was more attention paid to baseball in the 2000s than in recent years since Trout has been around.

I would also contest that while your statements "baseball is an Olympic sport" and "[baseball is] watched more than swimming" are both correct, at the same time as an Olympic sport swimming is almost certainly watched more, and also Olympic medals are a currency which has a lot greater translatability to an audience that doesn't understand a sport which elevates the achievements of people like Phelps and Thorpe due to the glut of medals available in swimming. I remember at some point a video was shared on here of Michael Johnson doing punditry for the BBC and them gushing over Phelps' achievements and expecting Johnson to get very patriotic and proud of it, and Johnson was just completely unimpressed, saying something along the lines of "if they had 200 and 400m running, 200 and 400m skipping, 200 and 400m running backwards, and 200 and 400m running while waving your arms around, I could have won eight gold medals". But there's no way that "he has the most Olympic gold medals of anybody in history" doesn't have more currency with the man in the street than any baseball achievement, not to mention the barrage of fancy stats like xWAR that are second nature to somebody raised on the sport, but a disorienting fog to the novice fan.

Even so, a lot of minority sports only get attention paid to them for events on the scale of the Olympics. And there, the problem that baseball has is that it's an Olympic sport, but it's not really an Olympic sport. Much like (road) cycling, tennis or soccer-football, it pays Olympic medals, but unlike for things like athletics, swimming, track cycling, rowing, wrestling etc., the Olympics aren't the biggest achievement in the sport. Lots of people will tune in to see these sports once every four years, and that's only because it's the Olympics - but they'll then remember those performances and not the ongoing performance in the sport.
 
If anyone here looks at Chris Froome's twitter page you will see he is in pretty good spirits and positive about his performance at La Vuelta so far.
There are pics of himself driving the peloton from the front with 'inspirational' cliches along the lines of 'pain today, strength tomorrow'.
He certainly does not appear to be suffering or frustrated with his form, quite the contrary.
Do I think he will ever win a multi-stage race at World Tour level ever again? No, but I wish him all the best.
 
If anyone here looks at Chris Froome's twitter page you will see he is in pretty good spirits and positive about his performance at La Vuelta so far.
There are pics of himself driving the peloton from the front with 'inspirational' cliches along the lines of 'pain today, strength tomorrow'.
He certainly does not appear to be suffering or frustrated with his form, quite the contrary.
Do I think he will ever win a multi-stage race at World Tour level ever again? No, but I wish him all the best.
Good, that is good news he is still finding joy. Too many athletes battle with depression after a big injury like that and not performing as well as before.
 
If anyone here looks at Chris Froome's twitter page you will see he is in pretty good spirits and positive about his performance at La Vuelta so far.
There are pics of himself driving the peloton from the front with 'inspirational' cliches along the lines of 'pain today, strength tomorrow'.
He certainly does not appear to be suffering or frustrated with his form, quite the contrary.
Do I think he will ever win a multi-stage race at World Tour level ever again? No, but I wish him all the best.
Perhaps this should be in a non-clinic thread?
 

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