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Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.
In the TT I would agree but the mountain stages was:Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.
Xander Graham?
Needs more Masnada love.Lol at the almeida excessive love in the poll. And I like him as a rider!
glad to see that only riders who both climb and TT lead the charge tho.
This is a poll to see who we think will win a GT in the future. In Masnada's case we already know he will.Needs more Masnada love.
Brajkovic never backed it up by showing he could perform for 3 weeks. Wiggins did, poor comparison.Battering him uphill? He took a grand total of 15 seconds on one MTF.
Granted, he did beat him handedly in the ITT, but Evans was nevertheless doing a proper, perfect lead up to July.
When did Brajkovic ever beat Contador at the Tour?
The 2008 feed zone crash, and wasting energy chasing Vino in 07 and Ricco in 08.Hard to call losing in 2008 and 2007 unlucky when he was routinely dropping 2 minutes on a MTF.
I don't disagree, his chase on the Galibier was both welcome and long overdueCrashes and bad tactics took out half of Pogacar’s rivals the last 2 years, do we consider him lucky too? Your opponent’s misfortune/misjudgement is a part of the whole circus of the Tour. I’m not a fan of Cuddles by any stretch, but when his opportunity presented itself, he took responsibility.
Needs more Masnada love.
Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.
Brajkovic never backed it up by showing he could perform for 3 weeks. Wiggins did, poor comparison.
Battered was obviously obviously bit hyperbole.
If Wiggins hadn't crashed out I'd bet a lot of money he beats Cadel on that Tour, no way by himself he drops the sky train, and Wiggins is a much much better TT rider.
Obviously the train riding for GC may have meant a totally different race dynamic for all the contenders. We'll never know.
He beat Contador to the showers as Contador had to do the podium and drug test.When did Brajkovic ever beat Contador at the Tour?
2011 Wiggins was 3rd of the GC contenders on angliru with poor prep. There is probably not a climb on earth that suits him less. He'd have been OK in the gentler, more regular TDF mountains against Cadel IMO.I see you admit "battering" was hyperbole. In any case Evans was riding himself into form at the Dauphine. A training race. Ask Iban Mayo. The TdF is July not June.
Lucky you didn't get the chance to throw your money away.
No way would Wiggo have kept up on stages 18 and 19. And likely Wiggo would have dropped time on the descent on stage 16 as well. As I said up thread, if Evans finished only 7 seconds behind Tony Martin in the TT no way would Wiggins have been much of any further ahead. Evans was at a higher level at the TdF than in the Dauphine that should have been obvious.
I wouldn’t have rated Dietzen either and lower than the other, but none were real GT threats at the time other than Kelly, as he proved in 1988 that I was wrong.They were both getting on, but they were both consistent classic winners (at a time when that didn’t disqualify you from being a gc contender), 1-week stage race winners (they had both won Suisse, Anderson won a Dauphiné, Kelly couldn’t stop winning P-N), they were consistent GT top-10 finishers, and Kelly had been very unlucky in the 87 Vuelta.
If we using the Tour as a benchmark, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to rate either of them ahead of Dietzen, whose best TdF finish was 61st.
Kelly pulled out of the 87 Vuelta with a saddle sore on stage 19, while leading the gc. There were probably those around who would say “that was his big chance,” but very few who would dismiss him altogether.I wouldn’t have rated Dietzen either and lower than the other, but none were real GT threats at the time other than Kelly, as he proved in 1988 that I was wrong.
Good thing you don't need to win a stage to win the overallThe top 3 for this year don’t have even a GT stage win between them. There’s a lot of faith being expressed here…