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Re:
For the sake of cycling I hope you are right. 32 best Grand Tour finish 15th. Today drops all the best riders in the world on a multiple mountain stage. Yes completely ludicrous and I can't believe the excuses being written on the CN threads. Is anyone who is not British believing this?
DFA123 said:
For the sake of cycling I hope you are right. 32 best Grand Tour finish 15th. Today drops all the best riders in the world on a multiple mountain stage. Yes completely ludicrous and I can't believe the excuses being written on the CN threads. Is anyone who is not British believing this?
Re:
But still, this guy was a second-rate competitor to the likes of Degenkolb and Kristoff three years ago. Now he's the strongest climber in the world in the second week of the Tour. It's a bit ridiculous however you spin it.
I don't think so either. And if he does crack big time as usual, then it certainly will put this performance in perspective. Just like Yates's performances at the Giro look a bit less suspicious knowing how he collapsed in the last week.macbindle said:
But still, this guy was a second-rate competitor to the likes of Degenkolb and Kristoff three years ago. Now he's the strongest climber in the world in the second week of the Tour. It's a bit ridiculous however you spin it.
Obviously Thomas has had a long term undiagnosed illness that inhibited his performances. Luckily it has been diagnosed this year. This mysterious illness didn't inhibit him on the track luckily enough. He was also hopelessly naive in his race tactics up to this point.
If only he had sorted out these two problems earlier in his career he would have won many GTs won by this stage.
If only he had sorted out these two problems earlier in his career he would have won many GTs won by this stage.
Re: Re:
Thanks for the info. If they are his best results it just shows what a limited GC rider he has always been at Grand Tours. The amount of dross that has managed at least one top 10 over the years is pretty considerable. Thomas has never even been that good.pastronef said:
Re: Re:
Dumo went from no GC performance to 6th in the Vuelta 2015 to no GC performance in 2016 to Giro winner beating Quintana 2017
DFA123 said:
Dumo went from no GC performance to 6th in the Vuelta 2015 to no GC performance in 2016 to Giro winner beating Quintana 2017
Re: Re:
Dumoulin's transformation is ludicrous as well. It would have been even more so if he had done it aged 32 having spend the previous 10 years as a largely second-rate cobbled specialist.
What's that got to do with Thomas's lack of any decent results as a GT rider?pastronef said:
Dumoulin's transformation is ludicrous as well. It would have been even more so if he had done it aged 32 having spend the previous 10 years as a largely second-rate cobbled specialist.
Re: Re:
He was 24 years old with 2 GT experience in that Vuelta... bit different than coming magically up with the age of 32 with 12 GT's in the pocket, isn't it?
pastronef said:
He was 24 years old with 2 GT experience in that Vuelta... bit different than coming magically up with the age of 32 with 12 GT's in the pocket, isn't it?
Re: Re:
magically?
after a 2nd in Suisse GC, a Paris-Nice GC, a domestique role that didnt allow him to go for GC?
bambino said:
magically?
after a 2nd in Suisse GC, a Paris-Nice GC, a domestique role that didnt allow him to go for GC?
Yes magically. Ask Richie Porte. Valverde has won loads more one week races and is a clown compared to Welch track cyclist.
Re: Re:
Henao, Poels, Landa, Froome and Nieve all managed to get top 10 GC finishes playing the same domestique role at Sky in recent years. So it was hardly an impossible task. But Thomas wasn't able to do it - because he was nowhere near a good enough climber. Now, two years later, aged 32, he's dropping everyone on multi-mountain Alpine stages of the Tour. It's a ludicrous transformation.
He was allowed to go for the GC. He was the 'second card' in 2015-16 whose role was to stay high in the standings. Yet he couldn't do it - he tried to limit his losses, but he had to go so deep just to stay within a few minutes that he ended up cracking big time.pastronef said:
Henao, Poels, Landa, Froome and Nieve all managed to get top 10 GC finishes playing the same domestique role at Sky in recent years. So it was hardly an impossible task. But Thomas wasn't able to do it - because he was nowhere near a good enough climber. Now, two years later, aged 32, he's dropping everyone on multi-mountain Alpine stages of the Tour. It's a ludicrous transformation.
Forget about beating his previous top 15 GT finish, what about his chances of beating his UCI Index of Suspicion 6/10 "overwhelming circumstantial evidence of doping" from the 2010 Tour?
Re: Re:
Poels' top 10 in the Vuelta last year was in his 10th GT, at the age of 29 years 11 months.
Dani Moreno took until his 8th GT to make the top 10, though he had been 11th once and 12th twice before that. His 30th birthday was during that GT.
Joaquím Rodríguez similarly took until his 8th, though he won a GPM in 2005.
Yuri Trofimov was in his 11th GT when he was 10th in the Giro aged 31 in 2015.
Dani Navarro was in his 9th GT, but his first year on his own and not domestiquing for Contador, when he had his first GT top 10 in 2013, aged 30.
Chris Horner was in his 8th GT and aged 38 years 9 months when he broke his GT top 10 duck in 2010.
Michele Scarponi was in his 9th GT and coming off a 2 year ban.
Mauro Santambrogio was in his 9th GT, aged 28.
...but nobody with as many GT starts sans top 10 as Geraint Thomas.
What this basically tells us is that it's not uncommon for riders to only start getting GT results fairly late on, but typically these riders are fringe top 10 guys who use experience and the 'falling backwards slowly' method, like Trofimov, Navarro and Moreno. Some of these guys are of course very suspicious or even have been suspended, while Horner is a bit of an extreme case. Still, none of them had as much GT experience before their first top 10 as Thomas has at present; he is also older than all of the first time GT top 10s among them, and in recent years only Horner and Jice Péraud - who came to the road very late - are first time GT top 10s at a later age than Thomas would be. For somebody like that to be springing up to the podium would be a difficult pill to swallow considering all of the other factors swirling around Sky and the fact that Thomas' history and development is so interlinked with Brailsford - but Péraud's example shows that it's not an impossibility - just extremely bizarre and unlikely. We'll see if he fades, as even guys like Santambrogio and Hesjedal started off at the bottom of the top 10, not going steaming in at the very pinnacle.
How many riders have managed a GT top 10 but only after 12 or more GTs? The nearest I can find in recent years are:bambino said:
Poels' top 10 in the Vuelta last year was in his 10th GT, at the age of 29 years 11 months.
Dani Moreno took until his 8th GT to make the top 10, though he had been 11th once and 12th twice before that. His 30th birthday was during that GT.
Joaquím Rodríguez similarly took until his 8th, though he won a GPM in 2005.
Yuri Trofimov was in his 11th GT when he was 10th in the Giro aged 31 in 2015.
Dani Navarro was in his 9th GT, but his first year on his own and not domestiquing for Contador, when he had his first GT top 10 in 2013, aged 30.
Chris Horner was in his 8th GT and aged 38 years 9 months when he broke his GT top 10 duck in 2010.
Michele Scarponi was in his 9th GT and coming off a 2 year ban.
Mauro Santambrogio was in his 9th GT, aged 28.
...but nobody with as many GT starts sans top 10 as Geraint Thomas.
What this basically tells us is that it's not uncommon for riders to only start getting GT results fairly late on, but typically these riders are fringe top 10 guys who use experience and the 'falling backwards slowly' method, like Trofimov, Navarro and Moreno. Some of these guys are of course very suspicious or even have been suspended, while Horner is a bit of an extreme case. Still, none of them had as much GT experience before their first top 10 as Thomas has at present; he is also older than all of the first time GT top 10s among them, and in recent years only Horner and Jice Péraud - who came to the road very late - are first time GT top 10s at a later age than Thomas would be. For somebody like that to be springing up to the podium would be a difficult pill to swallow considering all of the other factors swirling around Sky and the fact that Thomas' history and development is so interlinked with Brailsford - but Péraud's example shows that it's not an impossibility - just extremely bizarre and unlikely. We'll see if he fades, as even guys like Santambrogio and Hesjedal started off at the bottom of the top 10, not going steaming in at the very pinnacle.
Unfair to include Chris Horner, as time moves backwards for him. He actually won his second ever GT and it was all downhill from there as old age started to catch up with him.
They probably prepared Thomas to win the Tour in case Froome wasn't allowed to ride. Now they'll have to choose which of the two bots is allowed to win. Maybe Thomas will have to fake a bad day, but why wouldn't they let him win? He's 100% British, so maybe he would be easier to sell to the British public?
GT has not yet won a GT
My guess is that Sky are cashing in while they can.
In the background there may be moves afoot to emasculate them.
At least that would explain this all-out full reetard exhibition.
My guess is that Sky are cashing in while they can.
In the background there may be moves afoot to emasculate them.
At least that would explain this all-out full reetard exhibition.
Well, there's enough doctors around to keep the poor ol' thing going. 
(G was never going to be leader - if the media leak had not happened, we'd be all blissfully ignorant)
(G was never going to be leader - if the media leak had not happened, we'd be all blissfully ignorant)
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