Gilbert's TdF Disappointing?

[AussieGoddess]

and their ability to control the peloton was kinda hindered by the fact that they had 3 early withdrawals due to crashes

Phil, Greipel and Vanendert all winning stages, wearing yellow, green for 7 days and 3rd on points - all without their actual team leader ..... doesnt exactly point to a weak team.

 

[Cyclingscoops]

Gilbert and his Omega-Pharma team had an excellent Tour. Especially when you consider that they went into it with a very sticky drug scandal apparently brewing and they lost their big GC hope. Nonetheless, they came out of the Tour with stage wins from three different riders, two of whom spent time in classification jerseys. Add in all of Gilbert's "show attacks," and the team enjoyed an enormous amount of success, TV time, and good press in this Tour.

Absolutely agree that 3 stage wins represents success for the team despite losing their GC contender at an early stage.

I wasn't questioning the success of the teams tour I was speculating that it seemed the team lacked the ability to control stages that otherwise might have ended in a Gilbert win.

 

[Cyclingscoops]

and their ability to control the peloton was kinda hindered by the fact that they had 3 early withdrawals due to crashes

Thanks for pointing this out by focusing on the fact that VdB crashed out I had completely forgotten about the loss of 2 further riders. This explains a lot, thanks

 

[ergmonkey]

Thanks for pointing this out by focusing on the fact that VdB crashed out I had completely forgotten about the loss of 2 further riders. This explains a lot, thanks

I'm also not sure the team should have been held responsible for controlling too many stages. They did a great job on stage one; after that, they didn't have a top gc favorite and HTC was responsible for potential big group finishes. With diverse team objectives (i.e. three different stars), it was probably a good idea to try to avoid the work in the first week.

 

[Cyclingscoops]

I'm also not sure the team should have been held responsible for controlling too many stages. They did a great job on stage one; after that, they didn't have a top gc favorite and HTC was responsible for potential big group finishes. With diverse team objectives (i.e. three different stars), it was probably a good idea to try to avoid the work in the first week.

Perhaps without the crashes they would have had the manpower to try and control a few key stages (and only these key stages) where Gilbert stood a very good chance of leaving the rest for dead on an uphill finish. Surely it represented their best chance of victory given Cav's domination of any TdF bunch finish and prior to Vanendert's emerging performance.

 

[L'arriviste]

LE PLAT PAYS QUI EST LE MIEN

Well not quien but great song

+1 for The Great His Brelness. Philbert had a great Tour and we'd be saying it even more if he'd won his stage and narrowly missed green in the third week. It's just that his best bits were overtaken by other threads of the TdF.

 

[Angliru]

no....................

^What he said^

 

[Escarabajo]

Several stages suited Gilbert, but while he's the best at them uphill sprints, his recovery is not world class. In stage races, after several hard days of racing, he's still the big favourite in those finishes but he can be beaten, and he often is. He had never won a Tour stage before. He did it this year, while wearing the Belgian champion jersey, and he wore the yellow and green jerseys. I'd say he fulfilled the expectations. I'd give his Tour a 7/10.

?
Aren't you contradicting yourself or are you using a European score system that I don't know about?

 

[patrick767]

Seriously? I thought Gilbert had an excellent tour and was a delight to watch.

 

[Dead Star]

Seriously? I thought Gilbert had an excellent tour and was a delight to watch.

Totally agree. The guy won a stage, had days in jerseys. He was mentioned daily in the TDF headlines courtesy of his battles in green, keeping the sponsor happy.

He's a great rider. Always knew he'd go on to be one of the best in the peloton after his Het Volk win in 2006. 'twas a special ride.

 

[El Pistolero]

Totally agree. The guy won a stage, had days in jerseys. He was mentioned daily in the TDF headlines courtesy of his battles in green, keeping the sponsor happy.

He's a great rider. Always knew he'd go on to be one of the best in the peloton after his Het Volk win in 2006. 'twas a special ride.

Yup, I thought that was going to be his big breakthrough, but I had to wait for another 2-3 years

 

[SirLes]

Given the expectation and hype surrounding him on these boards and elsewhere both prior and during the race, I think his eventual performance was a little disappointing.
I got the feeling that he was caught between multiple aims. Was he going for. High GC finish? Was he going for a serious attempt at the green jersey? Was he trying to win as many stages as possible?

He started fantastically and then faded away, leading to a sense of disappointment that he didn't build on that good start either on GC, the green jersey or more stage wins.

Disappointment is relative, I'm not saying he had a bad tour.

 

[hmronnow]

Gilbert maybe did win green

I didn't follow the groupetto stuff closely, but didn't both cavendish and rojas finish outside time-limit on two respectiely one stage?
This means that if rules had been followed he would have won green.

I am not saying that it was wrong to bend time-cut rules. But would be understandable if some who cycle better uphil find it unfair.

 

[Jeanne]

if you consider a stage win and switching between several jerseys for a while disappointing...

didn't read all posts in here, was somewhere figured out why Gilbert was so disappointing?

 

[Oreknan]

I didn't follow the groupetto stuff closely, but didn't both cavendish and rojas finish outside time-limit on two respectiely one stage?
This means that if rules had been followed he would have won green.

I am not saying that it was wrong to bend time-cut rules. But would be understandable if some who cycle better uphil find it unfair.

gilbert finished outside time limit too

 

[El Pistolero]

gilbert finish outside time limit too

But only because he didn't care to waste more energy. In the other stage he easily finished within the time limit.

 

[lancaster]

only TV, TH, CEvans, ,EBH, SSanchez, Cav had better Tours.

Phil Gil had as good a tour as he could've hoped for.

he attacked plenty livened it up, wore yellow, polka, green and won a stage.
maybe he could've won more stages but it was a good july for the man.

 

[Cyclingscoops]

I didn't follow the groupetto stuff closely, but didn't both cavendish and rojas finish outside time-limit on two respectiely one stage?
This means that if rules had been followed he would have won green.

I am not saying that it was wrong to bend time-cut rules. But would be understandable if some who cycle better uphil find it unfair.

In some respects I agree that this gives more weight to pursuing green the way Gilbert did, arguably at the cost of more stage wins (see above). Elimination as well as a crash etc could have put paid to Cav or Rojas or both.

However, as I understand it the rules were followed. They specifically state that if in excess of 20% of the field finish outside the time limit discretion can be used to keep riders in the race with the penalty of -20 points (or rather minus the points the winner of the stage gets so for co-efficient 3/4 stages 20 points). This is presumably designed to be used in exactly the 2 situations we saw this year when riders are riding hard but lots of them finish outside the time anyway. The alternative being to totally decimate the field.

Inrng/Cyclingnews did some great pieces on both the elimination time rules and quite how fast the grupetto rides on mountain stages when compared with us mere mortals. Basically despite the sprinters being the wrong shape/weight for riding 4000m of vertical ascent they climb at a very impressive rate while their descending doesn't even bear thinking about

 

[Nielsa]

Just watched Gilbert's victory interview after the 2009 Lombardia, had no idea he spoke Italian as well as French/English/Dutch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXGkSdzwrVk

 

[Bag_O_Wallet]

At times he did seem to get caught between seeing what he was capable of in GC (early on), winning stages and fighting for green. I seem to vaguely remember an interview prior to the Tour where he mentioned the possibility of riding outside of his previous limits and contesting areas he wouldn't have previously considered. While that was understandable, given his form this season, it did seem to mean he was never really focused on any one thing.

Some other posters have mentioned he goes with the spur of the moment. This undoubtably made for some entertaining riding, which shouldn't be undervalued for the armchair enthusiast like myself, but perhaps a lack of pre planned moves on key stages cost him.
As I mentioned on my post on page 2 of the thread I'd also be interested to hear what people think about his team. To repeat: "I do wonder quite how much he was handicapped by, what seemed (my knowledge of the wider peloton is still somewhat limited so correct me if I’m wrong) like a relatively weak team in terms of controlling breaks on the stages that suited him. Having said that hilly stages are always going to be a challenge to control anyway for any team and of course the team had a GC focus to support Van den Broeck too, so was presumably selected with this in mind more than anything else?"

*Edit - thanks to AussieGoddess for reminding me they only had 6 riders for much of the tour thanks to all the crashes - bit harsh expecting them to keep evrything in check with 6!

I wouldn't call them weak. They won 3 stages with 3 different riders. If anything, they were spread too thin, and perhaps not too sure of what he would be capable of in the Tour.

 

[Cyclingscoops]

Bag - see the bottom of that post. AussieGoddess reminded me that as well as VdB they lost 2 other riders early doors and were down to 6 so conceeded that I was being rather harsh

 

[King Of The Wolds]

only TV, TH, CEvans, ,EBH, SSanchez, Cav had better Tours.

Phil Gil had as good a tour as he could've hoped for.

he attacked plenty livened it up, wore yellow, polka, green and won a stage.
maybe he could've won more stages but it was a good july for the man.

Given that Andy got 2nd and won what was, arguably, the queen stage and given that Pierre Rolland won white and on Alpe d'Huez, I'd add those also.

He didn't have as a good a tour as he could have hoped for. He could have, realistically, hoped for 3 or 4 stages.

 

[Cyclingscoops]

Given that Andy got 2nd and won what was, arguably, the queen stage and given that Pierre Rolland won white and on Alpe d'Huez, I'd add those also.

He didn't have as a good a tour as he could have hoped for. He could have, realistically, hoped for 3 or 4 stages.

Wow I make that 3 posts versus 5 pages now

Just want to say thanks to all for giving me another fix of TdF (chit chat) that's dulled the post race pain.

 

[boomcie]

I do understand why people are criticizing his Tour performance.

In the end, the only thing that really goes into the history books is his stage win and possibly the yellow jersey.

Saying he didn't have a good Tour is a bridge too far though. He took a silly amount of publicity thanks to his jerseys (yellow, green, polka dot and National Champion), his aggressive style and his charisma overall.

Cancellara, now he didn't have a good Tour.

 

[ghostofjoy]

he animated the race with panache (showiness?), he finished high on all the stages he was expected to contest, and he was aggressive, if not particularly smart, in his pursuit of green jersey points. where is the disappointment?