Giro d'Italia 2017 STAGE 21: Monza – Milano 29.3 km ITT

[staubsauger]

Has there ever been a more spectacularly unspectacular GC contender than Bauke Mollema? His 2011 Vuelta 4th is his best GC placing at a GT. Will he ever get on a podium? Highly unlikely at this stage, is my guess.

Tadej Valjavec, Haimar Zubeldia, Jürgen van den Broeck, Tom Danielson... lots of talent there, but a lot of very quiet, barely perceptible accumulation.

+1

Y'all forget about the most liked gc rider on cyclingnews.com

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

Was also very surprised by Dumoulin getting beaten in the stage!

Not really not after the past few stages.

I'm not at all surprised.

Van Emden is so underrated as TT specialist on flat courses. He already wasn't far of a fit Dumoulin in last years Dutch time trial championships.

He could save himself for this stage and has been pretty close in some WT races already. Deserved win

Dumoulin beated Quinziato by only 12 seconds which surprised me. Dumoulin was probably very tired at the end. But that was enough to win the Giro.

Don't forget other GT contenders are tired as well. So the level difference between GT contenders stay the same.
Plus Dumoulin is really not a flat ITT specialist.

Good points. Though it has to be said that Quintana and Nibali lost less than I thought.

 

["Jeff"]

Re:

Hardly anybody has faith in Pinot? I think he will push Dumoulin a lot closer than many people expect.

I think you got your answer.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Has there ever been a more spectacularly unspectacular GC contender than Bauke Mollema? His 2011 Vuelta 4th is his best GC placing at a GT. Will he ever get on a podium? Highly unlikely at this stage, is my guess.

Tadej Valjavec, Haimar Zubeldia, Jürgen van den Broeck, Tom Danielson... lots of talent there, but a lot of very quiet, barely perceptible accumulation.

+1

Was he at the Giro? Can't say I spotted him... will have to keep a very keen eye on him at the Dauphine. Like the celebrity that he is that man definitely guards his privacy.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Has there ever been a more spectacularly unspectacular GC contender than Bauke Mollema? His 2011 Vuelta 4th is his best GC placing at a GT. Will he ever get on a podium? Highly unlikely at this stage, is my guess.

Tadej Valjavec, Haimar Zubeldia, Jürgen van den Broeck, Tom Danielson... lots of talent there, but a lot of very quiet, barely perceptible accumulation.

Yes. Also for all his frustrating fringe GC man ways, Bauke is one of the few riders to ever attack Froome in earnest in the Tour mountains.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Might be just me, but - congrats to the lanterne rouge Giuseppe Fonzi! (Eh, at least he finished. The pros make it look easy, but while not a cyclist I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't.)

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Landa looks happy to go to the Tour!

No he ain't, but what can he do about it?

I pray he goes to Bahrain

He's getting the big bucks to shut up and do as he is told. He knew that when he signed up and took the cash.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

That smile on Quintana's face doesn't look like someone who's crushed he didn't win.

In the circumstances of the last day, he did well. He held off a bunch of nominally superior TTists among the GC men and was better than many of them. As long as you don't swallow complete nonsense about people like him and Nibali not caring if they come second or seventh it makes sense.

 

[perico]

Re:

Who can say they won a grand tour despite being attacked when taking a ****? Lol

Conclusions:
- Tom Dumoloun is the new blood. Indurain like. He's a favorite for Tdf 18 and many more.
- Contador is gone. He should leave GC role after this July. He could win Tdf 17 though.
- All the experts claiming Quintana would win all GTs for the next 10 years have been proven wrong. Nairo is good, but, not that good. New and better riders are on the roads now.
- I see grand tours with a lot of itt km, like in the 90s. To entice Froome and Dumo.

What the hell does this race have to do with Contador?

 

[perico]

Has there ever been a more spectacularly unspectacular GC contender than Bauke Mollema? His 2011 Vuelta 4th is his best GC placing at a GT. Will he ever get on a podium? Highly unlikely at this stage, is my guess.

Tadej Valjavec, Haimar Zubeldia, Jürgen van den Broeck, Tom Danielson... lots of talent there, but a lot of very quiet, barely perceptible accumulation.

+1

Y'all forget about the most liked gc rider on cyclingnews.com

Sticky Bottle

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Who can say they won a grand tour despite being attacked when taking a ****? Lol

Conclusions:
- Tom Dumoloun is the new blood. Indurain like. He's a favorite for Tdf 18 and many more.
- Contador is gone. He should leave GC role after this July. He could win Tdf 17 though.
- All the experts claiming Quintana would win all GTs for the next 10 years have been proven wrong. Nairo is good, but, not that good. New and better riders are on the roads now.
- I see grand tours with a lot of itt km, like in the 90s. To entice Froome and Dumo.

What the hell does this race have to do with Contador?

On the cycling news forum every race is a race that Contador is in, a race that Contador would have smashed up if he had been in it, or a race that shows Contador is finished. There is no such thing as a race with nothing to do with Contador.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Re: Re:

Who can say they won a grand tour despite being attacked when taking a ****? Lol

Conclusions:
- Tom Dumoloun is the new blood. Indurain like. He's a favorite for Tdf 18 and many more.
- Contador is gone. He should leave GC role after this July. He could win Tdf 17 though.
- All the experts claiming Quintana would win all GTs for the next 10 years have been proven wrong. Nairo is good, but, not that good. New and better riders are on the roads now.
- I see grand tours with a lot of itt km, like in the 90s. To entice Froome and Dumo.

What the hell does this race have to do with Contador?

On the cycling news forum every race is a race that Contador is in, a race that Contador would have smashed up if he had been in it, or a race that shows Contador is finished. There is no such thing as a race with nothing to do with Contador.

What I'm getting from this is he's like the Tiger Woods of the cycling world then?

Greatness is always expected, but yet, there are times when greatness will no longer be possible to achieve.

 

[carton]

Great quote by Quinziato. Great ride by him, (and by van Emden, of course).

Honestly, it’s my last Giro and one of my goals and the main reason I rode the Giro d’Italia was because I could wear the Italian jersey in the TT in Milan and I really gave it everything I had left. I think I did a performance where I can’t regret anything. There are a lot of strong competitors so let’s see what happens.

It was special. This morning, my wife and kid was at the start and we took a couple of pictures with me because we wanted him to remember his daddy when he was a bike rider.

 

[woodburn]

Quintana and Nibali may have been beaten today, but at least they did better than when the Schleck's rode the TT in Grenoble and were humbled by Evans.

Schleck was so interested he didn't even ride the course beforehand.................

Andy actually performed about the same or better than Quintana today in that TT. It was 42.5k and he was tied for 16th and lost about 3.5 seconds per k. Quintana was 28th overall and lost about a bit more than 3 seconds per k to Tom.

Cadel actually rode better than Dumoulin, finishing second by just seven seconds to Tony Martin and averaged 45.8 k per hour on a rolling course. Dumoulin was 49.6 on pan flat.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Andy Schleck did a poor, poor time trial considering it basically was the last race-day and as we all know, the differences tend to be smaller there + it was a hilly parcours. It was not a contest, it was clear Evans was gonna sail away easily after few kilometres almost

 

[woodburn]

Was one of Schleck's best time trials in his career as evidenced by his 16th place. He was never going to hold a minute on Cadel over 42.5, especially when Cadel had probably the best performance of his life.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Re:

Great quote by Quinziato. Great ride by him, (and by van Emden, of course).

Honestly, it’s my last Giro and one of my goals and the main reason I rode the Giro d’Italia was because I could wear the Italian jersey in the TT in Milan and I really gave it everything I had left. I think I did a performance where I can’t regret anything. There are a lot of strong competitors so let’s see what happens.

It was special. This morning, my wife and kid was at the start and we took a couple of pictures with me because we wanted him to remember his daddy when he was a bike rider.

That's so sad, and yet so wonderful at the same time!

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Quintana and Nibali may have been beaten today, but at least they did better than when the Schleck's rode the TT in Grenoble and were humbled by Evans.

Schleck was so interested he didn't even ride the course beforehand.................

Andy actually performed about the same or better than Quintana today in that TT. It was 42.5k and he was tied for 16th and lost about 3.5 seconds per k. Quintana was 28th overall and lost about a bit more than 3 seconds per k to Tom.

Cadel actually rode better than Dumoulin, finishing second by just seven seconds to Tony Martin and averaged 45.8 k per hour on a rolling course. Dumoulin was 49.6 on pan flat.

The mistake made here is that you think Dumoulin is better on a flat course. Dumoulin dislikes flat courses. He likes the rolling ones more.

Dumoulin has a history of underperforming in totally flat time trials. The only exception is when the competition is really weak (Burgos tt Vuelta)

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Was one of Schleck's best time trials in his career as evidenced by his 16th place. He was never going to hold a minute on Cadel over 42.5, especially when Cadel had probably the best performance of his life.

Was it really tho? I'd argue all of his time trials from 09-11 in the Tour were better apart from the prologue in Rotterdam 2010. I realise the result of the long time trial in 2010 may deceive, but he pretty much rode a flat and long course as fast as Contador - it was a lot more exciting than the 2011-time trial, on a hilly course, where he even had the jersey.

 

[DanielSong39]

Cadel Evans had the performance of his life in the 2011 Tour de France final ITT. He's had plenty of performances in the past that would not have gotten him the yellow that day.

As for Quintana, it was there for the taking, but just couldn't do it.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Who can say they won a grand tour despite being attacked when taking a ****? Lol

Conclusions:
- Tom Dumoloun is the new blood. Indurain like. He's a favorite for Tdf 18 and many more.
- Contador is gone. He should leave GC role after this July. He could win Tdf 17 though.
- All the experts claiming Quintana would win all GTs for the next 10 years have been proven wrong. Nairo is good, but, not that good. New and better riders are on the roads now.
- I see grand tours with a lot of itt km, like in the 90s. To entice Froome and Dumo.

What the hell does this race have to do with Contador?

On the cycling news forum every race is a race that Contador is in, a race that Contador would have smashed up if he had been in it, or a race that shows Contador is finished. There is no such thing as a race with nothing to do with Contador.

What I'm getting from this is he's like the Tiger Woods of the cycling world then?

Greatness is always expected, but yet, there are times when greatness will no longer be possible to achieve.

Not a bad comparison, although Contador is still competitive in a way that as I understand it (as a golf loather) Woods is not.

 

[Red Rick]

The Schleck TT is really a terrible comparison as he'd been in 60km and 90km longe range attacks the 2 days before.

 

[Tank Engine]

Has there ever been a more spectacularly unspectacular GC contender than Bauke Mollema? His 2011 Vuelta 4th is his best GC placing at a GT. Will he ever get on a podium? Highly unlikely at this stage, is my guess.

But he got on the podium in that Vuelta :surprised: He won the points competition

Mollema suffers from the good at everything, but not brilliant at anything syndrome.

And that style, so aesthitically unpleasing.

Congratulations to Tom, a deserved win.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Wow! What an ungracious interview from Unzue. Couldn't bring himself to congratulate Tom D at all. Movistar really do know how to win friends and influence people I see.

Separate the one interview from blaming the team for general practice. Abarcá have survived 38 seasons in the pro péloton, more than any other extant team. You simply can't do that if you irritate and anger the whole péloton, much as some fair play protocols which seem to be flexible depending on which team's riders are involved, both on the part of the fans and the péloton itself, and the PR campaigns of a few recent moneyed teams who like to paint themselves as the good guys (and by necessity teams like Movistar as the bad guys) might create debate. After all, I seem to remember some people complaining about collusion by third parties with Unzué's guys in many races - so while Sunweb may be a bit peeved with them for a while here, obviously sometimes they very much do know how to win friends and influence people.

It's not that movistar aren't bad guys, just that other teams are bad guys as well.

 

[BullsFan22]

Has there ever been a more spectacularly unspectacular GC contender than Bauke Mollema? His 2011 Vuelta 4th is his best GC placing at a GT. Will he ever get on a podium? Highly unlikely at this stage, is my guess.

Tadej Valjavec, Haimar Zubeldia, Jürgen van den Broeck, Tom Danielson... lots of talent there, but a lot of very quiet, barely perceptible accumulation.

Yes. Also for all his frustrating fringe GC man ways, Bauke is one of the few riders to ever attack Froome in earnest in the Tour mountains.

Last year's TDF could have been his chance at finally snatching a GT podium. He was screwed by the officials for not giving him a separate time to Ventoux. I know he crumbled in the last week (as he usually does, unfortunately), but that was a big opportunity. 12th at the Giro in 2010 as a 23 year old was very promising, and a string of top 10's at the tour and as I said in the other comment, a 4th at the Vuelta in 2011 (including the points classification) are good. Plus he won San Sebastian last year, a vuelta stage in 2013....but in terms of GC riding, he solid, but nothing spectacular, and really the only time he attacked at the Tour was last year where Froome fell and started doing his best Chariots of Fire imitation.