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Grand Tour Wild Cards - 2011 Thread

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craig1985

craig1985

May 6, 2009
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Androni and Farnese - Vini are already in the Giro. Androni are in because they won the 2010 Coppa Italia, and Farnese are in because Visconti is the the Italian National Champion.
 
nobilis

nobilis

Oct 18, 2009
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I don't fathom not inviting all the ProConti Spanish teams, therefore Geox, Anadlucia and Caja Rural. This has always been the tradition.
 
Descender

Descender

Aug 29, 2010
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nobilis said:
I don't fathom not inviting all the ProConti Spanish teams, therefore Geox, Anadlucia and Caja Rural. This has always been the tradition.
Click to expand...

And so it will be, especially since there are only three and they still have a spot left to invite a non-Spanish team (Cofidis most likely).
 
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profff

Oct 16, 2010
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giro : two slot left : colnago csf, geox or acqua e sapone. very difficult choice especially if geox will not be invited to tour. in this case, they will bring menchow and sastre, so they are probably in

tour : 4 slot left: europcar , bbox, cofidis, saur, geox and bretagne schuller. probably europcar ,bbox are in, saur very likely ( they have coppel, best french hope in stage race accordingly to many french tifosi), than cofidis versus geox, no chance imho for bretagne. cofidis has said they will bring moncoutie' , who does not like the tour. probably they feel that the slot is at risk...

vuelta: cofids for sure ( they are sponsoring the vuelta..), than caja rural, andalucia, geox and colombia es passion for 3 places: i hope colombia will be in , but it is very difficult.

this is the state of the art, if the first 18 pt team are invited.
 
jaylew

jaylew

Mar 19, 2009
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profff said:
tour : 4 slot left: europcar , bbox, cofidis, saur, geox and bretagne schuller. probably europcar ,bbox are in, saur very likely ( they have coppel, best french hope in stage race accordingly to many french tifosi), than cofidis versus geox, no chance imho for bretagne. cofidis has said they will bring moncoutie' , who does not like the tour. probably they feel that the slot is at risk...
Click to expand...

There is no more Bbox. They are Europcar now.
 
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Mambo95

Jul 2, 2009
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profff said:
tour : 4 slot left: europcar , bbox, cofidis, saur, geox and bretagne schuller. probably europcar ,bbox are in, saur very likely ( they have coppel, best french hope in stage race accordingly to many french tifosi), than cofidis versus geox, no chance imho for bretagne. cofidis has said they will bring moncoutie' , who does not like the tour. probably they feel that the slot is at risk...
Click to expand...

I can guarantee that Europcar and BBox won't take up two slots. (I think you mean FdJ).

I don't think Saur are very likely just because of Coppel. The last great French GC hope, Brice Feillu, didn't help Vacansoleil get in last year.

Prudhomme doesn't strike me as a particularly parochial person. Once he's met the French quota, he'll invite the best riders, which means Menchov and Sastre.

Saur may pip Cofidis to the last French spot if the latter doesn't bring Moncoutie. They were terrible at last year's Tour.
 
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profff

Oct 16, 2010
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Mambo95 said:
I can guarantee that Europcar and BBox won't take up two slots. (I think you mean FdJ).

I don't think Saur are very likely just because of Coppel. The last great French GC hope, Brice Feillu, didn't help Vacansoleil get in last year.

Prudhomme doesn't strike me as a particularly parochial person. Once he's met the French quota, he'll invite the best riders, which means Menchov and Sastre.

Saur may pip Cofidis to the last French spot if the latter doesn't bring Moncoutie. They were terrible at last year's Tour.
Click to expand...

sorry, i was obviously thinking to fdj .
sorry again

coppel is different from brice feillu. he rides in a french team, that it is seeking for a tour slot since years. coppel did well in the dauphinee, first french to do really well in a pt stage race. heulot, saur ds, has good relationship in french cycling. in france , the suiveurs want saur in the tour.
last year they had a good season and also casper is very popular in france.

i agree that cofidis is risking, moncoutie' or not...but gianetti is not very popular with aso
 
nobilis

nobilis

Oct 18, 2009
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Mambo95 said:
I can guarantee that Europcar and BBox won't take up two slots. (I think you mean FdJ).

I don't think Saur are very likely just because of Coppel. The last great French GC hope, Brice Feillu, didn't help Vacansoleil get in last year.

Prudhomme doesn't strike me as a particularly parochial person. Once he's met the French quota, he'll invite the best riders, which means Menchov and Sastre.

Saur may pip Cofidis to the last French spot if the latter doesn't bring Moncoutie. They were terrible at last year's Tour.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree with you re cofidis, they had a really mediocre tour last year. So it might be between them and Saur. I think Saur can perform better than most french teams, they might have a top-10 GC contender (Coppel), they can contend in the sprints (They have a nice leadout train) and they can of course, like all the French, send people in the breakaways.
 
Armchair Cyclist

Armchair Cyclist

Moderator
Mar 22, 2010
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As far as I am aware, the rule that any team that finished in the top 17 of the 2010 was guaranteed an invite to all 3 GTs has not been rescinded.

That would mean that Androni Giocattoli have right of refusal, as opposed to the 18 ProTour teams, who are obliged to enter all 3.

I wonder whether, given their relatively small squad and their natural preference for the Giro, whether they might go for the Vuelta, but not the Tour, which will be too soon after a gruelling Giro. Their non-Italian riders are all Spanish speakers.

So I'll predict (in order of confidence)
Giro Androni, Acqua&Sapone, Farnese-Neri, Geox
Tour Geox, Europcar, FdJ, Cofidis (unless Androni take up their option)
Vuelta Geox, Andalucia, Caja Rural (plus Cafe de Colombia if Androni decide not to)
 
P

profff

Oct 16, 2010
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aso probably decided to make the invitations so early, so they are not obliged to look at teams' result in the first part of the season.
they can choose the teams they prefer without taking care of the real value of the teams
in my mind, that sounds good for french teams.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

Feb 20, 2010
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profff said:
aso probably decided to make the invitations so early, so they are not obliged to look at teams' result in the first part of the season.
they can choose the teams they prefer without taking care of the real value of the teams
in my mind, that sounds good for french teams.
Click to expand...

Nah.

Remember last year, when Skil and Vacansoleil thought they were fighting for the 22nd spot early in the season, and did all the work animating Paris-Nice and early season ASO races, only for BMC to get the spot despite having no results to that point?

The ASO faced a bit of a backlash of public opinion. Only a little bit, but a bit of it. They stitched two teams up saying they needed to see who would merit the last slot, only to reveal when the teams were announced that the decision had long been made and it was made on completely different criteria.

By making the decision public before any race of any great consequence, there is no need to even pretend that they're using fair or sporting criteria.
 
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profff

Oct 16, 2010
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Libertine Seguros said:
Nah.

.....

By making the decision public before any race of any great consequence, there is no need to even pretend that they're using fair or sporting criteria.
Click to expand...
why nah?
i said the same thing.
on sporting criteria , geox is in without any discussion.
best team by far ( menchow, sastre, duarte,cobo....)

this way , french teams have more chance.if geox starts the season strong, it would be difficult to exlude them.
i still do not think that aso will be happy to select giannetti's team.

about bmc, last year in the roster there was the reigning world champion, already on tour podium twice, winner of the fleche wallon with a potentially good team ( hincapie, ballan, kroon...), anyway a priori not inferior to vacansoleil.

than last year vacan had by far a better season than bmc, but at the time of the selection bmc looked a better candidate.
 
I

icefire

Sep 21, 2009
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Barrus said:
Am I correct that the article states that the invites will be announced within a month. If that is the case, this will probably not be the tour de france invites, but invites for other races, probably Paris-Nice
Click to expand...

Invitations will be announced within a month, but the article states that GEOX managers had a meeting with ASO and they were told that they won't be among the 4 teams with an invitation for the Tour.
 
Barrus

Barrus

BANNED
Apr 28, 2010
3,480
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icefire said:
Invitations will be announced within a month, but the article states that GEOX managers had a meeting with ASO and they were told that they won't be among the 4 teams with an invitation for the Tour.
Click to expand...


But aren't the invites never given out that early? Most of the time the wildcards are not given untill later in the season, so I doubt the credibility of this article
 
Mrs John Murphy

Mrs John Murphy

May 3, 2010
2,662
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Geox = Unibet 2011

Also, excluding Menchov means that AS will have a nice clear run to the MJ. AS is clearly the UCI's chosen one - speaks English so one up on Dertie, isn't ugly and isn't East European - two up on Menchov.

Having a Russian with a big nose winning the TDF is not going to please the sponsors. Only photogenic winners or riders with heart warming stories please.

And besides, Menchov is probably a 'Rasmussen' waiting to go off if he were to ever get into yellow. And that isn't good for publicity either.

As someone else has been point out elsewhere, wildcards are tied into the nonsense of the PT licences you've got teams like BMC, Saxo, RS who will send much much weaker teams to various GTs taking up places that could be given to teams who are actually interested in the races.
 
ingsve

ingsve

Mar 12, 2009
5,038
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Mrs John Murphy said:
As someone else has been point out elsewhere, wildcards are tied into the nonsense of the PT licences you've got teams like BMC, Saxo, RS who will send much much weaker teams to various GTs taking up places that could be given to teams who are actually interested in the races.
Click to expand...

Leaving aside BMC then I don't agree with the last part. Radioshack could never send a bad team to a GT, that's all they have. The classics is another thing but they have more GT riders than most other teams. Saxo Bank can't really be blamed for being gutted by team-leopard-trek so they should get a year to be able to build their roster back up. And I doubt that Riis is disinteredted in any race.
 
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