ingsve said:
This is a judgment call. I can certainly understand your point, but it's dependent on what you like to see. You point out, perfectly correctly, that they had 3 men in the big sprint group for 5th in Flanders... This doesn't mean they were prominent. At no point do I recall seeing a Sky being pro-active and trying to 'make the race' which is what I consider to be important. Tyler Farrar, for instance, in that big group outprinted George Hincapie and David Millar (to name but two). I guess it means Tyler Farrar had a 'better' Flanders... But I dont see it that way. My qualification for having is good race is how close you were to winning the actual thing. Both George Hincapie and David Millar were, at some point in the finale, on the attack and trying to win the race. Farrar never was, at any point, going to win Flanders. Ergo, David Millar's 20-something place in that sprinting group, is, to me, worth more to Farrar's 5th. I understand people will disagree with this, but it's what I consider important.
They're certainly not a bad team or anything, nor did I ever say that they were. In fact they're doing good for a 1st year team so far. But returning back too the original question, and the question that revived this thread yesterday. My question, I'll say it again, was about the drop in aggresiveness of Team Sky. In January, February, Early-March they were one of the most aggressive teams. Attacking, or riding on the front. And then I just stopped seeing that, and that was what my question was about.
'We're not fighting to be 100 per cent clean' Perhaps he's realised that doing well in the big races is as much about the friends you make as anything. He's spot on with his comments about Vino though - wonder what Mini Phinney thinks of that?
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