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Teams & Riders He's coming home!!!! Alejandro Valverde comeback thread.

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What will Valverde's impact be the cycling world in 2012

  • Nuclear Holocoust

    Votes: 27 100.0%

  • Total voters
    27
At this point I doubt it's an active choice he makes. It is simply his nature in bigger races. It's not purely bad for him, as I'm sure his conservativeness helps plays its part when he wins, but I just can't help to notice how seemingly inhibited he is on the big scene compared to the smaller races.
 
ice&fire said:
Valverde was climbing better than Henao and Izaguirre 10 days ago in the Basque Country. It's hard to believe that not following them and Kwiato and sending Rojas to the front was forced by lack of legs instead of a tactical choice.
We'll see if Moreno sneaks another win at Fleche while everone is marking his team leader :p
Oh, we are definitely not arguing that, of course Valverde could have followed the initial move rather easily when Rojas could, thats definitely a tactical blunder (to some extent). He then happened to go up against a superman on Keutenberg. Amstel really isn't his cup of tea anyways, Fléche is a pretty different race.
 
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Netserk said:
At this point I doubt it's an active choice he makes. It is simply his nature in bigger races. It's not purely bad for him, as I'm sure his conservativeness helps plays its part when he wins, but I just can't help to notice how seemingly inhibited he is on the big scene compared to the smaller races.
Talking about not jumping on the initial move now or supposedly deciding not to actively try to bridge to the group?
 
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Re: Re:

Netserk said:
Valv.Piti said:
Libertine hates to love Valverde, Netserk loves to hate him.

Reading through those comments after having just watched the race, you are really being unfair to him here, Netserk. Valverde did everything he could to close the gap along with GVA, but they simply couldn't. No shame in that. I saw no tactics, Valverde saving himself and being afraid etc. etc. as he has been criticised for in big moments, I simply saw a group up front who had more horsepower.

On Valverde, I think he looked quite good, Kwito just went mental up the Keutenberg. Still, after watching this race, Valverde must be a bit more scared of Henao than he otherwise would have been for Fléche. And who knows about Kwitokowski.
So at what point in the video, after the screen shot, does Valverde again take a proper turn, like the one he took just before the screen shot?

1min and 20sec after that turn, and possibly little earlier cause his group wasn't showcased. He did two little turns in between, and after he did equally with Van Avermaet 80-90% of the turns. So what's your point?
 
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Mr.White said:
Netserk said:
Valv.Piti said:
Libertine hates to love Valverde, Netserk loves to hate him.

Reading through those comments after having just watched the race, you are really being unfair to him here, Netserk. Valverde did everything he could to close the gap along with GVA, but they simply couldn't. No shame in that. I saw no tactics, Valverde saving himself and being afraid etc. etc. as he has been criticised for in big moments, I simply saw a group up front who had more horsepower.

On Valverde, I think he looked quite good, Kwito just went mental up the Keutenberg. Still, after watching this race, Valverde must be a bit more scared of Henao than he otherwise would have been for Fléche. And who knows about Kwitokowski.
So at what point in the video, after the screen shot, does Valverde again take a proper turn, like the one he took just before the screen shot?

1min and 20sec after that turn, and possibly little earlier cause his group wasn't showcased. He did two little turns in between, and after he did equally with Van Avermaet 80-90% of the turns. So what's your point?

He never put in as much work as Van Avermaet.
 
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El Pistolero said:
Mr.White said:
Netserk said:
Valv.Piti said:
Libertine hates to love Valverde, Netserk loves to hate him.

Reading through those comments after having just watched the race, you are really being unfair to him here, Netserk. Valverde did everything he could to close the gap along with GVA, but they simply couldn't. No shame in that. I saw no tactics, Valverde saving himself and being afraid etc. etc. as he has been criticised for in big moments, I simply saw a group up front who had more horsepower.

On Valverde, I think he looked quite good, Kwito just went mental up the Keutenberg. Still, after watching this race, Valverde must be a bit more scared of Henao than he otherwise would have been for Fléche. And who knows about Kwitokowski.
So at what point in the video, after the screen shot, does Valverde again take a proper turn, like the one he took just before the screen shot?

1min and 20sec after that turn, and possibly little earlier cause his group wasn't showcased. He did two little turns in between, and after he did equally with Van Avermaet 80-90% of the turns. So what's your point?

He never put in as much work as Van Avermaet.

He did more.
 
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Mr.White said:
El Pistolero said:
Mr.White said:
Netserk said:
Valv.Piti said:
Libertine hates to love Valverde, Netserk loves to hate him.

Reading through those comments after having just watched the race, you are really being unfair to him here, Netserk. Valverde did everything he could to close the gap along with GVA, but they simply couldn't. No shame in that. I saw no tactics, Valverde saving himself and being afraid etc. etc. as he has been criticised for in big moments, I simply saw a group up front who had more horsepower.

On Valverde, I think he looked quite good, Kwito just went mental up the Keutenberg. Still, after watching this race, Valverde must be a bit more scared of Henao than he otherwise would have been for Fléche. And who knows about Kwitokowski.
So at what point in the video, after the screen shot, does Valverde again take a proper turn, like the one he took just before the screen shot?

1min and 20sec after that turn, and possibly little earlier cause his group wasn't showcased. He did two little turns in between, and after he did equally with Van Avermaet 80-90% of the turns. So what's your point?

He never put in as much work as Van Avermaet.

He did more.

If by more you mean wheelsucking then yes.
 
Re: Re:

Mr.White said:
tobydawq said:
Mr.White said:
WheelofGear said:
I actually think he thought they would attack on Cauberg.

Gilbert and co. are just smarter in these races.

It's not about the brains, he just didn't had the legs. He would go after Kwiat, or before him, on Keutenberg if he had them

It is indeed about the brains. Kwiatkowski could only bridge because he had absolutely super legs. If Valverde had just gone with the Gilbert group when it attacked, he would have had a good chance of winning or podiuming. He looked like he considered it, but he was again too hesitant in a big race and didn't go.

Maybe he had decided that he would follow van Avermaet, but he was poorly positioned, which explains why he didn't join the Gilbert attack. That was not true for Valverde but he probably thought it would be fine just to put Rojas up there so he could help him later.

Then of course it turned out that Rojas couldn't really do anything but sitting on wheels and was to no help at all (otherwise, he could have dropped down to the GvA-Valverde group when it was at ten seconds and sacrificed himself - but in that case that would have been stupid, because he then would have had a chance of winning - so to sum up, Rojas' presence in the front group was never going to help Valverde in any case).

But I just don't know why he didn't go with Gilbert and co. There were so many fast guys left behind, so his presence would not have dampened the desire to work hard. It was quite sad to see him squander that very good opportunity.

Don't agree.
If Kwiatkowski bridged on 22% Keutenberg, and Valverde couldn't do that, to me it's a clear sign he didn't had great legs. He is usually much better on these gradients then Kwiat.
It would been better of course if he had went with Gilbert, but that's not the place when he lost this race. He lost it on Keutenberg, when Kwiat went and he couldn't follow. Without Kwiatkowski that front group wouldn't made it to the finish, I think. We'd have 3 of the 4 strongest guys in the group behind, they would pulled that group back. When Kwiat went, that was the key point of the race, and that's where race was won/lost. Gilbert wouldn't won without Kwiatkowski, who by the way looked strongest to me, but just messed up his sprint.

So, to conclude, it would be much better if he'd went with Gilbert, but I think he lost this race because he didn't had legs when it mattered the most, on Keutenberg!

You misunderstood me. I agree with him not having very good legs, because if he had, he would have gone with Kwiatkowski (hence the phrase about it needing absolutely suberb legs to bridge on the Keutenberg - Kwiatkowski had those, Valverde didn't).

He lost the chance to fight for the victory when he didn't go with Gilbert's initial attack (he was clearly strong enough to do that but chose not to) because he apparently wasn't capable of going with Kwiatkowski (of course he also lost the race there, but you can't demand something from a rider that he is not physically capable of).

So no, he wasn't the strongest guy in the race (Kwiatkowski was better) but he could still have had a good chance of winning by going with Gilbert and co.
 
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Mr.White said:
No, I mean working at the front. Did you meant wheelsucking? Then no, Van Avermaet did more...
I definitely also think I saw Valverde more on the front than GVA, but Valv has got that reputation and so some people will hold onto that. Its fine, we will see who the strongest is on Wednesday, no tactics, pure power. ;)
 
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Liege will be a totally different story though. Kwiat looks ready to win it.

But great win today! Just unstoppable in such a final. Especially now the current level amongst the puncheurs is on a low.
 
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Scarponi said:
How come he didn't win it more in the 2000s?

The field for the Ardennes classics is abysmal, especially now that Gilbert and Alaphilippe are out.

Even the guys in the cobbled classics are better than most hilly classic specialists on their own terrain.

Most climbers simply skip the Ardennes classics completely these days: no Froome, Quintana, Contador, Nibali, Chaves, etc.
 

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