Re: Re:
Koronin said:
tobydawq said:
Koronin said:
Blanco said:
Ok, we all understood, you said it way too many times, it was a GIFT, could we please move on now?
Fine, but the comment I quoted, may be a bigger point of interest.
It's not interesting, and doesn't become more interesting because you write it three different places.
It's your interpretation that he has lost desire and nobody, seemingly, agrees with it.
What's your interpretation of what he means then?
I never put much weight on anything Valverde says in interviews. Especially if I didn't see the interview, because a quote may be subject to translation errors.
But even then, there is very often a big discrepancy between what he says and what he does in races. If you only judged him by his interviews (especially pre race interviews) you would think he was some sort of second tier rider who occasionally finds his moment to shine. He disproportionally often seems surprised by his presence among the best riders.
And this "I'm just glad I'm wearing the rainbow jersey here in Murcia" comment you put so much weight on really just seems like some random quote any other rider would make if he were wearing the rainbow jersey and had just lost a race in his home region. In the very next sentence he says it would of course have been even better if he had won.
And what is this "he hasn't cared to sprint multiple times this season, proving that he doesn't care" nonsense? Let's be a little more concrete, shall we?
The first race day on Mallorca, he was fourth, and it's true, he was just riding behind Bauke Mollema over the finish line. In that particular instance, it may be correct that he didn't obsess too much about getting the podium spot. But the coverage was not good and we only saw them cross the line, so we really have insufficient data to assess the situation properly.
I haven't seen the coverage of the second race, but he was 10th - and first across the line in a group of three. On day three, Wellens and Buchmann got the better of him but I have heard that was due to a technical descent and you can't fault him for not going overboard there.
Then came Valencia where he sprinted on both possible occasions. On stage 3, he was screwed by Ben Swift's awfulness, on stage 4 he made a mistake by going to the back of the group on a flatter part in the final kilometer, and that made it impossible to answer Adam Yates immediately, when he attacked.
In Murcia, he was up against four Astana riders the first day. He had to limit Bilbao's gap and given that there were no bonus seconds, that was more important than securing second place, and it makes sense that he couldn't keep Fraile and Sánchez (who are both quite fast) behind him. And yesterday he again had to do the most of the work because he needed to maintain the gap so Bilbao wouldn't get too close while still keeping enough energy to beat Sánchez in the sprint. That was an almost impossible balance to keep, and again, it's no wonder he was beaten in the sprint.
He has been a little bit unlucky, has screwed up on a few occasions but really, his team has been his biggest liability so far. They really need to step up because he obviously can't beat strong teams like the whole Astana contingent on his own unless there is an uphill finish.
In no way have I seen a rider that cares less about winning - it has just been much more difficult for him; both because his team is weak, but the other teams (especially Astana) have also stepped up massively this year in the early-season Spanish races that has usually just been Valverde's playground.
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