I can't believe so many in here underestimate the importance of the Olympics. Winning a monument or a WCRR is cycling history. Winning the Olympics is sports history.
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Netserk said:
That obviously matters but I was thinking on average, ie taking the performance that typically wins these races. Probably always reasonably close to being the strongest of the day.
If you are "a mid twenties cyclist without a big win yet" and win Roubaix by being the strongest in the race, you will likely win it again. Olympics (and Worlds for that matter) have varying parcours, so even if you were the strongest, it could be a once in a life time opportunity.SeriousSam said:
A win like Sagan's in Ronde or Boonen's first Ronde are both far more promising for future success than Gilbert's WC win, despite that all three were won by the strongest in the race.
Re:
Not all sports have the Olympics as their apogee. Track and field, running, gymanstics, swimming, all culminate with the OG. But take football (soccer), for instance - as someone said in the other thread, a World Cup is incomparably more valuable than Gold. I think cycling tilts this way. The fact that the OG are held every 4 years only is not such a decisive factor as people make it out to be. Winning the Olympics might be sports history but very few people take notice of the ORR compared to other sports within the games such as athletics. The prestige of gold kinda diminishes in such a generic environment where cycling is overshadowed. I think the WCRR are the zenith of the sport and that the Olympics are not well established enough to deserve a fixed spot in terms of importance. It has to vary according to how good each event every four years is as there are no good historic grounds to compare them to the rest.
Hugo Koblet said:
Not all sports have the Olympics as their apogee. Track and field, running, gymanstics, swimming, all culminate with the OG. But take football (soccer), for instance - as someone said in the other thread, a World Cup is incomparably more valuable than Gold. I think cycling tilts this way. The fact that the OG are held every 4 years only is not such a decisive factor as people make it out to be. Winning the Olympics might be sports history but very few people take notice of the ORR compared to other sports within the games such as athletics. The prestige of gold kinda diminishes in such a generic environment where cycling is overshadowed. I think the WCRR are the zenith of the sport and that the Olympics are not well established enough to deserve a fixed spot in terms of importance. It has to vary according to how good each event every four years is as there are no good historic grounds to compare them to the rest.
1. De Ronde
2. Liege-Bastogne-Liege
3. Paris-Roubaix
4. WCRR
5. Milan-San Remo
6. Lombardia
7. OGRR
(8. Fleche Wallonne
9. E3 Harelbeke
10. Amstel Gold
11. Gent-Wevelgem
12. Strade Bianche
13. Omloop Het Volk
14. Clasica de San Sebastian
15. Paris-Tours
16. Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne
17. Dwars door Vlaanderen
18. Plouay
19. Montreal/Quebec
20. Milan-Turin)
Flanders top because it seems to me to be the Classic with the most prominence in its country and significance; it's the defining event of Flanders. Liege for its sheer age.
2. Liege-Bastogne-Liege
3. Paris-Roubaix
4. WCRR
5. Milan-San Remo
6. Lombardia
7. OGRR
(8. Fleche Wallonne
9. E3 Harelbeke
10. Amstel Gold
11. Gent-Wevelgem
12. Strade Bianche
13. Omloop Het Volk
14. Clasica de San Sebastian
15. Paris-Tours
16. Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne
17. Dwars door Vlaanderen
18. Plouay
19. Montreal/Quebec
20. Milan-Turin)
Flanders top because it seems to me to be the Classic with the most prominence in its country and significance; it's the defining event of Flanders. Liege for its sheer age.
1. PR - hands down the most amount of action in 1 day of cycling
2. Flanders - Also great amounts of action - love cobbles
3. Worlds - I like the fact that it can be very different year to year
4. Olympics - they're a pretty big deal. Maybe it should be first...
5. MSR
6. Lombardia
7. LBL
2. Flanders - Also great amounts of action - love cobbles
3. Worlds - I like the fact that it can be very different year to year
4. Olympics - they're a pretty big deal. Maybe it should be first...
5. MSR
6. Lombardia
7. LBL
Poels his victory in Liege on the other hand was more promising than Terpstras victory in Roubaix.Netserk said:
WCRR
OGRR
PR
LBL
RVV
MSR
GdL
LBL may be a lot more boring than RVV, but it's simply more prestigious. Similarly, MSR might be boring until the last 25km, but it's the longest race on the calendar and isn't at the end of the season when a lot of riders are exhausted or called it a day for the year unlike GdL
OGRR
PR
LBL
RVV
MSR
GdL
LBL may be a lot more boring than RVV, but it's simply more prestigious. Similarly, MSR might be boring until the last 25km, but it's the longest race on the calendar and isn't at the end of the season when a lot of riders are exhausted or called it a day for the year unlike GdL
A lot of people are rating PR above World Championships. I get that you want to acknowledge that the racing is better, but as far as prestige, we can just compare the winners:
PR
Boonen (x4) Cancellara (x3), O'Grady, Vansummeren, Terpstra, Degenkolb, Hayman.
WCRR
Friere (x3), Boonen, Betteni (x2) Ballan, Evans, Hushovd, Cavendish, Gilbert, Costa, Kwiatkowski, Sagan
While there are no accidental winners in any cycling race (every race is earned), PR definitely has some luckier winners than the World Championships. Paris Roubaix is great, but when luck is such a huge factor, in many forms on the course, it can't carry more prestige.
Put another way, winners of Pairs Roubaix show that they beat their competition on the day. The winners of World Championships show they were better than their competition on the day.
1. WCRR
2. LBL
3. PR
4. RVV
5. Lombardia
6. Milan San Remo
7. ORR
(With regards to ORR, it comes too rarely. Different than World Cup 4-year cycles, or Olympic Track and field 4-year cycles, which are the defining timeline of the sport, cycling isn't a 4-year crescendo. As such, the one who gets it right isn't a demonstration of the 4-year prep cycle, just the one who got it right that year)
PR
Boonen (x4) Cancellara (x3), O'Grady, Vansummeren, Terpstra, Degenkolb, Hayman.
WCRR
Friere (x3), Boonen, Betteni (x2) Ballan, Evans, Hushovd, Cavendish, Gilbert, Costa, Kwiatkowski, Sagan
While there are no accidental winners in any cycling race (every race is earned), PR definitely has some luckier winners than the World Championships. Paris Roubaix is great, but when luck is such a huge factor, in many forms on the course, it can't carry more prestige.
Put another way, winners of Pairs Roubaix show that they beat their competition on the day. The winners of World Championships show they were better than their competition on the day.
1. WCRR
2. LBL
3. PR
4. RVV
5. Lombardia
6. Milan San Remo
7. ORR
(With regards to ORR, it comes too rarely. Different than World Cup 4-year cycles, or Olympic Track and field 4-year cycles, which are the defining timeline of the sport, cycling isn't a 4-year crescendo. As such, the one who gets it right isn't a demonstration of the 4-year prep cycle, just the one who got it right that year)
Re: Re:
''Thanks for proving the point''. :lol:
PremierAndrew said:myrideissteelerthanyours said:
Sammy won in Beijing, not Lulu
''Thanks for proving the point''. :lol:
Re:
Not that I don't agree on WCRR vs PR, but that's a pretty selective list of riders you've come up with. You can easily come up with some lesser riders that have won the WCRR (Astarloa and Vainsteins spring to mind).More Strides than Rides said:
1. WCRR
2. Paris-Roubaix
3. Lombardia
4. Flanders
5. MSR
6. Liege (i don't like that race, even in the time of Boogerd, Rebel and Extebarria my least favourite monument)
7. Strade
8. Fleche (that Mur sprint: maybe the best 3 minutes of cycling in the year)
9. Clasica (something very nostalgic about that race)
10. Canadian Classics
Amstel is really a *** clasic. Scheldeprijs and Kuurne the same.
2. Paris-Roubaix
3. Lombardia
4. Flanders
5. MSR
6. Liege (i don't like that race, even in the time of Boogerd, Rebel and Extebarria my least favourite monument)
7. Strade
8. Fleche (that Mur sprint: maybe the best 3 minutes of cycling in the year)
9. Clasica (something very nostalgic about that race)
10. Canadian Classics
Amstel is really a *** clasic. Scheldeprijs and Kuurne the same.
Re: Re:
I just went back 10-12ish years. I've been following the sport for less, but my awareness doesn't go back any farther than that.
I'm sure you're right, that there are some lesser World Champions just like PR, but what sticks in my mind is what my mind has seen: PR champions turned back on break-chase and leadout duty after their race, while World Champions keep winning (Ballan maybe not, Gilbert took a while... etc)
Hugo Koblet said:
I just went back 10-12ish years. I've been following the sport for less, but my awareness doesn't go back any farther than that.
I'm sure you're right, that there are some lesser World Champions just like PR, but what sticks in my mind is what my mind has seen: PR champions turned back on break-chase and leadout duty after their race, while World Champions keep winning (Ballan maybe not, Gilbert took a while... etc)
Paris-Roubaix isn't necessarily a race conducive to lucky winners. It's a race conducive to incredibly specialist winners. Roubaix is just about the only classic which has so many specialist riders. A Flanders winner can win MSR (since he needs a strong-ish sprint most of the time, and can climb explosively), and all the other cobbled classics. A LBL winner can win Lombardia and all the other Ardennes classics. But a few riders (not all that many, but some) ride for Roubaix and basically nothing else - think Boonen recently, or Duclos-Lasslle. Van Summeren and Hayman could never have won another monument, probably not another classic, but that's because Roubaix is so unlike anything else, not because they're automatically weak. I don't want to overplay this - after all, Boonen is a record holder at De Ronde too - but I do think an important part of the perceived 'weakness' of Roubaix's honour roll is because a few of its winners simply don't have the characteristics to win anything else major (see also: Terpstra). WC courses are never that specialist, so their winners will automatically be able to accumulate better palmares in similar races - there's just more similar races.
Re:
If Amstel is a *** classic than so is Fleche Wallonne, probably even more so.
And Clasica San Sebastian is the biggest joke when it comes to classics races. Poorly organised and poorly televised.
There's also no way Strade Bianche ranks above any of the WT classics (Vattenvall Cyclassics and GP Quest-Plouay aren't classics in my eyes). Next year it will be WT, but that doesn't mean the previous editions also get elevated to that status. Scheldeprijs and Kuurne are also not classics, but the latter race is ten times more exciting than FW.
And even though the Giro di Lombardia is one of my favorite classics, it's the least prestigious Monument. I don't know why Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Milan-San Remo are still rated so highly though. Just look at Demare, the guy can't even win sprints in the Tour de Wallonie. Imo it's the weakest Monument by far.
Arredondo said:
If Amstel is a *** classic than so is Fleche Wallonne, probably even more so.
And Clasica San Sebastian is the biggest joke when it comes to classics races. Poorly organised and poorly televised.
There's also no way Strade Bianche ranks above any of the WT classics (Vattenvall Cyclassics and GP Quest-Plouay aren't classics in my eyes). Next year it will be WT, but that doesn't mean the previous editions also get elevated to that status. Scheldeprijs and Kuurne are also not classics, but the latter race is ten times more exciting than FW.
And even though the Giro di Lombardia is one of my favorite classics, it's the least prestigious Monument. I don't know why Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Milan-San Remo are still rated so highly though. Just look at Demare, the guy can't even win sprints in the Tour de Wallonie. Imo it's the weakest Monument by far.
For me it would be:
1-Worlds, most important one day race of the year, it allows you to wear the rainbow jersey.
2-Olympics, it has the same value as the Worlds, but it doesnt have the "tradition" and you cant wear any distinctive jersey. But its true that an olympic gold medal is a great achievement.
3-Liege-Bastogne-Liege, La Doyene, the race of the complete riders, usually won by an all year performer.
4-Giro di Lombardia, I like this race because its hilly/mountainous parcours and because its the last important race of the year. Winners in Liege and Lombardia use to be same type of riders.
5-Tour of Flanders, it mixes hills and cobbles and is very enjoyable.
6-Paris-Roubaix, its a hardmen race but I dont like its flat parcours and I find that cobbles too hard for a human body. Something from the past.
7-Milan-San Remo, a long flat race usually won by sprinters. It delivers few entertainment.
A race that I enjoy a lot, at least the two last kilometers, is La Fleche Wallonne. That Huy climb is one of the years moments. There is no strategy or luck, the strongest wins.
1-Worlds, most important one day race of the year, it allows you to wear the rainbow jersey.
2-Olympics, it has the same value as the Worlds, but it doesnt have the "tradition" and you cant wear any distinctive jersey. But its true that an olympic gold medal is a great achievement.
3-Liege-Bastogne-Liege, La Doyene, the race of the complete riders, usually won by an all year performer.
4-Giro di Lombardia, I like this race because its hilly/mountainous parcours and because its the last important race of the year. Winners in Liege and Lombardia use to be same type of riders.
5-Tour of Flanders, it mixes hills and cobbles and is very enjoyable.
6-Paris-Roubaix, its a hardmen race but I dont like its flat parcours and I find that cobbles too hard for a human body. Something from the past.
7-Milan-San Remo, a long flat race usually won by sprinters. It delivers few entertainment.
A race that I enjoy a lot, at least the two last kilometers, is La Fleche Wallonne. That Huy climb is one of the years moments. There is no strategy or luck, the strongest wins.
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