Hot racing coming up in Australia

[Jspear]

Re:

How do you know they wouldn't show up? Because from what I've heard quite a lot of riders actually enjoy doing this, and if a team has enough riders who wants to ride, then why shouldn't the team do the race?
As for equipment: There's a reason the race doesn't have a TT, or why the teams don't have busses, or their own cars; The organisers know that...
A: bringing a bus and a bunch of cars...
B: brining bikes the riders will only use once...
is rather complicated, so they...
A: provide cars and somewhere for the riders to be before/after the racing...
B: simply don't include any form of TT...
once you're on the plane bringing maybe two bikes per rider - and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "lower ranking" riders don't get a spare - to Australia is no more difficult than bringing them to, say, France.
Some riders may even go to Australia early, and get a nice little holiday before the racing starts.

And this year some riders showed up even earlier than usual to enjoy the heat and get some miles in the legs. They’d most likely travel somewhere warmer if this race wasn’t going on.

 

[yaco]

Is there much difference racing in Argentina or Australia - Europe to Argentina is 13 hours and to Australia 18hrs - Much fuss about nothing.

 

[Jagartrott]

Is there a profile available for the last km of stage 2?

 

[Jancouver]

Re:

Is there much difference racing in Argentina or Australia - Europe to Argentina is 13 hours and to Australia 18hrs - Much fuss about nothing.

So why the race in Argentina has only 7 (out of 16) WT teams participating? If traveling across the globe is so easy and the riders like the southern hemisphere so much why all 16 WT teams didn't show up?

@RedheadDane that is also an answer for you.

7/16 teams signed up for this non-mandatory race in Argentina. So downgrade the TDU to 2.1 (as that what it should be anyway) and you will get the same 7/16 participation.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re: Re:

Is there much difference racing in Argentina or Australia - Europe to Argentina is 13 hours and to Australia 18hrs - Much fuss about nothing.

So why the race in Argentina has only 7 (out of 16) WT teams participating? If traveling across the globe is so easy and the riders like the southern hemisphere so much why all 16 WT teams didn't show up?

@RedheadDane that is also an answer for you.

7/16 teams signed up for this non-mandatory race in Argentina. So downgrade the TDU to 2.1 (as that what it should be anyway) and you will get the same 7/16 participation.

The last time Tour Down Under wasn't WT (2007), there were 9 ProTour teams participating.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

75% chance of Sagan winning tomorrow? The finish is tailor-made for him.

They’ll be riding for McCarthy.

 

[Velolover2]

Re: Re:

75% chance of Sagan winning tomorrow? The finish is tailor-made for him.

They’ll be riding for McCarthy.

That's Bora's main problem. Sagan could win the stage with his eyes closed.

I know McCarthy is a better climber and their captain, but he is not certain to win this stage. He is up against Haas, Ulissi who are just as fast as him. Consonni is another potential winner.

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

75% chance of Sagan winning tomorrow? The finish is tailor-made for him.

They’ll be riding for McCarthy.

That's Bora's main problem. Sagan could win the stage with his eyes closed.

I know McCarthy is a better climber and their captain, but he is not certain to win this stage. He is up against Haas, Ulissi who are just as fast as him. Consonni is another potential winner.

Nathan Hass on today's stage, ""I think the dark horse could be a little bit of miscommunication between bora today. It was a bit weird yesterday. They didn’t have a full-fledged lead out for the intermediate time bonus. Sam Bennett didn’t quite do the role without the rest of the team for Jay in that final sprint. Then Sagan sort of sprinting, I don’t know if Bennett is sprinting. I don’t really know what is going on there.

"They are obviously formidable riders. Sagan is probably the best rider of all time now and that is always pretty hard to come up against. Jay has also won this stage before. There are also guys like Slagter, Ulissi that have won it before."

 

[Velolover2]

Yeah. In theory, Sagan is the favorite. But they might want to ride for Jay in order to get him some bonus seconds before stage 5. Not sure how Bora will handle this.

 

[jaylew]

Nice win from Ewan.

 

[Jspear]

Dang. Decent job by Ewan.

 

[jaylew]

Surprisingly easy

 

[Jspear]

Well it's not Ewan's fault the racing was so negative. He made the most out of the strongmen's lack of attacking.

2. Impey
3. Mccarthy
4. Sagan
5. Haas
6. Vivinai
7. G. Izaguirre
8. Pozzovivo

 

[The Hegelian]

This rather destroys the thesis that Ewan is a one trick pony only good for winning crits.....that was an impressive win.

 

[Yingge]

And Gerrans dropped 32 seconds down behind Porte and Dennis, so he now becomes their domestique.

 

[movingtarget]

Impressive win by the pocket rocket.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

Seriously, its time to cancel this mandatory $H!T show, ... at least this pointless criterium ... nobody cares, it's not even on TV, just cancel it once and for good.

Just as the first cuckoo heralds the coming of spring, Jancouver taking a dump all over Aussie racing signals the start of the cycling calendar. Why pick on these races specifically rather than say the Dubai/Abu Dhabi Tours/the Doha WC, the Tour of Turkey, that scam Chinese race from Fat Pat's time, the London–Surrey Classic, the Scheldeprijs? There is racing where there would be no racing, the Aussies are in good shape, a couple of international stars show up by means fair or foul, there'll be good crowds on Old Willunga Hill... Your implication that some 50k crit is a uniquely dangerous race that riders do on pain of death is ridiculous.

Don't mix apples with oranges. The only required WT race is the Abu Dhabi at the end of February and that is only a couple hours from Europe and still in the northern hemisphere.

Dubai, Turkey etc is not mandatory.

A Big difference to mid-January in Australia.

As I said million times before, keep your lame TDU, that's fine with me, just don't make it mandatory, remove the WT status and do not force the teams to ride some stupid crit.

The keyword here is teams. The teams are required to ride, the riders aren't.
For the People's Choice Classic; it is perfectly allowed for teams to let riders who are doing the TDU skip it, either because they had recent health issues - like Storer - or just because a team might wanna save their potential GC rider(s). As for Halvorsen; He's a sprinter - at least I think he is, having won the U23 World's in Doha - so I wouldn't be too surprised if he actually wanted this chance of showing himself against the established sprinters.
For the TDU; do you actually think any teams would force a rider who really didn't want to ride to go to Australia for the race? We're pretty early in the season; teams are basically intact - except for a few unfortunate souls who may have crashed during training - so teams don't need to send a rider to the race against his will.

With all honesty, how many teams do you think would show up for this race if this was not a mandatory race? My guess is that at least half the teams would not bother to travel across the planet at the beginning of January.

Perhaps the main reason would be time/money saving and dealing with all the logistics taking the team and equipment all the way to Australia ... and they (UCI) know that and that's why they made it mandatory because most teams would simply just not show up.

We had this exact same discussion last year and the year before that. You have even been provided with lists of Division 1 teams that have sent a full squad every edition. We get it. You hate this race. Please stop disrupting everyone else’s discussion every year to remind us.

 

[claude cat]

Stage 3 shortened by 26km due to extreme weather (expected top of 41C).
2 of the 3 final circuits dropped.

https://cyclingtips.com/2018/01/tour-stage-3-shortened-due-extreme-weather-forecast/

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re:

This rather destroys the thesis that Ewan is a one trick pony only good for winning crits.....that was an impressive win.

I think that thesis has been gradually destroyed. He has shown on various occasions that he's a lot more than a one trick pony.

 

[dirkprovin]

Re: Re:

This rather destroys the thesis that Ewan is a one trick pony only good for winning crits.....that was an impressive win.

I think that thesis has been gradually destroyed. He has shown on various occasions that he's a lot more than a one trick pony.

Kudos for him being able to hold on and for winning this stage but hardly a ringing statement that he is somehow evolving into anything more.

The stage was, for the most part, raced negatively which played into his (and MS's hands). If the hills aren't raced particularly hard then he certainly CAN make finishes (case in point 2015 & 2018 AUS Nats). He is is peak, or close to peak shape whereas many of the others aren't.

When he actually demonstrates that he can bridge a gap under his own power OR ride cobbles OR even show the capacity to handle the argy bargy of a peak race bunch kick ........ then we can start talking about him being any more than a one trick pony. Whilst I cannot see the first two ever eventuating; a new team who can/will make him the prime focus can at least make him a far more viable contender in major bunch kicks and maybe a more frequent winner in Europe

 

[yaco]

Today's finish reinforced my opinion that the best finish for Ewan is a 3 or 4% gradient in the last 500 metres - My only disappointment is he is riding Tirreno-Adriatico - He's ridden one race day in France so far in his career - He needs more race days in France and should be riding PN and Dauphine.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

This rather destroys the thesis that Ewan is a one trick pony only good for winning crits.....that was an impressive win.

I think that thesis has been gradually destroyed. He has shown on various occasions that he's a lot more than a one trick pony.

Agreed.

 

[StryderHells]

Re: Re:

Blah Blah Blah..........

Why does everyone bite? Just let Jancouver bleat and have the discussion around him, It's what most of the world has done with Trump and we can treat Jancouver the same way when talking Australians and Australian races.

This is the same poster who called Australians obnoxious http://forum.cyclingnews.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25984&p=1627544&hilit=obnoxious#p1627544

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

This rather destroys the thesis that Ewan is a one trick pony only good for winning crits.....that was an impressive win.

I think that thesis has been gradually destroyed. He has shown on various occasions that he's a lot more than a one trick pony.

Kudos for him being able to hold on and for winning this stage but hardly a ringing statement that he is somehow evolving into anything more.

The stage was, for the most part, raced negatively which played into his (and MS's hands). If the hills aren't raced particularly hard then he certainly CAN make finishes (case in point 2015 & 2018 AUS Nats). He is is peak, or close to peak shape whereas many of the others aren't.

When he actually demonstrates that he can bridge a gap under his own power OR ride cobbles OR even show the capacity to handle the argy bargy of a peak race bunch kick ........ then we can start talking about him being any more than a one trick pony. Whilst I cannot see the first two ever eventuating; a new team who can/will make him the prime focus can at least make him a far more viable contender in major bunch kicks and maybe a more frequent winner in Europe

What I was thinking, just worded better.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

This rather destroys the thesis that Ewan is a one trick pony only good for winning crits.....that was an impressive win.

I think that thesis has been gradually destroyed. He has shown on various occasions that he's a lot more than a one trick pony.

Kudos for him being able to hold on and for winning this stage but hardly a ringing statement that he is somehow evolving into anything more.

The stage was, for the most part, raced negatively which played into his (and MS's hands). If the hills aren't raced particularly hard then he certainly CAN make finishes (case in point 2015 & 2018 AUS Nats). He is is peak, or close to peak shape whereas many of the others aren't.

When he actually demonstrates that he can bridge a gap under his own power OR ride cobbles OR even show the capacity to handle the argy bargy of a peak race bunch kick ........ then we can start talking about him being any more than a one trick pony. Whilst I cannot see the first two ever eventuating; a new team who can/will make him the prime focus can at least make him a far more viable contender in major bunch kicks and maybe a more frequent winner in Europe

I think he has already had some good performances for a one trick pony. Beating Sagan on an uphill finish this night, his performance in this years aussie nats, winning a Vuelta stage on an uphill finish, surviving Poggio and finishing top 10 in MSR, great results at U23 worlds in Firenze and Ponferrada. Of course it's not out-of-this-world-performances, but he's still only 23 years old and in my opinion promising feats for a sprinter.