JPM London said:
Did you
But honestly - how many riders see it as their first obligation to hunt down their captain when he attacks?
Completely agree with you that Fuglsang wasn't of much use in that situation - no one would be. If you meant that he should have attacked at a later point and tried to bridge the gap, then maybe - but most of the time you still wouldn't want to do that as you still risk two things: Dragging others with you and increasing the general pace of the group. If either happened it would not be of help - quite the opposite - and it be wasted energy at the same time.
What would have been helpful is if he had attacked prior to Schleck and so would have been up the road if and when Schleck attacked in addition to putting pressure on GC as well as Fuglsang wasn't that far down in time IIRC.
Had he attacked prior to Schleck and had he then been unable to help when Schleck had bridged up,
then I'd have agreed completely with you.
I agree that we do not get to see that often (Fabian would and has), but then again it's not often we get to see this type of attack.
I admit there's the possibility that Kim A's plan was a fluke because he had miscalculated the distance between the mountains. But had there been one rider which could have followed Fränk or caught up on the descent (where Fränk kept looking back), then it would have been very possible to take the 11 sec on the yellow jersey.
It's not like Fuglsang has been badly treated on RsNT, he was made captain of the Giro team and It's only in JB's interest to get the best possible result in the tour. If it had been as simple as the sponsors wanted Horner, then some other rider would have been replaced.
DominicDecoco said:
No it wasn't. It was stage 8 out of 9. And even if it was the last stage it doesn't make sense at all. A domestique that isn't riding for both leader and GC, but only the leader, shouldn't save anything just to be able to stay in main group after his work was done, meaning he could have made more of an effort pacing. That's nonsense.
Had to go back and see where the misunderstanding happened. Why the heck would you even use his stage 8 performance?
a. It has nothing to do with my argument.
b. It was nothing special in comparison to the Sky team where the domestiques actually stayed.
And I'm not saying Fuglsang should have stayed with the front group, I said he should catch up with Fränk, who clearly needed the help according the the layout of the route (obviously this was know in advance) and Fränk straight out looked for this help (which sparked the mandatory "no Fränk, Andy isn't here" jokes).
To do anything in the mountains the team will have to throw the Sky train, but Fuglsang has never ever shown he could do something like that. In Tour de Suisse Fuglsang didn't even show signs of being able to stay with the TdF Sky train. Horner and Klöden at least have the history of being able to follow (and beat) such a train.
This is the way I see it and my reasoning doesn't rely on tinfoil expendable Dane hat logic.
