Mikel Landa Discussion Thread

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

Truth is, he was given oportunities to be a GT leader at least 2 times iirc. He didn't deliver. Now was the time to just do his job he signed for. Unnecessary whining tbh.

It's only whining if you cannot see the frustration of a competitor who came within 1 second, 1 SECOND, of being on the podium of the biggest event in his chosen profession. Stifled by his team from ever pursuing his
interests, which would've been the team's interest as well, benefiting the team immensely, I believe he was held back out of spite over his likely leaving the team and by Froome who has to exert his role as the alpha male on the team, striking the lowly domestique down when he had the gall to even appear to be upstaging his captain. Froome plays the friendly role but there have been too many incidences where he has exercised the influence of his position and the strength of his team to benefit himself even if it gave him an unfair advantage and compromised his rivals' efforts to challenge him. It is equally the fault of his rivals and their teams for allowing themselves to be bent over a counter with smiles on their faces, offering no resistance.

Fwiw, to Froome, why should he not use his status and pull in the team? He's the overwhelming leader the entire Sky team rally around...Not because he's bossy but because he's earned their respect by doing what he done for the past many years..
Also, why should Sky Management give 2 *** about whether Landa gets 3rd,4th or 5th or 6th...He was leaving and he made it clear way back..
To put the entire blame on Sky and Froome is kid logic at best.

Did you go to the Froome thread and defend Froome like you are with Landa when Froome lost his opportunity to go for the victory?

It doesn't benefit the sponsor to have 2 Sky riders on the podium? Who else is to blame but the captain, who chased down his teammate and the Brailford, who ultimately makes all of these decisions. Landa is being portrayed as the bad guy here, a whiner by many, when all he is doing is verbalizing what is naturally a frustrating experience that shouldn't have been. To imply that he is solely responsible is ridiculous and blind.

 

[offbyone]

My immediate reaction to that interview is Quit Whining.

He was co leader at the giro, sure bad luck messed up his chances, but that doesn't mean he gets to be leader at the Tdf.
He has been given this opportunity before.
He knew Froome was the unquestionable leader and why shouldn't he be, froome earned it.
Why on earth would he sign with team sky and think he is going to get a TDF leadership role?

In the end what does complaining about this so publicly do for him? It accomplishes nothing. His negotiations with other teams don't need to be public and his desire to be a leader is all good, but whining about this does nothing for his image. All it does is degrade his public image and raise expectations on him.

 

[silvergrenade]

Re: Re:

Truth is, he was given oportunities to be a GT leader at least 2 times iirc. He didn't deliver. Now was the time to just do his job he signed for. Unnecessary whining tbh.

It's only whining if you cannot see the frustration of a competitor who came within 1 second, 1 SECOND, of being on the podium of the biggest event in his chosen profession. Stifled by his team from ever pursuing his
interests, which would've been the team's interest as well, benefiting the team immensely, I believe he was held back out of spite over his likely leaving the team and by Froome who has to exert his role as the alpha male on the team, striking the lowly domestique down when he had the gall to even appear to be upstaging his captain. Froome plays the friendly role but there have been too many incidences where he has exercised the influence of his position and the strength of his team to benefit himself even if it gave him an unfair advantage and compromised his rivals' efforts to challenge him. It is equally the fault of his rivals and their teams for allowing themselves to be bent over a counter with smiles on their faces, offering no resistance.

Fwiw, to Froome, why should he not use his status and pull in the team? He's the overwhelming leader the entire Sky team rally around...Not because he's bossy but because he's earned their respect by doing what he done for the past many years..
Also, why should Sky Management give 2 *** about whether Landa gets 3rd,4th or 5th or 6th...He was leaving and he made it clear way back..
To put the entire blame on Sky and Froome is kid logic at best.

Did you go to the Froome thread and defend Froome like you are with Landa when Froome lost his opportunity to go for the victory?

I thought I was on YOUR ignore list.

Edit: Punctuation.

Dear Angliru,
I've never ever put anybody on my ignore list...
Fwiw, you may not feel it, but your insights are highly appreciated by me.

PS: I never said Landa was alone to blame. Its Froomes, Skys and Landas fault. Together. But it was Landa vs the World. There could be only one consequence, sadly.
Also, I never claimed that he's a whiner. I understand wher he's coming from.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

My immediate reaction to that interview is Quit Whining.

He was co leader at the giro, sure bad luck messed up his chances, but that doesn't mean he gets to be leader at the Tdf.
He has been given this opportunity before.
He knew Froome was the unquestionable leader and why shouldn't he be, froome earned it.
Why on earth would he sign with team sky and think he is going to get a TDF leadership role?

In the end what does complaining about this so publicly do for him? It accomplishes nothing. His negotiations with other teams don't need to be public and his desire to be a leader is all good, but whining about this does nothing for his image. All it does is degrade his public image and raise expectations on him.

He didn't want to be the leader. He said their Tour wasn't in jeopardy and it would have been nice if he could have fought for the podium. He was already very close. He wouldn't have had to do much more. It wouldn't have required any of the team riding for him, and it wouldn't have caused Froome to lose any time.

 

[wwabbit]

He's unhappy not being team leader so he is going to move to Movistar?

Good luck being team leader there.

 

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

Truth is, he was given oportunities to be a GT leader at least 2 times iirc. He didn't deliver. Now was the time to just do his job he signed for. Unnecessary whining tbh.

It's only whining if you cannot see the frustration of a competitor who came within 1 second, 1 SECOND, of being on the podium of the biggest event in his chosen profession. Stifled by his team from ever pursuing his
interests, which would've been the team's interest as well, benefiting the team immensely, I believe he was held back out of spite over his likely leaving the team and by Froome who has to exert his role as the alpha male on the team, striking the lowly domestique down when he had the gall to even appear to be upstaging his captain. Froome plays the friendly role but there have been too many incidences where he has exercised the influence of his position and the strength of his team to benefit himself even if it gave him an unfair advantage and compromised his rivals' efforts to challenge him. It is equally the fault of his rivals and their teams for allowing themselves to be bent over a counter with smiles on their faces, offering no resistance.

Fwiw, to Froome, why should he not use his status and pull in the team? He's the overwhelming leader the entire Sky team rally around...Not because he's bossy but because he's earned their respect by doing what he done for the past many years..
Also, why should Sky Management give 2 *** about whether Landa gets 3rd,4th or 5th or 6th...He was leaving and he made it clear way back..
To put the entire blame on Sky and Froome is kid logic at best.

Did you go to the Froome thread and defend Froome like you are with Landa when Froome lost his opportunity to go for the victory?

I thought I was on YOUR ignore list.

Edit: Punctuation.

Dear Angliru,
I've never ever put anybody on my ignore list...
Fwiw, you may not feel it, but your insights are highly appreciated by me.

PS: I never said Landa was alone to blame. Its Froomes, Skys and Landas fault. Together. But it was Landa vs the World. There could be only one consequence, sadly.
Also, I never claimed that he's a whiner. I understand wher he's coming from.

I was kidding about the ignore list.

I appreciate your posts too, so much so that I took you off of my ignore list! :surprised:

I never said that you specifically were calling Landa a whiner, just that many here in this thread were. I agree it is a destiny of his own making to a degree, one of which he is likely well paid for. I am very much thinking from a selfish standpoint in that it would have been a far more entertaining Tour if he was given looser reins and allowed to show his stuff, so to speak. The inflexibility of the Sky strategy is what saps fun out of it for me. I'm likely not seeing the entire picture clearly, as my perspective is clouded by my own personal desires.

 

[Angliru]

What is interesting is that normally we are happy to hear the behind the scenes stories and the in depth perspectives from the riders themselves. In this case it's almost like Landa has broken some type of unwritten code according to some posters here by revealing his emotions about what transpired. It's uncensored, unlike the controlled media relationship that Brailsford desires. I'm sure he's on the verge of an aneurysm reading Landa's statements. The thing is, this is a story that has been repeated over and over in cycling history. Aru/Nibali, Froome/Wiggins, Contador/Armstrong. The list is long and storied, involving gc guys, sprinters, gc guys and sprinters battling over the team. It really isn't whining. It is ambition and competitive fire brimming to the surface.

 

[jmdirt]

-I think someone already typed this, but ML is answering loaded questions so that sets him up to loo like he is complaining...which he is.
-Sky gave him Giro leadership. He got sick, that sucks, but...
-He came to the TdF to support CF.
--He was only going to get his own chances if CF was out of the top 10 or out of the race.
-He is playing the 'if' game that so many like to play, so IF RB would have had even a marginal TT he/we wouldn't be talking about this.
--IF they make an effort to get ML on the box too what IF they fart things up for he and CF?!

I've long grown tired of support guys who pop off a good race and then complain that they should have been the man or been giving more freedom.

Movistar is not going to be much better for ML. Are they going to give him la TdF over NQ?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I don't know what Landa thinks he has to gain by crying to journalists about having to ride as a domestique in a race where he knew he would be a domestique when he signed a big money contract. If he doesn't want to do that, he can and should sign somewhere where that isn't part of the deal. It was also open to him to do that two years ago. Instead he signed for the most hierarchical and unbending team in the peloton.

I have a lot of sympathy for domestiques, young riders and others with relatively low status who get a rare opportunity to win themselves taken from them by team orders. But when a big star or a second tier contender takes a big pile of cash to work for someone else? They had a choice, they took the money, they should shut up and comfort themselves in their bleaker moments by swimming around in their bath of gold coins. The super domestique is one of the worst institutions in the sport.

 

[jsem94]

He should just have stayed put at Astana as Nibali went his own way anyway and Aru might leave. Who do Astana have now? Fuglsang? They should actually re-sign Landa. Movistar will do fine. Alejandro will keep going for about another 56 years anyway still winning bike races well into his 80's.

 

[del1962]

Surely Landa has to go to a team were he is undisputed GC leader for next years tour.

 

[Movitrain]

In an interview with local radio station Radio Vitoria (as posted by their Twitter feed), Landa said that he would decide between staying with Team Sky and going to Movistar in the coming days, other than that, he talked about the Tour and pretty much said what has already been mentioned here beforehand.

 

[Moviefan1203]

Does Movistar plan on having the Giro for Landa and the Tour for Quintana? Or deciding after they see the routes?

 

[carton]

Pretty clear he didn't mind being a domestique, but thought thay after all the hard work he put Froome shouldn't have chased him down unless he was feeling really strong. Which seems fair, IMHO.

It is oblivious to the fact that had Uran just sat on Bardet the gambit might've worked for both of them. But then I doubt that was Froome's thought process.

 

[hazaran]

Here is inrngs graphic on the GC trajectories:

http://inrng.com/medias/images/tdf2017gcstandings.jpg

Three things stand out for Landa. (1) that is not the trajectory of a future leader at the Tour (2) the break never happens if he isn't on Sky or a leader (3) he had a million opportunities to show his great climbing legs by not constantly losing a boatload of time despite barely doing any work.

Of course (3) has the benefit of showing he can be a leader instead of blaming a one second loss on the Tour winner (wut). This is no 2012 Froome, he is a climber with some occasional good performances mostly predicated on doing nothing beforehand, his TT is useless against either Froome or Dumoulin (or even a Nibali or Valverde), his sprint nonexistent and the good GC position on this tour the result of few hard finishes and being on Sky.

Caveat emptor for whoever picks up this trainwreck.

 

[offbyone]

Re: Re:

My immediate reaction to that interview is Quit Whining.

He was co leader at the giro, sure bad luck messed up his chances, but that doesn't mean he gets to be leader at the Tdf.
He has been given this opportunity before.
He knew Froome was the unquestionable leader and why shouldn't he be, froome earned it.
Why on earth would he sign with team sky and think he is going to get a TDF leadership role?

In the end what does complaining about this so publicly do for him? It accomplishes nothing. His negotiations with other teams don't need to be public and his desire to be a leader is all good, but whining about this does nothing for his image. All it does is degrade his public image and raise expectations on him.

He didn't want to be the leader. He said their Tour wasn't in jeopardy and it would have been nice if he could have fought for the podium. He was already very close. He wouldn't have had to do much more. It wouldn't have required any of the team riding for him, and it wouldn't have caused Froome to lose any time.

It is one thing to have a backup GC leader in case the primary crashes out or blows up or something. However, I think in most cases, you are going to have a hard time winning a TDF if a team does not devote all your resources to a singular cause.

"Their tour not being in jeopardy" is his opinion and I believe it is a foolish one. This tour was one of the closest races we have seen until the very end. Froome didn't have a margin of minutes, but seconds. When you have multiple rivals within 30 seconds your tour is always in jeopardy. Obviously the sports director agreed with this point of view because he didn't tell him to go.

If Froome had a much larger margin on the rest of the podium contenders, I suspect Landa would have been given more leeway.

P.S. So his comments imply that if Landa is made leader of another team, then he is ok with another rider from his team attacking him...

 

[hfer07]

I don't quite get why Landa complains at this time, well knowing that SKY above and beyond is all for UK riders- He should have known better when he signed the contract....

I only wish his next team truly supports him accordingly, so he can unleash his full power

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'd love to see similar ones of those for other trajectories in recent years, such as the 2016 Giro (look at all Nibali's time losses in key stages!), for example. It's not like Landa lost big time anywhere, only stage 9 when he was working as part of a train on the hardest single climb of the race. Plenty of people have managed to lose time early and recover it to become a GT podium rider. Quintana in 2013, for example and every GT Fabio Aru has ever entered until the Tour this year. People are overhyping Landa, for sure, because I think he was an intriguing wildcard that people had hopes for to help break up the dullness of Sky's highly controlled racing machine because of his own racing instincts.

Now, is it true that he has failed when given sole leadership before, on the one occasion that happened? Yes. But he's also made lemonade out of lemons when the team's other leader failed at the Giro, salvaging the team's race after Thomas went home with a stage win and the GPM, and proven a very dangerous weapon in a dual leader situation on two occasions, and on both occasions his wings have been visibly clipped by the team. Is his TT comparatively weak so as to be a liability unless the route is sufficiently mountainous for him to do his thing? Definitely. Is his skillset lopsided and limited? Of course. He's a classic Basque climber, that's kind of what they do. But, you know, Sky also seldom go all out for the Giro, it's the one race they've absolutely never come close to mastering (Urán's 2013 podium notwithstanding, that also salvaged the race after a leadership disaster), and the domestique corps is hardly comparable to those they put out at the Tour, and he would be moving to Movistar, where they've spent the last few years protecting a climber with a comparatively weak TT that is a liability in any route that isn't sufficiently mountainous for him to do his thing, with a lopsided and limited skillset because he's a classic Colombian climber.

Will Mikel Landa ever be a bonanza leader? I'm far from convinced, he's just not reliable enough in his career so far, and far from being at his best when the team throws their full weight behind him, he's tended to be at his best when races become more unpredictable. But plenty of riders with equally lopsided skillsets have won and podiumed GTs, and Abarcá have a history of dealing with flaky and unreliable climbers as main hopes, right back to their first long-term leader, Ángel Arroyo, in the early 80s. And it is the team that had a "me or him" choice and took José María Jiménez over Abraham Olano after the two's less than amicable Vuelta challenges...

 

[mrhender]

Good post. I doubt he will ever win a GT.
He has excellent climbing skills. But needs a solid mentor going all in on him i think.

 

[mrhender]

I like the Olano comparison also. Very similar in my book. Except if i remember correct Olano was a solid time trialist?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

I like the Olano comparison also. Very similar in my book. Except if i remember correct Olano was a solid time trialist?

It was less a comparison of them as riders (indeed, Olano was a very good time triallist, nicknamed Mini-Mig and part of that generation of post-Indurain riders where the prevailing Spanish zeitgeist was for more powerful all-round riders rather than the traditional featherweights), and actually more me saying, Abarcá has a history of throwing their weight behind inconsistent escaladores as leaders which will benefit Landa after having his wings clipped, because after Olano and Jiménez had their falling out, the team brass chose the romantic heroic all-or-nothing style of Chava over the more reliable, all-round results of Olano.

 

[mrhender]

Yes, thank you for that. I said comparison but would be more fitting just to say that seing the name made me make that comparison. Perhaps more by style than skills. My memory of those days are a bit shady now.

 

[BullsFan22]

When you lose on a GT podium, especially at the TDF, by one second, it must be hard to take. There are always ifs and buts at the end of a race, and with 20 or 21 stages, it's so much easier to have regrets and dare I say, excuses. That said, had Bardet not had the worst TT of his life (if someone knows of a weaker TT by Romain, show us!), the somewhat sour grapes by Landa would not have come out. Bardet isn't a top TT'er, but he can do solid rides, and the amount he lost was very surprising if not shocking. A decent ride, and he would have had a fairly decent buffer over Landa. Landa couldn't have expected different tactics in the mountain stages considering Sky was riding for one man and one man only. He would have had the same problem had he been in another team with another team leader that had the yellow jersey. I feel bad for him for missing out by one second, but he'll have his chances outside of Sky.

 

[Gigs_98]

I think people saying he has disappointed when he was the leader of his team are a bit unfair. He got sick in 2016 and had a crash in 2017. He might have won both races if that hadn't happened. Ofc thats pure speculation but we now know exactly as much about how useful he is as a gc rider in gt's as we knew before those races.
That said it's quite funny that his two best gt results are a 3rd and a 4th place and both come from years in which he rode the race as a helper.

 

[mrhender]

Perhaps he is just better in the free role. Does he have what is needed to lead a team? ALL eyes and ears directed not only internally but externally. Will be interesting when/if put really to the test at the Tour.