Teams & Riders Nairo Quintana discussion thread

[Fernandez]

Easy my friends. Quintana needs to put 5 minutes on Dumoulin and the rest of the guys from now to the last stage, so we´ll have plenty of hard racing by him and Movistar.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

With Dumoulin's TT skills, even more specifically in hilly tt's with downhill descents, I do not believe he is a bad technical descender. I think he has a great cornering technique. Which is logical, otherwise he wouldn't do well in TT's either

 

[Volderke]

Re:

Easy my friends. Quintana needs to put 5 minutes on Dumoulin and the rest of the guys from now to the last stage, so we´ll have plenty of hard racing by him and Movistar.

I can' see NQ 'take' 5 minutes. Dumoulin has to 'give' him 5 minutes by cracking severely. That's NQ's only possibility of winning this (Dumoulin cracking).

 

[Valv.Piti]

He only has to take 4 minutes and no, the only possbility isn't if Dumo cracks. There are plenty of hard stages for Quintana even if he doesn't completely crack, its high mountains and week 3 and of a GT, the jury is still out if Tom's w/kg will stay the same throughout the race.

But the perfect scenario will be killing him as soon as possible to conserve energy for TdF on double Stelvio, I think thats the strategy. But I think he will have to change the mindset (if thats the case), because I think he will have to dig very deep not only on one day, but on multiple to win this Giro. So *** the Tour, he is gonna win this race before thinking about that.

 

[Singer01]

There are too many unknowns currently for me to have any confidence in predicting who will win. Assuming Dumoulin puts another 90 seconds into Quintana on the last stage is a big leap, because he is probably going to have to bury himself for 6 or 7 stages immediately before the TT to save his lead. Quintana is also known to get better in the last week of 3 week stage races, is Dumoulin? Will his form be the same in a TT on the last stage of a presumed very hard Giro.

 

[Fernandez]

Re: Re:

Easy my friends. Quintana needs to put 5 minutes on Dumoulin and the rest of the guys from now to the last stage, so we´ll have plenty of hard racing by him and Movistar.

I can' see NQ 'take' 5 minutes. Dumoulin has to 'give' him 5 minutes by cracking severely. That's NQ's only possibility of winning this (Dumoulin cracking).

Dumoulin will crack, Movistar will make him crack

 

[Rollthedice]

Just take a look at the profiles for stages starting Tuesday. If Movistar, Bahrain, FdJ ride those stages hard from far out on multiple mountains, isolate him soon and the likes of Nibs, Nairo and Pinot attack him there is no way he can cover all. He can loose minutes between the climbs. Does anybody know how Dumoulin climbs at over 2000m?

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

I hope Nairito isn't going for the same old 3 week gamble, expecting to destroy Dumoulin in the last MTF, and not considering the final ITT at all. He better remember a certain fellow called "Purito" & how he lost Il Giro in the very last ITT stage.....

Let's not forget that Quintana won the Vuelta last year with a late TT, against a very strong TTer who was also a much, much better climber than Dumoulin. And he did so by being very aggressive and taking time at loads of opportunities throughout the race.

So perhaps the same old 3 week gamble is just that. Old.

No Quintana won last years Vuelta because of the Formigal stage. Just like he won the Giro 2014 because of the Stelvio stage. Ofc. in both cases he might have won the race anyway if he hadn't attacked on those two stages, but still so far Quintana has won his two only gt's with one big attack and lost the only other one where he really had a chance because he didn't attack earlier in the Alps of the tdf 2015.
I don't really think he will make that mistake again though. Maybe he doesn't attack on Oropa but he won't gain much time there anyway. And then the next mountain stage after that already is the Stelvio stage, where an attack is almost certain. And if that attack doesn't work, well then he will have to attack on the remaining stages anyway. I hardly believe that he is stupid enough to not attack on these stages if he doesn't gain time in the queen stage.

If you don't consider his move as Lagos de Covadonga as a big attack, then I think we just have very different standards. He also took time to the likes of Contador and Chaves on several different stages throughout the race, it certainly wasn't just the one big attack.

I think the tactic will be very similar this Giro. Try to take smallish time regularly against the likes of Nibali and Pinot - like he did against Contador and Chaves. Then destroy Dumoulin with one race-splitting attack - like he did to Froome.

He indeed attacked from relatively far out in the Lagos de Covadonga stage (far out for a mountain top finish), but I didn't want to say that he only attacked once, but that he won the vuelta because of one attack. If I calculated correctly he gained time on froome in four different mountain stages, the formigal stage, and three other stages where he gained 1:06 on Froome. If you look on the final gc you can see that Quintana won by 1:23, so if he hadn't attacked on any of these stages he still would have won with his Formigal attack only, where he gained 2:43 (including bonus seconds). On the other hand if he hadn't attacked on the formigal stage, the time he gained on other stages wouldn't have been enough to win the gc. Thats what I wanted to say with "he won the vuelta with one big attack"

I disagree.

Quintana won the Giro because of the Stelvio fiasco: The race was neutralized and he kept going full steam ahead.

Quintana won the Vuelta thanks to the kamikaze attack of Contador on Formigal. If Contador hadn't attacked, Froome would have won that Vuelta.

The good thing in this Giro, is that Quintana can still win it, but, in order for him to do so, he'll go have to go into the red. That will cost him the Tour for sure.

Thanks Doumolin for making the Giro an interesting race!

I agree, but the point of my post wasn't to point out how he won the crucial stage, but that he won the gc because of only one crucial stage.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

How high is Rettenbachferner? He did pretty well on there in Suisse when he was still more of a pure TT specialist and did no specific climb training.
Tbh he's been at Teide for a month, so it should not bother him. Normally he'll lose time in mountain stages. But they really need a big crack.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

How high is Rettenbachferner? He did pretty well on there in Suisse when he was still more of a pure TT specialist and did no specific climb training.
Tbh he's been at Teide for a month, so it should not bother him. Normally he'll lose time in mountain stages. But they really need a big crack.

Rettenbach is Stelvio-altitude, but this time he obviously has to go up there 2 times

 

[meat puppet]

Re:

Just take a look at the profiles for stages starting Tuesday. If Movistar, Bahrain, FdJ ride those stages hard from far out on multiple mountains, isolate him soon and the likes of Nibs, Nairo and Pinot attack him there is no way he can cover all. He can loose minutes between the climbs. Does anybody know how Dumoulin climbs at over 2000m?

Tom will definitely put up a fight, but on balance I find this the most likely outcome. Hope it will a convoluted and entertaining one at that.

One counter argument to this, at this stage speculative of course, might be that if Quintana or Nibali attacks from far out, other GC boys will work with Dumoulin to protect their own interest rather than making him do all chasing. This then might diminish the impact of such moves. Dekker-Tifosi also proposed a Dutch alliance scenario.

These are plausible scenarios, as far as it goes. However, there is also the quite realistic possibility that if Quintana or Nibali goes long on some stages, some GC boys can follow and others can't. This obviously splits the contributions they might make into breaking away / chasing. The question then is which group Dumoulin belongs to.

 

[wheresmybrakes]

I think TD knows he's gonna lose time in the high mountains, he just needs to not panic and crack big style as he can regain his lead on the final stage. Its up to NQ and friends (rivals) to make up a big enough margin that put TD out of range in Milan.

 

[portugal11]

The problem isn't the alttitude at all. The problem is his team!!! Even froome would struggle to beat quintana, nibali, pinot, etc without a team. I'm pretty sure dumoulin will follow pinot or nibali and limit losses to quintana quite easily. But without a team, he has to respond to everybody and he will crack somewhere.

 

[Pennino]

Re:

The problem isn't the alttitude at all. The problem is his team!!! Even froome would struggle to beat quintana, nibali, pinot, etc without a team. I'm pretty sure dumoulin will follow pinot or nibali and limit losses to quintana quite easily. But without a team, he has to respond to everybody and he will crack somewhere.

No, they would want him to respond to everybody, but he just has to stay calm. I highly doubt the others would stay calm too when one of them attacks and Tom does nothing but keeping his cool. Nairo I guess would only get more nervous in case of a Nibali attack.

But the best part is: Tom knows this and Sunweb as well. If they lose, so be it. But that would be in a very different scenario than the simply cracking on the very first occasion because of getting trapped by the others.

 

[Escarabajo]

It looks like Nibali will wait for Quintana's attack this time more than the other way around. He sounds like he wants to capitalize on Quintana's attack. Pinot might do the same.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

Easy my friends. Quintana needs to put 5 minutes on Dumoulin and the rest of the guys from now to the last stage, so we´ll have plenty of hard racing by him and Movistar.

I can' see NQ 'take' 5 minutes. Dumoulin has to 'give' him 5 minutes by cracking severely. That's NQ's only possibility of winning this (Dumoulin cracking).

I wouldn't call 5 minutes cracking. I thought he needs close to the 4 minutes neighborhood. But well, let's hope for a great fight.

 

[vass45]

Nario is still in great shape to take out this Giro. Only 2 and a half minutes of Dumoulin - and we all know we wont start seeing the best of Nario until stage 16. I'm pretty confident at some point after stage 16 Dumoulin will be isolated and crack - its really not a matter of if but when. He doesnt have the team to stop this from happening, and I can see Nario walting into the final TT day with a 4 - 5+ minute unassailable lead.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re: Re:

Just take a look at the profiles for stages starting Tuesday. If Movistar, Bahrain, FdJ ride those stages hard from far out on multiple mountains, isolate him soon and the likes of Nibs, Nairo and Pinot attack him there is no way he can cover all. He can loose minutes between the climbs. Does anybody know how Dumoulin climbs at over 2000m?

Tom will definitely put up a fight, but on balance I find this the most likely outcome. Hope it will a convoluted and entertaining one at that.

One counter argument to this, at this stage speculative of course, might be that if Quintana or Nibali attacks from far out, other GC boys will work with Dumoulin to protect their own interest rather than making him do all chasing. This then might diminish the impact of such moves. Dekker-Tifosi also proposed a Dutch alliance scenario.

These are plausible scenarios, as far as it goes. However, there is also the quite realistic possibility that if Quintana or Nibali goes long on some stages, some GC boys can follow and others can't. This obviously splits the contributions they might make into breaking away / chasing. The question then is which group Dumoulin belongs to.

This.

It's not even just a case of these other riders protecting possible podium positions, but that they should still believe that they have a chance against Quintana himself. Providing that Nairo doesn't blow everyone away by over a minute on Oropa.

Dumoulin needs to NOT race like Contador and Nibali. I would go into each mountain stage with the mindset that if Quintana goes, he let's him go, unless there are a number of other contenders that go with him. Tom needs to concern himself more with the other contenders. So long as he doesn't lose more than 3 minutes to Quintana on stage 16, then he could still win this Giro, given that he doesn't lose more than a total of 2 minutes on the MTF's of stages 15 and 19, and that not a lot happens on stages 18 and 20 (there will be attacks, but the climbs are not as difficult/further from the finish).

 

[Ataraxus]

Re:

Nario is still in great shape to take out this Giro. Only 2 and a half minutes of Dumoulin - and we all know we wont start seeing the best of Nario until stage 16. I'm pretty confident at some point after stage 16 Dumoulin will be isolated and crack - its really not a matter of if but when. He doesnt have the team to stop this from happening, and I can see Nario walting into the final TT day with a 4 - 5+ minute unassailable lead.

If the crack doesn't happen on stage 16, the odds of that happening later on decrease drastically IMO.
Plus stage 16 has only one crucial segment (Km 168 through 189) where the team can be very helpful.
If Tom D finds himself attached to Quintana in km 189 without having spent too much, he will carry on Umbrail with his own tempo and trying to limit his losses in the descent to Bormio.
But most of all, it will depend on the climbing legs. If Tom D. has the climbing legs of Blockhaus, Movistar will have to trouble a lot of water for success.

 

[Escarabajo]

Some comments about the discussion here:

- If the crack doesn't happen on stage 16 then it becomes a problem. Now again it does not have to be a crack per se. I would not call 4 minutes a crack.

- I see the possibility of the dutch alliance. Not only that, the GT's are plagued with stories about lesser riders fighting and defending top ten positions. We have seen it how this forum goes ballistic about that. I don't think that is going to change. That goes against Quintana if he goes alone.

- Now I don't think some riders expect to defeat Quintana. They expect to defeat Dumoulin. You guys heard Nibali. I think they are expecting the crack from Dumoulin more than anything else. They are salivating about the second place more than about beating Quintana. IMHO. That works in Quintana's favor.

well based on this is a tie: 1-1

 

[Singer01]

the other consideration is the last climb comes 15km before the finish, if TD can stick with Quintana on the climb he can definitely drop him on the flat and TT away from him, assuming Moviestar aren't all there at the top of the climb.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

the other consideration is the last climb comes 15km before the finish, if TD can stick with Quintana on the climb he can definitely drop him on the flat and TT away from him, assuming Moviestar aren't all there at the top of the climb.

If TD is with Quintana on the peak of the last climb of stage 16, Quintana is already in trouble!

 

[Ataraxus]

Re:

the other consideration is the last climb comes 15km before the finish, if TD can stick with Quintana on the climb he can definitely drop him on the flat and TT away from him, assuming Moviestar aren't all there at the top of the climb.

I don't know which stage you are referring to, but nevertheless I don't see any scenario where only Tom D and Nairo are at the top of the climb together.
There might be Mollema, Pinot, Nibali and even Amador which will change the dynamics of the racing afterwards.
But I agree in the possibility of Tom D exploiting and forming alliances in the descents. Stage 15 is a fine example where Dumoulin can and must (IMO) exploit the technical descent of Selvino and the muro before Bergamo to gain a dozen of seconds.

 

[Mr.White]

Re:

the other consideration is the last climb comes 15km before the finish, if TD can stick with Quintana on the climb he can definitely drop him on the flat and TT away from him, assuming Moviestar aren't all there at the top of the climb.

What flat? Drop him how? It's not a video game...

 

[MatParker117]

Don't think it's going to happen.