Teams & Riders Nairo Quintana discussion thread

[Pantani_lives]

They say he's riding with a calculator, but I wonder if his calculator isn't broken. Did they tell him there's a time trial on Sunday? Why did he look so glad on the podium? He needs two minutes to be safe for the time trial.

Did he regress as a climber? No, he was good on Blockhaus, but after that he lost shape. The problem is this is happening too often.

I think somebody like Richie Porte could have won this Giro by five minutes. Geraint Thomas could have won it without his crash.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

That bodes well for the Tour.

Its basically the exact similar thing to last year. If Quintana is gonna race the Tour next year, and not race the Giro at the same time, he should get some more kilometres in his legs. He is still incredibly good at one week races after a long training period (look at T-A in 2015, Catalunya in 2016, T-A in 2017 - all races won) and early in a GT (Blockhaus), but he can't sustain that apparently because of fatigue.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

That bodes well for the Tour.

Its basically the exact similar thing to last year. If Quintana is gonna race the Tour next year, and not race the Giro at the same time, he should get some more kilometres in his legs. He is still incredibly good at one week races after a long training period (look at T-A in 2015, Catalunya in 2016, T-A in 2017 - all races won) and early in a GT (Blockhaus), but he can't sustain that apparently because of fatigue.

I don't buy that... he was good in tour 2015 after a long training period.

 

[DNP-Old]

Of course Nairo hasn't regressed. Despite not having the best of forms, he is still here, in the pink jersey, after 19 days. Just goes to show how insanely high his basic level is. No one has been able to drop him, yet.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

That bodes well for the Tour.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's flying there...

Yet still ends up losing by three minutes to Froome.

 

[lenric]

Re:

Of course Nairo hasn't regressed. Despite not having the best of forms, he is still here, in the pink jersey, after 19 days. Just goes to show how insanely high his basic level is. No one has been able to drop him, yet.

TD did actually.

 

[WheelofGear]

Nairo again only responding to attacks and following wheels, never attacking himself.

He could have gained two minutes on Dumoulin today.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Following Pinot's wheel might have been enough.

 

[killswitch]

Re:

Nairo again only responding to attacks and following wheels, never attacking himself.

He could have gained two minutes on Dumoulin today.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-stage-19-finish-line-quotes-1/

"I was feeling very good, it was a hard stage, but thanks to my team I managed to get back into the maglia rosa.

"The advantage is a big complicated, but we’ll take it day by day. Tomorrow there will be another hard one, and then the time trial will be very important. There we will play for the win."

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

That bodes well for the Tour.

Its basically the exact similar thing to last year. If Quintana is gonna race the Tour next year, and not race the Giro at the same time, he should get some more kilometres in his legs. He is still incredibly good at one week races after a long training period (look at T-A in 2015, Catalunya in 2016, T-A in 2017 - all races won) and early in a GT (Blockhaus), but he can't sustain that apparently because of fatigue.

I don't buy that... he was good in tour 2015 after a long training period.

Thats the exception to the rule lately, I guess. He has been underwhelming in his first GT of the year 2 years in a row now. After Blockhaus we all thought he'd have this in his bag, but wasn't able to sustain that.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Nairo again only responding to attacks and following wheels, never attacking himself.

He could have gained two minutes on Dumoulin today.

He would have killed the race if he could. He couldn't. Now, deal with that, he is only human.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Of course Nairo hasn't regressed. Despite not having the best of forms, he is still here, in the pink jersey, after 19 days. Just goes to show how insanely high his basic level is. No one has been able to drop him, yet.

He has been dropped, but that's not relevant. Nairo Quintana, super-climber, great Colombian hope, the foretold Froome-Slayer, etc etc is not supposed to be climbing at a level comparable with about five of the riders here and about eight riders at the Tour, i.e. the last two times he rode multiple tough mountain stages against high quality opposition at their top form. He is supposed to be in a class of precisely two, way ahead of all of those guys in the mountains. That he isn't is true whether he wins or loses this Giro.

The issue is why. Possible explanations are (1) he has regressed, (2) he was never quite as good as we thought, (3) he is still just as good but the level of a wider layer of competitors has improved or (4) he has somehow turned up in sub par shape for the two biggest races of his last two years. The viability of explanation 4 will be put to the test somewhat this July.

None of the explanations above in any way imply that he's suddenly rubbish or incapable of winning a GT. Some of them probably do imply that he will have to get lucky to win a Tour.

 

[DNP-Old]

Re: Re:

Of course Nairo hasn't regressed. Despite not having the best of forms, he is still here, in the pink jersey, after 19 days. Just goes to show how insanely high his basic level is. No one has been able to drop him, yet.

He has been dropped, but that's not relevant. Nairo Quintana, super-climber, great Colombian hope, the foretold Froome-Slayer, etc etc is not supposed to be climbing at a level comparable with about five of the riders here and about eight riders at the Tour, i.e. the last two times he rode multiple tough mountain stages against high quality opposition at their top form. He is supposed to be in a class of precisely two, way ahead of all of those guys in the mountains. That he isn't is true whether he wins or loses this Giro.

The issue is why. Possible explanations are (1) he has regressed, (2) he was never quite as good as we thought, (3) he is still just as good but the level of a wider layer of competitors has improved or (4) he has somehow turned up in sub par shape for the two biggest races of his last two years. The viability of explanation 4 will be put to the test somewhat this July.

None of the explanations above in any way imply that he's suddenly rubbish or incapable of winning a GT. Some of them probably do imply that he will have to get lucky to win a Tour.

Looking at his past Vuelta performance, the only reasonable explanation as of right now seems to be option 4.

 

[Eclipse]

Given nairo won a gt last year after struggling for form at a previous GT in much the same way as he is here I think it's silly to think he's regressed. He's either come in intentionally a little under cooked and it has backfired against a stronger than expected rival or the prep has gone wrong in general. These things happen.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Given nairo won a gt last year after struggling for form at a previous GT in much the same way as he is here I think it's silly to think he's regressed. He's either come in intentionally a little under cooked and it has backfired against a stronger than expected rival or the prep has gone wrong in general. These things happen.

Yeah, I agree, he beat a very good Froome at his own game, those 2 riders were in a class of their own in that Vuelta.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Given nairo won a gt last year after struggling for form at a previous GT in much the same way as he is here I think it's silly to think he's regressed. He's either come in intentionally a little under cooked and it has backfired against a stronger than expected rival or the prep has gone wrong in general. These things happen.

Agreed. Or, maybe he came in slightly undercooked, ready to be flying in the final week, and the crash has set him back a bit.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Of course Nairo hasn't regressed. Despite not having the best of forms, he is still here, in the pink jersey, after 19 days. Just goes to show how insanely high his basic level is. No one has been able to drop him, yet.

He has been dropped, but that's not relevant. Nairo Quintana, super-climber, great Colombian hope, the foretold Froome-Slayer, etc etc is not supposed to be climbing at a level comparable with about five of the riders here and about eight riders at the Tour, i.e. the last two times he rode multiple tough mountain stages against high quality opposition at their top form. He is supposed to be in a class of precisely two, way ahead of all of those guys in the mountains. That he isn't is true whether he wins or loses this Giro.

The issue is why. Possible explanations are (1) he has regressed, (2) he was never quite as good as we thought, (3) he is still just as good but the level of a wider layer of competitors has improved or (4) he has somehow turned up in sub par shape for the two biggest races of his last two years. The viability of explanation 4 will be put to the test somewhat this July.

None of the explanations above in any way imply that he's suddenly rubbish or incapable of winning a GT. Some of them probably do imply that he will have to get lucky to win a Tour.

Looking at his past Vuelta performance, the only reasonable explanation as of right now seems to be option 4.

Well we will have a better view in July, when we will see if the theory that he is undercooked and performs better in a second GT is put to the test. A super performance would provide a sure answer. A less than great one would provide evidence that it's not (4) but not definitive proof as it's possible to fall between two stools in a double attempt and arrive in bad form for both.

Does anyone have the data from his Vuelta last year and comparisons with both his own earlier performances and the performances of the non-Froome competitors here and at the Tour, by the way? In and of itself being the best at a Vuelta proves little in terms of top level performance because few are at that level (there's also the issue of Vuelta performances mostly measuring climbs on very easy ____/ stages but let's leave that until later)

 

[dacooley]

nairo is masterfully exploiting his image of potentially by far the best climber in the race so that the opponents fear to attack him imo. if he pulls it off it'll be a triupmh of really smart racing.

 

[Arredondo]

Re: Re:

Given nairo won a gt last year after struggling for form at a previous GT in much the same way as he is here I think it's silly to think he's regressed. He's either come in intentionally a little under cooked and it has backfired against a stronger than expected rival or the prep has gone wrong in general. These things happen.

Agreed. Or, maybe he came in slightly undercooked, ready to be flying in the final week, and the crash has set him back a bit.

You think he will be better in the Tour? Just like last year when he was stronger in La Vuelta?

I have some doubts.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

Given nairo won a gt last year after struggling for form at a previous GT in much the same way as he is here I think it's silly to think he's regressed. He's either come in intentionally a little under cooked and it has backfired against a stronger than expected rival or the prep has gone wrong in general. These things happen.

Agreed. Or, maybe he came in slightly undercooked, ready to be flying in the final week, and the crash has set him back a bit.

You think he will be better in the Tour? Just like last year when he was stronger in La Vuelta?

I have some doubts.

No idea to be honest. It's certainly possible i guess, but the efforts from the Giro could go either way for him. Either it gives him great training effect to supplement his relatively few racing days this year, or it just burns him out. Very tough to say. At least he maybe will start the race strongly in the first week or so, which is traditionally where he has lost it - so could be a slightly different race than previous years, where Froome has it won by day 8 or whatever.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I thought the Tour last year burned him out, he seemed to be suffering almost every day, but then he suddenly dropped Froome and Contador handedly on Camperona, then Covadonga.. so I think chances are he will be better in the Tour, but its really up in the air.

Not that I think he will be Movistar's best bet for the Tour tho.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

I thought the Tour last year burned him out, he seemed to be suffering almost every day, but then he suddenly dropped Froome and Contador handedly on Camperona, then Covadonga.. so I think chances are he will be better in the Tour, but its really up in the air.

Not that I think he will be Movistar's best bet for the Tour tho.

I'd like to see them go with Valverde as leader as well. Co-leader at the very least unless Nairo shows that he's a level above. Not that I think Valverde has a huge chance of winning, but he can potentially cause Froome more problems and it makes it a more unbalanced race. Quintana basically has to massively outclimb Froome to win. Whereas Valverde has potential to get time on descents, short climbs, time bonuses and can limit losses in the TT better - so it could be very interesting if he could maintain his form this year and avoid the usual bad day.

 

[Valv.Piti]

It would be stupid if they weren't co-leading going into the race, especially if they only played Quintana's hand. I can't realistically see where he would gain that much time (if any) on Froome and Sky tbh. The high mountains are few and far between, Valverde has a better shot of winning because of his great versatility, I think.

 

[Escarabajo]

Zinoviev Letter, read Eclipse's post.

Is not that complicated. He and Esubio said why they are doing the double Giro-Tour. People just don't want to believe it. That's their problem.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

It would be stupid if they weren't co-leading going into the race, especially if they only played Quintana's hand. I can't realistically see where he would gain that much time (if any) on Froome and Sky tbh. The high mountains are few and far between, Valverde has a better shot of winning because of his great versatility, I think.

How many more shots at winning GT we give Valverde?