issoisso said:
You're looking at the wrong year. He did two GTs in his first two seasons, completely dominated and.........then started getting injury after injury after injury and was never the same again.
The irony in that is that Guimard was afraid back in '83 that he might be pushing Fignon too far too soon. Now he freely admits he should've listened to his own instincts.
Methinks you don't know the definition of neo-pro
He won it in 2008 as well. He was a few seconds behind Martin going into the final time trial and took the jersey there.
Well, 1983 was his second season, in his first season he ran one GT, the Giro, in which he finished 15th.
Anyway, it's obvious that, apart from his 1989 season, Fignon's career wasn't up to the enormous expectations that generated in '84, but that was mainly because of physical problems: i believe it's safe to say that Fignon was never the same after his leg injury in 1985. Can that be because he raced too much in his early years? Maybe, but let's bear in mind that knee ang leg issues were pretty common among the peloton back in the 80's, and Hinault, who didn't debut in a GT until he was 23, had similar problems that ended up cutting short his career. Maybe their preparations had more to do with it than their calendar. I think there are better examples of riders who shone too early for their own good, like Gianbattista Baronchelli or Erik Breukink
About the initial subject, that is Machado, right?
. We can certainly call him a neo-pro, but in this case it's no more than a technicality, as he's been riding the portuguese calendar as well as part of the spanish for the last five years, in the last two being one of the leading riders of the portuguese peloton. So, at 24, I don't think it's too early for him to debut on a GT, and I assume he will be part of the Radioshack roster for the Vuelta.