Official National Championships thread

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euanli

May 20, 2010
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Winterfold said:
Personally I love that Sky open a can of whupass over the likes of Kristian House and Rapha, they need putting in their place once a year.
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Unfortunately it didn't stop them moaning
 
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Ferminal

Jul 3, 2009
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Andy99 said:
I agree. Gives no clue to it's national identity either.

How about Jez Hunt's old national jersey...

51212249.jpg
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Can't tell if you are joking or not, but I like it :p
 
c&cfan

c&cfan

Aug 2, 2010
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Parrulo said:
i like this alliance. the dutchies and aussies won't work so thats just empty threats by D_T

is with pleasure that i officially declare the formation of the porto-belgo-basc alliance for the TdF 2011 :D
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i will not ally to anyone, i will fight and kill anyone, friend or foe, when stupidity goes up...

so I can't join the Belgians.

without tommeke and with gilbert making this sport look ridiculous, they are weak... as a great man said, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
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i was surprised by contador... jeez the guy is awesome.

i am really happy that gilbert won't take the velo d'or because of that man :)

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nelson oliveira is amazing. great win for cabreira, showing to those fat hypocrites that they have no right no ban him, but they can admire him.
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shlecks....lol
 
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Zinoviev Letter

Aug 18, 2010
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Winterfold said:
Personally I love that Sky open a can of whupass over the likes of Kristian House and Rapha, they need putting in their place once a year.
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I'm of the exact opposite view. National Championships in countries where there is one overwhelmingly dominant team are funny when that team screws up and deathly dull otherwise. Give me a chaotic race with an unpredictable outcome, like those in Norway or Ireland, any day over that.

There really should be quite a low limit on the number of riders who can enter from one team. The British Nationals could be an awesome race. Sky would still be favourites, it just wouldn't be a glorified training ride for them.
 
jens_attacks

jens_attacks

Sep 8, 2009
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by the way i've just seen the whole coverage of the spanish champs,as always no people on the roads,everyone at some crazy parties,mancebo killed himself all day for nothing,alberto dropped them easily and he didn't even tried so hard and then he fell off the podium.sorry for schleck's fans,he wasn't injured.he's still such a kid but what a champ...
 
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Mambo95

Jul 2, 2009
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Zinoviev Letter said:
There really should be quite a low limit on the number of riders who can enter from one team. The British Nationals could be an awesome race. Sky would still be favourites, it just wouldn't be a glorified training ride for them.
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On one hand you're right, but on the other hand I think it would lessen the day as an event. There's always a good crowd and I think they like to see all the British stars there, so reduced teams would deprive them of that (and not guarantee a better race).

I genuinely don't think Sky have any particular team strategy and largely ride as individuals. If you see it in those terms it's still a decent race - we knew a Sky rider would win, but we didn't know which one, and the final three did attack each other.

It might be an idea to make it shorter.
 
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Zinoviev Letter

Aug 18, 2010
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Mambo95 said:
On one hand you're right, but on the other hand I think it would lessen the day as an event. There's always a good crowd and I think they like to see all the British stars there, so reduced teams would deprive them of that (and not guarantee a better race).
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I very sincerely doubt if large numbers are showing up in the hope of getting a glimpse of the 8th, 9th, or 10th best British rider on the Sky team. And I'm absolutely certain that stripping them of their numerical advantage would result in a better race and one which didn't end with four members of the same team in the first four spots.

The fact is that while Sky might not be as tediously merciless as Movistar, a race which is essentially between team mates after they've already wiped the floor with the opposition is a complete waste of time. The first non-Sky rider came in 8 minutes down!
 
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Mambo95

Jul 2, 2009
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Zinoviev Letter said:
I very sincerely doubt if large numbers are showing up in the hope of getting a glimpse of the 8th, 9th, or 10th best British rider on the Sky team. And I'm absolutely certain that stripping them of their numerical advantage would result in a better race and one which didn't end with four members of the same team in the first four spots.
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The fans on the roadside don't see the whole race anyway. And it's not on live TV. I genuinely think they like to see everyone there. It's not as though they race in Britain often.

Sky don't have a numerical advantage. There were at least three continental teams with nine riders each. However, these teams do have three disadvantages:

1. They won't work with each other against Sky. They'd rather Sky won than a rival team.
2. They're not as good
3. They have been doing city centre crits for the last two months while Sky have been doing the Giro/Dauphine/TdS.

The other ProTour riders could have gone with those breaks if they'd been awake/wanted to/not punctured.

The course needs to be shorter, IMO, so more people stay in contention longer
 
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euanli

May 20, 2010
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They are British riders, they have a right to ride the Championship.

If you limited it to 3 riders per team the field would have been greatly reduced not just because of Team Sky? The remaining places would have been taken up by riders of even less quality. Not much point of having a Championship if the best riders aren't there no?

Riders lost out because teams did not want to work together and expected Alex Dowsett to pull them all back to the breakaway.
 
will10

will10

Dec 27, 2010
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Mambo95 said:
The fans on the roadside don't see the whole race anyway. And it's not on live TV. I genuinely think they like to see everyone there. It's not as though they race in Britain often.

Sky don't have a numerical advantage. There were at least three continental teams with nine riders each. However, these teams do have three disadvantages:

1. They won't work with each other against Sky. They'd rather Sky won than a rival team.
2. They're not as good
3. They have been doing city centre crits for the last two months while Sky have been doing the Giro/Dauphine/TdS.

The other ProTour riders could have gone with those breaks if they'd been awake/wanted to/not punctured.

The course needs to be shorter, IMO, so more people stay in contention longer
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A flatter circuit will lead to a more competitive race for sure.
 
ferryman

ferryman

Dec 30, 2009
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euanli said:
They are British riders, they have a right to ride the Championship.

If you limited it to 3 riders per team the field would have been greatly reduced not just because of Team Sky? The remaining places would have been taken up by riders of even less quality. Not much point of having a Championship if the best riders aren't there no?

Riders lost out because teams did not want to work together and expected Alex Dowsett to pull them all back to the breakaway.
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Totally, the best riders have to race regardless of team. But if I have picked you up correctly, the non Team Sky riders were relying on a Sky rider to bridge to another 3 Sky riders and all the time the other Sky riders would be in for the same tow for the scraps. Great for Sky though.
 
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euanli

May 20, 2010
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ferryman said:
Totally, the best riders have to race regardless of team. But if I have picked you up correctly, the non Team Sky riders were relying on a Sky rider to bridge to another 3 Sky riders and all the time the other Sky riders would be in for the same tow for the scraps. Great for Sky though.
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Where is the incentive for the individual Sky rider to work hard and exhaust himself to tow other people up who are not capable or willing to work?
 
will10

will10

Dec 27, 2010
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euanli said:
Where is the incentive for the individual Sky rider to work hard and exhaust himself to tow other people up who are not capable or willing to work?
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There isn't one, and Dowsett didn't. False rumour
 
Andy99

Andy99

Jul 30, 2009
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By virtue of sky having signed the cream (most) of British riders, it is inevitible that those riders will be up there. If they happened to be riding for different teams, invariably they still would be (up there).

As previously pointed out, there really was no excuse for the other protour riders missing the move though.

The last time I rode the nationals - a couple of years ago now - there wasn't much discernible team riding going on.
 
Captain_Cavman

Captain_Cavman

Nov 30, 2010
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Cavendish on Twitter said:
Having breakfast before Nationals & @teamsky are walking in. It's like that game #lemmings, where they just keep coming through the door.
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Cavendish on Twitter said:
Just had @HTCHighroad pre-race talk with Me, Myself & I... Breakaway duty, bunch-control duty & sprint duty.
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Makes a point.


In the long term, time will sort this problem out. I can't see there being just one top tier team with a GBR biased recruitment policy for ever. Maybe there'll be more in the future, maybe less but there's no point making a rule change just to suit today's circumstance.

And the fact that the break was 3-0 in favour of Sky, means that they were the three strongest on the day, team tactics played little part. In the women's however, Nicole Cooke got ganged up on 3-1 yet no-one's complaining about that.
 
ingsve

ingsve

Mar 12, 2009
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If people are complaining about the British Nationals, instead take a look at the russian. The top 14 riders where either Katusha or Katushas continental team. Then again when all you have are team mates you're pretty much guaranteed that they will race against each other because there is noone else to gang up on.
 
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