Teams & Riders Official Wout Van Aert thread

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What does that have to do with anything??

I said he didn't have a good Tour, and you disagreed.
Wva had a poor tour even including stage 21. He won the last stage in epic fashion so it will sugarcoat his tour. He gave almost no help to his leader and apart from losing a sprint to Milan wasn't close to a stage win in the other 19 stages. I'm happy for him personally (who doesn't love a resurrection) but it's still a win for the cartels.
 
What does that have to do with anything??

I said he didn't have a good Tour, and you disagreed.
There was no way that he was going to have a good first week. If you expected otherwise, you weren't paying attention to his leadup. Also, fighting for form while racing a hard first week could go the wrong way quickly. That being said, his first week was better than expected, and he was fortunate that his form actually improved as the days ticked by. He did grunt work for the team (I know not what 'fans' and his $$ demand ), and either by plan or impulse kept chipping away and testing. So compared to a few other TdFs not what we've come to expect, but past form has nothing to do with current form.

13 stage winners this year, and he was one of them. Great TdF!

Note: usually recency bias wins out, but in GT racing its almost the opposite. If you win early, your GT is already a success, but if you win later (last stage) your GT sucked...until the end.

More rambling also: You could argue that the team should have considered not bringing him due to his form/health, but then yesterday.

EDIT: Please excuse me, work is messing with my rambling on a bike forum!

Recency bias isn't even helping WvA here. He just won the final stage of this years TdF, but people want to compare his race to years past.
 
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The great thing about this win is, it's wins like these that colour someone's career. That WvA is part of theelite group of very best cyclists of his generation you don't have to convince anyone who follow this sport closely. However, beating Pogacar on a stage like that, those are the types of wins that are ingrained into people's memory. Like MvdP's win in Glasgow 2023, Evenepoel gold medal in Paris, these are the arch wins that make his career so unforgettable.
 
Wva had a poor tour even including stage 21. He won the last stage in epic fashion so it will sugarcoat his tour. He gave almost no help to his leader and apart from losing a sprint to Milan wasn't close to a stage win in the other 19 stages. I'm happy for him personally (who doesn't love a resurrection) but it's still a win for the cartels.
It was also a win for Matteo Jorgenson. Give credit where it's due, too.
 
There was no way that he was going to have a good first week. If you expected otherwise, you weren't paying attention to his leadup. Also, fighting for form while racing a hard first week could go the wrong way quickly. That being said, his first week was better than expected, and he was fortunate that his form actually improved as the days ticked by. He did grunt work for the team (I know not what 'fans' and his $$ demand ), and either by plan or impulse kept chipping away and testing. So compared to a few other TdFs not what we've come to expect, but past form has nothing to do with current form.

13 stage winners this year, and he was one of them. Great TdF!

Note: usually recency bias wins out, but in GT racing its almost the opposite. If you win early, your GT is already a success, but if you win later (last stage) your GT sucked...until the end.

More rambling also: You could argue that the team should have considered not bringing him due to his form/health, but then yesterday.

EDIT: Please excuse me, work is messing with my rambling on a bike forum!

Recency bias isn't even helping WvA here. He just won the final stage of this years TdF, but people want to compare his race to years past.
He was various shades of dogshit the first 20 stages. Horrible, and with only minimal contributions to the success of others. In fact, he took up so much mental and tactical space that he was a net harm to the team until the last day.
 
Way off. Murray twice won Wimbledon the biggest event in tennis. If you think the US Open is bigger he won that too. Plus 2 Olympic golds.
Hm, yeah, so Murray is way greater in your opinion? Perhaps thats the sporting truth, but in terms of status though?

Murray was viewed in his prime as one of the big four (together with Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, plus Murray). That was, imo, outragous looking at their relative palmares. Wout kinda the same when he was viewed as one of the big 4 in cycling until recently.

Olympics is a strange Tennis event. Kinda like cycling olympics imo. Hard to assess.
 
Hm, yeah, so Murray is way greater in your opinion? Perhaps thats the sporting truth, but in terms of status though?

Murray was viewed in his prime as one of the big four (together with Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, plus Murray). That was, imo, outragous looking at their relative palmares. Wout kinda the same when he was viewed as one of the big 4 in cycling until recently.

Olympics is a strange Tennis event. Kinda like cycling olympics imo. Hard to assess.

You can't really compare cycling and tennis. Many great cyclists have no chance of ever winning the biggest event - but perhaps that means they are not really great?

All tennis players occupy the same universe - Wout (and MVDP) occupy a different one to Pog and TdF winners. Then you've got the Sagans, etc.
 
All tennis players occupy the same universe - Wout (and MVDP) occupy a different one to Pog and TdF winners. Then you've got the Sagans, etc.
Pogacar has shown that this is just not true. Remco will do the same is my prediction.

You can't really compare cycling and tennis.
You can, but it will not be a clean and easy comparison to draw inferences from of course. I still think it can be a fun mental play though.
 

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