Over- and underachievers during the last 20 years

[Red Rick]

This is such an interesting point. When Froome, Contador, Nibali and Quintana were all pretty much peaking at the same time (or with Contador coming towards the end of his peak) Aru looked like the logical successor. Who else was there at the time? I guess Quintana was still young and we couldn't have known that his peak was gonna be so short. Pinot and Bardet were never quite on gc winning level, Dumoulin and Thomas weren't even seen as future gc contenders at the time and the next big talents weren't on the horizon yet. The future was looking so bright for Aru.

Thinking of it, the weird thing is that if Aru had actually kept improving for just one more year going into 2016 there would have been a lot of very winnable gt's for him. It's not like the "big 3" situation in Tennis where Djokovic, Federer and Nadal simply had a much longer peak than anyone anticipated. Aru won his Vuelta in 2015 a year that arguably represents the end of the respective peaks of Nibali, Quintana and Contador (you might argue that Nibali's and Quintana's peaks lasted for another year but whatever) but Aru just couldn't capitalize because his peak ended right then and there too.

Honestly I find cycling so much harder to predict for a number of reasons, and obviously Clinical stuff is part of those reasons, as let's say sometimes a team just overperforms for a stretch of time. In tennis I feel like I can quite easily spot which players are gonna go somewhat far and which aren't just based on technique and player stats.

In that vein you might argue Aru was a bit of a one trick Unipuerto pony maybe due to his obsession with be so skinny etc. So his upside was rather thin, and I think there wasn't that much to indicate he was gonna lay waste to say Quintana and Froome in the Tour. And even in the 2015 Tour you had Nibali cranking out a 60km mountain solo like Aru couldn't dream of, and in that 2014 Giro and Vuelta he did get put firmly into place in the big mountain stages.

But the short window where he was good is by far the biggest reason he is hard to place. I struggle to think of even a similar rider other than Simon Yates maybe?

Also I can't really speak for the perception of Dumoulin cause Dutch bias, but IMO Dumo was always gonna be a bit of an all or nothing case that ended up closer to all than nothing in 2017/2018.

 

[Gigs_98]

Majka

Majka was also rated lower than Aru though. He is a year older than Aru and Aru already beat him (quite clearly) to win the 2015 Vuelta.

But yeah to be honest, it's so incredibly weird that since 2015 Majka, Aru, Landa and Pinot have achieved a grand total of 0 gt podiums. That certainly wasn't expected back then.

 

[Gigs_98]

Also I can't really speak for the perception of Dumoulin cause Dutch bias, but IMO Dumo was always gonna be a bit of an all or nothing case that ended up closer to all than nothing in 2017/2018.

Dumoulin was an all or nothing case that somehow got neither all nor nothing

 

[Red Rick]

Dumoulin was an all or nothing case that somehow got neither all nor nothing

Dumoulin has literally the most Aru-like GC palmares

 

[hayneplane]

Simon Spilak- under or overachiever? Could easily be put in both categories as he could maybe be viewed as maximising his talents by winning a bunch of week long stage races but he simply never truly tried to compete to podium a Grand Tour which is an underachieving thing imo.

 

[staubsauger]

Simon Spilak- under or overachiever? Could easily be put in both categories as he could maybe be viewed as maximising his talents by winning a bunch of week long stage races but he simply never truly tried to compete to podium a Grand Tour which is an underachieving thing imo.

Hmmmm

Assumely Spilak never had the necessary recovery for a 3 week grand tour. Just like Fuglsang or Pelizotti except 2008 & 2009. So he peaked for the 2 Swiss races.

If my assumption is correct, I would rate him as neither. Simply set the right goals for himself and won Switzerland & Romandie because he had peak shape there.

 

[hayneplane]

Hmmmm

Assumely Spilak never had the necessary recovery for a 3 week grand tour. Just like Fuglsang or Pelizotti except 2008 & 2009. So he peaked for the 2 Swiss races.

If my assumption is correct, I would rate him as neither. Simply set the right goals for himself and won Switzerland & Romandie because he had peak shape there.

You may be right that his recovery was not to the required level much like a Ion Izagirre now but my point was that it’s not even a case of trying and failing but bafflingly he didn’t ever even try to go GC in Grand Tours.

Fuglsang was more prone to the one jour sans that knocked him out of top 5 contention rather than simply fading through the third week and Kreusiger similar.

 

[lenric]

also, if Roglic never wins a Tour nor a Giro I would rate him as an underachiever. Likely contentious and obviously hypotethical, but whatever.

 

[Red Rick]

also, if Roglic never wins a Tour nor a Giro I would rate him as an underachiever. Likely contentious and obviously hypotethical, but whatever.

Most likely yeah. It's a bit tricky cause if Pogacar starts crushing everyone by 10 minutes every year then not beating him isn't really underachieving so he can be say a far better rider than a Cadel Evans while not winning the Tour and still not really underachieving.

Tennis meanwhile is set to have the complete reverse of this with the Big 3 fading out.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Hmmmm

Assumely Spilak never had the necessary recovery for a 3 week grand tour. Just like Fuglsang or Pelizotti except 2008 & 2009. So he peaked for the 2 Swiss races.

If my assumption is correct, I would rate him as neither. Simply set the right goals for himself and won Switzerland & Romandie because he had peak shape there.

Yeah, but with him I always have to bring up the fact that he finished top 10 in the RVV and 5th in De Panne as a neopro, so perhaps he could have done more as a one day racer. Maybe not on the cobbles, but in the hilly one day races, he always had a pretty good sprint. I still think the GT for him to finish top 10 or even higher was the super rainy 2013 Giro, if Inxausti could do it...

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, but with him I always have to bring up the fact that he finished top 10 in the RVV and 5th in De Panne as a neopro, so perhaps he could have done more as a one day racer. Maybe not on the cobbles, but in the hilly one day races, he always had a pretty good sprint. I still think the GT for him to finish top 10 or even higher was the super rainy 2013 Giro, if Inxausti could do it...

Nowadays if Spilak starts to feel good in a GT stage it gets canceled.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Honestly I find cycling so much harder to predict for a number of reasons, and obviously Clinical stuff is part of those reasons, as let's say sometimes a team just overperforms for a stretch of time. In tennis I feel like I can quite easily spot which players are gonna go somewhat far and which aren't just based on technique and player stats.

In that vein you might argue Aru was a bit of a one trick Unipuerto pony maybe due to his obsession with be so skinny etc. So his upside was rather thin, and I think there wasn't that much to indicate he was gonna lay waste to say Quintana and Froome in the Tour. And even in the 2015 Tour you had Nibali cranking out a 60km mountain solo like Aru couldn't dream of, and in that 2014 Giro and Vuelta he did get put firmly into place in the big mountain stages.

But the short window where he was good is by far the biggest reason he is hard to place. I struggle to think of even a similar rider other than Simon Yates maybe?

Also I can't really speak for the perception of Dumoulin cause Dutch bias, but IMO Dumo was always gonna be a bit of an all or nothing case that ended up closer to all than nothing in 2017/2018.

Maybe Chaves in the short 2015-2016 window?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Nowadays if Spilak starts to feel good in a GT stage it gets canceled.

Whenever the weather got really bad Spilak started to unzip his jersey.

 

[Red Rick]

Maybe Chaves in the short 2015-2016 window?

More inclined to consider Chaves a one season wonder who's peak wasn't as high as Aru in the first place.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Dumoulin has literally the most Aru-like GC palmares

I think that 1st and 2nd in Giro and 2nd in Tour is a fair bit better than Aru.