Teams & Riders Peter Sagan discussion thread.

[blutto]

Yet you drone on about him as if he were Anti-christ reborn and then complain about bias from his supporters. Of course, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion but it certainly seems hypocritical.

Sure, which is why I've left his character entirely out of this discussion. Because I *do* think there is a LOT unlikable about him, but I also recognize that his character is irrelevant to this particular DQ incident. And it's also why I've said that I think the DQ is highly debatable, and that the original punishment did not seem unfair. I do feel, however, that he was clearly in the wrong on this occasion. However, I also get a lot of stick for my stance on Sagan, and there has been a lot of sour grapes, absolution, tantrums about decisions and attempts to spin the story from Sagan fans that I feel need to be called out as being just as biased and petulant.

.....yeah petulant is a good word, in fact I like that term a whole lot, especially when applied rigourously, and I'm also a big fan of sanctimonious....its really not an everyday word but when the right target appears in your sights, oh my, the church bells peal loudly, there is great joy in the crowd, and wild dancing in the streets....

Cheers

 

[Jericho]

Many sprinters did in the past moves, which were not considered dangerous, because other riders avoided them. Now UCI wanted to send a message about safety and did what they did. If there would be a proper rule, the riders would have been penalized every time, when the rule is broken, and there would be no need to send messages like this. And of course riders would know exactly, that when they break the rule, will get penalized, and not only depending on reactions of riders behind. There would be more justice and more safety in cycling.

Good idea. Let's martyr him! It was the UCI's inability to provide a clearer rule, not his belligerence, that caused him to ride dangerously, but now his dangerous riding has shone a light on the UCI's failings and cycling will be better and safer for the injuries he has caused!

Isn't there a bit too much irony in your post?

What happend in stage 4 and after that, cannot be changed, but still it's a good impulse to think about things. And its even better, when you forget the names and just think in general. Referees from table will never find out a better rule, but experienced riders could do it. The better rule would legalize some moves and penalize other moves, but as a direct consequence, the penalized rider did, and not as consequence what another rider did or not did. The current situation is so bad, that there is not much to lose. It could still be tested on some smaller races.

And if it would influnce riders? Sprintig is quite instinktive, but if a much better rule comes from riders themselves, it should have some influence, at least on average. For less sever violation of the rule, the penalty would be less severe, but for repeated violations it could get worse, even the violation was not too severe.

I wanted to say this is a very good post.I know the incident has been done to death at this point, but I think this is an excellent summary.

Related to the above, but one thing I've noticed in people talking about the incident is the point that Sagan could have moved further to his left and allowed space for Cavendish. And while this is technically true, it seems incredibly unrealistic. For one, it seems to ignore where Bouhanni was through out the incident. Sagan was initially behind Bouhanni and then just to his right before Bouhanni moves further left. Sagan's move to the right seems to be based on two things, one to follow Demare and two to get around Bouhanni. But as soon as Sagan moves to get around Bouhanni, Bouhanni moves to his left (which clears some more space to Sagan's left). But that leads me to point two, which is when guys are sprinting at 40+ mph you act like they have exact control to the inch of where their bike it. Sagan starts going right and it's not like he can just magically shift two feet left in an instant. Physics doesn't allow for it. There's things like momentum that prevent this from happening

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

...and Sagan moving to his right so there wasn't room for two riders, when previously there was, is precisely what the violation he was called for was. I'm not giving him responsibility for something he didn't have control of, he could easily, you know, have sprinted in a straight line.

And if you think he was squeezed from his left (not too unreasonable an assertion), why didn't he brake and be prepared to lose, rather than veer right and take others with him? After all, that's what you're asking of Cavendish, is it not fair to hold Sagan to the same standards?

I suspect not, since every single one of your posts on this forum to date is to do with Sagan, and most of them since this incident furthering the standpoint that Cavendish was wholly responsible for this incident and Sagan was an innocent bystander. Your latest post tells me this clearly isn't a discussion we're going to find common ground on.

No. I said that Sagan has slightly moved right, what made space for NEARLY two riders suddenly impossible. And that is not Sagans fault. Every rider is doing that, nobody goes only PERCECTLY in his line. Even more so when you are trying to overtake someone, what Sagan was doing. I am not talking about completely taking someones line. Sagan moved only a little, but that was enough to make that path for Cav impossible. And he had a lot of time to realise that, but he went anyway, leaning on Sagan, trying to budge him out of the way, what indirectly caused his fall. Or helped it.

Therefore your call for the same standards is out of place. Cav saw that there is no place and he should expect that the path, when measured by centimeters of SAFELY overtaking Sagan can be hindered in seconds. He is experienced. But he went anyway. Because he didnt care for the safety. Or maybe he expected that since he is like a Moses, that there will be path for him anyway, because he wants it. He only wanted to win. Selfish whining egomaniac. Thats a fact and that is Cavs character. Sagans character is exactly the opposite, but this is not the topic. But it helps and explains a lot about what happened.

And I am merely responding to your arguments, that you think that Sagan was responsible for not giving Cav his space, when he didnt even know about him, which is amazingly ignorant and of course biased. But I wont get to the low point of agrumentum ad hominem, like you did, even if that would be so much easier.

Btw, the main difference between Sagan and Demare is that Sagan didnt know that his maneuvre will affect rider behind him, but Demare DID. But the jury of course ignored that. Because he didnt "cause" the crash.

Its like the police giving you the ticket when you dont stop on the STOP sign only if you cause an accident by that. Utterly stupid.

So, in your opinion, Sagan is completely blameless? He didn't know that wildly veering across the road could be into other riders? Come off it. I also don't think I attacked you ad hominem. I looked back at your posts, saw a predilection in them and came to a conclusion that your position on the matter would not be reconcilable with mine. Sure, I left the heavy implication that you'd be biased in your opinion as a result, but that's not an ad hominem attack on you. Let's face it, no matter how objective I try to be on this particular incident, the fact a rider is involved on whom I have strong opinions that are well-known in the forum means those will inevitably play into how people read my posts. My first comment on the subject was in fact poking fun at myself, in the stage thread.

Again, arguing the punishment was too excessive for the crime is fine, but arguing there was no crime is absurd and reeks of bias. If I'm driving at 130 in a 110, in a line of cars all going 130, and I'm the only one the police pull over, sure I'll feel angry, unhappy at being singled out and so on, but I can't argue that they haven't got me bang to rights.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

Again, arguing the punishment was too excessive for the crime is fine, but arguing there was no crime is absurd and reeks of bias. If I'm driving at 130 in a 110, in a line of cars all going 130, and I'm the only one the police pull over, sure I'll feel angry, unhappy at being singled out and so on, but I can't argue that they haven't got me bang to rights.

That indeed seems to be the case among a good part of the Slovakian fans. The argument at least seems to be that Cavendish and Démare was much more at fault than Sagan..

 

[ihosama]

Re: Re:

Again, arguing the punishment was too excessive for the crime is fine, but arguing there was no crime is absurd and reeks of bias. If I'm driving at 130 in a 110, in a line of cars all going 130, and I'm the only one the police pull over, sure I'll feel angry, unhappy at being singled out and so on, but I can't argue that they haven't got me bang to rights.

This is a false argument and actually shows you being "petulant" if anything.

Being pulled over means the policeman can pick only one car/driver. The scenario we had here was like a camera checking red light crossings but the policeman sending a ticket only to BMW drivers while ignoring drivers in other car brands.

There was nothing preventing the jury to penalize the whole lot there.
EDIT: Except politics.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

Again, arguing the punishment was too excessive for the crime is fine, but arguing there was no crime is absurd and reeks of bias. If I'm driving at 130 in a 110, in a line of cars all going 130, and I'm the only one the police pull over, sure I'll feel angry, unhappy at being singled out and so on, but I can't argue that they haven't got me bang to rights.

This is a false argument and actually shows you being "petulant" if anything.

Being pulled over means the policeman can pick only one car/driver. The scenario we had here was like a camera checking red light crossings but the policeman sending a ticket only to BMW drivers while ignoring drivers in other car brands.

There was nothing preventing the jury to penalize the whole lot there.
EDIT: Except politics.

There are multiple viewpoints, cross-purposes.

It appears that you agree that the problem is not the punishing of Sagan, the problem is that others were not sanctioned too, in which case had others been meted out the same punishment as Sagan you would have been more accepting of the decision. Which is a perfectly reasonable line to me. Gorecki - and they're FAR from the only poster to have argued on these lines - appears to argue that, actually, the problem is the punishing of Sagan, because he didn't do anything wrong and didn't deserve to have to take any responsibility for what happened. Which I totally disagree with.

 

[ihosama]

Re: Re:

...

I believe also a lot is lost in "translation" ... I can see in Gorecki posts that he writes in "slavic" using English words. To me it makes sense as I self-translate it without thinking. But it can twist the meaning easily for a native speaker...

Another thing is (lack of) professional cycling experience which can make people miss the big picture.

I myself started watching professional cycling about 5 years ago, joined the forum last year, and did not really post - precisely because I do not feel confident to talk about most topics yet. But this controversy woke (not only) me up and so we have some new members who have a thing to say. But still lack the experience that comes with time or driving profesionally. I believe the best approach is to explain not confront in such cases. We will learn and not make the mistakes again hopefully.

 

[ihosama]

ADD:
I do believe Sagan should have looked back a bit more when taking Démare wheel.
But. I do not believe that doing so would reliably prevent such a situation. It would be enough for Cav to be 0.5m more to the back and with a bit higher speed and Sagan would still not see him.

This is why I believe we cannot absolve the rider behind of any reponsibility. He cannot prevent a situation. But he can prevent the accident by braking.
And here comes the huge problem with selective rule application.

What is the situation now is that an action of a 2nd party (rider behind) decides if the rider changing the line is penalized.
This creates a perverse incentive for both parties:
1) it incentivizes the rider behind to crash -> that is the only way for him to punish the rider in front for being an ass, outside removing a couple teeth from him, of course ..
2) it makes it advantageous for the rider in front to ignore the rules -> since an actual crash is generally low probability (say <10% of times), the penalization is an acceptable risk worth taking

I believe that, compared to the current selective enforcement, the riders would be safer off without any such rule in the book even.

ADD2:
Please note that this does not address the key issues in this particular case - the political pressure by DD and the ignoring of the right of the accused party to be heard by the jury. And those are actually more serious ones.
In total I struggle to see anything done "right" in the whole affair from the UCI side.

 

[Tonton]

Question: why are so many here, mostly new posters, not contributing to next stage's thread, a huge stage. Is the Tour over because Sagan is over?

 

[BigMac]

Question: why are so many here, mostly new posters, not contributing to next stage's thread, a huge stage. Is the Tour over because Sagan is over?

The Tour was over before Sagan was over. Now it's double-over because Sagan is out.

He was honestly one of the few reasons I'd tune in to watch this. I'm tired of WT cycling, few riders make me wanna bother.

 

[d-s3]

For many Sagan's fans (including me) it comes exactly to the inconsistency (even within one sprint).
Sagan DQ, Demare nothing. That's complete farce.
In next stage Demare again makes waves, and again all is fine.
When the field is sloped, one does not want to watch the game anymore.

My view is that Sagan made an (non-intentional) error which contributed (but not 100% caused) to the crash and he should be relegated in that stage.
Demare made 2 intentional line deviations in the same stage. He should be relegated as well.
And I'd be happily watching remaining sprint stages.
But when the jury favors some, I just do not watch anymore.

 

[blutto]

....on a scale of 1 to 10 any ideas of how pissed Sagan ( banished as he was by the very mysterious reported sighting of a "magic" elbow ) is right now....see below for a clue....

After his emotional press statement defending his position in the sprint, Sagan took a few days off to move past the Tour expulsion. Vila said Sagan has turned the page, and is now preparing for his season’s third major goal.

“Peter is fine. I spoke to him this morning. He is back in the right mind,” Vila said. “He took a few days rest, and once again, he is super-motivated. He is focused now on the world championships.”

So is Sagan watching the Tour?

“I have no idea,” Vila laughed. “I don’t think so.”

Read more at http://www.velonews.com/2017/07/news/vuelta-unlikely-sagan-eyes-worlds-three-peat_443410#qM6zzoPI0QEodzD8.99

Cheers

 

[alexix7]

Sagan for 90% to ride Tour de Pologne this year.

 

[tomorrow]

Re:

Sagan for 90% to ride Tour de Pologne this year.

Could be interesting if he decides to go for GC.

 

[alexix7]

I think not. He will be quite out of form. It will be with Eneco only preparation for World Championship which is now the biggest goal of the season for him.

 

[Netserk]

A great shame that he doesn't have a French passport. Would have been a fabulous Tour for him then.

 

[blutto]

After initially saying that it would not go back on the decision to punish Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) and George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), the UCI has done just that. Uran and Bennett were handed 20-second penalties for taking bidons in the final 20 kilometres of stage 12 of the Tour de France. However, stage winner Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) escaped any punishment for the same offence. Rather than handing a further penalty to Bardet, the UCI has decided not to punish anybody

.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-reverses-time-penalties-for-uran-and-bennett/

....all I can say we should be thrilled we didn't see the appearance of the "magical" elbow....otherwise the Tour would have become even more boring than it is now.....what waste of bandwidth....

Cheers

 

[SKSemtex]

what a comedy

 

[tobydawq]

He is confirmed for the Tour de Pologne.

I don't think his form can have vanished completely (he is never out of form anyway) and am intrigued to see what he can do there, and whether he will try to take another GC victory in the race.

 

[sprints n stones]

That's great news. Looking forward to seeing him racing again. He's going to have quite a busy programme before World Championships.

 

[tobydawq]

Re:

That's great news. Looking forward to seeing him racing again. He's going to have quite a busy programme before World Championships.

Yeah, I think he will pretty much ride all WT races except the Vuelta. At least those of the old WT calendar.

 

[blutto]

what a comedy

...of course the gods of irony just had the last laff....Bert thru a hand grenade in the chicken coop and helped produce a beautiful stage....who knows there may still be some life in this cadaver....and the fat lady may still sing....

Cheers

 

[sprints n stones]

Re: Re:

That's great news. Looking forward to seeing him racing again. He's going to have quite a busy programme before World Championships.

Yeah, I think he will pretty much ride all WT races except the Vuelta. At least those of the old WT calendar.

Yup, you're right thanks. Just looked through the list only other one he's not doing is San Sebastian and that clashes
with Poland. Juraj is representing the family in that!

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

That's great news. Looking forward to seeing him racing again. He's going to have quite a busy programme before World Championships.

Yeah, I think he will pretty much ride all WT races except the Vuelta. At least those of the old WT calendar.

Yup, you're right thanks. Just looked through the list only other one he's not doing is San Sebastian and that clashes
with Poland. Juraj is representing the family in that!

Oh yeah, I forgot about that race. Nothing for him there. I guess he is not defending his European title?

 

[sprints n stones]

Re: Re:

That's great news. Looking forward to seeing him racing again. He's going to have quite a busy programme before World Championships.

Yeah, I think he will pretty much ride all WT races except the Vuelta. At least those of the old WT calendar.

Yup, you're right thanks. Just looked through the list only other one he's not doing is San Sebastian and that clashes
with Poland. Juraj is representing the family in that!

Oh yeah, I forgot about that race. Nothing for him there. I guess he is not defending his European title?

It's the day before Eneco ( I refuse to use new name) again but European organisers have laid on transfer transport. Slovakia can send 6 riders but haven't see any word of whether he's going. Anyone know??