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R.E.S.P.E.C.T. to Chris Horner

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Re: Re:

WildspokeJoe said:
pastronef said:
WildspokeJoe said:
Feel bad for Horner. I think the organizers should have waited until the weekend to announce the teams. If Horner wins/podiums Utah, it will make the organizers look like clowns. If he doesn't score the podium, they can say his team doesn't deserve to be there. But to say a former winner of the Tour of Spain shouldn't be in the race when a team from Israel I've never heard is - well someone isn't thinking.

Astana Etixx Tinkoff (Specialized sponsored teams) will not ride Colorado.

Israel Sagan´s team have Specialized as main sponsor....

I get what you're saying but if the organizers want to bring attention to the event they would have a better shot with a former Vuelta winner than placating a sponsor. I really don't understand the justification for not including Horner Airgas/Safeway. Cycling is having a tough time getting new sponsors into the sport. If I was Airgas/Safeway, I'd step away instead of trying to build a program. They get no return on their investment.

Well that's the risk they took with Horner.
 
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webvan said:
Yep Airgas are not happy : http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/airgas-safeway-disappointed-to-miss-out-on-usa-pro-challenge-invitation/

Odd comment though about the Porsche cars...

The team stepped up its game for the Utah race, Johnson said, adding more staff and two Porsche Panamera team cars.

I see the point of adding cars to follow/assist but who cares if they are Porsche Panamera cars ?

Porsche are looking for the plug! Look at all the promotional crap we get when Jaguar send Sky a new car.
 
pastronef said:
DBotero said:
Nice move to invite such a famous team from Israel vs a former Vuelta winner nobody ever heard about.This move will surely growth the people interest for this race.


I am undecided between the interest Horner would bring (US public would have liked to see him race) and the opinion about his fellow riders, who seem not to like him much, and know about his SNIPPED..

Take it to the clinic where it belongs.......
 
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BigMac said:
Jancouver said:
No Colorado for Horner. They invited Israeli Cycling Academy team instead.

WTF? If not Airgas, why not another American team?
I hope Pappy can take Utah, just to piss them off and create some outrage.

... sad days when politics win over common sense ... especially in sports.

Same applies to Cali. Airgas was outraged then, want to see their reaction now.

And they should be outraged. It is absurd. I don't know if Horner is up to the task, but there is no reason for the snub. It is called USA Pro Challenge, but there aren't many americans going who can likely win. Tejay who lives in Colorado won't be there.
I don't know much about Airgas, but safeway has been sponsoring local teams forever. In my area the local safeway contributes to a team. This is plain insulting to the sponsors. The ROI is not much to write home about as is, discouraging these companies that do have an impact on the US cycling community is plain wrong. These races will then complain when the teams want a percentage of the TV money. But what do you expect when the local races spit on the local sponsors and the teams can no longer get sponsorship.

I have doubt there is some kind of ego involved here and the snub is directed at Horner, but they should recognize two things. 1)He is a very popular american rider who has had an impressive career. 2)He would be leading a team of youngsters who would get the chance to mix it up with the big teams there while supporting him.

Pretty weak sauce.
 
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BigMac said:
He will anounce his glorious comeback on the roads of Utah. Papi will boss Snowbird.

Horner was singularly unimpressive on Snowbird, doing absolutely no work in the chase with Woods, Schleck and Berhani as Dombrowksi went up the road. I know it's the wily veteran thing to do to let the youngster tire his legs and pounce, but Woods didn't tire and Horner didn't pounce.

This was Horner's biggest day of the year, the Queen stage of the only semi-major stage race he's been invited to and instead of lighting up, he ground it out and settled for fourth. If I'm the Tour of Cali or US Pro organizer, that pretty much confirmed I made the right decision to leave Horner out.

He has one more stage today I guess to prove them wrong.
 
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Re: Re:

Orvieto said:
BigMac said:
He will anounce his glorious comeback on the roads of Utah. Papi will boss Snowbird.

Horner was singularly unimpressive on Snowbird, doing absolutely no work in the chase with Woods, Schleck and Berhani as Dombrowksi went up the road. I know it's the wily veteran thing to do to let the youngster tire his legs and pounce, but Woods didn't tire and Horner didn't pounce.

This was Horner's biggest day of the year, the Queen stage of the only semi-major stage race he's been invited to and instead of lighting up, he ground it out and settled for fourth. If I'm the Tour of Cali or US Pro organizer, that pretty much confirmed I made the right decision to leave Horner out.

He has one more stage today I guess to prove them wrong.

Dude, he still was with the best. You can not win every race you participate. Dombrowski was just better that day. Props for him. Horner just had too many difficulties with his health this year to be at 100% in Utah. But still he's one of the best.

It's a disgrace that Airgas isn't invited to Cali and USA Pro, because (a) they are an American team and (b) they have one of the best (the best) American climber and stage racer in their squad. If they invite a really good WT-team or PCT-team instead of Airgas, i can understand it (a bit). But now they are inviting some Israeling team nobody has ever heard off. It's a disgrace.
 
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offbyone said:
And they should be outraged. It is absurd. I don't know if Horner is up to the task, but there is no reason for the snub. It is called USA Pro Challenge, but there aren't many americans going who can likely win. Tejay who lives in Colorado won't be there.
I don't know much about Airgas, but safeway has been sponsoring local teams forever. In my area the local safeway contributes to a team. This is plain insulting to the sponsors. The ROI is not much to write home about as is, discouraging these companies that do have an impact on the US cycling community is plain wrong. These races will then complain when the teams want a percentage of the TV money. But what do you expect when the local races spit on the local sponsors and the teams can no longer get sponsorship.

I have doubt there is some kind of ego involved here and the snub is directed at Horner, but they should recognize two things. 1)He is a very popular american rider who has had an impressive career. 2)He would be leading a team of youngsters who would get the chance to mix it up with the big teams there while supporting him.

Pretty weak sauce.
Again, though, this is the risk that you take when you sign up somebody like Horner. I recall the fuss that Johan Bruyneel raised when Radioshack weren't invited to the 2010 Vuelta, basically along the lines of "we haven't even mentioned the race all year, but we deserve to go because our sponsors put a lot of money in and deserve to get exposure for that". But all the other sponsors put money in too, and just saying that a team deserves to go to a race simply because of the money a sponsor has put in regardless of what the team offers the race is a very fast way to turn racing into a bidding war at the expense of the sport.

On the face of it, inviting a small Israeli development team with a few central-eastern Europeans and a random Spaniard seems like a bonkers call over an American team who offer a GT winner. Maybe by extending an olive branch to a team which has Peter Sagan as a patrocinador they hoped to get the man himself to ride, shoring up name value. Maybe they had concerns that Horner appearing on the winner's list when he's about to turn 44 and on a very weak continental team will give the race negative press or make it seem bush league.

It does seem silly, but it's hard to have sympathy for a team whose bid for these invites was based entirely around the Horner gamble. They've gained a lot more press out of the signing than they would have got from the rest of their roster even if they HAD been invited to California and Colorado. It's a bit like when Meridiana-Kamen tried to sign Riccò when he was fighting provisional suspension after his faulty transfusion: I can't recall if he ever got to race for them. But they didn't even have a working website, and more people talked about Meridiana-Kamen than ever talked about them before or since: I didn't even know until today they're still running this year. And I watched the Tour of Croatia where they had a rider come top 10, and I'd completely forgotten about that. Horner has gained Airgas as a team a lot of press attention they would otherwise not have been able to get; the flip side is, his reputation will make it difficult at times to secure invites to major races. Christina Watches-Onfone is another good comparison: they often didn't get to do the biggest races they intended to and got shut out of a lot of invites due to riders' reputations, but Hembo's push for attention and the willingness to take those riders for the press coverage meant more people heard the sponsor's name than ever would have done if she'd just sponsored a normal Danish Continental team.

The real shame is, had they known earlier, we could have seen Chris Horner vs. Portuguese Chris Horner, the forbidden battle in A Volta. Maybe 2016...
 
Impressive he still has the will despite all the BS some cyclist fans and some teams has done with it.

He is year by year with less potential, but he was improving his result till 2013, except in ITT, but that is not to talk here, despite he had less potential.

God luck, but I think now age will be important considering to win to this kind of guys.By he will be up there and he coud be up there for severla years.
 
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The entertainment value of Horner on a big stage is very underestimated. What are the chances he can land a one year contract with a WT team or any team that will have a wildcard spot in a GT?
 
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Re:

TI-Raleigh said:
The entertainment value of Horner on a big stage is very underestimated. What are the chances he can land a one year contract with a WT team or any team that will have a wildcard spot in a GT?
The mighty silverfox Savio could sign him and I wouldn't put it past Southeast, the problem will be his salary...
 
Re: Re:

Mayomaniac said:
TI-Raleigh said:
The entertainment value of Horner on a big stage is very underestimated. What are the chances he can land a one year contract with a WT team or any team that will have a wildcard spot in a GT?
The mighty silverfox Savio could sign him and I wouldn't put it past Southeast, the problem will be his salary...

He's only on a one-year contract with Airgos though, isn't he? I doubt he will get another year with them after the team not having been invited to what would be two of their season goals. So, if he wants to keep racing I imagine his salary will have to drop greatly.
 
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I get it, as a GT winner he wants big bucks. But I wouldn't be surprised if he settles for less money on a one-year deal (at least I hope he would). I could see Papy wanting to just get that one more oppurtunity for a GT, regardless of salary.
 

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