Rank the top 5 cyclists from your country by palmares

[RedheadDane]

Why not make full women's lists?
Though, the whole country a rider is from vs. the country of their nationality debate has me a bit confused; do I get to claim Linda Villumsen as a Dane?

 

[Tugboat]

New Zealand:

1. George Bennett
2. Greg Henderson
3. Julian Dean
4. Paul Jesson
5. Tino Tabak*

*Technically Tabak raced much of his career under a Dutch licence despite being New Zealand born. But it was advantageous to do so if you had the heritage and get opportunities that racing on a non-European licence would be far more difficult to achieve otherwise. As a substitute I'd slot Harry Watson at five.

 

[Tugboat]

Re:

Why not make full women's lists?
Though, the whole country a rider is from vs. the country of their nationality debate has me a bit confused; do I get to claim Linda Villumsen as a Dane?

I just claimed Tino Tabak as a Kiwi despite him mostly racing for the Netherlands so I guess you can.

To be fair, Villumsen has impressive palmares for both NZ and Denmark and would probably merit a place on both lists.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

TJ is easily better than Vande Velde in shorter stage races and a 4th and an 8th in the Tour is not better than two 5ths.

The ranking is by palmares, right?

4th and 7th now. TeJay has a better record in the Week longs , which puts him ahead a bit, but there’s not much difference in their palmarés. VdV might actually be underrated by Americans some.

Neither one of them should be rated higher than Julich.

I did the list based on palmares, however not actually sure what Lance's actual record is, but he most likely should top a US based list regardless of how controversial he is. Personally I like Vande Velde a lot and is my favorite US rider. However, that doesn't get him to the top of my list. Thing is after top 3 everyone else is fairly even. However by palmares Tejay does rank ahead of Christian.

 

[Squire]

Re: Re:

Maybe something like this:

1. Gösta Pettersson
2. Magnus Bäckstedt
3. Tommy Prim
4. Bernt Johansson

Don't know who to pick for fifth.

Kessiakoff? Löfkvist? They both had their moments.

Yeah, I'd probably pick Löfkvist.

Isn't Gustav Larsson with Worlds and Olympic medals, a GT stage win and a higher GT GC than both Löfkvist and Kessiakoff an obvious choice?

 

[quiqui]

Susanto
Samai
Fitrianto
Suryadi
Cahyadi

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

Susanto
Samai
Fitrianto
Suryadi
Cahyadi

Is this a guessing game of what country you're going by?

 

[Bardamu]

Re:

I'm really too uneducated about the Dutch glory years of cycling....

Rough guess

1. Zoetemelk
2. Jansen
3. Raas
4. Dumoulin
5. Knetemann

Dumoulin will probably end up on top here, would guess Terpstra is bottom end of top 10?

I have no freaking clue. Paging Dutch Maffia to please educate me.

Hennie Kuiper has gotta be there, I'd put him at 4 and Dumoulin as #5, for now.

 

[Bardamu]

Re: Re:

I'm really too uneducated about the Dutch glory years of cycling....

Rough guess

1. Zoetemelk
2. Jansen
3. Raas
4. Dumoulin
5. Knetemann

Dumoulin will probably end up on top here, would guess Terpstra is bottom end of top 10?

I have no freaking clue. Paging Dutch Maffia to please educate me.

I have to say, for one of the 'big' cycling countries, that's a pretty meh list. At least compared with the superstars that make up the discussion for France, Italy, Belgium, Spain etc...

Even a Luxembourg top 5 might be stronger.

They've never had that extreme dominant rider. Even their biggest rider Zoetemelk had the bad luck to ride against both Merckx and Hinault.

 

[Bardamu]

Re:

1/ Merckx
2/ Van Looy
3/ De Vlaeminck
4/ Van Steenbergen
5/ Boonen

I guess something like that.

EDIT: Philippe Thys was the only cyclist to win the TDF before (x2) and after (x1) WWI, if it weren't for the war, he would probably hold the record (same could be said for Bartali and WWII). But on the other hand, cycling prior to the 60-70s was a different animal. There are plenty of names that could be added to the list, and when i see other lists include obvious clinic cases, then some could argue Museeuw should be added to the Belgian list. But i refuse, lol.

In 15 years Evenepoel might be in this list.
And I'd like to mention Van Impe, the last great GC-rider of the Belgians, which is an utter shame for the #1 pro cycling country of the world

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re:

Susanto
Samai
Fitrianto
Suryadi
Cahyadi

Samai Amari is a god
Is he still racing?

 

[lartiste]

Re:

If you include Ludwig's Olympic RR from the amateur days then Täve Schur must be in the top 5 with his exploits. Germany is the hardest nation to do of all because of the parallel histories. Schur and Ludwig, possibly Uwe Ampler too, belong in any self-respecting list of the best German riders, but resolving the palmarès issue is difficult.

Peace race beast Uwe Ampler, won the race four time in row, I think he would be definitely in top 10.

 

[lartiste]

Re:

1.Peter Sagan.
2.Anton Tkac
3. Jan Svorada
4. Peter Velits
5. Milan Jurco
6. Erik Baska

Sorry, Svorada is not Slovak, he raced for Czechoslovakia, then at the time of division of the state opted for Czech citizenship and represented Czech republic, also lives and doing business in the Czech republic.

 

[lartiste]

Czech republic

1. Roman Kreuziger
2. Zdeněk Štybar
3. Jan Svorada
4. Pavel Padrnos
5. Jan Veselý
6. Jiří Škoda

 

[quiqui]

Re:

Maybe something like this:

1. Gösta Pettersson
2. Magnus Bäckstedt
3. Tommy Prim
4. Bernt Johansson

Don't know who to pick for fifth.

I would say Sven Ake Nilsson.

 

[quiqui]

Re: Re:

Susanto
Samai
Fitrianto
Suryadi
Cahyadi

Samai Amari is a god
Is he still racing?

I think he retired from racing in 2016.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Norway:

1. Alexander Kristoff
2. Thor Hushovd
3. Knut Knudsen
4. Edvald Boasson Hagen
5. Jostein Wilmann

I'm having a hard time separating Hushovd and Kristoff. However, Kristoff's two monuments beats Hushovd's WC triumph and TdF success in my opinion.

1. Thor Hushovd
2. Alexander Kristoff
3. Knut Knudsen
4. Edvald Boasson Hagen
5. Dag Otto Lauritzen

10 stages in tdf, a week in yellow while carrying the rainbow jersey is better imo. Wilman is outperformed by Lauritzen due to olympic medal and stage win in tdf and giro.

Norway is a country where things were very different at the time of the 2009 thread.

Hushovd v Kristoff is a great argument. They have really very similar palmares in terms of level. I think I would have to just about favour Hushovd. 13 GT stages is a lot, particularly with 10 in the Tour. I rate Monuments very highly against stages of anything, but at a certain point an accumulation of Tour stages has to outweigh one. Also, his non Monument classic wins are marginally better. Kristoff though is still capable of winning something big.

I wonder how many countries are there with this kind of balanced argument about the top spot? There is obviously, at the very highest level, Italy with Coppi and Bartali.

This one gets harder and harder to call. Kristoff has had one hell of a career for a guy who was always an afterthought behind EBH when he was younger.

 

[SHAD0W93]

I still think Hushovd slightly edges Kristoff though that will most likely change. I will say Kristoff will most likely never have as good of a victory celebration as Hushovd on the 10 cobbled stage. That is still one of my favorite celebrations.

 

[The Barb]

Re:

New Zealand:

1. George Bennett
2. Greg Henderson
3. Julian Dean
4. Paul Jesson
5. Tino Tabak*

*Technically Tabak raced much of his career under a Dutch licence despite being New Zealand born. But it was advantageous to do so if you had the heritage and get opportunities that racing on a non-European licence would be far more difficult to achieve otherwise. As a substitute I'd slot Harry Watson at five.

I can't argue at all with that list. I really hope in 20 years it will look much different, however.

 

[SKSemtex]

Re: Re:

1.Peter Sagan.
2.Anton Tkac
3. Jan Svorada
4. Peter Velits
5. Milan Jurco
6. Erik Baska

Sorry, Svorada is not Slovak, he raced for Czechoslovakia, then at the time of division of the state opted for Czech citizenship and represented Czech republic, also lives and doing business in the Czech republic.

Born in Trencin (Slovakia), raised in Trencin - Bratislava (Slovakia), after the split of countries being in Slovak national team.

Yes, he is 100% Czech. :lol:

Of course, he switched the nationality to have a better shot WC. Nobody blames him but ... I think he still can be considered a Slovak too.

If Sagan changes his nationality ( I would not blame him either) shell I crossed him off from Slovak list of historically best Slovak cyclists?

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

1.Peter Sagan.
2.Anton Tkac
3. Jan Svorada
4. Peter Velits
5. Milan Jurco
6. Erik Baska

If Sagan changes his nationality ( I would not blame him either) shell I crossed him off from Slovak list of historically best Slovak cyclists?

No, because he still would have accomplished a ton while representing Slovakia. I have no idea, did Svorada ever actually ride for Slovakia?

 

[King Of The Wolds]

Re: Re:

On the proviso that we are talking Male, and we are talking those that represented Britain

1. Chris Froome
2. Mark Cavendish
3. Brad Wiggins
4. Tom Simpson
5. One from Boardman, G or Robert Millar

Well I guess 5th has been cleared up now. Although saying that, G ain't that far from Simpson either. The 1-2-3 remain inarguably in that order.

 

[Leinster]

Re: Re:

On the proviso that we are talking Male, and we are talking those that represented Britain

1. Chris Froome
2. Mark Cavendish
3. Brad Wiggins
4. Tom Simpson
5. One from Boardman, G or Robert Millar

Well I guess 5th has been cleared up now. Although saying that, G ain't that far from Simpson either. The 1-2-3 remain inarguably in that order.

Tbf, I think Millar could’ve had a much better shot at winning a GT with a team as strong as the current Sky squad, and a route with only 30km of ITT.

 

[Jagartrott]

Strictly speaking, I'm half-Swedish and half-Belgian (though I hardly know Sweden, really). For the former, I'd not know who to list, frankly. I also don't really understand why Sweden doesn't have good cyclists - there are mountains, hills and plenty of sporty people. What's up with that.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Re:

Strictly speaking, I'm half-Swedish and half-Belgian (though I hardly know Sweden, really). For the former, I'd not know who to list, frankly. I also don't really understand why Sweden doesn't have good cyclists - there are mountains, hills and plenty of sporty people. What's up with that.

Heck the only Swedish cyclists I've heard of is Thomas Löfkvist and Gustav Larsson.