IMO taking him is the lesser of two evils. But then again I'm not a rider in the pro peloton and I don't know how these boys mesh as a group, which would play a part surely. Sure I grew up 60km away from Renshaw's home town and I know the mentality of the average Bathurst bloke, heck I'd have gone to school with him had I lived in Bathurst, but I really don't know what he's like and his rep with the selectors or the blokes chosen. All I do know is that the two Marks draw off one another and they empower one another. I was hypothesising a feasible but not necessarily true explanation for why he wasn't picked. I'll fill you in after I quote the rest of your post.
Filling in...the Brits have six riders right? Australia, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium all have nine and will make the race super hard. That's my problem with picking Renshaw practically. Neither he nor Cav are a sure thing to make the finish with a lead group.
Sure team Sky had some nice sprints in le Tour, but that was EBH. Their only finisher is Cav on the national team. It's him or nothing. They simply don't have the numbers. What is scarier is that in the event Cav is dropped, EBH and Hushovd will most likely make the finish. They were devastating at the Tour. Carry an iota of that form and all they have to do is follow. Sadly for our Aussie team, in that event I can't see any of our boys with the form they have standing a chance. That also doesn't answer the Gilbert enigma...which I cannot answer. I was saying last year our best chance of winning in 2011 in Copenhagen was Haussler. Why? The likely scenario of a select group breaking away. Put him in it, he could win a sprint, same with Goss if there are bigger numbers (if you exclude Cav and Greipel and assume Gilbert misses out). A pure power sprinter won't make such a group which rules out Cav and thus Renshaw being needed to leadout. Even the race folding out like last years final is fine for our current team. Then you have a guy like Thor winning, which a few of our guys could match if in form. Or Gilbert, or EBH, Freire. But not Cav. He won't make the run on that selection. A big finish, yes, we are in big trouble because Goss is the only guy with pure speed to win against these names and he will come third at best behing Cav and Greipel with Renshaw leading out. It's all hit and miss really. Playing the probabilites and hoping for the best. As I said, the selectors probably didn't think he'd make the distance to play out a small scenario...hence redundant regardless of possibility of empowering Cav.
But as I said...team size and the talk of the big 9 member teams is the race will be hard. Odds are Belgium want Gilbert isolated in a select group. Then you don't get a leadout, you have to position yourself and rely on pure skill and reading opponents. With that in mind Renshaw is pointless. Goss can do it on his own. MSR kinda proves that and his attempts at other races are good enough to bank on him. Personally I was hoping Haussler would have form...who knows maybe he'll have a blinda, but I'm thinking he won't. Problem is since I foresaw Haussler as having a chance last year he's been sick, injured or just plain lacking in form. Same with Goss, but Goss did perform well in the Tour in the stage Cav wasn't on. He didn't have the train work out for him that day (think it was EBH's first win) and came a nice third.
Realistically the Australian team are relying on a lot of luck for their selections to make sense, but with that in mind I think they played the probabilites well. The pure power sprinters shouldn't make the end and it may end up like last years finish in Geelong or a select few. In that case, I'm comfortable with Goss or CJ to do well enough without a leadout to get a position on the podium. I do however think it will take something short a miracle for Cav to make the final selection. I really do hope Gilbert wins this year. He deserves it and I'm hoping the Belgian team bury themselves to help him at the end and he doesn't have to do a futile move like he did on the last lap in Geelong last year on the hill just to hope for a win. But then again, everyone doubted there would be such a big group in Geelong for the sprint...we can only hope the selectors choices prove wise.
Don't get me started on the weather...
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