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Riders who curiously did badly in certain types of races

There are sometimes that type of riders who can ride at a very high level and seem to have the skillset suited well for a certain type of races but for some reason they can't excel in them.

One such rider was Ramunas Navardauskas. Big engine, good finish, good TT-er, very strong on flat and could sometimes climb absurdly well for his weight, did well on various types of GT stages (both solo attacks and big group sprints, flat, hilly and medium mountains). You would think he had everything you can ask for to be good at cobbled classics or MSR but never did anything noticeable in those races.

Another was Simon Spilak. He won plenty of one-week races with high mountains and was a good TT-er but never performed in GTs and barely even rode them. Reportedly, he didn't feel well in hot weather.

Can you think of any other examples?
 
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Tony Martin should on the surface have been able to translate his TT and rouleur skills to be a Paris-Roubaix contender but never really has been.

Agree with Spilak the week long superhero who never even properly attempted GC at a Grand Tour.

Always thought Contador should have been able to win many one day classics but he rarely ever entered them.

MVDP is a surprisingly average TTer considering how good his sustained power is on long range attacks.
 
Kristoff at Paris-Roubaix is another obvious shout here. In theory it's the best monument for him.

Rohan Dennis in GT GCs. If you can be with the first three over the Stelvio as a preeminent TTer, you should be able to do better than six DNFs and a best finish of 16th in 10 attempts. Especially if you've come second in a hard Tour de Suisse and a Tirreno.
 
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One more rider I can think of is de Gendt and classics. He's pulled off so many great solo stage wins but for some reason his tricks don't work for one day races. I guess it's more difficult in classics when everybody races to win or to help his team-mate to win instead of saving for another day but still some of his stage wins were won against a very determined peloton and in classics not only he doesn't win but he's never even remotely in the fight. I don't think if he's ever finished any proper classic inside top30?
 
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In Martin´s and DeGendt´s case both mentioned that they dislike the fight for positions at the front. No way to win any classic with this kind of approach.
Quit a few top climbers/GC guys rarely performed in classics. Including Contador and Froome. Just requires a different type of endurance. Having the best 20min/max watts numbers isn´t as important in a 250km slugfest.
 
One more rider I can think of is de Gendt and classics. He's pulled off so many great solo stage wins but for some reason his tricks don't work for one day races. I guess it's more difficult in classics when everybody races to win or to help his team-mate to win instead of saving for another day but still some of his stage wins were won against a very determined peloton and in classics not only he doesn't win but he's never even remotely in the fight. I don't think if he's ever finished any proper classic inside top30?
As stated by skippo, he doesn't like fighting for position, he doesn't like the chaos and stress. It's the main reason why he started doing long breaks, long before turning pro. In a GT, you can pick your day, you can dangle at the back of the peloton, keep out of trouble and out of the wind for days until your time comes. De Gendt also doesn't degrade as much as other riders over multiple days/weeks. When everybody is fresh for a classic, he doesn't stand out. But after days or weeks of riding, others in the peloton grow more tired than him, and he gets the advantage. It's one of the reasons why he could have been a good GC rider, if only he could handle the stress and chaos that comes with it.
 
One more rider I can think of is de Gendt and classics. He's pulled off so many great solo stage wins but for some reason his tricks don't work for one day races. I guess it's more difficult in classics when everybody races to win or to help his team-mate to win instead of saving for another day but still some of his stage wins were won against a very determined peloton and in classics not only he doesn't win but he's never even remotely in the fight. I don't think if he's ever finished any proper classic inside top30?
2nd Brabantse Pijl 2010 (after a long distance attack though, lol)

Furthermore I agree with you, Skippo and Logic.
 
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Jelle Vanendert should have been a great stagehunter in gts, yet he never did anything relevant in those after 2011. With the kind of form he had during the Ardennes classics during his prime he could have been fighting for stages during the first 2 weeks of the Giro right afterwards.

Bennati in the cobbled classics, the guy was a crazy strong rouleur and still fast during the 2nd part of his career.

Also, Sergey Chernetski in the Ardennes classics. The guy is/was fast enough to outsprint Ala, finished top 10 in a really hard edition of the Tour de Suisse and has top 10 finishes in Milano-Torino and Lombardia against strong opposition. He was also able to finish top 20 in the classics sprinter friendly WC in Bergen, so you can't really say that he wasn't able to handle the distance.

I'm also a bit surprised that a rather light cobbles rider like Ballan (72kg at 191cm) never finished top 10 in Amstel, despite having multiple top 10s in a race like MSR.
 
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Tony Martin should on the surface have been able to translate his TT and rouleur skills to be a Paris-Roubaix contender but never really has been.

Agree with Spilak the week long superhero who never even properly attempted GC at a Grand Tour.

Always thought Contador should have been able to win many one day classics but he rarely ever entered them.

MVDP is a surprisingly average TTer considering how good his sustained power is on long range attacks.
Contador was never gonna be a prolific one day winner cause he lacked the sprint and wouldn't really destroy everyone at <5 minute climbs. Also at the peak of his powers Il Lombardia was much more of a puncheur race.

Frankly, there's a big, sad void of one day races that are suited to pure climbers, and I would love if there were a few biggish ones as an alternative to Vuelta for the climbers.
 
Tony Martin should on the surface have been able to translate his TT and rouleur skills to be a Paris-Roubaix contender but never really has been.
Martin never came close to win PR but he did have his moments on the cobbles. He won the cobbles tdf stage in 2015 and iirc he was the early driving force for that infamous PR 2016 break, after Cancellara and Sagan were caught up in a split. Boonen was his leader that race so he sacrificed himself but he was crucial for the outcome of the race.

To me Kristoff is a much more interesting case, because he is great on the cobbles in general, just not in PR. Even the year when he won Flandres and generally looked like the man to beat on the cobbles he was nowhere near the strongest riders in Roubaix. You just wouldn't expect that. For a guy like Gilbert or Alaphilippe it seems sensible that they are better at Flandres than at PR, because they are extremely punchy climbers who also thrive in the Ardennes. But Kristoff is the kind of guy who you would think a flat race suits much better especially one as tiring and exhausting as PR. But no, he is only good if the cobbles are uphill.
 
Contador was never gonna be a prolific one day winner cause he lacked the sprint and wouldn't really destroy everyone at <5 minute climbs. Also at the peak of his powers Il Lombardia was much more of a puncheur race.

Frankly, there's a big, sad void of one day races that are suited to pure climbers, and I would love if there were a few biggish ones as an alternative to Vuelta for the climbers.
Good point about the parcours in that era. It was when Gilbert was a double winner of Lombardia and I don’t think he would have survived the cut on the Sormano last year even in 2011 shape.
 

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