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It is a matter of perspective, not an intentional attempt to diminish him.
Imagine Merckx's numbers if he had ridden for two hundred sixty five seasons like Valverde.
I mean kudos to Valverde for that, it's meritorious and it should be reflected in certain kinds of rankings made for a specific purpose. But if the goal is to find history's greatest riders then you have to be careful with mere good placings as opposed to big wins.
I mean kudos to Valverde for that, it's meritorious and it should be reflected in certain kinds of rankings made for a specific purpose. But if the goal is to find history's greatest riders then you have to be careful with mere good placings as opposed to big wins.
My problem with Valverde is how often he had put himself in position to win things but not closed the deal, hence 200 WC podiums and GT podiums.
Winners win big stuff, they dominate their opponents. They don't pick consolation up prizes.
I honestly don't think this is fair. There is a reason Valverde is that high on every ranking. He has been on the top 7 of CQ ranking in 14 different seasons (and five of those he was ranked 1)! That's not about Andalucía stage wins and counting every race of the season.
The only way you can make a ranking that wouldn't make him come out on top of contemporary riders is if you have that as your main goal with your system and then engineer one that favours one of the others. But that will be only more biased, just because you (not only you, Rick) can't stand a conservatively racing guy being up there ahead of the others who may have shone more brilliantly at times but for much fewer seasons and in much smaller parts of them.
I'd heared about that but never actually seen it. Can't believe Rodri got flamed for slagging on his wife.
Yeah, right. It is the rest of us that are biased, not the snowblind Valverde fans........
Yes, of course it is? It's Valverde who shows up on every ranking you can find in first place and you who for some reason dismiss all of those and say they can't be right. If that's not bias, I don't know what it is.
You realize that for him to show up on top someone had to come up with a scoring system first, which is inherently subjective.
Uh, so no rankings are ever to be used for anything? What a weird thing to write.
What kind of ridiculous strawman is this? Where did I suggest anything like that?
My point is that you don't get to pretend you're being the objective one on this topic.
But it's hardly my lists. And they're hardly completely random or subjective. So I really don't get your point at all.
Could you find us a ranking that exclude all of those non-important races in Spain and elsewhere? When you count the all time great, it doesn't mean a *** if you've won Vuelta a Murcia a bunch of times. It is Grand Tours, monuments and championships that counts most. And here Valverde comes up short against at least Contador, Cancellara and Froome.
As I said before, it's not those Spanish races that tip the numbers in Valverde's favour. And as I am quite sure you will find out in this thread, the OP has made a list excluding small races where, surprise, surprise, Valverde will be ahead of his contemporary riders, even though a win counts five times as much as a third place.
It's fine if you only want to count the wins. But as soon as you count podiums as well, there is no chance to beat Valverde.
Perhaps it's worth considering what a ranking is for.
If its longevity of career and consistence fine.
My view is length of time at the top and winning big are the key criteria.
Cycling is all about winning, so riders who put their heads above the parapet and win big races over a long period are the true greats and should top always be top ranked.
Thst why Merckx, Hinault, Coppi et al usually top all lists.
If its longevity of career and consistence fine.
My view is length of time at the top and winning big are the key criteria.
Cycling is all about winning, so riders who put their heads above the parapet and win big races over a long period are the true greats and should top always be top ranked.
Thst why Merckx, Hinault, Coppi et al usually top all lists.
But how do you weight 2nd and 3rd places against victories? It rather seems that you are absolutely intent to use a formula that puts Valverde on top.
No, I'm not, but that is how cycling statisticians have always done it.
And would you really think it would make sense to make a ranking where a win is more than, let's say, four times a second place? Because that's what needs to be done if you have to topple him. Maybe even a bigger difference.
After all, he does have six major wins too, so in some way you have to make his 20 other podiums be worth less than two wins and six podiums to make Boonen be over him, for example. And less than one win and nine podiums in Cancellara's case.
A system which places overwhelming value on big wins, very little value on small wins and next to no value on good losing results would hardly be one that only someone out to disadvantage Valverde would come up with. I suspect that quite a lot of people would prefer that kind of system. I certainly would.
It’s possible that Valverde might actually end up coming out on top of that kind of ranking due to sheer longevity but it’s not immediately obvious that he would.
He has 6 tier one wins, Froome and Nibali, to name two obvious rivals, have 7 each and their 7 are both considerably more prestigious collections. There’s a very substantial palmares gap between Vuelta-WCRR-LBL(x4) on the one hand and either of Tour(x4)-Giro(x2)-Vuelta or Tour-Giro(x2)-Vuelta-MSR-GdL(x2) on the other.
If you move in to tier two wins, ie GT stages, big one week races, major non-monument one day races, whether he closes that gap at all really depends on (a) how highly you rate Fleche and (b) how much of a discount you place on Vuelta stages versus everything else in this category. I rate Flèche pretty highly but many people don’t at all,
Its only when you leave things that everyone uncontroversially agrees matter behind and start talking about bulk wins of small races and good placings instead that he suddenly has a big advantage. And you can make perfectly reasonable cases for caring or not caring about these.
It rather seems that most formulas put Valverde on top, as he is been too consistent for too long.I mean, its not the best formula, but its no secret why Valverde was consistently in the top 3 of the UCI world rankings.Its because he places high enough in a lot of races.I'm not saying he's better than Froome,Contador,Cancellara,or Boonen, which he's close, but I'm saying his prime of placing consistently in podiums has extended long enough to be at the top.
GTs are more worth than the monuments and wins more worth than seconds and thirds. If I were to try an objective rating of the riders after 2000, Contador, Cancellara and Froome would be top 3. And the 4-5 main contenders would be Boonen, Bettini, Gilbert, Nibali and Valverde.
I would unhesitatingly rank winning a major race more than four times higher than losing it in any position.
As for Boonen, well he has eight tier 1 wins to Valverde’s six. His tier two wins are very different but you are going to have to place an awful lot of weight on Vuelta wins to get close to 13 non-monument cobbled classics…
A Vuelta stage is worth nothing compared to GW or E3.
None. But he won 7 monuments. And 6 TT championships. IMO that beats 1 Vuelta, 4 LBL and Worlds.
To put Boonen ahead of Valverde you basically have to not rate GT podiums or World podiums and historically important stage races like Catalunya, Pais Vasco, and Dauphine at all.
And I don't believe in rating different monuments at different levels really.
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