Rumour: Zomegnan to be fired

[Parrulo]

They must hate excellence.

the man is as passionate as the tifosi about cycling and it shows in the course and hoards of fans road side. he fought for what we wanted.

plus, he has class. he showed up to Wouter's funeral even though he really didn't need to (the course was not the cause).

passion and class, what am i thinking? obviously he can't be involved in the current hierarchy of cycling

bah, humbug!

i agree 100% with this quotes.

AZ is the saviour of cycling as a racing sport and "his" giro is considered by all the cycling fans (true cycling fans not july fans) as the best race in the calendar.
blaming him for wouter's death is just pathetic and tbh i getting very tired of all this crap about it being to dangerous.

 

[hrotha]

Why do people always need to go for the red button. Yes those were mistakes.

A friendly word. An ultimatum. From now on less transfers. No more crap like Milan and Crostis (though latter wasnt his fault anyway).

But no, they got to go and fire him

I agree letting him know long transfers were a no-no and asking him not to make the same mistakes as this year in the future would have been enough, if those 6 points are all there is to this.

 

[jobiwan]

Don't really understand why he needs to be let go.
Sure this year's Giro might have been a bit too crazy, (IMO) but maybe not.
Sure much of the lack of drama is due to Contador, but that is neither his nor AZ's fault.

But I guess the parcours aren't the problem.

 

[roundabout]

How so? The parcours was awesome and there is still some great stages to come. Just because AC is running away with it doesn't mean AZ is to blame in the least.

The WW death was a tragic accident and the Crostis section would have been amazing. Recall how tired everybody was on stage 15? Imagine how tired they would have been if they had to do the Crostis before Zoncolan the day before.

This Giro doesn't stack up to last year's in terms of the actual racing, but that is not AZ's fault.

I agree that if this rumor is true, the true conflict is something else.

Read the first 3 points in hrotha's post. Point number 3 is particularly damning for a race organizer in my opinion.

Parcours difficulty - I touched on that before and won't repeat it again, among other course-related things, the balance of the route was off - too little TTs (yes, Contador would have been further ahead but it would have made a better course), zero stages for sprinters after 12 days and the grouping of mountain stages that turned Grossglockner into a waiting game.

Contador? Are you a fan of him to inject him into the conversation that has naught to do with him?

Edit: forgot a seeming billion various little route changes between the presentation and the race start. Presenting a very much WIP route which struggled to fit the UCI limits doesn't reflect great organizational ability.

Edit 2: stupid typo

 

[Lanark]

What a shame that would be. The last few years the Giro has had a fantastic route (which certainly wasn't always the case, think of 2002 or 2004), and the strongest field since their 1980's shenanigans, when they tried everything apart from executions to prefent foreign competitors from winning.

Yeah, the race is hard, but with the tremendous mountains Italy has, it would be a crying shame not to use them. But it usually was varied and with a good buildup of tension to the final week, without making the first two weeks boring (the Tour-solution), although this final week could have been better.

 

[Francois the Postman]

If they wanted to go around the whole of Italy for a 150 year celebration, and keep a stage progression worthy of the Giro at the same time, it is totally ridiculous he went for long transfers this year, when the clear alternative was to shrink Italy and get the Dolomites closer to Sicily that way

There is probably more to it than meets the eye, if it's true.

For what it is worth, he seems to have his cycling heart exactly where I like it, and he certainly has been responsible for reigniting my belief that vintage doesn't have to be a thing of the past, but is more a matter of attitude.

To me he exemplified what's most thrilling in our sport.

Without knowing who is next, it is hard to judge the impact on the Giro though.

 

[Moondance]

Say wha.....?!?

They're going to fire the only director who is practically universally respected in the sport? Horrid move.

 

[Parrulo]

Say wha.....?!?

They're going to fire the only director who is practically universally respected in the sport? Horrid move.

but you know a person died this giro!!!!! he sucks!!!!!

 

[Ildabaoth]

I guess I'm pretty different to a lot of people, because I've really enjoyed this year's Giro. Normally, during the Tour I can stand not watching several stages without regret, just watching the highlights, and even mountain stages aren't too funny except for the last 5 km. For the Giro, instead, I have watched a lot of stages live and I downloaded the rest of them.

People want more stages for the sprinters, but cycling is already a sport where top sprinters can win +15 stages/races a year, while other specialists are extremely happy when they win +10 stages/races a year.

 

[craig1985]

They must hate excellence.

And love cancer too!

 

[riobonito92]

Some things I like about this year's giro:

Unpredictability: On many stages it was impossible to even guess the top 3, let alone the winner with 20km to go

Individuality: Teams were rarely in control and the race was not determined by DS's in cars.

Variety: Different winners (individuals and teams), different types of stages, different road surfaces, different types of riders with a chance etc

Aggression: Attacking riders have often been rewarded. (Visconti might disagree, though)

What I didn't like about last year's TdF

Predictability - you could guess the stage winner the night before
Team Control - oh look, here come HTC again zzzzz, sorry I can't move a pedal until I get the order from the DS.
Sameness (see above)
Defensiveness - up until Schleck's chain dropped it was like a 3000 km match sprint.

 

[Winterfold]

This years Giro is too hard*, but at least it has defined the outer limit of how hard a GT should be.

But that is no reason to fire a race director, nor is the unfortunate death of Wouter, it's a tough sport and potentially fatal.

If this rumour is true, I will be disappointed and will wonder what the real reason is, if not supplied.

* does anybody who rides a bike in competition or even just a bit friskily think this years route is OK? Parcours this difficult will only end up in one place...

 

[taiwan]

Not his fault if the DSs ****ed up the Crostis/Zoncolan stage.

 

[riobonito92]

Not his fault if the DSs ****ed up the Crostis/Zoncolan stage.

Is it possible this (the firing of AZ) is part of the wider conspiracy by the DS's to completely take over the sport. They didn't like this giro because they weren't in control. For example, I can't remember any discussion about radios making the racing boring during the whole race.

 

[The Hitch]

Predictability - you could guess the stage winner the night before
.

The only stage ive been able to predict with anywhere near the certainty of a Cav Tour sprint or a Cancellara Tour tt was that Leopard Trek would cross the line first on stage 4.

Most stages have had totaly unexpected winners. Vicioso Ventoso, Weening, De Clerq, Gato, Ulisi Cappecchi, Gadret.

Even the major stages. Anton Zoncolan. Rujano Grossglockner. Certainatly not what people expected.

And no one had Nieve winning 15.

 

[The Hitch]

Oh and this is bad news for Ozzies. Zomegnan was willing to keep an open mind to Greenedge.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling...pes-for-2012-giro-ditalia-20110526-1f6ac.html

Oh and with comments like this you can see why the UCI hates him and why the fans love him

When asked if GreenEDGE would need a ProTeam licence to earn a Giro invitation, Zomegnan said: ''It is not a problem of licence. What is a licence? [The] licence is only an obligation and not [about] rights. It's a closed system and I don't like the licence system.''

He also says that there would be no sprint stage in the final week of 2012 edition, so he didnt know his fate yet yesterday.

 

[riobonito92]

Oh and this is bad news for Ozzies. Zomegnan was willing to keep an open mind to Greenedge.

Much of the best racing in this giro has been from non "pro tour" teams.

 

[Archibald]

there is a reason the Spaniards are winning and it isnt Zomegnan's fault

Terrible news if this turns out to be true (Zomegnan that is).

 

[Ferminal]

Sad news, seems like there's a lot at play here. Have the papers in Italy been scathing of Zomegnan in any way over the last three weeks?

From a viewers perspective some may argue that the course wasn't as good as previous years (in particular 2010) but it's by no means a failure, and something you wouldn't get sacked for. The administrative failures are more significant, but it seems interesting that they'd make Zomegnan the scapegoat for that.

 

[saganftw]

what a bunch of ***edited by mod***,even though this giro has its flaws it will be still n times better racing than TdF

and to those who thinks this giro is too hard,what attracts more crowds? 7,5 hours suffering or another cav win...i call the latter suffering

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The fans shat on the 2004 route. They weren't much happier about the 2009 route. Every time Zomegnan presented an "easier" route, the fans responded by complaining, and providing chronically bad audience figures for flat stages. Presenting "harder" routes is a logical progression from this. The teams and riders may be happier to do more flat stages but if the audience isn't there they can't really justify it. Maybe RCS have decided that Andrea Guardini is the real deal so would like a route like the Cipo/Ale-Jet days so that he can win.

This is still rumour as things stand though.

 

[Ferminal]

The fans shat on the 2004 route. They weren't much happier about the 2009 route. Every time Zomegnan presented an "easier" route, the fans responded by complaining, and providing chronically bad audience figures for flat stages. Presenting "harder" routes is a logical progression from this. The teams and riders may be happier to do more flat stages but if the audience isn't there they can't really justify it. Maybe RCS have decided that Andrea Guardini is the real deal so would like a route like the Cipo/Ale-Jet days so that he can win.

This is still rumour as things stand though.

Next year - 10 flat sprint stages with the Queen stage in France.

 

[movingtarget]

Sad news if true. All the media hype about safety issues etc plus the accidents are probably the reason. Few riders also complaining about the race being too hard with too many mountains. Maybe the Crostis was going too far but I did not have a problem with the rest of the route. At least he was willing to experiment and most fans would not complain that the race was not exciting enough even if Contador had it wrapped up a long way from the finish.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Maybe RCS have decided that Andrea Guardini is the real deal so would like a route like the Cipo/Ale-Jet days so that he can win.

This is still rumour as things stand though.

Or maybe they want someone who will end eight stages with descents so Nibali can win.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

there is a reason the Spaniards are winning and it isnt Zomegnan's fault

Indeed. I yearn for the clean days of DiLuca, Basso, Piepoli, Ricco, and Mazzoleni.