Saxo - what to do for TdF (minus AC)...

[La Pandera]

TOTALLY not even close to a good comparison. Gimme a break! Lance Armstrong is as relevant as my dead Grandpa riding in the Tour nowadays.

Saxobank went from number 1 team in the world (WITHOUT QUESTION) to completely arbitrary... in 4 months.

Actually it is quite an accurate comparison and at least at Saxo Riis had a few riders left that had some results and history of decent performances (CAS and Porte)along w/ Contador (pre-suspension) and his domestiques . After Bruyneel snatched the guts out of Astana they too were left scrambling to build a team to support Contador and Vino. Luckily several riders stepped up to give them results early [Iglinski and Gasparoto (sp)]. It's a shame so much drama has followed Contador since 2007 til now, virtually every year there has been something:
-2007 was the Rassmussen incident giving Contador the Tour lead and ultimately the win
-2008 Astana was not welcomed at the Tour leaving him to win both the Giro and Vuelta
-2009 was the return of LA and all the drama the accompanied him, a dramatic Tour win followed by the majority of the team bailing to form Radioshack
-2010 of course was full of drama and more controversy at the Tour, another move to a different team and of course the positive test

That is a whole lot of drama for one rider to be dealing with every year. I'd be stressed out if I were Contador.

 

[Ferminal]

If their roster stayed as it was the TdF lineup would be something like this:

Porte
G E Larsson
Navarro
CAS
Nicki S
Noval
Tosatto
Gustov
Morkov

Maybe Hernandez for Morkov if you want more goats instead of TTT/Flats... Such a team would have nothing it could really aim for, apart from a KoM and stage hunting. It's hard to imagine a Riis' lineup without a big target.

 

[barn yard]

plan will be :

- forget the sprints
- tank the TTs
- go for KOM and a stage or two

 

[Sanitiser]

Pjor Bjarne....

 

[ingsve]

If their roster stayed as it was the TdF lineup would be something like this:

Porte
G E Larsson
Navarro
CAS
Nicki S
Noval
Tosatto
Gustov
Morkov

Maybe Hernandez for Morkov if you want more goats instead of TTT/Flats... Such a team would have nothing it could really aim for, apart from a KoM and stage hunting. It's hard to imagine a Riis' lineup without a big target.

Don't you think they would at least bring a sprinter?

 

[Ferminal]

Don't you think they would at least bring a sprinter?

What's the point? In the hope that there's a big crash and JJ Haedo survives to win? I assume JJ would be the one to take, he's not even consistent enough to get say top10 in the points classification.

I guess if your team has nothing ambitious to aim for then it doesn't matter a lot if you use the 9th spot on a sprinter. Would almost be an admission of defeat for Riis (not sure the last time he took a sprinter to the TdF?)