I do think Ineos have paid some huge contracts for pure climbing domestiques. Wasn't Diego Rosa on 1.5M/year?
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Think you'll find that Jayco's budget is now around 14 million with Alula coming on as a major sponsor - They'll have more money to spend on riders in 2024/2025, however it's important they nail their recruitment of mid-level riders which is sadly lacking in the current team.
In 2021, the budget for Ineos was 50 million euros. For Quickstep it was around 23. Probably hasn't changed much since.
I explained exactly that reason you are now trying to explain me...
But don't forget that you can't attract 1 top rider if you don't have a good support cast. Just look at guys like Arnaud De Lie, who could have had a very good chance winning 2 races (Omloop and first stage in PN) if he had a better team. Part of the attraction of QS, at least in the classics, was that you were guaranteed to have team mates in the finale, so you didn't have the burden and stress of being the only team leader, and you saw them winning with more than one rider, so you could expect that your winning chances were bigger. Part of the reason why small teams are not attractive for a good classics rider is that are quickly on your own. So you would be willing to ride for QS for e.g. 80% of the wage you could get in another team, but with more chances to win races, and with the opportunity to cash in later in a smaller team when you feel you don't improve anymore.
For a noob it feels weird to talk about 2020-2022 years at all in cycling because covid. (The situation with random multi DNF's and lower level fields because of it. )
Aren't you always talking about Almeida? He didn't do much outside those years...
You couldn't possibly have understood me better! The noob is gradually hit harder and harder by the realization that "what if the effect of the pandemic on WT might not be known until a couple of years ahead?". "What if the cyclists and teams a noob liked just got lucky in the pandemic lottery?". Then started the noob cycling fan existential crisis.
EDIT:
Apparently it is not available in every country. It is definitely available in UK, Netherlands, Belgium and France according to twitter users. Unsure which other countries.
You can get a free 1 month Amazon Prime trial to watch it, or to check whether you can watch it.
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Steimle and van Tricht still need a few percents to regularly ride in their 1a team. Van Lerberghe gets praised a lot. All in all, their team for the Flandrien classics is worse than Evenepoel and his Ardennes men.
Who‘d expected this few years ago?…
Who‘d expected this few years ago?…
Unfair comparison because the Ardennes team has Evenepoel.
It may be a bit weird it's almost like Ardennes like races are a bit of a dead specialisation. There's Alaphilippe and who else?
Teuns, Cosnefroy, Woods, Hirschi. Maybe you can include Benoot.
At least the lunch was good, but not a good day otherwise:
www.cyclingnews.com
Patrick Lefevere: My lunch was the only good thing about E3
Soudal-QuickStep boss rues another disappointing Classics outing for his team
www.cyclingnews.com
Patrick better get used to this in the classics. Paying the Remco tax; that pound of flesh won't come cheap.At least the lunch was good, but not a good day otherwise:
Patrick Lefevere: My lunch was the only good thing about E3
Soudal-QuickStep boss rues another disappointing Classics outing for his team
But there are more teams than just Ineos. And if you are outbid by 5 teams for 3 riders each, you'll only get the 16th best available...
Which is exactly why Quickstep has to rely on their scouting to work flawless. For years they had a pipeline of young classics riders on the cheap. Pozzato, Boonen, Stybar, Trentin, Lampaert, Asgreen, etc. all joined on cheap contracts. When did they actually outbid anyone for a star rider from another team? There was hardly any money left after trying to retain their own talents. And some of them they had to let go because of it. Like Pozzato, Kwiatkowski, Trentin, Schachmann, ... imagine they could've kept them all together.
Problem is, in recent years this pipeline of talent has dried up. Bagioli did not become the next Alaphilippe. Vernon did not become the next Cavendish. Senechal did not become the next Terpstra...
And with an increasing number of the big talents on or having come through the U23 teams of other WT teams (while QS' own feeder team is pretty weak) and half the peloton copying what QS did with Evenepoel and snapping up the biggest talents at 18 or 19, it's hard to see the pipeline returning to its past state. The reality is that QS haven't really innovated their approach for a while, which has allowed other teams to catch up with and pass them. They should consider themselves fortunate to have Evenepoel papering over just about as many of the cracks as a single rider possibly can - and they might not have had him had he been from any other country than Belgium - because the rest of their lineup is increasingly average. Or perhaps worse, in the case of their cobbles squad.
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Bad timing, too, that their two most prominent non-Remco riders are struggling at the same time.
Alaf I think is maybe just a bit over the hill. Physically he looks good but clearly isn't the rider he was just 18 months ago. Could also be that his crash has left some lasting effects, but he's also a rider who has done a lot of all-out efforts in his career, and may have already peaked.
But Asgreen is a mystery to me.
Alaf I think is maybe just a bit over the hill. Physically he looks good but clearly isn't the rider he was just 18 months ago. Could also be that his crash has left some lasting effects, but he's also a rider who has done a lot of all-out efforts in his career, and may have already peaked.
But Asgreen is a mystery to me.
Seems these all out attacking riders really crack sensationally. Straight up non competitive one season to the next
This. The QS team that absolutely dominated the 2021 E3 is more or less the same team that GOT dominated in the same race in 2023. Their opponents are also the same (Pogačar is the only one extra). The loss of performance of especially Asgreen and Alaphilippe is remarkable. Guys like Lampaert, Ballerini, Jakobsen and Senechal are slightly worse than they used to be (some more than others), but I find Van Lerberghe and Merlier better than expected. And yeah, I am well aware of the changes in the team personel that can´t be discussed here, but I wonder why certain QS riders can maintain themselves beter than others.
Underperforming riders are of course a way to get rid of some big salaries, money that can be used to spend on Remco´s train. But PatLef can´t be thàt cynical? Or can he?
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It's clinic related. Their classics squad dr left 17-18 months ago...
You saw Jörgensen & Garcia at E3. There's your answer. Asgreen always was just a solid rider. Nothing more. Senechal is a mediocre rider that suddenly won bunch sprints. Look at Bennett & Viviani. Cavendish is riding on crutches like he used to prior to re-joining Quick Step. Gaviria suddenly rides well again. Except for his unprofessionalism to be unmotivated once it heavily rains.
Jakobsen on the other hand has been harmed in development, because of his major crash and the injuries. He just can't confirm that super talent status into becoming a rocket sprinter. But he's still very good.
That is absurd. His win in Flanders was one for the ages. A "solid rider"? Good grief...
Average rider. They can't turn average riders into such world beaters anymore as you see.
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