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Sprint victories vs other victories

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Re: Re:

Jspear said:
Fernandez said:
PremierAndrew said:
Fernandez said:
What Im trying to compare is the typical sprint victorie like todays Giro with the kind of victorie that you take by your own. For example, Ulissis or Wellens victories against Greipels and Kittels victories. And trying to set them a comparative value. For me the first kind of them values something like 4 or 5 of the second ones. And something like winning in style the queen stage of a Giro or a Tour should value as much as 10 sprints, or more.

A win is a win, no matter how it came about. From a fans point of view, of course an entertaining win is more memorable, but as a pro cyclist, it's all about the competition present and the prestige of the race, not about the manner of victory
No way. There are wins and there are WINS. Contador WIN in Fuente De values as much as all the Greipels and Kittels wins.

You need to clarify this....do you literally mean ALL their victories. Cause your statment wouldn't be true then.
Contador win in Fuente De was a win took by cojones. Was a win that gave him a GT against a much stronger rider (Purito). A long range attack that destroyed the race into pieces. I´d take that win instead of an undetermined number of sprint wins.
 
Sprinters have a lot of skill and ability that others dont have and also I think specializing in winning is badass however i find no way to articulate this in any detail without triggering the majority opinion on CNF that climbing is a more pure and more real style of cycling.

Okay I will try... sprints are amazing and the level of competition is awe inspiring and just because winning a sprint in a GT is a huge deal doesn't have to detract from other riding styles. At the end of the days its apples and oranges.

Winning the Tour > Winning Tour Stage(s) > everything else

Okay how did I do?
 
A win is not a win, and everyone here knows that. Just because that sentence has rhythm doesn't mean it has any reason or truth.

A much more useful description when evaluating a performance is to look at who they beat, and who they finished ahead of. Greipel beat Nizzolo, Ewen, Modolo (and Kittel over the climb). Wellens beat Didier, Zhupa and Bisolti, and and finished ahead of Fuglsang, Zakarin, Dumoulin. Looking at who the winners were in direct competition with, it is easy to see which win is "better".

It's all one race, but we know that the competition pockets itself into separate battles. It is not useful to compare those battles, which is why it is important to distinguish them.

A sprint win is worth more when the winning sprinter bests better, direct competition, and a "other" stage win is worth more when they best better, direct competition
 
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It doesn't matter if it's a big deal for me, for a rider with that specific set of skills it's a huge deal an probably one of the biggest things that they can win. For a sprinter there aren't many things that beat winning a normal Tour stage, only a Champs Elysées win, MSR or a flat WC RR are bigger, most pure sprinters don't have the skillset to win other stages or race.
 
SeriousSam has a great point.

More than not, the breakaway victories are 'gifted' and the flat days like those in NL are a foregone conclusion. While they all mean something, dropping all your rivals on the last climb like Froome at PSM is a far greater achievement and therefore should be valued much higher. The sprinters have what, 30 opportunities if not more throughout the year, while the climbers have a lot less space to assert themselves, especially on the biggest scene that is the Tour.

Also, I don't value Kittel's victories as greatly as Greipel's victory in Benevento fx. It takes a lot more complete rider than Kittel to win such a stage and that is to be rewarded.
 
Re: Re:

Fernandez said:
PremierAndrew said:
Fernandez said:
What Im trying to compare is the typical sprint victorie like todays Giro with the kind of victorie that you take by your own. For example, Ulissis or Wellens victories against Greipels and Kittels victories. And trying to set them a comparative value. For me the first kind of them values something like 4 or 5 of the second ones. And something like winning in style the queen stage of a Giro or a Tour should value as much as 10 sprints, or more.

A win is a win, no matter how it came about. From a fans point of view, of course an entertaining win is more memorable, but as a pro cyclist, it's all about the competition present and the prestige of the race, not about the manner of victory
No way. There are wins and there are WINS. Contador WIN in Fuente De values as much as all the Greipels and Kittels wins.


Nonsense... what you really mean is that you 'liked' Contador's victory more.
 
Jul 28, 2012
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I'd say sprinters wins tend to be far less valued because they happen very quickly (even thought the stage evolves over 4-5hrs) and when they're on they're on and its a confidence game, so if they win 1 they could win 4 in quick succession.

MTFs are a different game. It's less about how one wins and more about how much they win by, because they're normally won by a GC guy.

Having said all that, what we want to see is someone suffer and win in a romantic fashion, so regardless of what kind of win it is, if the story is amazing then we'll all fawn for it. If the story sucks everyone will hate it.
 
Re: Re:

Fernandez said:
PremierAndrew said:
Fernandez said:
What Im trying to compare is the typical sprint victorie like todays Giro with the kind of victorie that you take by your own. For example, Ulissis or Wellens victories against Greipels and Kittels victories. And trying to set them a comparative value. For me the first kind of them values something like 4 or 5 of the second ones. And something like winning in style the queen stage of a Giro or a Tour should value as much as 10 sprints, or more.

A win is a win, no matter how it came about. From a fans point of view, of course an entertaining win is more memorable, but as a pro cyclist, it's all about the competition present and the prestige of the race, not about the manner of victory
No way. There are wins and there are WINS. Contador WIN in Fuente De values as much as all the Greipels and Kittels wins.

The reason Contador's win in Fuente De is more valuable than your typical Kittel win is because it was also the reason Contador won the overall GC.

When Tony Martin won a stage with a solo breakaway, now that's worth exactly the same as a Kittel win. As impressive as it was, ultimately, Tony Martin is not skilled enough in a sprint to win against Kittel, and thus has to try ridiculous tactics to win. More memorable? Yes. Worth more? Absolutely not
 
It's not necessarily about "liking" Contador's win more. There are wins that have superficially the same value, but are more significant because of their importance to a grander narrative, or that are more memorable because of the circumstances of the victory. Therefore while their value in "real" terms may be the same, their value in the long term may be greater in terms of reputation, popularity, and even royalties when it comes to things like book sales, DVDs and interviews years down the line.

For example: who won the mountain stages of the 2005 Vuelta, off the top of your head? I've forgotten the majority of that race. But Heras' victory at Pajáres I will remember forever. Vasil Kiryienka is a reigning World Champion, but I will forget that in a few years' time. For me, Kiryienka is Sestriere in 2011, pointing to the sky a week after Tondó's death and putting his sunglasses on despite the bad weather because he didn't want his tears broadcast to the world. Damiano Cunego won four stages in the 2004 Giro, including the queen stage, but Falzes is the only one anyone remembers.

Or, from the examples of sprinters: how many of Cipollini's stage wins can you actually recall? There's a reason we all always talk about his Gent-Wevelgem victory, even above and beyond his World Championships win. Likewise Cav in Sanremo. Those wins were something out of the ordinary, whereas a lot of sprint victories are something mundane, and are only memorable when the template is deviated from (for example, I remember Tony Martin being caught 50m from the line much more vividly than the stage victory that day. I'd actually have to guess to tell you who won. Who won the sprint after Cav took Haussler out in the Tour de Suisse? I remember that crash but not who actually won.

The fact is, a disproportionately high number of sprinters' victories are eminently forgettable; stages and races of little importance to many grander narratives, and with few features that merit keeping in the memory. You can remember them as part of stats that make them important ("Cav won six stages at the 2009 Tour"; "Ale-Jet won nine stages of the 2004 Giro") but it's rare that a full on bunch sprint buries itself in your memory long-term. And the very fact that we can list up cases where riders won nine stages of the same race shows that these guys have more opportunities to win than most riders; the more races you win, the less significant a single victory becomes in the grand scheme of things. For many riders, a single Grand Tour stage win will be the highlight of their career; for most front-line sprinters they expect, nay, DEMAND, at least a couple every year. They're expected, ordinary, mundane.

Of course, sometimes defeat is more important than victory owing to the manner of it. People remember Raymond Poulidor far more than they ever would have done if he was a one-and-done Tour winner.
 
Fully agree with Libertine here.

I think there's a trade off between sprinters and non sprinters. If you're not a sprinter, you're getting a lot less chances to win. On the other hand, if you're a sprinter, there's two disadvantages

- Almost all the biggest races are too tough for you. You have MSR (and thats hard for most), then you have GT stages already for pure sprinters
- Though they have more opportunity to win stages, flat stages are more or less a 'necessary evil'. Sprint stages are almost never what a race will be remembered for. Their wins aren't carved into our memories as much. I'd say they all blur together way more, whereas a rider like Nieve has won 2 GT stages and you remember them from the top of your head.

So for tl;dr

- Sprinters have more opportunities, but they can't win the biggest races
- On palmares, victories are the same
- In our memories, they're not
 
sprinting almost feels like a different sport(it is! given that sprinters have a different body structure/metabolism/training). Being part of a hyper specialized group of people doesn't feel to me like a merit.

A race where 30 sprinters start with 1km to go without the help of the team would give this specialty more prestige


PS: breakaways born during the highest point of competitive effort (for example on a steep mountain against contenders) should be treated separately compared to breaks allowed to flourish from the start
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
For me, Kiryienka is Sestriere in 2011, pointing to the sky a week after Tondó's death and putting his sunglasses on despite the bad weather because he didn't want his tears broadcast to the world.

Of course, sometimes defeat is more important than victory owing to the manner of it. People remember Raymond Poulidor far more than they ever would have done if he was a one-and-done Tour winner.

These opinions are a bit off topic, I guess. Whether you like it or not, I'll always remember Kiryienka for his ITT world title because ITT is the ultimate effort in cycling. So it means that he is strong. You are too subjective about that stage win. I understand you though.

If Poulidor is remembered it's perhaps also because the so-called "eternal second" WON Milan-Sanremo, the Walloon Arrow (when it was a genuine classic), two Paris-Nice's beating Merckx, Ocaña & Zoetemelk, the Tour of Spain, the GP des Nations, the GP de Lugano and 75 victories overall. Only the French sold the Eternal Second myth because at that time they were a bit like CN today: only watched the Tour of France. The rest of the world know that he won a lot. The 1972 might be his greatest. I mean if only for the 20'06" ascent of the Col d'Eze, on those old heavy bikes and at age 36. That's a performance for the ages.
 
Of course, Poupou has enough of a palmarès to be considered a legend even without his Tour de France exploits. But that doesn't change that the fact he never won the Tour while coming close several times is more famous than any of his actual victories, and because he was unfortunate enough to come up against not just Anquetil but also Merckx in his heyday, that's more famous than a lot of the one-and-done Tour winners.
 
The thing is sprinters end their careers with dozens of wins meanwhile other good riders have only few of them. Thats the reason I dont find sprint victories so much valuable, because an average sprinter gets usually some wins per year meanwhile other good cyclists get one win per year (with luck) besides they try hard everyday. I dont see sprint wins like something extraordinary, and I find breakaway wins very meritable because how many of them end winning the stage? 5%?
 
I think we need to take into account the effort requiered to make it into breaks on stages where the break is allowed to go. I remember some stages from the 2011 tour, where they had TV-coverage from the first pedalstroke, and it was a total meyham for two hours with people trying to get away.
I am biased of course, but Hushovd's win on stage 13. in 2011 is for me one of the best memories from Tour de France :D
 
when you talk about best cyclists ever or best cyclists in any generation,how often does a name of a sprinter come up?

cavendish probably won the most races (including WC and MSR) in last 10 years yet i wouldnt put him anywhere near top 10 best cyclists of this generation,maybe top 20 if i want to be generous,no matter how many times a sprinter wins its just something for palmares,not something to remember - its like winning regular season in NBA or NFL,nice to have but yeah nobody cares too much
 
Kinda hard to compare riders with a different speciality. You can't really say Froome is a better rider than Cancellara, they are completely different riders with a completely different focus on races. That's just pointless. Cav is not better or worse than Contador, just completely different.
 
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Re:

Breh said:
Kinda hard to compare riders with a different speciality. You can't really say Froome is a better rider than Cancellara, they are completely different riders with a completely different focus on races. That's just pointless. Cav is not better or worse than Contador, just completely different.

You're right, you can't say Froome is better than Cancellara, cause he's not even close!!! And Cav is nowhere near Contador!
 

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