Sprinters 2020

[BlueRoads]

Bennett best sprinter in the world right now

 

[jaylew]

Well, Bennett just dominated Démare at Wallonie.

I don't think anyone is clearly above the others. Bennett, Ewan, Gaviria, Ackermann, Démare...Viviani appears to be the one who's a bit behind

 

[Breezy1985]

Seems to be a weird rumour going round about Sam and pressure at DQ. Even before the first race people were putting this out there

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Seems to be a weird rumour going round about Sam and pressure at DQ. Even before the first race people were putting this out there

he replaced Viviani and came straight in ahead of Jakobsen in the pecking order at the best sprint team in the world. There’s no more pressure filled job for a sprinter. if you have that ride, you have to win

 

[Leinster]

Seems to be a weird rumour going round about Sam and pressure at DQ. Even before the first race people were putting this out there

Well of course there's pressure on Bennett. He was one of the top sprinters in the peloton last year and the year before, he made a big-deal move to the top leadout train of the last decade, the obvious expectation there is that the wins will follow.

With the depth at Quickstep, there's obviously going to be a risk that they could decide Sam isn't cutting it, and they'd be better off sending a different sprinter to the Tour, or sending more support to Alaphilippe. On the other hand, with Hodeg underperforming, and Jakobsen's injury, you have to think that maybe the pressure on him is that now all of Quickstep's sprinting resources are focused on him.

He's up to 4 wins now, but none of them are in really "BIG" races, and his win in Burgos wasn't really a sprint, as such. Wallonie gets a bit of pressure off his back, but he does need to get a stage or 2 at the Tour.

Also, Viviani "only" won 1 stage at the Tour last year. Alaphilippe having a race to remember probably took the focus off that, but I'm sure it will have been something they won't have been happy with, and will want to fix this year.

 

[BlueRoads]

I fear the pressure on him during the Tour will be huge, because DQS's team for that looks underwhelming so far. It's Alaphilippe, basically. If he performs great, everything else won't matter, but it does not look like Jungels or Asgreen are in form and I wonder whether they will be in two weeks. The Giro kind of just fell apart for them, even if Almeida or Bagioli might win a stage if they are lucky. In the classics van Aert and van der Poel will be big rivals. So it's either Julian or Sam who will have to shine.

 

[Breezy1985]

Sorry I should have been more clear I meant people are spreading a story that he can not handle the extra pressure

 

[happytramp]

Sam seems to do well when left to snipe wins for himself. He never needed a big train in the past and excelled at Bora despite less than stellar support. I wonder if the same situation might suit him well enough at the tour if the team were to weigh in behind a good GC run from allaphillipe.

 

[Red Rick]

Well of course there's pressure on Bennett. He was one of the top sprinters in the peloton last year and the year before, he made a big-deal move to the top leadout train of the last decade, the obvious expectation there is that the wins will follow.

With the depth at Quickstep, there's obviously going to be a risk that they could decide Sam isn't cutting it, and they'd be better off sending a different sprinter to the Tour, or sending more support to Alaphilippe. On the other hand, with Hodeg underperforming, and Jakobsen's injury, you have to think that maybe the pressure on him is that now all of Quickstep's sprinting resources are focused on him.

He's up to 4 wins now, but none of them are in really "BIG" races, and his win in Burgos wasn't really a sprint, as such. Wallonie gets a bit of pressure off his back, but he does need to get a stage or 2 at the Tour.

Also, Viviani "only" won 1 stage at the Tour last year. Alaphilippe having a race to remember probably took the focus off that, but I'm sure it will have been something they won't have been happy with, and will want to fix this year.

I think it's simply hard for Bennett to be worse than Viviani. Viviani won a lot of small races, dominating bad sprinting fields in GTs for like one year and even then didn't dominate hard, and last year he didn't win very much.

 

[jaylew]

Well of course there's pressure on Bennett. He was one of the top sprinters in the peloton last year and the year before, he made a big-deal move to the top leadout train of the last decade, the obvious expectation there is that the wins will follow.

With the depth at Quickstep, there's obviously going to be a risk that they could decide Sam isn't cutting it, and they'd be better off sending a different sprinter to the Tour, or sending more support to Alaphilippe. On the other hand, with Hodeg underperforming, and Jakobsen's injury, you have to think that maybe the pressure on him is that now all of Quickstep's sprinting resources are focused on him.

He's up to 4 wins now, but none of them are in really "BIG" races, and his win in Burgos wasn't really a sprint, as such. Wallonie gets a bit of pressure off his back, but he does need to get a stage or 2 at the Tour.

I actually thought that at some point this year Jakobsen would eclipse Bennett as top sprinter for QS. Not really because of Bennett, I just felt like Jakobsen was steadily improving and had youth on his side.

 

[Red Rick]

I actually thought that at some point this year Jakobsen would eclipse Bennett as top sprinter for QS. Not really because of Bennett, I just felt like Jakobsen was steadily improving and had youth on his side.

Same here. Also because Bennett seemed to have too much allround ability to be optimal for a pure drag race sprinter.

 

[Leinster]

Sorry I should have been more clear I meant people are spreading a story that he can not handle the extra pressure

Well that, I haven't heard, and I can only guess that it's pure speculation on the part of some people who looked at his results so far in 2020, prematurely decided he wasn't getting the wins he needed, and put 2 and 2 together and got a banana.

Only Remco has more wins for Quickstep in 2020.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I actually thought that at some point this year Jakobsen would eclipse Bennett as top sprinter for QS. Not really because of Bennett, I just felt like Jakobsen was steadily improving and had youth on his side.

we are now in the realm of could have been, but I didn’t see that happening quite yet. Maybe next season, maybe the one after. In the slightly longer term Jakobsen has I think the most pure sprinting talent in the peloton and has the a chance to be the first sprinter to be clearly the number one guy in the sport quite a while. I just hope he comes back undiminished and gets the chance to prove it.