Super Prestige Pernod - the ultimate determinant of a true Champion

[Mr. Gipsy]

The current year-long standings are a joke. We need to bring back a classification system "à la Super Prestige Pernod". Who's with me????

 

[Panda Claws]

Isn't that the same as the ProTour but with different courses?

 

[Mr. Gipsy]

The ProTour only includes the bigger races. The SPP included almost every race during the entire season (big and small).

 

[Mambo95]

Isn't that the same as the ProTour but with different courses?

Yep. It's more or less exactly the same. Just slightly different races and points.

 

[Lupetto]

Isn't that the same as the ProTour but with different courses?

It is. Races in 1974 were: Paris-Nice, Milano-Sanremo, Semana Catalana, Amstel, RVV, Paris-Roubaix, Flèche Wallone, L-B-L, Vuelta a España, Quatre jours de Dunkerque, Tour de Romandie, Giro d'Italia, Bordeaux-Paris , Dauphiné Libéré, GP du Midi-Libre, Tour de France, World Championships, Paris-Bruxelles, Paris-Tours, Grand Prix des Nations and Giro di Lombardia.

http://www.memoire-du-cyclisme.net/dossiers/dos_pernod.php

 

[Mambo95]

The ProTour only includes the bigger races. The SPP included almost every race during the entire season (big and small).

No it didn't. For example, look at this http://www.raydobbins.com/derosa/pernod

 

[El Pistolero]

No it didn't. For example, look at this http://www.raydobbins.com/derosa/pernod

Seems like Fleche Wallonne was considered a "Monument" back then(I put it between brackets because they probably didn't refer to these races as Monuments back then) because it's bolded along with the 5 current Monuments, Bordeaux-Paris, the World Championship, GP des Nations and the Grand Tours. Never heard about Tours-Versailles though; I guess they mean Paris-Tours? Paris-Brussels also was very prestigious in the 70s it seems.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The ProTour only includes the bigger races. The SPP included almost every race during the entire season (big and small).

If you want that, then just use CQ.

 

[Lupetto]

Seems like Fleche Wallonne was considered a "Monument" back then(I put it between brackets because they probably didn't refer to these races as Monuments back then) because it's bolded along with the 5 current Monuments, Bordeaux-Paris, the World Championship, GP des Nations and the Grand Tours. Never heard about Tours-Versailles though; I guess they mean Paris-Tours? Paris-Brussels also was very prestigious in the 70s it seems.

Till 1989, Flèche Wallone was a race of 240-250 km's. It had more climbs and Huy was no sprint. Nevertheless it was held on Wednesdays, between Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

 

[rghysens]

Never heard about Tours-Versailles though; I guess they mean Paris-Tours? Paris-Brussels also was very prestigious in the 70s it seems.

In the 70's and 80's Paris-Tours wace raced from Tours to somewhere near Paris.
That way they could design a final with a lot of hills in the Chevreuse valley, assuring "real champions" as winners. I think even Zoetemelk won Tours-Versailles once, so it was certainly not the flat race it is today.

 

[Mr. Gipsy]

Paris-Tours, Tours-Versailles, Blois-Chaville, Créteil-Chaville... are essentially all the same.

 

[El Pistolero]

In the 70's and 80's Paris-Tours wace raced from Tours to somewhere near Paris.
That way they could design a final with a lot of hills in the Chevreuse valley, assuring "real champions" as winners. I think even Zoetemelk won Tours-Versailles once, so it was certainly not the flat race it is today.

Well, Paris-Tours doesn't really start in Paris nowadays as well. Same goes for any classic race that has Paris in its name actually. Just like how every country that has democracy in its name, isn't really a democracy.

 

[Echoes]

Superprestige was crap. Not only was it a WT like ranking but what's more it massively favoured French races.

As I've said multiple times there was no such thing as a "monument" up until the late eighties. There were a dozen classics and Paris-Roubaix was the Queen of them, period.

The Arrow was the first Ardennes race to join the Desgrange-Colombo Challenge in 1948. Liège not until 1951. Between 1948 & 1968 or so, Arrow > Liège clearly (go palmarès, it's very telling). However, in my view, Liège deserved its place in DCC much more. The field was mainly local but every now and then you could have a big non-Belgian name and it was talkedabout in the media. You could not say that about the Arrow at that time.

Arrow was to the DCC what Francfurt was to the SPP, Hamburg to the World Cup and Montreal/QUebec to the Pro Tour.

The Arrow was far longer than 200km. Yeah but so was the Ghent-Ghent Circuit, Harelbeke, the Coppa Placci, the Tour of Lazio, etc. Paris-Brussels was 280km long. Verbrugghen killed the non-World Cup Classics classics in 1990. I'm still p*ssed about what he's done.

As for Paris-Tours, yeah in 1975 they went the other way in order to fetch the climbs of the Chevreuse Valley. Before that even the climbs of Lépan, Petit pas d'âne, etc. weren't there.

I thought it was basic knowledge for euro cyclingfans to know that. I've known about this since I was a kid.