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I dont think you need both of Politt and Vermeersch. Politt has been good here and makes more sense right now.
Its not a conspiracy theory anymore when everyone could see the team bringing a B team and leaving the A team at home. Its gianneti matxin master plan to hold him from PR so that he doesn't crash in this spring. Quite the iq, quite the master plan i guess👏
The final team selection isn't decided, wait until Friday. They will give Pog a good enough team to go for the win.
For you, Laengen shouldn't be selected so who would you pick to be a better domestique and do the dirty work? Someone has to pace the race in Turchino until the first Capo.
MSR is a race where you need a lot powerhorses to keep the pace high. Pogacar only needs Wellens, Narvaez and Del Toro to do 2,5 km before his attack in Cipressa.
Do the basic math about what's more import, pace on the flat or pace on the climb.
For me Wellens is tailormade to pace Cipressa and he is not a climber. You don't need climbers in 4% gradients. If they were good, they would contest TTs in those gradients and normally they lose a lot in shallow gradients (Tom killed all climbers in the first TT in the Giro 2017). Cipressa is a 9 minutes effort in shallow gradients. Guys like Mcnulty, Politt, Wellens is what UAE needs. However McNulty is not a team player so better to have Del Toro.
My brother, its not up to uae to control the race or help in controlling the race because many teams including alpecin, lidl, ineos,... think msr is the only and perfect monument that suite their cxcs so they are going to control the race anyway. If u are uae u know this is the only monument where pog is not the massive favourite so u play it smart, reserve your riders for the position battle for capo berta and make the race hard from there.
How do you don't need climbers.....in a climb?
My friend, those ''climbs'' are 3% and 4%. Is this your first MSR?
Dirty work is not only pacing the peloton for hours. There is always a guy who needs to bring water for his teammates, protect Pogacar in the front all day, trying to avoid crashes and being a fantastic shield, taking all the wind with him.
And so what? Even on a 4% climb yates or almeida are faster than guys like wellens.
Pog needs domestiques that can drop watt bombs, pure climbers such as Almeida & Yates don't have that explosiveness. They're not useful for what UAE are planning.
Only Pog that is gonna do it in less than 9 min. The others are there to set an infernal pace.
That talk about under 9min on Cipressa is worthless. Even if Pogi goes somehow alone, he needs a 45 (never ever) seconds on top of Cipressa to bring it home (still not enough). There is 9km flat between Cipressa and Poggio, peloton would get him in those 9km and after that he still somehow needs to go nuclear on Poggio?. If we are talking Wellens, Del Toro and Narvaez going under 9min on Cipressa with 20-25 guys in peloton i can get behind this idea, but it is still to crazy. Also Wellens needs to be so strong to keep this group so small till Poggio. After that Del Toro and Narvaez still strong enough to do lead out for Pogi, And Pogi needs to gain 20 seconds after that against MvDP just on Poggio? It is just toooo complicated-don't get my wrong i hope they try.
Pog has proven time and time again that he can go solo and it would require a big effort and coordingation between teams to bring him back.
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