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Teams & Riders Team Visma - Lease a Bike

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The problem in my opinion is not WVA going for green. I would expect TJV can guesstimate what green jersey is worth compared to yellow and what are the chances of Wout getting it compared to chances of Primoz/Jonas getting yellow as well as how much would Wout going for green hamper their chances of getting yellow…

The problem is how Wout presented those facts to the world. I mean not even Roglic dares to come out and say he WILL compete at next years Tour and go for yellow. Hell, even Pogacar won’t do that at this point. Yet here we are 11 months from next years Tour and Wout already assuming and publicly declaring he will go to TDF and go for green. Not his boss - Wout declared that. The only rider in peloton who did that… I mean how arrogant is this guy really?
 
The problem in my opinion is not WVA going for green. I would expect TJV can guesstimate what green jersey is worth compared to yellow and what are the chances of Wout getting it compared to chances of Primoz/Jonas getting yellow as well as how much would Wout going for green hamper their chances of getting yellow…

The problem is how Wout presented those facts to the world. I mean not even Roglic dares to come out and say he WILL compete at next years Tour and go for yellow. Hell, even Pogacar won’t do that at this point. Yet here we are 11 months from next years Tour and Wout already assuming and publicly declaring he will go to TDF and go for green. Not his boss - Wout declared that. The only rider in peloton who did that… I mean how arrogant is this guy really?
I mean.. Groenewegen was talking about the Tour next year as well. And Van Aert was really explicit in that Groenewegen never fits into the Tour tema.
 
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You don't use a rider like Wout 100% on a domestique duty, him pulling a mountain train is not gonna help beat Pogi. Better to use him offensively and make UAE/Ineos ask themselves "should we chase him?". It is in Team's interest to keep both of their star riders happy and I'm sure Wout will chime in on some key stages like he did this year. But Rogla fans want all eggs in for Rogla, and WvA fans want all the freedom for their boy, I get it, we're all here non-biased after all ;)
Poor Dylan...
 
It is very naive to think that WvA shouldn't be able to chase his own goals in the Tour and should go full domestique for Roglic. Even though the yellow jersey is the biggest thing you can win in cycling, you can't forget that WvA is not only a top 3 road cyclist at the moment, but also that publicity wise he's more important than Roglic for the team's main sponsor Jumbo with them trying to grow in Flanders.

I don't think WvA going for green is anywhere near the same as Cavendish going for stages in 2012 for example. He'll still guide Roglic through echelons stages etc, but likely let go sooner in mountain stages. Cavendish was just a rider on his own outside the team trying to win with Wiggins. Even then Roglic would likely have the best team around him in the mountains with guys like Vingegaard, Kuss, Kruijswijk, Dennis, Foss and/or Dumoulin.

In the end chances of WvA winning green are also higher than Roglic winning yellow, because unfortunately for Roglic there is a guy named Pogacar, who almost looks invincible.
 
I bet Wout van Aert wants Christophe Laporte on the Tour squad (he was hired to help WVA in the classics) + Mike Teunissen again.

But it's all relative, i.e. the fight for yellow might look like a tough objective with the Pogacar problem standing in the way, but what about green? Deceuninck in particular have the train for the sprint stages, WVA does not. So that fight for green could arguably be just as difficult. And then there's the conflict of interests which goes beyond mere numbers (i.e. how many riders for the GC battle versus how many for green), namely there are stages where climber legs must be rested & breakaways are let go based on their GC threat level... whilst the riders going for green want a full gas race to the intermediate sprints (especially relevant in middle mountain/slightly rolling stages where good all rounder climbers like Wout van Aert stand a higher chance of scoring those sprint points versus outright sprinters). The irony is Roglic would be in a better position if Wout van Aert declared interest in the actual yellow jersey instead, because at least the individual objective would align with the team objective in every stage (& then they could sort out who's best in the decisive stages).

But Primoz Roglic himself could throw a spanner in the whole plan in any case by skipping next year's Tour altogether. I'm just speculating but seeing how happy he looks in Spain (& the fact he even said "maybe I should plan to do the Vuelta next year" just before the race started), I don't believe his race calendar for 2022 is settled yet.

I don't think he has fun in France, at all.
 
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I don’t think everyone here fully realise what it means to go for green from team’s perspective. It’s not just winning sprints in the end of the stage. It’s making sure there actually is a bunch sprint and not a breakaway that wins. It’s trying to put your rider in a position to win intermediate sprints. That means burning your team through boring flat stages. It’s a completely different set of goals.
 
I bet Wout van Aert wants Christophe Laporte on the Tour squad (he was hired to help WVA in the classics) + Mike Teunissen again.

But it's all relative, i.e. the fight for yellow might look like a tough objective with the Pogacar problem standing in the way, but what about green? Deceuninck in particular have the train for the sprint stages, WVA does not. So that fight for green could arguably be just as difficult. And then there's the conflict of interests which goes beyond mere numbers (i.e. how many riders for the GC battle versus how many for green), namely there are stages where climber legs must be rested & breakaways are let go based on their GC threat level... whilst the riders going for green want a full gas race to the intermediate sprints (especially relevant in middle mountain/slightly rolling stages where good all rounder climbers like Wout van Aert stand a higher chance of scoring those sprint points versus outright sprinters). The irony is Roglic would be in a better position if Wout van Aert declared interest in the actual yellow jersey instead, because at least the individual objective would align with the team objective in every stage (& then they could sort out who's best in the decisive stages).

But Primoz Roglic himself could throw a spanner in the whole plan in any case by skipping next year's Tour altogether. I'm just speculating but seeing how happy he looks in Spain (& the fact he even said "maybe I should plan to do the Vuelta next year" just before the race started), I don't believe his race calendar for 2022 is settled yet.

I don't think he has fun in France, at all.
He would have have to go in the mountain in my opinion. The sprint and tt stages won’t be enough. He finished 166 points behind this year and 206 behind in 2020. Then has the issue no one will want to work with him. Of course I don’t think he was going for intermediate sprints as frequently as the sprinters but if he will be that’ll tire him out. On top of any GC duties he does.
 
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He would have have to go in the mountain in my opinion. The sprint and tt stages won’t be enough. He finished 166 points behind this year and 206 behind in 2020. Then has the issue no one will want to work with him. Of course I don’t think he was going for intermediate sprints as frequently as the sprinters but if he will be that’ll tire him out. On top of any GC duties he does.

As far as I can remember Van Aert never went for any intermediate sprints in the last two Tours and there were several flat stages in which he didn't sprint either. If he is allowed to do it he can win a lot of points there.

Van Aert's main rivals for green will probably be Ewan, Bennett, Cavendish/Jakobsen, Demare and Sagan.
I only see the first three as being clearly faster than Van Aert and if they split the wins among themselves, Van Aert has every chance of recover in the hilly/mountain/TT stages. If there is a dominant sprinter like this year it will be more difficult but still possible especially in a route with more hilly and mid mountain stages.
 
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As far as I can remember Van Aert never went for any intermediate sprints in the last two Tours and there were several flat stages in which he didn't sprint either. If he is allowed to do it he can win a lot of points there.

Van Aert's main rivals for green will probably be Ewan, Bennett, Cavendish/Jakobsen, Demare and Sagan.
I only see the first three as being clearly faster than Van Aert and if they split the wins among themselves, Van Aert has every chance of recover in the hilly/mountain/TT stages. If there is a dominant sprinter like this year it will be more difficult but still possible especially in a route with more hilly and mid mountain stages.
I think he’s absolutely faster then Demare and Sagan, Cav depends on the day and leadout as both stages they beat the other the winner had a phenomenal leadout. Jakobsen I would hope can improve next year.

I would question his ability to compete everyday for it. He finished 6 times in the top 6 in 2020 and 7 times in the top 8. I think he can absolutely win green and KoM but it would be a guarantee with DQS as they would have a team dedicated to him, sprint train (that needs the assistance of others too not get burnt off), and support in the mountains. Though you can also argue if he went for intermediate points he would have been closer but then that changes the race. Hopefully everyone is there to compete for it next year.
 
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Roglic main problem with positioning isn't in the domestiques but in him losing the wheel of these domestiques IMO. It's like the whole peloton knows how easy it is to just beat him for a space in the peloton

Well he lost Martin on both such occasions this year with the devastating outcome. PN and the Tour. The rest of the JV wheels are i guess just not all that desirable to be holding on in a similar situation. As organiser will likely continue to target Martin in the next season and in the case they succeed i expect Dennis will still be there. Good luck with body checking Dennis.
 
There are some benefits involved but some potential problems too. With van Aert going for the green. It's the Tour and the battle for green won't be easy. Hence team resources could be spend considerably. Some team lead out work would likely be needed. Where exactly is Roglič in such situations ... If it will be more about van Aert going solo and using other teams. That could work fine.

All in all what JV needs to realise is after Roglič there is a good chance they won't have a champion capable of winning TDF. Hence best to take two or three titles now and worry about the rest latter.
 
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I don't see it like that and it's not like Roglič hasn't already beaten Pogačar in a GT race. Both Roglič and Pogačar should be there as without one the prestige of taking a win is much less anyway. It doesn't always have to be the Tour. We just assume both will be on the Tour. They can do it elsewhere just fine.

As for Vingegaard i would say similar to Almeida at UAE. I doubt UAE best shot is to go all in with Almeida for now. But yes maybe send Vingegaard and Almeida to the Tour and Roglič and Pogačar to Giro. That works just fine for me. But just get your act together and first take a Tour win or two. As after Roglič that will be considerably harder thing to achieve.
 
I don’t think everyone here fully realise what it means to go for green from team’s perspective. It’s not just winning sprints in the end of the stage. It’s making sure there actually is a bunch sprint and not a breakaway that wins. It’s trying to put your rider in a position to win intermediate sprints. That means burning your team through boring flat stages. It’s a completely different set of goals.
Nah, winning green jerseys means making sure none of the other sprinters are in the break, not that the break necessarily gets caught; and that you win the sprint of the group you’re with, whether it’s for 1st or 10th, intermediate or finish.

It’s not a 100% different set of goals, it just reduces the chase resources by 1 guy. Who can always be called into action if/when the yellow jersey is threatened.
 
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Maybe Wout comes across slightly entitled with his leadership claim for the Worlds (note: I don't speak dutch so I only rely on the translation here by CN) but I don't see whats wrong or arrogant in wanting to go for Green next year at the Tour. He doesn't need a whole team for that, maybe have 1-2 guys for possible leadouts that are also helpful as Roglic helpers for controlling and then just have the freedom to also contest intermediates while still working for Roglic in the mountains.
Also, while he himself is one of the nicest guys in the peleton, Roglic fans need to get a grip about this whole "Roglic doesn't get full support from JV" narrative. He had full support in 2020 (definitely more than Pogacar) and blew it himself at the end, he had again full support in 2021 and needlessly lost the wheel of WVA in stage 3 and crashed, with Vingegaard, their later GC guy, even waiting for him. Don't give me this stage 7 myth, Jumbo (and other teams) had to try something to get Pogacar at least out to defend, if WVA doesn't go into the break the stage stays hard anyway and Carapaz still attacks later - there's no way Roglic doesn't lose significant time, there's no way he recovers from his crash.
 
Maybe Wout comes across slightly entitled with his leadership claim for the Worlds (note: I don't speak dutch so I only rely on the translation here by CN) but I don't see whats wrong or arrogant in wanting to go for Green next year at the Tour. He doesn't need a whole team for that, maybe have 1-2 guys for possible leadouts that are also helpful as Roglic helpers for controlling and then just have the freedom to also contest intermediates while still working for Roglic in the mountains.
Also, while he himself is one of the nicest guys in the peleton, Roglic fans need to get a grip about this whole "Roglic doesn't get full support from JV" narrative. He had full support in 2020 (definitely more than Pogacar) and blew it himself at the end, he had again full support in 2021 and needlessly lost the wheel of WVA in stage 3 and crashed, with Vingegaard, their later GC guy, even waiting for him. Don't give me this stage 7 myth, Jumbo (and other teams) had to try something to get Pogacar at least out to defend, if WVA doesn't go into the break the stage stays hard anyway and Carapaz still attacks later - there's no way Roglic doesn't lose significant time, there's no way he recovers from his crash.
I actually agree about him being the the leader at the WC. You can still have Remco try a long range attack, but other than that it's one of the few times in recent history when backing one leader is probably the best approach for the Belgian NT.
I wouldn't give him permission to go for green, he can go for it on certain stages, but I wouldn't bring guys who are mainly there to lead him out. If it's just on a few stages than I see nothing wrong with using guys like Affini and Teunissen to help him on the last few kms, but also going for Green when you try to win the Tour isn't an ideal situation. Also, who cares about the boring Zabel jersey when you can win the biggest one day races?
 
In my eyes his leadership claim for the Worlds is more problematic, because who knows, maybe Evenepoel, Stuyven or even Lampaert can actually surprise people there. If you say publically there's only one leader - you give away some cards in my eyes in a one-day-race. Wout is incredibly strong, but if everyone watches him and then some "minor" threat from another team goes away and the other nations let them go because they are busy watching Wout... so, even if within the team it's actually one leader, I wouldn't talk about that like that when you have other guys who are actually capable of winning such a race, even if at lower odds.

With green - I don't get why he would want that and why the team would want that. I don't see much of a problem claiming it though, because if the team decides they won't support him in that he will have to accept that and I'm sure he wouldn't be a troublemaker. It's just that going for it doesn't make much sense to me and I wonder why this is a goal of his. For a non-pure sprinter it can't be the highest price. He's capable of "more". The team has other goals which will be more difficult to reach if they want to go for green as well. Why not go for the classics and then go for as many stage wins in the Tour as possible? They could bring him as a pretty free radical: He doesn't get real support for himself, but he doesn't really have to work for Primoz either. The rest of the team is for Roglic/ Vingegaard. Or he plans to only go for the stage wins and wants to win green in the process, but his statements don't sound like that and it would be hard against for instance a full-behind Jakobsen or whoever DQS.
 
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@Unterlenkerfahrend

Then again you can't claim van Aert doesn't have much freedom when Roglič is riding for yellow jersey.

Now that they have Dennis they have a backup for Martin. Before they didn't have that. Unless they would use Dennis for van Aert green ambition and at the back Roglič would crash due to elbowing with sprinters. Such scenario likely wouldn't be considered as Roglič having the best possible team support. Would it?

Hence i feel that it's OK for saying van Aert can go for the green just fine. But if they plan to spend their team considerably for achieving this goal then it's obvious their priorities are set rather strangely. Then best to send Roglič to Giro-Vuelta double.
 
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Jumbo-Visma are stacked with riders who can win stages & jerseys if that's the goal.

Why stop at green with Van Aert? Surely he could go for the polka as well? Sepp Kuss could also go for the Polka & win stages at the same time.

Then there's the other riders (like Sam Oomen & even veterans like Gesink) who could realistically aspire to win stages (mountain & middle-mountains) if they got into breakaways. They could also have their rouleurs save their energy & go for the TT's (for example Rohan Dennis is rumoured to be signing for JV).

All they need to do is favor their individual objectives over the collective objective & JV could realistically win loads of stages & grab the points & mountain classifications. Maybe Wout van Aert has earned the right to be self-centred (or even has it written in his contract), but let's not kid ourselves: if his teammates did the same they could also get some personal glory. But the team would probably never win yellow either.

...

And I still think it's weird to have a rider make requests via the media for a race which is 10 months away. Imagine if everyone did that (like Vingegaard & Primoz Roglic himself)? It would soon get a little bit explosive.
 
I am not all that convinced just yet but if there is a team in the peloton to pull that of it's JV. Still it's a rather big gamble. And if they win yellow and green then they will for sure win big time. But sitting on two chairs like that. Well your ass can easily fall off of that.

As for van Aert going for stage wins. Not that big of a deal. As for green jersey and at the same time Roglič for yellow jersey.

Yikes.

JV you have around 3 chances to get yellow in foreseeable future. Whatever you do just don't waste them foolishly.
 

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