Re: Re:
Koronin said:
Red Rick said:
If Movistar keeps going like this I wonder why Mas would want to go there
Don't know, but there are major rumors Mas is headed to Movistar. With his age, it's likely if he goes and stays he would become the next leader of Movistar. He's a good 15 years younger than Valverde. As I said, IF they are smart they bring him in and build a team around him.
You don't see the attraction? Mas is riding for a team which will always, always focus on the Classics. Lefévère has a long, long history of talking game and providing zilch regards to Grand Tours and long stage races. So while Mas may get leadership there, support for Grand Tour bids may be hamstrung by a budget which focuses on the Classic men, because Alaphilippe, Gilbert, Štybar and Viviani won't come cheap. Further to that, they now have Jakobsen and Evenepoel to target going forward too. Mas may well be the undisputed stage race leader there, but he may also worry about the fact that he may be stuck in the same kind of position as Cadel Evans was at Lotto, with the team having competing goals.
The other thing is that, of course, the last GT won by the Quick Step lineage was Marco Pantani's Tour, over 20 years ago. Their podiums in GTs since then total as follows:
- Pavel Tonkov, 3rd, 2000 Vuelta a España
- Rigoberto Urán, 2nd, 2014 Giro d'Italia
- Enric Mas, 2nd, 2018 Vuelta a España
That's right, in over 20 years, despite a succession of high profile purchases, attempted signings and a project to turn Stijn Devolder into a GC man, that's the sum total.
Now, Movistar have been racing pretty daftly of late, and not maximising their results, sure. But if Landa's on the out, and with Valverde saying he'll retire after 2020, the door is very much open for Mas to make Abarcá his team. And while he may be in a similar kind of position at Movistar to at Quick Step, there can be no denying that Abarcá are much, much more successful in nurturing stage racers and producing results in the GTs, because their focus has always been on the stage racing side of the sport, as is common in Spain. It's not just about being the team of one or two stars - there is a long and impressive lineage of stage racers at Movistar, and of course you have the other factor that it is the big Spanish team and there's probably a lot of pressure to have big Spanish stars at the team - why else do you think they moved for Cobo again in 2012, when he'd already had an absolute disaster with the team in 2010, where he was unhappy and unmotivated, and the team gave up on him midseason too. With Valverde soon to retire, his main challenger for the Spanish heart of the team will be Soler, who's a pretty diesel-type climber so they likely won't tread on each others' toes that much. Here's the comparable list of Movistar's GT podiums since the last time a Mapei/QuickStep rider won a GT:
- Abraham Olano, 1st, 1998 Vuelta a España
- José María Jiménez, 3rd, 1998 Vuelta a España
- Alex Zülle, 2nd, 1999 Tour de France
- Unai Osa, 3rd, 2001 Giro d'Italia
- Francisco Mancebo, 3rd, 2004 Vuelta a España
- Óscar Pereiro, 1st, 2006 Tour de France
- Alejandro Valverde, 2nd, 2006 Vuelta a España
- Alejandro Valverde, 1st, 2009 Vuelta a España
- David Arroyo, 2nd, 2010 Giro d'Italia
- Alejandro Valverde, 2nd, 2012 Vuelta a España
- Nairo Quintana, 2nd, 2013 Tour de France
- Alejandro Valverde, 3rd, 2013 Vuelta a España
- Nairo Quintana, 1st, 2014 Giro d'Italia
- Alejandro Valverde, 3rd, 2014 Vuelta a España
- Nairo Quintana, 2nd, 2015 Tour de France
- Alejandro Valverde, 3rd, 2015 Tour de France
- Alejandro Valverde, 3rd, 2016 Giro d'Italia
- Nairo Quintana, 3rd, 2016 Tour de France
- Nairo Quintana, 1st, 2016 Vuelta a España
- Nairo Quintana, 2nd, 2017 Giro d'Italia
Let's remember that they've also had some near misses with the likes of Amador and Carapaz as well, and you can see that there's much more of a history of strong GT races here, including manufacturing some strong GC races out of seemingly unexpected places - Pereiro's Tour win, Arroyo's Giro podium.
The problem for Movistar is that their excitement to pick up Landa while still keeping Valverde and Quintana cost them dearly in that they had been, because of the quality of their two leaders, punching well above their weight in terms of the budget to results ratio, compared to teams like Sky and BMC which were the super-budget teams; their pursuit of Landa came at the price of a number of the key names in their mid-hierarchy and a lot of experienced helpers - they lost Castroviejo, the Izagirre brothers and the Herrada brothers, plus some of their key flat domestiques like Sutherland and to a lesser extent Dowsett, leaving the team very top heavy and their leaders much more exposed. They also lost one of their upcoming prospects to the naughty step with Rosón's suspension. If Quintana and Landa really are both going, that's going to leave a huge gap in the budget that means they can rebuild and bring in some strong domestiques like those mentioned. People like Bilbao and Fraile are realistic targets, and Lluís Más. If they can get one of Fernando Barceló, Sérgio Samitier or Óscar Rodríguez to complement the climbing core for the future, then that will help, plus you do have Unzué's thing for picking up riders he's already had in the past - so don't be surprised to see them moving for people like the Herradas and Luís León Sánchez going forward. Even Rui Costa wouldn't surprise me at this stage; he's comparatively declining, still got a couple of years in him and the way he's been determined to turn himself into a stage race climber, he'd suit a superdom role if he could put his pride aside. They could also bring Capecchi back to keep Mas company.
It's not as crazy a move as you might think.