Teams & Riders Team Movistar-thread

[perico]

MAL lost 26 minutes today.

 

[movingtarget]

MAL lost 26 minutes today.

That seems to be a club that's growing quickly...........

 

[Escarabajo]

What happened to Lopez today. Unless too many crashes took the toll. Because performance wise there was nothing to indicate that this would happened.

 

[Escarabajo]

BTW, Movistar can officially chase down Carapaz!

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Need to get 3 riders in the break every day and chase down any breaks in which other teams have 3. That's the only way you can make up 1 hour and overtake 12 teams.

 

[Koronin]

Need to get 3 riders in the break every day and chase down any breaks in which other teams have 3. That's the only way you can make up 1 hour and overtake 12 teams.

They have too many injured and sick riders at this point.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

What happened to Lopez today. Unless too many crashes took the toll. Because performance wise there was nothing to indicate that this would happened.

I think too many crashes. I also think he let go big time when he did let go, so lost more time. Now Mas will be unquestioned leader and Soler is injured, it might be time for Supermán to get Vuelta leadership, regardless of plans for home leaders or whatever.

 

[Koronin]

I think too many crashes. I also think he let go big time when he did let go, so lost more time. Now Mas will be unquestioned leader and Soler is injured, it might be time for Supermán to get Vuelta leadership, regardless of plans for home leaders or whatever.

As Enric Mas proved last year he can do well in both the Tour and Vuelta, he'll have at the very east co-leadership if not full leadership at la Vuelat. Erinc is proving he's reliable and consistent again and it currently the one rider they can count on in 3 week GT's. Also unlike the Tour, Valverde has much bigger plans for himself in la Vuelta.
Soler is likely done for the season.
I agree that for Lopez today it was likely too many crashes. Most of Movistar's riders at the Tour are either injured or sick at this point.

 

[perico]

What happened to Lopez today. Unless too many crashes took the toll. Because performance wise there was nothing to indicate that this would happened.

He crashed again today

 

[Libertine Seguros]

As Enric Mas proved last year he can do well in both the Tour and Vuelta, he'll have at the very east co-leadership if not full leadership at la Vuelat. Erinc is proving he's reliable and consistent again and it currently the one rider they can count on in 3 week GT's. Also unlike the Tour, Valverde has much bigger plans for himself in la Vuelta.
Soler is likely done for the season.
I agree that for Lopez today it was likely too many crashes. Most of Movistar's riders at the Tour are either injured or sick at this point.

Back to back GTs might be a tougher ask when there's a lot of racing from afar though. Last year's Tour was very conservatively raced, and that suited him well in coming into form later in the race. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest he may have to go deeper to achieve a high placement in this race than he did last year, when Jumbo paced everything but didn't even really try to gain time. And part of the beauty of their conflicting styles is that Mas can race in the Sastre or even Zubeldia method, letting others tire themselves out if López is co-leader and forcing people to respond to attacks, and riding himself into form as the race goes on.

 

[perico]

Lopez is out of contract. No clue if he plans on staying but there won’t be any deals promising him Vuelta leadership. I love watching him climb and on his day he is as good as anybody in the world, but he wasn’t signed as an undisputed GC leader at the GTs and this is Movistar we are talking about. They’ll have 3-4 leaders at La Vuelta regardless.

At this point in the Tour, there shouldn’t be any deals. Lopez is 26 minutes behind Pogacar and 20 minutes behind Mas. It’s his responsibility as a member of the team to ride for Mas regardless of possible Vuelta leadership.

 

[Koronin]

If I remember correctly, when Lopez signed with Movistar he said he was going there to be a co-leader. It's most likely they go to la Vuelta with Mas, Lopez and Valverde as co-leaders. As he's on a 1 year contract, plus with his issues in the Tour, they won't give him anything more than co leadership. As long as he's healthy he'll likely have that.

 

[Koronin]

I just read Carlos Verona's summary of today. Lopez did crash again today. Valverde was suffering very badly from hypothermia to the point that when he ended up at the grupetto they had to get him back to the team car so he could fully change clothes and he was still suffering just to try to finish the stage.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Thing with MAL is, though, when they signed him, Valverde's contract has an option on salary level depending on whether he's active as a rider or not from 2022, and Telefonica had yet to re-up the sponsorship.

I think MAL was in the market when a lot of teams didn't have the money to pay him what he was worth, and rather than sign a 3 or 4 year deal when he might not be getting what he's worth, Movistar offered him the option of a one-year deal with extension salary TBD. At the time I compared it to Marcus Pettersson, the ice hockey player who reached RFA and took a contract for way below his market value for one year, when his team was in a salary cap crunch, only to then take a higher salary contract to fill out the rest of the deal. He wanted $3,5m x 6 years, they gave him $1m x 1 year followed by $4m x 5 years to make up the total value & duration. He was 26 years old and does not want to commit to a contract across peak years for less than he feels he's worth due to a lack of money in the market following the Covid slowdowns and race cancellations, so the opportunity to kick the can down the road a year when the situation will likely be better was an obvious plus point about the Movistar offering for him.

Of course, this is beneficial for Supermán in multiple ways - they get a year to ascertain whether he meshes well with the team or can work in that environment, and until this Tour, signs had been good in that respect. However, he also gets to hit the market again at the end of the year so if he prices himself out of what Movistar are willing to pay he can jump ship for a better contract elsewhere. I would be astounded if they don't offer him an extension - and a pretty good one - at this point, unless some serious public arguments break out in the interim. However, I would not be astounded if he doesn't take that extension because somebody else is offering him a better contract. After all, we'd be talking his contract through what ought to be peak years, and even if he has a disappointing year, he's nevertheless still a proven talent and a proven winner who will bring a lot of eyeballs to your team through his results and his activities during races, so should still be a valuable commodity in the market to most teams.

 

[Koronin]

Last year Movistar did offer a 2 year contract, but MAL wanted a 1 year deal, which is understandable for multiple reasons and obviously Movistar was good with that. Telefonica has renewed their sponsorship for 2 more years. Valverde has also now said publicly to media he plans on racing in 2022. So we have those moving pieces now more or less in place. It sounds like Movistar is bringing G. Izagirre back along with Ananburu (i know I just misspelled his name) in to the team next year. There is a rumor that Soler is going to UAE next year. 1 year gives MAL and the team the ability to know if it's worth pursuing to keep him there or not. Next year teams should have a bit more money than they did last year or this year.

 

[yaco]

It was strange that Valverde suffered from the cold when the temperature was around 17C - MAL can find trouble in the first week of GT's.

 

[Koronin]

It was strange that Valverde suffered from the cold when the temperature was around 17C - MAL can find trouble in the first week of GT's.

Valverde, unfortunately, is very prone is having issues with cold. He's said in the past anything under 20C is cold as far as he's concerned. His issues with cold become compounded when it's raining as well.

 

[Escarabajo]

MAL must really have problems with his health. He is really bad now.

I heard in a Colombian podcast that he has problems in a knee because of a crash. I didn't know that. On top of that the weather was miserable to make things worse. Hope he recovers for the second and third week so that he can help Mas on his coveted top 10!!!

 

[perico]

Coveted top 10? That’s a bit condescending.

 

[Escarabajo]

Coveted top 10? That’s a bit condescending.

Podium!
Movistar sometimes makes me mad when setting objectives!

 

[perico]

Podium!
Movistar sometimes makes me mad when setting objectives!

They are aiming for the podium, from what I’ve seen and heard. Nobody is going to be happy with a Top 10.

Enric Mas: “Este año tendremos que ser más agresivos, como era yo antes del año pasado”

Tras agradecer el apoyo de Telefónica al equipo después de que esta misma mañana se anunciara el patrocinio de la compañía española por dos años más, Enric Mas

www.mundodeportivo.com

 

[perico]

They are aiming for the podium, from what I’ve seen and heard. Nobody is going to be happy with a Top 10.

Enric Mas: “Este año tendremos que ser más agresivos, como era yo antes del año pasado”

Tras agradecer el apoyo de Telefónica al equipo después de que esta misma mañana se anunciara el patrocinio de la compañía española por dos años más, Enric Mas

www.mundodeportivo.com

And this:

As for teammate and co-leader, Miguel Ángel Lopez, who also talked to the media on Monday, the Colombian is currently engaged in trying to battle back from a very difficult start to the race. Three crashes in the first week, and nearly failing to make the time cut on Sunday made for a very difficult race.
"I've never had such a hard day as yesterday [Sunday]," López said. "I've never been in the gruppetto before and I'm totally out of the GC fight. But we will do our best to fight for the podium with Enric."

Mas: Pogacar rode away from us at the Tour de France 'as if we didn't exist'

'This has been the wildest Tour de France I've done' says Movistar leader

www.cyclingnews.com

 

[Fergoose]

Would anyone who defended Movistar chasing down Carapaz, thus keeping Pogacar nice and fresh, care to explain and defend Movistar doing nothing to limit time loss to G Martin yesterday?

If not, I can only assume the team are every bit as petty, vindictive or stupid as I thought to waste resources to punish an old teammate at the same time as helping out their number 1 rival for overall victory.

Enric Kloden has dropped to 9th and Movistar aren't even dominating the thrilling teams competition this year. I usually love watching Movistar and am entertained by their unpredictability (sometimes good, sometimes bewildering) but this Carapaz incident really needs to go down in the annals of TdF history as something especially cretinous.

 

[Summoned]

I have not defended Movistar on the Carapaz thing, but the clear answer to me is that Carapaz is a more serious candidate to finish ahead of Mas than Martin is.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Also a lot of things had happened between that stage and yesterday's so a 1:1 comparison is not possible to make.