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Highlighted what I want to answer; this could be true and would be a Jumbo thing to do.

Right now Wout looks like a saint in comparison lol.
His teammates didn't take off with abandon; Kuss took some seconds back after they disappeared into the fog.
This might just be a distraction to keep reporters from asking doping questions. If Kuss was towed to the line without any action, there would be nothing to talk about other than making comparisons to teams like USPS.
I'm almost certain that Kuss will win the Vuelta.
(Sorry, that has nothing to do with what you said; I was doing a follow up to what I said earlier. Carry on.)
 
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His teammates didn't take off with abandon; Kuss took some seconds back after they disappeared into the fog.
This might just be a distraction to keep reporters from asking doping questions. If Kuss was towed to the line without any action, there would be nothing to talk about other than making comparisons to teams like USPS.
I'm almost certain that Kuss will win the Vuelta.
(Sorry, that has nothing to do with what you said; I was doing a follow up to what I said earlier. Carry on.)
I like your takes. What I liked about Brunyel yesterday was him saying this is not the riders fault, but the team who hasn't given clear orders.

But maybe the team has done clear orders all along and it's just a smoke screen, just like you say :D I wouldn't put it past them, that's for sure :D
 
Plus ça change

At least we got an entertaining few days out of it

Rider/team from x country wins big race, catalysing a surge in domestic views and engagement.

Vested financial parties and cycling media spur newfound interest, explaining away uncomfortable truths with vague and meaningless platitudes, suggesting those who fall behind do so because they are stuck in the dark ages. They aren't eating right, they don't know how to train, they don't use the right washing up liquid.

Cynical long-time viewers who express doubts are met with hostility, accusations that they don't know what they are talking about from partisan newcomers, often with nationalistic bias. They have no direct proof of any wrongdoing, just because there is a substantial amount of smoke, doesn't mean there is fire.

Winning rider/team is involved in doping scandal.

Many of the new viewers shuffle away tail between legs, some who can derive joy from the sport stay, and eventually become subsumed into the 'cynical long-time viewer' category.
Repeat.
 
Someone probably posted it somewhere but I keep enjoying Brunyel 🥶
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Glv5R1ShDo


If I don't look at him but just listen he can sound so warm and empathetic. Scary.
He knows a lot about cycling and has a lot of contacts in the Belgian peloton despite being a tw@t so is absolutely worth listening to.

Then again I saw that joker next to him suggest Kuss has been stronger than VIngegaard, though at least he's better than Armstrong, who doesn't know anything about cycling :grinning:
 
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Postal didn't have a smiling Kuss-like rider. and actually LAnce was the king of assholes (not that the Dutch guys are likeable either, but different)
Unlike Postal and Lance, JV actually want to be seen as the good guys and all their riders as such good friends 🌸 ( the results, as we've seen in this Vuelta, are sometimes hilarious).
Social media being a big thing now probably plays a role in the different approach.
 
Someone probably posted it somewhere but I keep enjoying Brunyel 🥶
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Glv5R1ShDo


If I don't look at him but just listen he can sound so warm and empathetic. Scary.

He'll always make such a warm & fuzzy case for riding for the leader at all times... especially when his own experience of a 'leader' was Lance freaking Armstrong.

I mean this stuff we've heard over the last week from the American cycling podcasters is just hilarious, especially considering their past employment record.

These guys promote cult of the boss, cult of American riders (Kuss has that one covered) & cult of generating traffic to their podcasts (always with product placement because that's the way things are).

Bruyneel seems like a perfectly amiable man & I have nothing against him really. He also does also have contacts in the peloton which make his input a bit more interesting than others, but... I dunno, i.e. psychoanalyzing Rog & judging him based on whether he looks happy to work for Kuss seems totally wild.

Imagine Lance Armstrong working for Hincapie to win the Tour? Ha ha... & another ha.
 
Postal didn't have a smiling Kuss-like rider. and actually LAnce was the king of assholes (not that the Dutch guys are likeable either, but different)

He'll always make such a warm & fuzzy case for riding for the leader at all times... especially when his own experience of a 'leader' was Lance freaking Armstrong.

I mean this stuff we've heard over the last week from the American cycling podcasters is just hilarious, especially considering their past employment record.

These guys promote cult of the boss, cult of American riders (Kuss has that one covered) & cult of generating traffic to their podcasts (always with product placement because that's the way things are).

Bruyneel seems like a perfectly amiable man & I have nothing against him really. He also does also have contacts in the peloton which make his input a bit more interesting than others, but... I dunno, i.e. psychoanalyzing Rog & judging him based on whether he looks happy to work for Kuss seems totally wild.

Imagine Lance Armstrong working for Hincapie to win the Tour? Ha ha... & another ha.
Laughing at the idea of Hincapie for Lance. Yes of course their main interest in that pod is money.

Since I didn't watch cycling those years my only reference is a book from a female journalist about Lance. I've forgotten the title, but Brunyel was portrayed as a monster only second to Lance. Hence quite confusing to see him have some EQ. But from my observation he's less of a *** when he's not paired with Lance on the pod too. (I don't know who the half goodlooking man on that pod is that talks with Brunyel even :joycat:)
 
Postal didn't have a smiling Kuss-like rider. and actually LAnce was the king of assholes (not that the Dutch guys are likeable either, but different)
Lance was the king of the assholes, yes, but he also had an extremely effective propaganda machine that meant that anybody that pointed out actually he was pretty ruthless and behaved like an *** would be portrayed as jealous, crazy, and discredited at every opportunity.

The age of social media means controlling the narrative is a lot harder for both teams and media outlets alike. That's why fans' rejection of Froome became one of the biggest stories of some of the less competitive races during his domination. There's a lot of independent media, ex-riders and staffers with their own channels distributing and disseminating their opinions, with all of the accompanying agendas.

Even through regular media, there's far more coverage now that needs filling with discussion points and so on. GCN provides wall to wall coverage of far, far more races than were available 15 years ago. The days of fans hunting out non-geo-restricted streams of the final hour of a Belgian semi-classic with incomprehensible commentary in a language you didn't know in a stream that kept buffering are over; but as a result there's a lot more airspace that needs filling with talking points too.
 
This isn't from a one day race. Infamy.
F6KAakXXsAADiaS
 
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i think he definitely can but going up against Pogacar with a Giro already in his legs is going to be tough
What's the worst that could happen? That he is going to win "only" by 1 minute instead of 7? No big deal.
Pogi is not going to the Giro anytime soon and even if he tries the Tour-Vuelta double next year, all evidences point at him not having many chances to perform good in 2 GTs in a row.
Of course, since this is the clinic, everything is possible with a new pancake mix from the UAE  lab kitchen.