The best one week stage racers of the 21st century

[gregrowlerson]

You make a lot of sense, but we differ because I chose to put some weight on diversity of wins : Porte has won 5/7 when Contador only 3/7. It is the same for me with Monuments : I am more impressed with someone winning 3 different Monuments one time, than with someone winning one monument 3 times.

That being said, I perfectly understand ranking Contador number 1.

I wouldn't count diversity as important in one week races as in one day races. Nibali winning Lombardia and MSR....there is nothing nearly as diverse in the 7 races that we are mainly discussing here.

Tony Martin won PN, but could never have won PV. However, anyone who wins PV at least could win an edition of PN.

Like many others, I would rate Contador ahead of Porte too (though I like that you put Richie first.....it's so forum uncool that it's cool.....also they are quite close). I think that the eye test can be just as important as the box score in some cases. TA 2014.....well, I don't recall anything else as impressive as that in a one week race, and also he did it against Quintana. And of course there were those second places in PN.....which were actually good.

Richie? I recall one or two impressive Eze TT's, and a MTF in a Dauphne or Swiss where he blew everyone away. Well, and the Dauphne 2021, but because it is recent.

More so than monuments and GT's, one PN is not necessarily the same as another PN (same goes for the other races) imo. We also need to take into account parcours and especially opposition. It's much more subjective.

 

[Fuente De]

All those near misses of merely seconds in Paris-Nice and Catalunya sure still sting as a contador fan.

It could have been easily 3-4 more GC wins if luck had been on his side. Even that stupid loss against Talansky in Dauphine, fml.

At least losing PN against Henao and Thomas was so undeserving.. Purito in prime was hard to deal with and even harder to beat. Racing against Purito in Catalunya is a scenario probably hardly anyone can match, the guy in his prime outkicks Roglic anytime.

 

[search]

Tony Martin won PN, but could never have won PV. However, anyone who wins PV at least could win an edition of PN.

he actually came 5th one year, so not super far off

 

[gregrowlerson]

he actually came 5th one year, so not super far off

Thanks, helps my argument further

 

[gregrowlerson]

By the way, why was Rodriguez nicknamed Purito and not Murito?! Actually being slightly serious.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

This is an all-time list with the number of wins in the seven biggest one-week races: Paris-Nice, Dauphiné, Suisse, Romandie, Tirreno, Basque Country and Catalunya. Those of the current century are in bold. The most surprising name is Mariano Cañardo, who's won Catalunya seven times.

14 Seán Kelly
9 Jacques Anquetil
9 Tony Rominger
8 Mariano Cañardo
7 Eddy Merckx
7 Roger De Vlaeminck
7 Miguel Indurain
7 Alberto Contador
6 Luis Ocaña
6 Laurent Jalabert
6 Alejandro Valverde
6 Primož Roglič
5 Ferdinand Kübler
5 Joop Zoetemelk
5 Stephen Roche
5 Alex Zulle
5 Andreas Klöden
5 Richie Porte
5 Chris Froome
5 Nairo Quintana

That is an insane lead for Kelly.

I wonder if the current big 7 were always the 7 biggest shorter stage races? it comes up a lot in discussions of palmares that oldy timey one day races weren’t ranked as they are today and that the Vuelta used to be much less significant, but as the shorter stage races are less prestigious and count for less in those discussions, their evolving relative weight isn’t discussed as much.

I know that Suisse for instance used to be a bigger deal than it is now, but as it is still one of the top group of shorter stage races that doesn’t change very munch. Presumably there must be equivalents to Paris Tours that used to matter a lot and don’t now.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Also Mariano Canardo is the first guy I’ve seen this high on an all time palmares list in a long time that I’ve had to Google to find out who the hell he was. Above Merckx in this one aspect of the sport’s history lol.

 

[Ancalagon]

I realize that one of the challenges with ranking the best one week stage racers is the fact that those races are not really goals in themselves for a lot of riders.
You will rarely hear a rider say that one of his two or three main goals of the season is to win a week-long race. Even non-monuments classics like Amstel, FW or Strade are much more common goals at the start of a season.

 

[Orbit501]

By the way, why was Rodriguez nicknamed Purito and not Murito?! Actually being slightly serious.

Well if only he could have smoked a cigar whilst climbing a wall, he could have been...

Purito Murito.

Has a lovely ring to it.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Well if only he could have smoked a cigar whilst climbing a wall, he could have been...

Purito Murito.

Has a lovely ring to it.

Sounds like an epic cartoon character, like Quick Draw McGraw.

 

[Luthor]

Roglic and that's because he can still win several and his consistency since Itzulia 2018 is amazing. Only crashes stopped him to win everything since then.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

So looking at the 7 one weekers that we have repeatedly identifed in this thread, taking the top ten for each edition since 01/01/2000 (CQ's application of historic disqualifications) and issuing points per CQ's TdF stage top ten allocation (80, 50, 35, 25, 15, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1), we would have a top 15 of:

1​	CONTADOR VELASCO Alberto	1261​
2​	PORTE Richie	906​
3​	VALVERDE BELMONTE Alejandro	829​
4​	QUINTANA ROJAS Nairo Alexander	780​
5​	EVANS Cadel	693​
6​	KLÖDEN Andreas	571​
7​	COSTA Rui Alberto Faria	568​
8​	ROGLIC Primoz	555​
9​	SPILAK Simon	552​
10​	FROOME Chris	548​
11​	THOMAS Geraint	510​
12​	FUGLSANG Jakob	461​
13​	RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquim	449​
14​	MARTIN Daniel	443​
15​	KREUZIGER Roman	425​

Make of that what you will.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Yeah, crazy that Evans hasn't been mentioned.

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, crazy that Evans hasn't been mentioned.

I'm always surprised at how low Froome is on these thigns.

 

[RedheadDane]

What about best one week stage racers, who never - or very rarely - showed anything in GTs?

Spilak?

 

[greyclouds]

What about best one week stage racers, who never - or very rarely - showed anything in GTs?

Spilak?

Rui Costa? 3x Suisse and 1x Abu Dhabi + multiple podium and top-5 results in Romandie (I think that podiumed like 4 or 5 times in Romandie), Dauphine, P-N, Beijing and Itzulia. Never ranked higher than 18th in a GT.

 

[gregrowlerson]

I'm always surprised at how low Froome is on these thigns.

Chris Froome is like the Black album.

Geraint Thomas is like Be Here Now.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Rui Costa? 3x Suisse and 1x Abu Dhabi + multiple podium and top-5 results in Romandie (I think that podiumed like 4 or 5 times in Romandie), Dauphine, P-N, Beijing and Itzulia. Never ranked higher than 18th in a GT.

Way better then Spilak ever did.
48, 109, DNF, 117, DNF

 

[BigCoward]

What about best one week stage racers, who never - or very rarely - showed anything in GTs?

Spilak?

Like Richie Porte?

 

[SHAD0W93]

Like Richie Porte?

Spilak’s best stage finish in each GT he competed in are; 11th, 38th, 52nd, 30th, and 20th. For as good of a week racer he was, you’d never know he was in the Grand Tour.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Primoz: why not me, eh?

 

[gregrowlerson]

Spilak’s best stage finish in each GT he competed in are; 11th, 38th, 52nd, 30th, and 20th. For as good of a week racer he was, you’d never know he was in the Grand Tour.

I first read this as overall finish.

And I thought that was bad enough!

 

[tobydawq]

I think Ion Izagirre must be mentioned here. I'm not arguing he is a top 5 one week racer of the century but he has 23 top 10s (of which 14 top 5s (of which 10 podiums (of which 2 wins))) in one-week WorldTour races and just one 9th place in the Vuelta.

10 podiums is a pretty impressive feat for a rider of his calibre!

 

[hayneplane]

What about best one week stage racers, who never - or very rarely - showed anything in GTs?

Spilak?

Spilak
Rui Costa
Ion Izagirre
Fuglsang (only lower top tens in Grand Tours)
Soler
Schachmann

 

[hayneplane]

I think Ion Izagirre must be mentioned here. I'm not arguing he is a top 5 one week racer of the century but he has 23 top 10s (of which 14 top 5s (of which 10 podiums (of which 2 wins))) in one-week WorldTour races and just one 9th place in the Vuelta.

10 podiums is a pretty impressive feat for a rider of his calibre!

Always surprised me that he so rarely seemed to even attempt to go for GC in 3 week races. Maybe he didn't want to.