Re: Re:
WildspokeJoe said:
Brullnux said:
WildspokeJoe said:
I've always been a fan of it reappearing especially recently. Sagan is the perfect poster child for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination_classification_in_the_Tour_de_France
Except that Sagan has no chance in hell of winning this. Valverde has it in the bag.
I like your Valverde pick. Unfortunately, all we can do is speculate. If they ever brought it back, I think they should revise it. Most of the guys who won it in the past were strictly GC guys. Would be nice is someone like Gilbert or GVA had a shot at it.
You can't really mess with the format of the Combinada though, because of how it's calculated. It's lowest score wins, not highest. You could only play with the Combinada by changing the formats of the secondary classifications; at present the huge weighting of the GPM towards MTFs at the Tour means the likes of Gilbert, GVA or Sagan could never contend; notwithstanding that the GC is one of the elements and therefore a rider would need to be at a decent level in that to not lose out by default to somebody who, with the current points weighting, is likely to be high in both GC and GPM by Paris, especially with crappy stage designs and Unipuerto MTFs that with ASO's current system lead to GC guys winning the classification by default like Froome did in 2015.
Where the jersey could work is currently impossible; the current ruling of there being only four major jerseys at WT races prevents it. That would be the reintroduction of the maillot rouge, the metas volantes jersey. The likes of Contador and Quintana may get some points in intermediates but only maybe once or twice in the race, while somebody like Froome, who in each Tour he's won has controlled the race from the second weekend on, would have no reason to even score points for that classification. However, it would necessitate killing off a few things to make it work - you couldn't just not give a jersey for the intermediates, because then it would go the way of the minor categories at the Giro that few even know about let alone care for; it would then seem entirely random when it affected the combinada. You can't really go the 'other' way of defining it - race numbers - though, as red race numbers are already an established Tour tradition of their own in respect of the Prix de la Combativité. And at the very least introducing two new jersey classifications would almost certainly result in destroying the white jersey for best young rider to make room. Because if you don't and just treat it as GC, points and GPM, we can just look at the Vuelta, where until the recent MTF-fetishizing editions, for year upon year the GC winner also won the combinada without fuss, so it became a jersey to tell you who was placed 2nd on GC in all but name.