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Talents are exciting but in the end just talents until they prove otherwise.
People expect these young talents to win GT's but they are racing in an era with Pogacar and Vingegaard. These two belong to top 5 GT riders of all times. We are expecting these young talents to do what Pogacar did in 2019 Vuelta, being podium at 20/21 years old (with 3 stage wins) but they can't. They are good (e.g Del Toro, Cian, Ayuso) however Pogacar has the Midas touch. I know Ayuso was third in 2022 Vuelta but his performance was nowhere close to the level showed by Pogacar in 2019 Vuelta.
Ya, there is no shame in being Ben O'Connor. Winning always puts you in the spotlight but there are lots of renowned GT riders who never won a GT but still made a decent name for themselves.
He's a very good leadout. Just a shame Van Uden can never keep hold of his wheel.
To be honest, in terms of on-bike actions, more riders should strive to be Ben O'Connor. He's kind of like a Grand Tour Dan Martin, but not quite as good (or rather, it's harder to do what Martin did in the hilly classics in a Grand Tour because even if you get underestimated or take advantage of people's inaction once or twice, you don't get the instant reward but have to back it up consistently, whereas in a one-day race a simple miscalculation can result in the spoils going to an outsider). Dan Martin got enough wins and successes in hilly one-day races and medium mountain events to be worth considering as a threat, but nobody really considered him an elite puncheur of the calibre of contemporaries like Valverde, Gilbert or Purito - yet Martin won two monuments and should have won another (the horror that was Gerrans' LBL, when Martin, the only rider who had tried to make something happen in that appalling edition, crashed on the final corner allowing the worst of all possible outcomes to transpire), often because of being the only rider willing to lose in order to have a chance to win rather than back themselves in an uphill sprint against the best hill-sprinters of their day. There are a lot of riders out there who could contend that they have superior GT potential than O'Connor based on physical attributes, but have a far less impressive GT palmarès than him, and many of them will retire with a far less impressive GT palmarès than his too.
Perhaps his family got fed up of him spending more time at home...
Whilst I agree that Primoz is the better GC rider on paper (because of his palmares), Remco has shown that currently he's above him.
For the same reason as we don't want Manchester City buying some mid table team's best players because they need six weeks' injury cover and then having those players on the bench because they'd rather have them and not use them than let somebody else potentially benefit from their skills; we'd rather these riders be giving the underdogs a chance to add some entertainment to the race than serving as backup for the overdog, in some cases actively working to prevent those underdogs adding some entertainment to the race.
Well, sure. a team like Movistar losing Matteo Jorgenson to Visma matters because he produces results now. But the original post was about big teams gobbling up teenage prospects, who don't matter.
Maybe just expressing the feelings and frustrations within the team because perhaps unlike others he is in a position of being able to.
You do realise it's 2024, and top sportsmen are allowed to speak out if things aren't going right? It might not be the done thing in pro cycling, but we know parts of the sport are still in a time warp.
That’s funny. But honestly we don’t ever hear about the adjustment that spouses and partners have when these guys or gals retire!
Not to mention that a lot of times when things do go badly for him it's because he has picked his own schedule.
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