The official debate: Should Contador have waited for Schleck?

[ozymandias]

That was part 1 of that damn quote that I said was truncated!!! Now, all we need is the middle part




As for Vino et al only starting to catch up After AS had his wheel up in the air, and not before, or even during, that is what I personally saw.
I trust we'll see a replay tomorrow at le Tourmalet and we'll know where we stand.

video of the entire interview (skip to 1:04)

 

[Hawkwood]

I'm struggling to remember when this unwritten rule about attacking the MJ when the latter has a mechanical was invented. The only other time I can remember when this came up was when Armstrong crashed into the spectator in 2003, but I don't remember anyone saying that there was a rule about waiting for him. I suppose it would make things easier if the unwritten rules were written down.

 

[mitchell84]

Damn, wanted to see what schleck said to alberto while going to collect the white jersey.

Lets see how schleck will react on the podium.

he said 'how could you do that?'

 

[Dedelou]

i would say contador didnt have to wait,but if he did he would ve shown a lot of class

that's a good starting point. Class indeed. But not smarts unless he could guaranty EVERYbody ahead and immediately behind andy did the same. A huge gamble to accomodate poor bike handling. If andy had gone into a ditch the motivation to be noble might be stronger but let us be honest: Andy screwed his attack by using the wrong gear and when he tried to back out of it he threw his chain. Bad move Andy

 

[Dedelou]

just check bikechatter,even other cyclist themselves feel like it wasnt nice from contador...and they know better than we do

Nice is what kind of quality in a bike racer? I like nice the girls I date or the sandwich I eat

 

[LeonG2010]

Protocol

If he had been going to the toilet or had gone over the edge it might have been different. However, Andy Schleck attacked & on the last climb. His team had set out to distance all close rivals & put Contador in the red - when you do that & the strategy comes apart why should anyone wait for you? This is patently absurd. Class and fair play have nothing to do with this issue. Contador did what he had to do and did it with clinical aplomb. He was in the right group with the right man on the descent, Sanchez. Fair play to him. If Andy pays him back in the stage today and regains yellow then the best of wishes to him. This is professional cycling - not an annual amateur cyclo-tourist sortie.

 

[scribe]

Nice is what kind of quality in a bike racer? I like nice the girls I date or the sandwich I eat

I don't want my sandwich to be nice! I want it to taste goood.

 

[D Avoid]

Hey, I think Scribe's posts are consistently among the best. I'm also noting a correlation between Conta fanboys and just plain dumb posts about how Chavanel deserved to be treated as a serious yellow jersey candidate way back in Stage 3.

plus one!!!

Some of the tosh is really not worth the reply.

 

[colnago1978]

GO ANDY!
And get some Campagnolo equipment instead of this modern BS.
A couple years back David Millar was strongist man in breakaway but 500m before the finish broke the shimano chain.People will never learn!
Oh,i'm gonna laugh so hard when El bull****erro punctures!
Tour is realy interesting now.Go Andy

 

[bobs nob]

In other words....

"I am sorry for making that move, but it feels great to be a 3 time champion. I'll be signing my '3' shirts and hats all week. Thank you."

And if he doesn't win, clowns like you still will never let it go, so what the hey, 'Might as well Win'. Sounds like a great title for a book, doesn't it?

 

[hrotha]

"where Andy took advantage of me" -Alberto in his own words from his "please let me explain video..." Seems to me that everyone who knows anything about racing knows the difference between the day on the cobbles and today. Here is a simple observation for Berto...

That's a problem with the translation. He says "hizo que Andy cogiera ventaja con respecto a mí", which means "it allowed Andy to gain an advantage on me", as in "time gap". There's no negative connotations in the original Spanish.

Frankly I'm appalled at how terrible all translations from Spanish into English are in cycling.

 

[Dedelou]

these girls are taking your pants down scribe and not finding the stuff that one expect to see. Hypocrites indeed those who call rape on andy the clumsy shifter but gloated when Poor chavanel was stricken by "acts of Logs"

 

[Publicus]

AC is in the wrong because he continued to attack the yellow jersy and his evenly matched rival when he had a mechanical at an utterly critical stage of the tour, against tour convention. AC has ADMITTED that this was a mistake.

Now, why do you disagree with AC that it was a mistake?

We also have the little fact that the tour is now over - you only had to look at how relaxed AC was in his video to know that one - which has ruined it for the fans.

I was simply putting the situation in context. There wasn't much of an uproar over most of the race situations I listed, which aren't, in my mind, materially different to what happened here. It was a split second decision about a race situation.

As for AC's apology, he took a heap of crap for a race decision. He said it might have been a mistake, not that it was a mistake. I don't think he made a mistake. He made a decision under the circumstances as he understood them.

 

[benpounder]

1) Andy schleck needs to learn how to change gear properly
2) It was not a mechanical, it was what they would call in F1 "driver error"
3) It took andy a full ten seconds to even slow down and look at his chain
4) it took him more than 30 seconds to put the chain on after fannying around trying to put it on slack with it on the small chainring

...

one thing i will say, is why is it, on a climb if a leader punctures, has a mechanical its considered polite to wait, but on the cobbles its anything goes.

It is not that I disagree with your conclusion, just your reasoning is unpersuasive. I dont find any fault with Contador attacking how and when he did. My support however does not rely on tearing Schleck down. It is not that the two stages can not be analogous, rather the situation of each are not analogous.

As I said many pages ago, if anyone is to be blamed for taking advantage of Schleck's misfortune, it is Sanchez and Menchov, who were far enough behind to see Andy actually stop and get off his bike. Of course, they could not stop for Contador was well up the road.

As Mike Myers' says in Wayne's World, Game On!

 

[Publicus]

Nice reminder why i hate that pr!ck Martinelli.

Where did you get that quote?

 

[US Patent Exploding Cyclist]

Yeah I think you're a little off base here Bio. Dim/TeamSkyFans usually goes up against the "regulars".

 

[reubenr]

2010 will be remembered as the year the sport changed from having honor in wins to winning at any costs.

And Alberto Contador will forever be remembered in infamy as the guy who tore up the "unwritten rules".

From now on, it's win at any costs.

Please post the unwritten rules and the number of occasions on which they were broken and by whom? If Contador didn't go and then lost the TDF, he would be remembered for the jerk he would have been if he didn't go. Posts like this that attack Contador as if he was a bad man, when it was Schleck that made the bad shift change, miss the mark completely. Please!

 

[Ryaguas]

The disscusion that you ppl have here is stupid... there is alot of childish post and comments... ppl who see the video and is still keeping and idiotic opinion... you ppl don't want to see the truth...

Well I have my truth you have your truth... whatever... the history at the end will be the same... AC is going to kill Andy in La Col du Tourmalet and then in the TT... 39 seconds??? pffff don't make me laugh... you ppl say that AS is stronger cuz he is the only one who has attacked... but we still have not seen an ALL IN attack from AC... we are going to see that attack in Le Tourmalet so just sit and wait to see how AC is going to gap BIG TIME AS in the Tourmalet and then in the TT...

Here is a little video from El Pistolero giving his look about what happened today...

I'm not too happy about how El Pistolero got La Maillot Jaune but He hasn't lost my respect and admiration... this is racing and should be merciless... should be an unwritten rule called:

NO GIFTS NOT MATTER WHAT!

 

[bobs nob]

Hey, I think Scribe's posts are consistently among the best. I'm also noting a correlation between Conta fanboys and just plain dumb posts about how Chavanel deserved to be treated as a serious yellow jersey candidate way back in Stage 3.

So let's get this straight. You can attack Chavanel when he is in yellow bc even though he is in yellow, he is not an overall GC contender, and you can attack an overall contender with a mechanical if he isn't in yellow because they haven't gotten to the mountains yet. But if a guy who hasn't gotten it clear in his head not to stand up while switching chainrings who IS in yellow and IS an overall GC contender needs to be waited for even if he throws his own chain on his own attack? Riiiighht

 

[saphblue]

2010 will be remembered as the year the sport changed from having honor in wins to winning at any costs.

And Alberto Contador will forever be remembered in infamy as the guy who tore up the "unwritten rules".

From now on, it's win at any costs.

A wee bit overblown don't you think? Couldn't you also apply your "winning at any costs" spiel to 1985, just to name one example. It seems that the fans are more worked up over this incident than the cyclists (past & present) who've weighed in. I don't think 2010 or AC will be remembered "in infamy". Emotions mellow. If AC wins by a few minutes in the end, the time AS lost today won't matter much.

I like both Andy and Alberto and actually would like to see Andy pull off the overall win. All year I've been looking for them to duel it out, balls to the wall. It sucks AS had an issue right at a very critical juncture. Do I wish AC had made a visible effort to slow down, yes because I knew he'd get flayed by some if he attacked. But, it's a race, riders are making split second decisions and I find that I can't get too emotionally worked up over who's a "bad guy" or "good guy" based on these decisions.

 

[nowhereman]

Altogether now:
We blame SRAM or the Saxo BankMechanics
There, now doesn't that feel better already?

 

[Contechile]

If he had been going to the toilet or had gone over the edge it might have been different. However, Andy Schleck attacked & on the last climb. His team had set out to distance all close rivals & put Contador in the red - when you do that & the strategy comes apart why should anyone wait for you? This is patently absurd. Class and fair play have nothing to do with this issue. Contador did what he had to do and did it with clinical aplomb. He was in the right group with the right man on the descent, Sanchez. Fair play to him. If Andy pays him back in the stage today and regains yellow then the best of wishes to him. This is professional cycling - not an annual amateur cyclo-tourist sortie.

Well said!!!!

 

[reubenr]

Please post the unwritten rules and the number of occasions on which they were broken and by whom? If Contador didn't go and then lost the TDF, he would be remembered for the jerk he would have been if he didn't go. Posts like this that attack Contador as if he was a bad man, when it was Schleck that made the bad shift change, miss the mark completely. Please!

Quote of the day

Astana directeur sportif Giuseppe Martinelli in Bagnères de Luchon: "The most important thing for me is to have a clear conscience and I have that tonight. I didn't tell him to wait, that's for sure..."

Try to get over it.

 

[richwagmn]

Ok, finally watched it. I'm not as mad at AC.

It sure looks to me like AC was already going hard before you could even figure out that AS had a mechanical. I'm sure a bit up the road he might have known and could have let up but it doesn't look to me like he initiated the attack in response to AS's dropped chain.

 

[Dedelou]

While he stood at the roadside trying to get his bike sorted out, Contador blasted past him with Sanchez and Menchov on his wheel. For the first time in the stage, the Spaniard had abandoned the game of cat and mouse with Schleck, and in the least appealing of manners.

from the report.

Kick a man when he's down = coward

Why not just kick a baby or a puppy!

you must have dozed off for the last few stages if you did not see andy and contador racing each others. Andy has been launching these attacks one after the other and each times Alberto had responded in the same manner as today.. A quick few pedal strokes and he is on Andy wheel where he is supossed to stay till he decide not to. Today Andy's attack was a bit faster because he timed it , good for him that he did that finally, to a moment that would take a few riders by surprise but the response was once again the same.. However Andy had to screw up and loose time. his own fault really since throwing the chain in an uphill is novice stuff. To me if looks like they did slow down enough without loosing tempo so that Andy he could catch up near the top. then they took more time in the descend. If andy was a better descender , 15 seconds would be nothing .. ask Salvodelli how to make up a few minutes. However he lost time instead of gaining. that was his problem not his competitors duty to look after him. where was his team?