The official debate: Should Contador have waited for Schleck?

[salixcycling]

I don't hate AC I just want him to win fair and square and not due to attacking whilst the other guy is fiddling with his chain.

If he wins by more than 39 seconds then you will come out and say he has won fair and square?

 

[MKirilenko]

Andy descended on his own.

AC followed Sammy Sanchez's wheel.

Which do you think would provide a faster descent... for anyone... Going on your own or following possibly the best descender in the pelaton (certainly the best descender of the GC guys)?

Andy's descent was extremely good... but he's simply not Sammy Sanchez. Neither is Contador.

Not true, Sanchez wasnt pulling constantly on his own, AC went on lead many times. And in the end, Andy descended on his own, coz he had a mechanical which was his fault as stated by Riis. It all comes to this.

 

[kurtinsc]

He waited, and when Samu and Menchov pulled through, he latched on. He made a decision at that point to ride with them for good or bad.

Yes, it would have been an EXTREMELY generous action to wait for Schlecklet at that point and lose time to Menchov and Samu. One that would be lauded for generations.

He didn't, and I just don't thing it was unforgivable, though if it were Armstrong who had done it, I would have never forgiven it. Hey, that is just how I roll.

Is that what happened?

Because of Contador, Sanchez and Menchov the first over the top of the last climb was... Contador. That seems a lot more like pushing the pace rather then "latching on" to me.

Not saying it was bad... but he was in the lead of those three for the majority of the climb, not riding on the back.

 

[Biological Entity]

Man, Armstrong fanboys are a bitter lot in light of the fact that their fraud of a hero can't hack it because they put the kibosh on his junkie a$$. What a hoot you guys are.

These guys aren't even pretending that they only have a mancrush on Contador because they think this somehow hurts Armstrong. They admit it.

Sad that they can't be objective.

This guy in particular tried to claim Schleck's first attack was unfair, losing any credibility he might have had in this debate. At least he's dropped that now after people who understand the sport explained the difference between positioning and attacking someone who has a mechanical.

 

[The Crusher]

So lets see. We have Schleck attacking and Vino counters. If Vino counters, then you can be sure Contador, Menchov and Sanchez can do so too, once they got the room to do so. A couple seconds later you indeed see Contador closing the gap quite easily. Then Schleck screws up. Contador blows past him that soon after that, that even tho it isn't clear, you can assume he was nearby already. So the attack wouldn't have worked no matter what.

The evidence doesn't show this at all. The video shows Vino barely gaining, and no one else in sight, up to the moment of failure, at which point I think Andy was shifting UP. The cyclingnews photo shows Contador barely off the pack while Andy stares down at his broken drivetrain.

I think Andy had a good shot at doing something, and would have loved to see it play out.

 

[kurtinsc]

Not true, Sanchez wasnt pulling constantly on his own, AC went on lead many times. And in the end, Andy descended on his own, coz he had a mechanical which was his fault as stated by Riis. It all comes to this.

Not saying Contador's actions were "wrong". I'm just saying giving Contador credit for gaining time on the descent is silly. He gained time not because he descended better. He gained time because he was in a group with the best descender in the race.

 

[Anonymous]

Vino is looking behind at the exact moment AS drops his chain (-42 sec), turns around to see AS slowing down in front of him and lets up and moves to AS' right to avoid riding into AS' back wheel. I don't think it was because he "thought it was inappropriate to continue the attack" at all, it was to avoid crashing into AS, and at that point Vino was probably thinking that AS was shutting down the attack. There's no sign at all that Vino knew AS was having mechanical problems.

Dude, you are arguing with a psychotic loser who has been banned every day for the past 2 months, and started getting banned about a year ago. He is working himself into frothy insanity because he is such a complete failure. Just ignore him.

 

[cyclestationgiuseppe]

Contadooshes comments

are total BS

"We'd been marking each other and I was starting to think about attacking. I was told after I did attack that there had been an incident, but when I launched the attack I didn't have any idea about what the incident was," Contador said. "When I did find out what had happened we already had a big advantage and it was too late to do anything about it as we were all riding hard."

looks like he was being attacked and he could see what happened to AS

totally lame to get yellow under these circumstances.

I liked him yesterday but, today, I am disgusted with his "riding".

 

[Old&slow]

The only thing that makes me stop and re-think my position that Contador was in the wrong in not waiting for Schleck is the fact that I find myself on the same side of the issue as scribe, goober, BPC, and the other LA fanboys.

The problem I see with this forum is everyone has to be either pro- Armstrong and anti-Contador or anti- Armstrong and pro-Contador. Why can't we dislike them both and simply say they are both bad human beings.

While the Armstrong people will rejoice in Contador's bad actions the Armstrong haters seem to have such psychopathic hate that Contador can never do wrong. I think there is a simple soultion. Just tie in Contador as a product of JB and LA and they can then easily reverse opinion on Contador and develop a nice healthy hatred of Contador as well. Then the only problem we will have are Armstrong fanboys. But if the Armstrong fanboys see the haters hating Contador its quite possible they will develop a love of Contador in return. This way we can all hate Contador and Armstrong and still have equilibrium and balance in the conflict between both sides.

 

[Biological Entity]

Is that what happened?

Because of Contador, Sanchez and Menchov the first over the top of the last climb was... Contador. That seems a lot more like pushing the pace rather then "latching on" to me.

Not saying it was bad... but he was in the lead of those three for the majority of the climb, not riding on the back.

TFF is not a fan of the sport and has little understanding of it. He tried to claim that Schleck's attack was unfair because Contador was slow to react, and now is saying that we are haters for talking about something that the whole cycling planet is talking about right now. He's not a serious person.

 

[indurain666]

To all the LA fanboys, AS comments after cooling down a bit (translated, but not like some of these guys translations lol):

"People can say whatever they want (about AC) but Alberto was one of the guys that waited for me in Spa. That is fair-play"

 

[Nickbeam]

So lets see. We have Schleck attacking and Vino counters. If Vino counters, then you can be sure Contador, Menchov and Sanchez can do so too, once they got the room to do so. A couple seconds later you indeed see Contador closing the gap quite easily. Then Schleck screws up. Contador blows past him that soon after that, that even tho it isn't clear, you can assume he was nearby already. So the attack wouldn't have worked no matter what.

Should Contador have waited? I guess it all depends on where you draw the line. This was a human error, not really a mechanical problem. Not eating enough is a human error too. Not being in the right place at the right time too. You don't wait for people slowed down by their own mistakes. No matter which jersey they are wearing.
And even if it was a mechanical problem, the question still stands. I don't know any examples of people waiting for the yellow jersey at that point of the stage. In the heat of the battle, not too far from the top. Not really the place to wait. Someone is always going to give it a go at that point. If it wasn't Contador, someone else would have. Just human nature. If it happens before any serious attacks have been made, sure, you can wait. But not at that point. Andy says he would have waited. Would he also have waited if Menchov and/or Sanchez didn't?
And last, Andy didn't wait when the yellow jersey went down on the cobbles either. Armstrong didn't wait when Hushovd went down on the famous passage either. So does that mean not all yellow jerseys are equal? Andy got into the yellow jersey by attacking when both his direct rival AND the current yellow jersey were delayed. Guess that is just racing, isn't it?

good post, agree with you

 

[rhubroma]

EVERY person, and I mean EVERY PERSON that thinks Contador should have waited when Andy suffered a mechanical, is Out of their mind.
THIS IS A RACE we're watching, not a social gathering. Man, this sport is made up of a bunch of wierdos, who all seem to think that they can, and in fact are obligated, to pass judgement on every move that's made, every breathe that's taken. Is that because watching bike racing is like watching paint dry, until the final few kilometers?
Andy didn't fall, a mechanical is a mechanical, and that's just too darn bad. All the nay sayers are absolutely ridiculous, ABSOLUTELY! Issues like these are turning me more away from the sport than doping ever did. Issues like the melodrama with LA and AC last year that escalated, through the media, to monstrous proportions until Grandpa buried a pedal into a curb. Or was Vino really ****ed because Contador is trying to win the biggest race of the year, and his efforts deprived poor old Vino of a stage win, And how proper was that, of Contador to do??? Really, Alberto is almost a Demon from Hell, with nothing but evil thoughts and designs for everyone, as far as his critics are concerned.
Sports competitions are made of capitalizing on opportunities. To think otherwise is naive, hypocritical and just plain stupid. If Andy had fallen I could see the criticism, but that is not what happened. Andy should be pi$$ed at SRAM, not anybody else.
When did this sport become such an etiquette contest? It's a bike race. Fastest man to the end of the route wins, that's it! Wake up Idiots, Wake Up!
BTW does it seem like I'm angry? How astute of you to notice! This sport is populated with too many "unspoken" rules. Most are too negative, and far too many are hypocritical, for my taste.
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It's better to ask for forgiveness,, than to ask for permission.

Listen your ranting and raving here is excesive and if you want to be taken seriously, then blanket statements like calling all in the forum who think otherwise a bunch of idiots isn't the way to do it.

Having said that, one has to consider that while, yes, this is a race and nobody gives away gifts or should be too humanitarian with one's rivals: there is nevertheless a gentleman's tradition at the Tour which says that you don't attack the Yellow Jersey when, in that moment, a misfortune happens (crash, mechanical, etc.).

Having said that: the real issue I think was whether or not, as it has already by noted, the "mechanical" was something the rider didn't cause, or was in fact caused by him (in Shleck's case trying to shift on a climb with too much torque on the chain). In my opinion this is what happened, namely Shleck made a bad shift. In this case his competitors where not required to wait. Sure Contador would have demonstrated more "fair-play" had he waited for Shleck to remount, though he was not breaking the traditional etiquette by not doing so in this case. The move was, however, controversial.
And to take time on Shleck that way, doesn't demonstrate a real athletic class on the road just a ruthless cunning that he was, in any case, entitled to persue. In other words he could do it, but it wasn't pretty.

 

[VeloCity]

Alberto shows the class we all speculated he had... none.

Who's "we"?

 

[ThaiPanda]

maybe they just should have neutralized the race all the way to Paris? Is that enough "respect for the jersey"? ridiculous...

He's only in the yellow jersey because of the charity of others, otherwise he'd by 6 minutes behind, and because of time he gained because of the gap caused by his teammate crashing and causing the split.

Enough is enough, it's a bike race.

Exactly. Thank you.

Besides, AC can't be all of these bad things since LA was mean to him last year.

 

[sethelliottmeyer]

Put up a poll for this with a few of the most popular opinions I've noticed in this thread: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=8912

 

[Anonymous]

AC fans. Please admit this atleast.

When AC wins the Tour in a week's time, everyone will say it was because of Schleck's mechanical.

That's a fact. Admit it.

His win is now tainted.

AC has alienated millions of potential fans and supporters. All the support is behind AS now. Ac will probably win anyway but from now, forever, AC is a marked man.

 

[The Crusher]

Vino is looking behind at the exact moment AS drops his chain (-42 sec), turns around to see AS slowing down in front of him and lets up and moves to AS' right to avoid riding into AS' back wheel. I don't think it was because he "thought it was inappropriate to continue the attack" at all, it was to avoid crashing into AS, and at that point Vino was probably thinking that AS was shutting down the attack. There's no sign at all that Vino knew AS was having mechanical problems.

Have you ever passed someone who was staring at their drivetrain, and thought "yeah I bet he's just tired". It also would've been the worst attack of all time. Ten seconds and straight to the back.

 

[Anonymous]

The evidence doesn't show this at all. The video shows Vino barely gaining, and no one else in sight, up to the moment of failure, at which point I think Andy was shifting UP. The cyclingnews photo shows Contador barely off the pack while Andy stares down at his broken drivetrain.

I think Andy had a good shot at doing something, and would have loved to see it play out.

He had a good shot at getting caught by Contador, if that is what you mean. Lets not be naive here and pretend that Contador would not have caught him anyway. He was at the back of the pack and shot around them and nobody could catch his wheel. I would suggest that from past evidence, that means he was moving fast enough to catch anyone he wanted. Plus Vino was about to catch him, and to say he had barely gained ground is not correct. He too started from somewhere at the back of the pack and was gaining good ground.

 

[irritated_cycling_fan]

selective memories

I keep seeing all these posts saying that AS would be way behind if Cancellara hadn't waited on stage 2. Most likely that's true. What you choose to forget is that AC went down that day as well and would also be 'way behind' had Cancellara not waited. 90% of the peloton was caught up in the stage 2 disaster and had the very few who got through not waited it's doubtful that either AS or AC (or LA or CVV or BW or IB etc. etc.) would be in contention for the overall. If they had attacked as AC, DM & SS did on this stage, it would be almost guaranteed that none of the pre-race GC contenders would win this year's Tour.

Cancellara, AND the rest of the Peloton, as they managed to catch up to the slowed front group, chose not to race hard for the rest of that stage. For the most part, anyone who managed to make it through that stage without a major injury was able to catch back on. That doesn't just include both Schlecks.

Now for any of you whining about how no one waited for anyone on the cobbles as justification for what happened today; all you're doing is showing how little you understand professional racing at this level. Let me spell it out for you. Cobbles are recognized by the entire peloton as a places where you get through as best as you can. The cobbles will always take riders down. The cobbles will always take out tires. When you race on cobbles it's a crap shoot for everyone and no matter how good a rider you are 90% of that ride is pure luck. It's a completely different attitude. Think of cobbles in much the same way as final sprints. The sprints are dangerous for everyone and it's almost a given that one or more will go down. No one expects any sprinter to stop or wait even if they went down because of another rider. Unfair racing will receive penalties, fines or even exclusions after the race is finished but not one single sprinter is ever going to expect the sprints to stop. When riding cobbles it's the same mindset.

None of us truly know what caused AS's chain problem. Speculate all you want but none of the pictures were close enough to see exactly what happened especially since all those pictures are from the wrong side of the bike. AC was behind AS when he lost his chain. He may not have known exactly what happened but it was certainly clear that AS didn't purposefully just stop racing. All of those guys have enough experience on their bikes to know what a mechanical problem looks like. AC, DM and SS all made the intentional decision to use that mechanical problem to put as much time into Schleck as they could. Had any one of them had the class to tell the others to not attack I think everyone would have given him the chance to catch back up - sad to say none of them did.

 

[Biological Entity]

The problem I see with this forum is everyone has to be either pro- Armstrong and anti-Contador or anti- Armstrong and pro-Contador. Why can't we dislike them both and simply say they are both bad human beings.

While the Armstrong people will rejoice in Contador's bad actions the Armstrong haters seem to have such psychopathic hate that Contador can never do wrong.

I don't think anyone hates Contador in the manner that people hate Armstrong. He's quite clearly one of the best riders in the world, but it's obvious that he's not as good as last year and could well have been beaten by Schleck. It's obviously very disappointing to see such a close match up be decided by a mechanical. Fans of the sport don't want to see that.

 

[Anonymous]

I really feel bad for Alberto. Last year he had to ride the whole Tour with the whole LA/JB crap on his dinner table every single day. The guy makes a mistake (ok I don't think he should have waited after nobody waited for him...but lets call it a mistake for argument's sake) and now we have thousands or LA fanboys, french cynics and haters writing thousands of garbage articles. These are basically the same guys that were criticizing him last year for not sticking to JB's "plan"

I know the guy is easy to hate for American audiences (i.e. humble, down to earth, soft spoken, Spanish) but come on...

I can't wait to see AC crushing AS during the TT

AC shat in his own mess kit today. Hard to "feel sorry" for that.

Either you are a sportsman or you are a prick. AC has shown himself to be the latter.

 

[Piratical]

I think Contador has a moral issue with what he did. Otherwise, why lie and claim that he "was not aware" that Schleck had a problem? It's ironic, because I think there are several legitimate reasons to have not waited for Schleck - but to claim that he did not have to consider the moral issue in the heat of the moment? That's cowardice, and many serious cycling fans will always have a problem with him for it. Maybe he doesn't care. If he goes on to win the event then this will be a footnote in cycling history. On the other hand, no matter what he accomplishes he will always be looked at with a bit of contempt by many who believe that epic cycling battles should be decided without questionable tactics. What Contador did was defensible - it was not, however, necessary, and he had the means to avoid this issue. He chose not to, so he will have to deal with the aftermath.

 

[MKirilenko]

Not saying Contador's actions were "wrong". I'm just saying giving Contador credit for gaining time on the descent is silly. He gained time not because he descended better. He gained time because he was in a group with the best descender in the race.

I didnt give credit to anyone. Just said, that MJ wasnt lost on AS mechanical, but mainly on descent. Schlecks descent wasnt perfect, if Vino caught him with great ease (I know he's a good descender too, but still)

 

[killswitch]

"We'd been marking each other and I was starting to think about attacking. I was told after I did attack that there had been an incident, but when I launched the attack I didn't have any idea about what the incident was," Contador said. "When I did find out what had happened we already had a big advantage and it was too late to do anything about it as we were all riding hard."

Hmm on the TV footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcN2HrkrnF4 at 0.16 AC passed Schleck on the left side just as AS stopped.