The official debate: Should Contador have waited for Schleck?

[IndyJoe]

I honestly hope that this costs AC the tour. Andy has been accused of being "soft", so I hope this really does cause him to "ride with anger". It would be nice to see this spark Andy to a huge victory in the next few stages, and gain enough time to win the tour.


That would be the ultimate payback for AC disrespecting the yellow.

 

[Sgarabito]

Contador didn't have to wait, after-all Andy initiated the attack which is different from the Lance and Ulrich comparison. Although the race was on neither were attacking each other when they had their mishaps.

 

[scribe]

Little known fact to nitwits who bag on Huffy bikes.

Hampsten won his Giro on a....Huffy.

Contador's penalty will be to ride the ITT with that bike.

 

[goober]

Little known fact to nitwits who bag on Huffy bikes.

Hampsten won his Giro on a....Huffy.

Huffy Thunder Road.... I had a Huffy Limo Lemon when I was a kid.

 

[TahoeNL]

Little known fact to nitwits who bag on Huffy bikes.

Hampsten won his Giro on a....Huffy.

Yep and your still on one... keep uh... banging...

 

[strummer_fan]

Obvious answer, no1. Everyone is now an expert after watching the footage 10 times.

Sean Kelly and David Harmon on Eurosport called it before Schleck had even stopped. Nothing causes a rider to decelerate on an ascent like a thrown chain. AS would have been instantly moving slower than an injured member of the sprinter's autobus. It would have been very clear to those within a few meters of him that SOMETHING was wrong.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

if armstrong did the same as contador 99% of this forum would just beat the keyboard from pure hatred

its not about what happend but who did it

And the other 1% would be comprised of fanboys cheering Lance on. The same fanboys now bashing Contador.

 

[scribe]

I honestly hope that this costs AC the tour. Andy has been accused of being "soft", so I hope this really does cause him to "ride with anger". It would be nice to see this spark Andy to a huge victory in the next few stages, and gain enough time to win the tour.


That would be the ultimate payback for AC disrespecting the yellow.

There is not a cold chance in hell AS can dig that deep. The tour was won today, like it or not.

 

[kurtinsc]

No.

Here is the video - -AS hits the bump at-42, but just before the shot changes from heilcopter to moto (@-38) you can see AC's front wheel

AC was going by AS @-37.
Vino had made up the gap to AS & AC was almost on Vinos wheel - they had him.

I was looking at the swerve around Andy (at -35)... and counting in my head rather then doing the obvious thing to look at the movie time. So 5-7 seconds... which is still a pretty significant gap for that stage in an attack. I still would have loved to see how it turned out without the chain problem.

 

[hfer07]

Please... stop.

Andy lost because he couldn't close the entire gap before the beginning of the descent. Had he made up that last 17 seconds then, there would have been no gap at the bottom. Contador was riding at the front on the climb. He crossed the summit ahead of both Sanchez and Menchov.

I'm not saying Contador did anything wrong. But let's not pervert the facts... the time was lost on the climb... had he made contact on the climb there would have been no time difference at the bottom.

Officially at the top of the climb, the time gap between ASchleck & AC-SS-DM was 10 seconds....... and Andy lost today in total 39 seconds to AC...

 

[flicker]

Wow! You got that almost right. Even Speeway has crawled out from under his rock. He's had to wait almost 3 weeks.

No, there is another positive.
Tomorrow's stage is going to be a b*tch to control. Forget the final 60kms: straight up the Peyresourde and bang!
Saxo get to plan what the want to do, instead of being stuck on the front.
Probably, the same for Thursday. The whole race dynamic may have changed and it isn't all in Contador's favour.
I wonder what wacky tactics we have in store, next?

IMO Schleck looked the stronger, if he isn't wasted, then maybe Speedway will get another reason to find his way out into the light?

Schleck certainly looked good in his chase against those 3 trying to put time into him. Good riding by Andy. The Weasalero can take a long walk off a short plank in my opinion!

 

[Barrus]

Another great tweet, now by Greg Henderson:

IMHO. If Greipel drops his chain in the heat of battle in a sprint. I won't be waiting. Gut feeling no one else is either.

 

[kujasmin]

I don't understand why AC should have to wait AS. ok, I agree AC should have shown class if he did, but there was a lot at stake. Nobody was waiting AC on stage 3 when he lost 1:30 or so to crash he didn't cause. AC did stopped for a while, but how could he know what happened to Andy and how long it will last to solve the problem, it could have lasted for ages, while Sanchez and Munchov are gaining advantage on both of them. Of course Andy would say he would wait for him... yeh. In Belgium he gained some advantage due to mechanical problems, I didn't read he apologized for that. That's part of the sport, it's in any other why cycling is different.

 

[warmfuzzies]

That seals the deal. We have a single frame from a photographer shooting at high speed (surely over 1000 ASO probably closer to 3200 ASO) that proves that AC wasn't closing the gap, but waited until he saw Andy slow, determine that it was because of mechanical and decided to attack Andy to gain advantage because he was afraid and weaker and saw it as his only time to win the Tour de France against the superior climber and time trialist, despite the heap of scorn that awaited him as a result of his dishonorable and indefensible actions.

All of that, in a single frame.

Leader for the pisTOOLero apologists: Admit your guy isn't as strong this year. He saw an opportunity to gain time on a stronger climber who was ahead of him on an important stage, and took it. He attacked the yellow jersey during a mechanical and his reward was the yellow jersey. At last Albertoe has carved his name in Tour history in a way Lance Armstrong did not. With his classlessness. Bang, bang!

 

[saganftw]

And the other 1% would be comprised of fanboys cheering Lance on. The same fanboys now bashing Contador.

i see what you did

 

[MKirilenko]

Sean Kelly and David Harmon on Eurosport called it before Schleck had even stopped. Nothing causes a rider to decelerate on an ascent like a thrown chain. AS would have been instantly moving slower than an injured member of the sprinter's autobus. It would have been very clear to those within a few meters of him that SOMETHING was wrong.

Watch the Mont Ventoux stage from last year's Dauphine. Look at Szmyd's sudden lack of power and immediate lost distance to Valverde. Quite similar to Andies first reaction.

 

[happychappy]

How dare Bert not contact Cancel-ara before making such a move!

 

[Hugh Januss]

Weren't you telling me not to quote BPC's posts yesterday. You've been doing it all day. What gives?

It's actually my first post of the day, you must be thinking of somebody else.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

It's actually my first post of the day, you must be thinking of somebody else.

Ah, sorry, yep. My bad.

 

[DenisMenchov]

NO!!!

Now they`ll both have that incident in their minds...... Anything can happen tomorrow or Thursday.

 

[p1gnone]

Does someone know why Vino finished with Andy and not Alberto?

Because he is an honorable man. If winning were everything then just as he was already neutralizing AS 's attack he could have just as easily gone with AC giving him the support. He has redeemed himself in my eyes.

 

[The Crusher]

Officially at the top of the climb, the time gap between ASchleck & AC-SS-DM was 10 seconds....... and Andy lost today in total 39 seconds to AC...

By the way, doesn't this seal the deal? Andy spent 30 seconds fussing with his chain (idiot), but then he makes up 20 seconds against AC (who was with teammates), chasing him up the hill?

In other words... No way in hell would Alberto been able to catch Andy going up the hill. At which point, he'd have no one to help him catch him on the downhill either.


Ha! I win, you lose. Next question?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

No because this completely changes the race now. If AS was able to get a small time gain today, he would only need another small couple of time gain from the other stages to get his gap. It still could have been close in the TT but that was going to be the strategy.

But now AS has to totally change the plan. He has to go for some ridiculously big and unlikely attack that will be high risk and could well blow up in his face, losing even more time.

Plus Contador has the big psychological advantage now. He knows that Schleck knows that all he needs to do is do one small attack to finish him off - if he's not finished off already - and make it impossible for him. We saw what happened to Armstrong when that burden was imposed on him.

Sorry BPC - you do realise that what AS lost on the stage was almost the exact margin he lost by the time he got his chain on.

How do you now think if AS chain had not come off that he would put time in to AC?

Simple -they would have finished together.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Contador's penalty will be to ride the ITT with that bike.

But that way, he'll only put 1:45 into Schleck.

 

[nia O'Malley]

So here's another idle question aimed primiarily at those who criticize Contador's decision today - if the roles are reversed tomorrow and Schleck attacks after a Contador mechanical - is he justified "eye for an eye" or must he wait because sportsmanship should be respected regardless of whether your opponent would do the same?

I'm not criticising Contador's decision, in passing, because I don't think there was a mechanical failure, just a rider error.

I think Andy should wait if this happens. If it cost him the Tour, he should wait. There are plenty more Tours for him, but there's only one reputation.
That is all.

Ok. You cats are better than me. I didn't see the bump initially, was too busy watching to see if Vino could close him down and how quickly AC would be able to get on his wheel.

Well I have a 40" TV, I wasn't watching it on a lousy internet feed, nor was I pedalling the heart off myself at the time, I was just watching Andy, so it was quite easy and reeeeally obvious.