Elos Anjos
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The ones that granted Bernal his Giro.
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If you qualify that as " monster climbing performances, then what you qualify the perfomances of guys like Vingegaard and pogacar" in the mountains?
I know where you can get, and for sure martinez was a reliable domestique, but he never dropped a watt bom for his leader like we saw a lot of times kuss doing for vingegaard, yates doing for pogacar, or for example, the work kamna did on passo fedaia to hindley at the Giro 2022.
Very strong team for Bora and Roglic at the Tour, then.
Let’s put it together, three of the four GC favourite teams have been selected:
Bora: Rog, Hindley, Vlasov, Denz, Martinez, Sobrero, Danny van Poppel, Kämna.
Visma: Vingegaard, Kuss, Laporte, Kruijswijk, Tratnik, van Baarle, Benoot, Jorgenson.
UAE: Pog, Almeida, Ayuso, Adam Yates, Sivakov, Soler, Wellens, Politt.
SQS: Remco, Landa, plus six domestiques.
Who will make SQS Tour team, then? Any guesses? Six spots still to be filled.
I‘d say Asgreen, Hirt, Serry, van Wilder, Vansevenant and Vervaeke. What do you guys think?
In that case I can see an issue with people riding for themselves instead of the captain.
I wouldn´t be surprised with Lampaert or Cerny instead of Vansevenant.
Elos Anjos
BANNED
It does not matter what one uses. Martinzes has a a great palmares. As the early Kuss case shows, there can be monster climbing performances that are delivered while a rider is a domestique but that disappear at all when the very same rider is assigned a leader's role. I was expecting Martinez, after a 5th place in the Giro in 2021 while being a domestique for Bernal, to finally flower as a GT contender. That's not what happened meanwhile, maybe because of trust issues, INEOS falling apart or whatever. But I feel his prowess is there for showing.
That Visma team has one strategy, put as many kilojoules into their competitors as possible for Jonas to capitalise on any signs of weakness.
Martinez has a decent palmares, but that's not what we are discussing, certainly he's also a good climber and a very reliable domestique, but we never saw a climbing monster perfomance by him.
Certainly hindley is more capable of doing that to roglic, than martinez.
Martinez had chances as GT contender, but clearly he disappointed, he's better being a domestique for somebody in GTs.
That's the right strategy, because we clearly see that Visma put the peloton almost specially "dead" in the last week of the Tours 2022 and 2023 (the gaps were high), and have riders like van baarle, laporte, tratnik play a important role on that, but between Kuss and jorgenson they are missing a proper climber to make the race hard in the climbs.
if you look at the composition of the other teams, it seems they are going for the get one of either Hindley/Vlasov, Almeida/Ayuso in a move that goes up the road early and gets a decent time gap strategy. Problem is Visma has a team to drive a hard pace all day or can send kuss up the road to neutralise that strategy. They don't really need a proper climber because either UAE or SQS will make the race hard on the climbs to launch Pog or too set a hard pace for remco to prevent surges.
With such strong top teams, like Bora, Visma, UAE and SQS, I wouldn’t be surprised if the average speed at this 2024 TdF will be >43kms/hr, for the first time ever (current record slightly over 42kms/hr)… One mustn’t forget that this year’s route is one of the „easiest“ in modern times. A relatively easy parcours, plus extremely strong teams, could make a new speed record.
Regarding these strong team line-ups, I would have liked a hard parcours for 2024. But that’s life - one oftenly cannot have everything, at the same time…
Regarding these strong team line-ups, I would have liked a hard parcours for 2024. But that’s life - one oftenly cannot have everything, at the same time…
I like what i hear. If half of that will get reflected on the road, then we are good.
It is possible for another team to put more kilojoules on Jumbo. One day this will happen.
It would be great. The stage of marie blanque was the best example of that. Emirates pushing all day, putting a lot of kilojoules for vingegaard.
Bora definitely looks like it'll bring a team strong enough to compete with the other two big teams. Importantly, the Bora team looks balanced as well. Danny van Poppel might be a key teammate.
With all of that said, the race will likely be decided outside the scope of teammates with a possible exception of the gravel day. It really just comes down to when Jonas goes, can any of the other big guys keep up. Teammates won't do much to help you when Visma blows up the race on the queen stage Jonas attacks up the final climb. The question just becomes can Roglic, Pog or Remco stay on his wheel.
What I do know is that even as a Remco and Pog fan, I want to see Roglic win the Tour.
With all of that said, the race will likely be decided outside the scope of teammates with a possible exception of the gravel day. It really just comes down to when Jonas goes, can any of the other big guys keep up. Teammates won't do much to help you when Visma blows up the race on the queen stage Jonas attacks up the final climb. The question just becomes can Roglic, Pog or Remco stay on his wheel.
What I do know is that even as a Remco and Pog fan, I want to see Roglic win the Tour.
Due to bigger group of favourites i feel that this time teams should play a bigger role. Compared to lets say just two cyclists competing for the overall.
Vingegaard has won the Tour twice because he can ride at threshold for longer and recover from it better than the competition. That's what Jumbo's tactics have been based around. They make the race hard every single day and eventually Pog will crack, was the theory... which has been vindicated twice now.
I don't really know how having a stronger team (on paper) will help Pog and Rog in that regard. Visma don't even really need pure climbers to execute their tactics, allrounders like Van Baarle and Tratnik are very suited to it. Maybe Bora and UAE can try to drop these guys early in the stage and make it a free for all, Granon-style, but how does that benefit Pog or Rog over Vingegaard?
On a shorter stage race, maybe. That is focus being one or two stages. On a GT and against such rivals and teams. If you want to control anything you really need to have a strong team at your disposal. Otherwise you are under constant fire and you will eventually pay for it. Plus if Visma doesn't make a selection, forget about Jonas launching, successfully. One or two misfires and it's over.
Can't wait for big Alex to launch a Landis-style raid from 150k out to overtake Guille Martin for a legendary 9th place in The Tour.
Somehow Vlasov has suddenly developed the reputation of being a selfish rider, purely because of the petulant complaints of a deluded and entitled belge teenager???
Vlasov himself said that he has no problem working for Roglic at the Tour. He will have his own chances elsewhere.
They are going to need a bigger kilojoules bank if those other teams are somewhat cooperative.
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