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Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread

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Huh? Remco is also "a classics guy" as he's riding Flèche and Liège is his first big goal. And what would they have him race prior to the Giro then? They would be insane not to put him in PN, given he's prepared to race TA anyway.

They're not bringing him to Paris-Nice. If the race goes through the selection of DQS for Paris-Nice is now: Alaphilippe, Lampaert, Morkov and Bennett who were always supposed to ride Paris-Nice and Asgreen, Jungels and Stybar who were supposed to ride Tirreno. They are replacing Devenyns, Cavagna and Declercq.
 
They're not bringing him to Paris-Nice. If the race goes through the selection of DQS for Paris-Nice is now: Alaphilippe, Lampaert, Morkov and Bennett who were always supposed to ride Paris-Nice and Asgreen, Jungels and Stybar who were supposed to ride Tirreno. They are replacing Devenyns, Cavagna and Declercq.

Ofcourse they have to include their classic-riders now, but a bit surpricing that they are prioriticing to bring Mörköv instead of Evenepoel, that could both make a great result and also benefit ahead of other goals,. They must really prioritice to get that Mörköv-Bennett combination to start working perfect.
 
Catalunya for example. Some other one day races. Does it matter so much?

Liège for Remco really isn't as important as E3/G-W/Ronde/Roubaix for Styby, Asgreen etc.
Liège (the classic of his dreams) and the Olympics were his main goals this year. Worlds less so and Lombardia & Giro were secondary goals. Taking him doesn't mean they have to leave Stybar & Asgreen at home. The thing is that he had been working towards this week for TA. Considering he already has plenty of "goals", it would make sense to let him ride now, instead of again starting to work towards another race 4 weeks later. But that's my opinion.

EDIT: just read that PN is thinking about allowing 8 riders per team due to these circumstances? In that case it would make even more sense to take him.
 
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Liège (the classic of his dreams) and the Olympics were his main goals this year. Worlds less so and Lombardia & Giro were secondary goals. Taking him doesn't mean they have to leave Stybar & Asgreen at home. The thing is that he had been working towards this week for TA. Considering he already has plenty of "goals", it would make sense to let him ride now, instead of again starting to work towards another race 4 weeks later. But that's my opinion.

EDIT: just read that PN is thinking about allowing 8 riders per team due to these circumstances? In that case it would make even more sense to take him.

Paris-Nice/Tirreno is not a dealbreaker for an Ardennes guy, while it's widely considered as the best prep for the cobble classics. E3 is just three weeks away from here (not counting Sanremo), Liège is seven, so there's plenty of opportunities for Remco to reschedule. Train in Spain or go on altitude camp, then go to Catalunya.

Sure, they can add Remco if an 8th rider is allowed, but like I said, cobble guys come first. There's no equally good alternative for them than ride P-N.
 
Paris-Nice/Tirreno is not a dealbreaker for an Ardennes guy, while it's widely considered as the best prep for the cobble classics. E3 is just three weeks away from here (not counting Sanremo), Liège is seven, so there's plenty of opportunities for Remco to reschedule. Train in Spain or go on altitude camp, then go to Catalunya.

Sure, they can add Remco if an 8th rider is allowed, but like I said, cobble guys come first. There's no equally good alternative for them than ride P-N.

seems like an 8th rider is being allowed
 
Well they might become a GC team, once Evenepoel has fully grown up, but for now that is very disrespectful towards the other riders (if you're not joking?)
As people like Asgreen and Cavagna have just shown how strong they are.
Also Alaphilippe is not a GC rider and probably never will be with DQS.
 
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Well they might become a GC team, once Evenepoel has fully grown up, but for now that is very disrespectful towards the other riders (if you're not joking?)
As people like Asgreen and Cavagna have just shown how strong they are.
Also Alaphilippe is not a GC rider and probably never will be with DQS.

Alap finished 5th in the tour last year and held onto the jersey for many days. That's a GC rider. Just couldn't bring it home. More team support would have helped him a lot
 
  1. I roflmissed the ITT in the route on steephill.
  2. Dumoulin is riding, so there's that. Dumoulin tends to be shite in March though.
  3. If he'd have gotten dropped on the Tirreno MTF and still hung on for the win, I think there's a bigger chance he loses Catalunya.
Not only that, but it's Dumoulin's first race in... 9 months? I wouldn't exactly expect him to be competing for the win here.
 
Yes they were? Just not really good ones.

"One swallow does not a summer make" fits perfectly here. All of those guys were underestimated (or not judging by the end result) at the beginning and held on for dear life. Given minutes early and then defending it somewhat to get a top 5 is not the stuff of a great GT rider. Cause you wont get those minutes on a regular basis if you are actually any good in terms of Grand Tour racing. Let Voekcler, De Gendt or Alaphilippe start the real mountains with the same time as the top climbers and see what happens.
 
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"One swallow does not a summer make" fits perfectly here. All of those guys were underestimated (or not judging by the end result) at the beginning and held on for dear life. Given minutes early and then defending it somewhat to get a top 5 is not the stuff of a great GT rider. Cause you wont get those minutes on a regular basis if you are actually any good in terms of Grand Tour racing. Let Voekcler, De Gendt or Alaphilippe start the real mountains with the same time as the top climbers and see what happens.
That's not the case for De Gendt, though.