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

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Oldermanish

Jan 31, 2016
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Zoef-Lightning said:
He was better in the TT and in the "cheap seconds stage". Again, he was better than Roglic then. He deservedly won the Tour. And it is the one who completes the entire Tour course in the shortest time anyway, who is the winner. Last year Roglic had bad luck and dropped out. But given Pogacar's demonstration, Roglic hadn't had a chance. And with the drop out of Roglic last year, we have now come to know Vingegaard as a potential Tour winner. During the preparatory races it will become clear whether Roglic or Vingegaard will be the leader of the team. Individually both will fall short against Pogacar.

My point is that by working together Vingegaard and Roglic can get Pogacar in trouble. I mean working together equally, without one of the two having to do slaves for the other. Take turns attacking. To put everything on the best placed team mate at the end of the Tour.
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I agree with most of what you say but getting a second place in the Tour is a long way from winning it; especially when you've never won a prior GT. Vingegaard was opportunistic and well-supported with Roglic's absence. As for the two-fer strategy it didn't seem to work for Movistar and then they tried the three-fer. Ineos did the same.
Cooperative work sounds good but when it happens it as much chance, resilient form or a one-off. Pogi does seem to be almost the best at everything which wins GTs. He also doesn't need a DS in his ear, a wattage meter or much support in the highest of mountains to accomplish it.
 
Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

Jun 7, 2011
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Andre

Andre

Feb 1, 2020
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I saw the stage today. Remco looked excellent. The British announcers could not stop marveling at how relaxed he was. Most riders were huffing and puffing but Remco was barely breathing...not exactly in those words. They also couldn't believe that nobody was attacking towards the end, but the pace was so high that nobody could attack.
 
Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

Jun 7, 2011
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Andre said:
I saw the stage today. Remco looked excellent. The British announcers could not stop marveling at how relaxed he was. Most riders were huffing and puffing but Remco was barely breathing...not exactly in those words. They also couldn't believe that nobody was attacking towards the end, but the pace was so high that nobody could attack.
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Apparently there was a fierce headwind, so nobody was going to attack early. He looked relaxed but should have moved up sooner.
 
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hayneplane

Sep 4, 2017
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Looked like he got a bit blocked in over the last km and then looked quite sprightly moving up on the left at decent speed until chopped up by McNulty.

Showed he is human really by seeming easy but not pushing to attack and never looking like winning once clear it was going to be a sprint finish.

Still the favourite to take the GC this week.
 
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Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

Jun 7, 2011
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I'll post it here as not to oversaturate the Algarve topic, as some appear to be quite sensitive to reading about a rider who did not win the stage. According to this article, the idea was to waste as little as energy as possible on the climb, with Saturday's ITT in mind. That's why he stayed well in the bunch out of the wind. Vervaeke starting to pull at 4k from the finish was not planned, but he had to respond to Van Baarle's attack and after reeling him in, he kept riding the same pace which suited Evenepoel. His main objective was to not lose time.
 
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Big Doopie

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Logic-is-your-friend said:
I'll post it here as not to oversaturate the Algarve topic, as some appear to be quite sensitive to reading about a rider who did not win the stage. According to this article, the idea was to waste as little as energy as possible on the climb, with Saturday's ITT in mind. That's why he stayed well in the bunch out of the wind. Vervaeke starting to pull at 4k from the finish was not planned, but he had to respond to Van Baarle's attack and after reeling him in, he kept riding the same pace which suited Evenepoel. His main objective was to not lose time.
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Okay. Makes sense. Y then does he announce at the start of the race that the plan is to do even better than in 2020. And that would mean winning THREE Stages and the GC. I have said this before but his pre-race declarations don’t help him much. Being confident is great but I don’t see how those types of declarations help him one bit.
 
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Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

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Big Doopie said:
Okay. Makes sense. Y then does he announce at the start of the race that the plan is to do even better than in 2020. And that would mean winning THREE Stages and the GC. I have said this before but his pre-race declarations don’t help him much. Being confident is great but I don’t see how those types of declarations help him one bit.
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I think he really wanted to go for the win here. If you look at the helicopter images, he was ready to launch a his attack but he immediately got squeezed into the barriers by McNulty because the Ineos guys decided to swerve from left to right. At that moment he was alongside Higuita, so if he gets past them there, he has a big chance of winning as he's not the rider to bonk easily. But he knows public opinion is against him and he can't say "i think i could have won" anymore without raising a shitstorm, so he says he just wanted to finish in the front group.
 
Red Rick

Red Rick

Feb 20, 2012
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Logic-is-your-friend said:
I think he really wanted to go for the win here. If you look at the helicopter images, he was ready to launch a his attack but he immediately got squeezed into the barriers by McNulty because the Ineos guys decided to swerve from left to right. At that moment he was alongside Higuita, so if he gets past them there, he has a big chance of winning as he's not the rider to bonk easily. But he knows public opinion is against him and he can't say "i think i could have won" anymore without raising a shitstorm, so he says he just wanted to finish in the front group.
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It's not like he got dropped. He's still very likely gonna win the race, and I doubt Foia was about making a big statement anyway. I doubt Evenepoel expects to win a relatively win sprint like that anyway.
 
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peterfin

Feb 24, 2020
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Big Doopie said:
Okay. Makes sense. Y then does he announce at the start of the race that the plan is to do even better than in 2020. And that would mean winning THREE Stages and the GC. I have said this before but his pre-race declarations don’t help him much. Being confident is great but I don’t see how those types of declarations help him one bit.
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It could also mean that he just wants to win with a bigger lead or help the team getting more overall stage wins or whatever he believes is a better result. I think that this kind of confidence can actually help him because it gives him another reason to excel. When you say things out loud you build expectations, not just for others but more importantly also for yourself. He is an extroverted type that gets energised by it and not paralysed. So, yes, I think that attitude can help him. Of course, that seemingly cocky attitude is also a big reason why even in Belgium many are annoyed and would rather see him fail. It's clear he doesn't care about that at all and that's great.
 
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Bolder

Jun 25, 2015
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Logic-is-your-friend said:
I think he really wanted to go for the win here. If you look at the helicopter images, he was ready to launch a his attack but he immediately got squeezed into the barriers by McNulty because the Ineos guys decided to swerve from left to right. At that moment he was alongside Higuita, so if he gets past them there, he has a big chance of winning as he's not the rider to bonk easily. But he knows public opinion is against him and he can't say "i think i could have won" anymore without raising a shitstorm, so he says he just wanted to finish in the front group.
Click to expand...

Everyone was going for the win at that point and there were a bunch of punchy guys you'd put ahead of Remco in that situation. Nonetheless, I see nothing to criticize his ride in that stage. Those who are are just manufacturing controversy. He did well not to crash given that he was pushed into the barriers and how messy the finish was overall for almost nothing to be gained...with his gesture he was just annoyed that he got pushed into the barriers...I'd have done the same...

Anyway, I expect a great TT battle.
 
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