Tbf. He did get to lead it last year... and won stages!Red Rick said:Aaand this guy won't get to lead Giro or Tour. Needs to get out of there asap.
He is one of the most obvious transfer targets in the sport as the only top tier sprinter who is both out of contract and not the clear sprint leader where he is. Any of EF, Mitchelton Scott, Astana, Ag2r, Bahrain, Sky, Sunweb, Trek etc would clearly benefit from signing him.Salvarani said:Tbf. He did get to lead it last year... and won stages!Red Rick said:Aaand this guy won't get to lead Giro or Tour. Needs to get out of there asap.
He just unlucky that they have both Sagan and Ackerman on that team.
He is good and will have easy to find a new team at least.
Well I hope he doesn't go to SKY, Ag2R , Bahrain or Astana as no place really for sprintersZinoviev Letter said:He is one of the most obvious transfer targets in the sport as the only top tier sprinter who is both out of contract and not the clear sprint leader where he is. Any of EF, Mitchelton Scott, Astana, Ag2r, Bahrain, Sky, Sunweb, Trek etc would clearly benefit from signing him.Salvarani said:Tbf. He did get to lead it last year... and won stages!Red Rick said:Aaand this guy won't get to lead Giro or Tour. Needs to get out of there asap.
He just unlucky that they have both Sagan and Ackerman on that team.
He is good and will have easy to find a new team at least.
Bennett at his best is definitely better than Ackerman, but Ackerman is younger and much more consistent. Trek probably would be good for Ackerman as a Nizzolo replacement, could also offer something at Di Data as a replacement for Cavendish. CCC or even Sunweb may want a big bunch sprinter for races they don't take GVA or Matthews to.HelloDolly said:Well I hope he doesn't go to SKY, Ag2R , Bahrain or Astana as no place really for sprintersZinoviev Letter said:He is one of the most obvious transfer targets in the sport as the only top tier sprinter who is both out of contract and not the clear sprint leader where he is. Any of EF, Mitchelton Scott, Astana, Ag2r, Bahrain, Sky, Sunweb, Trek etc would clearly benefit from signing him.Salvarani said:Tbf. He did get to lead it last year... and won stages!Red Rick said:Aaand this guy won't get to lead Giro or Tour. Needs to get out of there asap.
He just unlucky that they have both Sagan and Ackerman on that team.
He is good and will have easy to find a new team at least.
Mitchelton Scott have Trentin
EF & Sunweb dont have the budget
Best bet would be Trek imo
And yes he is better than Ackerman
I doubt it. Bennett’s problem there has never been speed or sprinting ability or form. It’s that the team have three world class sprinters and the other two have advantages for the team that have nothing to do with their relative sprinting level - Sagan is both much more than a sprinter and the team’s meal ticket, Ackermann is German and under contract for two years. Even if the team were to give him the Giro “back”, he would still probably leave next year as he’s just too fast to accept playing second fiddle to Sagan much longer. So it would be unwise for the team to antagonize Ackermann who will be number 2 in 2020.happytramp said:I wonder are Bora re-evaluating their plans after the last couple weeks? ☺
Baska seems to be his dedicated leadout rider this year, with Ackermann getting Selig, and then he also got great leadouts by Sagan earlier so its not like he has not been getting good dedicated leadouts. It actually seems a bit like Bora feels a little bad towards him, due to his unlucky 3. sprinter-position despite him being world class, so they have been trying extra hard for Bennett. I don't know why Baska is not also in Paris-Nice, but Schwarzmann and Drucker is not so bad on paper, but normal leadouts have just been affected a lot by all the wind most of all.Zinoviev Letter said:I note that Bennett is not getting a full leadout or even a dedicated final lead out man so far this year. He’s getting dropped off near the front and then left to his own devices as he often was when Bora were a smaller team. That may not be by choice, given the number of top sprinters at Bora, but it is probably a good thing for his longer term career if it means that he learns to position himself better. He did a nice bit of wheel surfing in his Paris Nice win today, first slipping in ahead of Ewan onto the wheel of Kristoff, then nipping in ahead of Groenewegen onto the Dutchman’s leadout’s wheel. He absolutely would not have been capable of pulling that kind of thing off two year’s ago.
Bora is not the kind of team to change their plans. It's rather the full contrary. Plans are decided before the beginning of the season and they stick to them.Zinoviev Letter said:I doubt it. Bennett’s problem there has never been speed or sprinting ability or form. It’s that the team have three world class sprinters and the other two have advantages for the team that have nothing to do with their relative sprinting level - Sagan is both much more than a sprinter and the team’s meal ticket, Ackermann is German and under contract for two years. Even if the team were to give him the Giro “back”, he would still probably leave next year as he’s just too fast to accept playing second fiddle to Sagan much longer. So it would be unwise for the team to antagonize Ackermann who will be number 2 in 2020.happytramp said:I wonder are Bora re-evaluating their plans after the last couple weeks? ☺
Feeling like he has to put himself in the shop window hasn’t done him any harm so far. I expect him to keep his head down, keep winning, win some Vuelta stages and then make a big money move to a team where he will be the undisputed leader.
Bennett is a very smart sprinter. When he's fully confident in himself, it's beautiful to watch!MADRAZO said:Baska seems to be his dedicated leadout rider this year, with Ackermann getting Selig, and then he also got great leadouts by Sagan earlier so its not like he has not been getting good dedicated leadouts. It actually seems a bit like Bora feels a little bad towards him, due to his unlucky 3. sprinter-position despite him being world class, so they have been trying extra hard for Bennett. I don't know why Baska is not also in Paris-Nice, but Schwarzmann and Drucker is not so bad on paper, but normal leadouts have just been affected a lot by all the wind most of all.Zinoviev Letter said:I note that Bennett is not getting a full leadout or even a dedicated final lead out man so far this year. He’s getting dropped off near the front and then left to his own devices as he often was when Bora were a smaller team. That may not be by choice, given the number of top sprinters at Bora, but it is probably a good thing for his longer term career if it means that he learns to position himself better. He did a nice bit of wheel surfing in his Paris Nice win today, first slipping in ahead of Ewan onto the wheel of Kristoff, then nipping in ahead of Groenewegen onto the Dutchman’s leadout’s wheel. He absolutely would not have been capable of pulling that kind of thing off two year’s ago.
I agree with this. There is, at least so far, no indication that this is a Mitchelton Scott / Caleb Ewan sort of situation. Bora have favored Ackermann in GT choice, but they have not taken the view that because they have antagonized Bennett in that way that they may as well cut their losses and just give him the leftover races. They are giving him a good calendar outside of the GTs, including allowing him to ride MSR.Beobachter said:And anyway as things have been decided they make sense in fact. Sure, the Giro has more value than the Vuelta. But what about the rest of the calendar?
Bennett has not much to complain about. San Juan, UAE, Paris Nice, Milan San Remo, Turkey, Francfort, Dauphiné, Vuelta. Pretty decent I'd say![]()
Not everything is about form and results. Plus the decision has been made before we knew what the form of Ackermann and Sagan was going to be.happytramp said:It's so unfortunate for him to be left out of both the Giro and The Tour behind riders that he's clearly in better form than right now... Hard to see it happening on literally any other team. One maybe, but both?... That's seriously unlucky.
You would think a good team would have enough flexibility to change their plans if situation like that arises. The decision clearly looks to be wrong unless BORA have other priorities than maximising their results and being fair to their riders.Screecher said:Not everything is about form and results. Plus the decision has been made before we knew what the form of Ackermann and Sagan was going to be.happytramp said:It's so unfortunate for him to be left out of both the Giro and The Tour behind riders that he's clearly in better form than right now... Hard to see it happening on literally any other team. One maybe, but both?... That's seriously unlucky.
Exactly. That's what's so unfortunate about it.Screecher said:Not everything is about form and results. Plus the decision has been made before we knew what the form of Ackermann and Sagan was going to be.happytramp said:It's so unfortunate for him to be left out of both the Giro and The Tour behind riders that he's clearly in better form than right now... Hard to see it happening on literally any other team. One maybe, but both?... That's seriously unlucky.
Actually, they are fair to their riders (re what I wrote upper regarding their races calendarAnderis said:You would think a good team would have enough flexibility to change their plans if situation like that arises. The decision clearly looks to be wrong unless BORA have other priorities than maximising their results and being fair to their riders.Screecher said:Not everything is about form and results. Plus the decision has been made before we knew what the form of Ackermann and Sagan was going to be.happytramp said:It's so unfortunate for him to be left out of both the Giro and The Tour behind riders that he's clearly in better form than right now... Hard to see it happening on literally any other team. One maybe, but both?... That's seriously unlucky.
I mostly agree.Beobachter said:Actually, they are fair to their riders (re what I wrote upper regarding their races calendarAnderis said:You would think a good team would have enough flexibility to change their plans if situation like that arises. The decision clearly looks to be wrong unless BORA have other priorities than maximising their results and being fair to their riders.Screecher said:Not everything is about form and results. Plus the decision has been made before we knew what the form of Ackermann and Sagan was going to be.happytramp said:It's so unfortunate for him to be left out of both the Giro and The Tour behind riders that he's clearly in better form than right now... Hard to see it happening on literally any other team. One maybe, but both?... That's seriously unlucky.). To justify a change of plans it would have needed an injured or completely out of form Ackermann. Ackermann admittedly doesn't look as great as last year, but still he does the job. Him not being at the very top of his form makes sense since he's aiming for the Giro. On the contrary, the main goal for Bennett was Paris-Nice (and MSR); him looking more in form then is completely logical.
It doesn't make sense to compare current forms of both riders precisely because they were not aiming for the same races.
Currently, there is absolutely no reason to ditch Ackermann out of the Giro. There would be if for example Ackermann would happen to crash at the Tour of the Alps or Francfort or to get sick, that would be the only good reason.
About fairness:
Bora just recruited back Archbold (even though he offers very few garanties regarding his current level). I would say it"s more than fair from them towards Bennett since Archbold is a close friend of the Irish and will be fully at the service of Bennett![]()
About change of plans:
- it's worth noting that Bennett will eventually go to Romandie instead of Francfort. If the move is firstly about practical reasons (not many injured riders for Bora), it still favors Bennett since it will give him two opportunities of victory (instead of just one) and more time to work his automatisms with his new leadout man Archbold