Tom Dumoulin discussion thread

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Just referring to Blockhaus won't do it. Dumoulin already showed in Abu Dhabi and Tirreno that he improved a lot in the mountains.

 

[memyselfandI]

I really like Tom but he never has a chance to win the Giro. He has no team whiĺe Quintana has a superb team. Astana has shown how to kill Tom on a relatively easy climb and Moviestar is going to do the same during the last week of racing.

Tom is not strong enough to hold the wheel of Quintana if Quintana goes all in on a proper climb. Without a team he has no chance to pull Quintana back. Moviestar is really strong and capable of creating the opportunities that will cost Dumoulin the victory. It's a bit sad that Dumoulin is in pink now. If he wasn't in pink right now, he would have a better chance to win overall.

TD should join forces with Sky as leaders are more same type of riders than Quintana. Sky would benefit from it beating the hell out from Quintana towards TdF.

 

[Pennino]

A Dutch combine should be enough, but unfortunately we Dutch are always so sickeningly goody-goody.

 

[Kwibus]

A Dutch combine should be enough, but unfortunately we Dutch are always so sickeningly goody-goody.

I know and it can be frustating, but if everyone acted goody goody it would be a better world :razz:

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Imagine that, double Stelvio stage. Quintana goes and rides towards earlier Movistar riders.

In the background Dumoulin gets help from 3rd week Kruijswijk and from Mollema trying to stay on the podium. End result catches Quintana on the final climb and nullifies the attack. Outrage on CN forum as non-teammates help Dumoulin.

 

[Pennino]

Re:

Imagine that, double Stelvio stage. Quintana goes and rides towards earlier Movistar riders.

In the background Dumoulin gets help from 3rd week Kruijswijk and from Mollema trying to stay on the podium. End result catches Quintana on the final climb and nullifies the attack. Outrage on CN forum as non-teammates help Dumoulin.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Imagine that, double Stelvio stage. Quintana goes and rides towards earlier Movistar riders.

In the background Dumoulin gets help from 3rd week Kruijswijk and from Mollema trying to stay on the podium. End result catches Quintana on the final climb and nullifies the attack. Outrage on CN forum as non-teammates help Dumoulin.

I think that there is another potential factor at play too, and that is the desire for many riders to place on the podium in Milan (as well as to win Pink too). Say the GC stays the same (or relatively the same; Dumoulin loses no more than a minute to Quintana on Oropa) and then Quintana blows Dumoulin away on Stelvio and reaches a teammate or two up the road, and TD has no teammates left. Do you think that every other rider is not going to give TD any support? They will, because it is also in their best interests to do so. With another time trial (as well as other intriguing mountain stages with plenty of descending....NIBALI) to come, any rider still within a couple of minutes of Nairo on GC isn't going to just sit behind TD whilst he loses minutes, continuing to ask him to do the work....they will work too; or their teammates will if they have any left. The question won't be so much as to whether TD can keep pace with Quintana on Stelvio, but whether he can hold the wheel of whoever else is on a reasonable day like Mollema, Pinot or Nibali; guys who still hold faint hopes of wearing pink in Milan also.

Anyway, as the race currently stands, Quintana should be very happy. We have most of the ITT kms BEHIND us, and most of the high mountains AHEAD of us, yet he sits in second place on GC. He did a pretty good time trial. He did well not to lose four minutes to TD considering how strong Tom obviously was. The fear was that he may have lost some of his TT prowess, but clearly he hasn't. Yet Quintana hardly lost anything to Pinot, and not a great deal to Nibali (who has been a beast on occasions in GT ITT's in years past). I really don't understand this supposed disappointment in his performance yesterday....it's ridiculous.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

good part today:
-didn't look in trouble
-had ten dam with him at the end

bad part:
-Quintana/Movistar/nibali and Pinot all show they mean WAR. Every opportunity will be grabbed.
-Team still looks weak if they hit them with everything they got.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

good part today:
-didn't look in trouble
-had ten dam with him at the end

bad part:
-Quintana/Movistar/Quintana and Pinot all show they mean WAR. Every opportunity will be grabbed.
-Team still looks weak if they hit them with everything they got.

Good part
- Quintana is incapable of doing anything else but climbing
- A bunch of top 10 guys racing for top 10
- Tom looks composed and strong
Bad part
- weak team
- Nibali, he will drag with him the likes of Quintana in long range attacks

 

[hfer07]

let's be honest:

We all want Tom to win even myself as a Quintanita/Nibs fan To me the story of the underdog that overcame the odds & raised triumphant is very appealing

 

[Netserk]

The dream is that he cracks in one of the mountain stages only to do a Landis over Grappa

 

[Iker_Baqueiro]

Re: Re:

Quintana is not an all rounder, he's about as specialized as it gets. And that's fine.

Yep, agreed. He is specialized. I feel without AC last year he would not have won the Vuelta. I think right now its Dumoulin's race to lose.

+1,000,000

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

tbh i'd already be glad if he ended on the podium (before the race).

It kinda 'sucks' that he is in pink because, even if he has chances to win, if they attack real crazy and he cracks he might end up 6th. Which sucked at the Vuelta because he didn't 'deserve' to end 6th.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

tbh i'd already be glad if he ended on the podium (before the race).

It kinda 'sucks' that he is in pink because, even if he has chances to win, if they attack real crazy and he cracks he might end up 6th. Which sucked at the Vuelta because he didn't 'deserve' to end 6th.

Yes, but at the same time there are no 8 better climbers in this Giro. In that Vuelta there were.

 

[Gigs_98]

So, I wanted to take a look at Dumoulins twitter page and googled Tom Dumoulin. Then I looked at the headlines for this search term and saw something I was so shocked about that I had to post it here:

The article in the middle was published after yesterdays stage and has the title:
Giro d'Italia: A Basque stayed cool, a Frenchman stays in pink

Sport journalism at its best

 

[SeriousSam]

Not since Hinault has there been as exciting a French GC prospect

 

[jsem94]

let's be honest:

We all want Tom to win even myself as a Quintanita/Nibs fan To me the story of the underdog that overcame the odds & raised triumphant is very appealing

No doubt. Please don't crack in the dolomites.

 

[Tonton]

Not since Hinault has there been as exciting a French GC prospect

C'mon SeriousSam . There's one right now (Alexandre would say two). And there were the two compadres, Jaja and Crymeariver .

BTW, I knew Samuel Dumoulin could do it: small guy, that's a climber for sure .

With regards to this Dumoulin, I can't fathom he not making it to the podium. Week 3 often sees head-scratching, conservative racing. If Nibali attacks, what will FDJ do? If Pinot attacks, what will Movistar do? Major Tom may discover allies along the way. And Cuddle everyone in the final ITT.

If I were Tom Dumoulin, I'd feel really good. Not to say that he has it in the bag. Not to say that he will have a meltdown. He needs to survive Oropa same time, lose little stage 16. He can do it if the other favorites start to think about protecting a podium spot. And that will happen week 3. No one wants to be 4th...

 

[Ataraxus]

Not since Hinault has there been as exciting a French GC prospect

C'mon SeriousSam . There's one right now (Alexandre would say two). And there were the two compadres, Jaja and Crymeariver .

BTW, I knew Samuel Dumoulin could do it: small guy, that's a climber for sure .

With regards to this Dumoulin, I can't fathom he not making it to the podium. Week 3 often sees head-scratching, conservative racing. If Nibali attacks, what will FDJ do? If Pinot attacks, what will Movistar do? Major Tom may discover allies along the way. And Cuddle everyone in the final ITT.

If I were Tom Dumoulin, I'd feel really good. Not to say that he has it in the bag. Not to say that he will have a meltdown. He needs to survive Oropa same time, lose little stage 16. He can do it if the other favorites start to think about protecting a podium spot. And that will happen week 3. No one wants to be 4th...

He will grow even more in my eyes, if he tries something (together with Nibali maybe) in stage 15. 15-20 seconds are at stake in that stage finale.

 

[Singer01]

Slightly late to the party, but why are people using placings in MTF and TT's to compare? in a long TT if you finish 1st - 15th there is inevitably a gap, in a MTF the gap may be 10 seconds, or 2 minutes depending how they are raced. Apples and Oranges.

 

[spalco]

Sport journalism at its best

His name bothers me too though. He should change his name to Tom Den Mul or something to make him recognisable as a Dutch.

 

[Ataraxus]

Re:

Slightly late to the party, but why are people using placings in MTF and TT's to compare? in a long TT if you finish 1st - 15th there is inevitably a gap, in a MTF the gap may be 10 seconds, or 2 minutes depending how they are raced. Apples and Oranges.

Propose us a means of comparison between: Tom D. climbing and Quintana's Time trialing performances.

 

[King Boonen]

Sport journalism at its best

His name bothers me too though. He should change his name to Tom Den Mul or something to make him recognisable as a Dutch.

Big Tam.

 

[LPP68!]

Van de Molen (from the Mill) would be the literaly translation.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

Slightly late to the party, but why are people using placings in MTF and TT's to compare? in a long TT if you finish 1st - 15th there is inevitably a gap, in a MTF the gap may be 10 seconds, or 2 minutes depending how they are raced. Apples and Oranges.

Pretty sure coming 24 seconds behind on a steep climb on the best climber in the world is better than finishing at 1'30 (or sth) as best result in an ITT from Quintana then.