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Too Late, Too Furious: Tokyo Drift - The 2020 Olympics Thread

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Every country has a small team, so not a lot of countries have the "luxury" of having a dedicated flat road domestique. There are countries with only one or two participants. Everybody will need to play it smart to maximize the potential of a small team. They can, just like many others, profit from the work of other teams. I think flat land grunt wouldn't get far on this course anyway. It's not like Higuita, Martinez and Uran can't hold their own on flat roads. For a moment i was thinking about Narvaez, but he's not colombian... Who would you have picked?

I would select Anacona instead of Quintana - Reckon you can go do better with 5 riders - Look at how unbalanced is the UK squad of four riders.
 
Already posted the men a few days ago, and at the time i was wondering if GVA was the best man for the job. Today i have to wonder if Benoot is the best man for the job. Right now i'd take Teuns over both of them in a heartbeat.
Benoot is a willing domestique though. Last year he wasn't all that good in the Tour either, but he might have been the best helper for van Aert just a week later in Imola.

I agree with you on the Van Avermaet part. The argument that he won in Rio on a tough parcours and therefore could also play a role in Rio is bogus in my eyes. He's not close to the rider he was back then. He also isn't the type of guy to really do domestique duties for others. So I really don't understand why he is being selected.

I personally would have loved to see Devenyns in the squad. With no Alaphilippe present and Evenepoel being a teammate on DQS, there is absolutely no conflict of interest. He's also shown numerous time that he is one of the best domestiques in these type of 1-day races. So I wonder if it was Vanthourenhout's or his own choice to not go.
 
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Benoot is a willing domestique though. Last year he wasn't all that good in the Tour either, but he might have been the best helper for van Aert just a week later in Imola.

I agree with you on the Van Avermaet part. The argument that he won in Rio on a tough parcours and therefore could also play a role in Rio is bogus in my eyes. He's not close to the rider he was back then. He also isn't the type of guy to really do domestique duties for others. So I really don't understand why he is being selected.

I personally would have loved to see Devenyns in the squad. With no Alaphilippe present and Evenepoel being a teammate on DQS, there is absolutely no conflict of interest. He's also shown numerous time that he is one of the best domestiques in these type of 1-day races. So I wonder if it was Vanthourenhout's or his own choice to not go.
I'm quite convinced Teuns would have no issue supporting the two leaders and i rate him considerably higher than Devenyns overall. If Evenepoel should falter, i'm not convinced Devenyns is going to be equally motivated to ride for Van Aert, even if Ala isn't competing. If Teuns has his day, he could go much farther in the final than either Benoot or Devenyns. The only one i'd rate higher is De Plus, who unfortunately seems to have retired from pro cycling by the looks of things. On top of that, Teuns has the ability to finish off a race (let's say there is a scenario where there is a break and the big guns get caught behind).
 
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Would it be too out there to pick O'Connor and just try to turn this into a mountains classic? I mean, unless they think Matthews can survive this in the front group the Aussies have no obvious RR leader, so why not?

Matthews should be kept for the World's - Porte is the notional leader though I have no faith in his abilities in a one day race - L.Hamilton has been added to the squad though his performance at the TDF has been underwhelming - Ideally, Haig would have been the number one candidate but he is injured - Meyer's dad's illness was a contributing factor to his withdrawal but not the major reason.
 
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This is BS from Ukraine
We want Magic Mark
Who is this lad?


BOOOOOOOO
Budyak is a good rider who won on Przehyba (arguably Poland's toughest raceable climb - depends how raceable real race organisers think Spindlerpass is) in the Tour of Małopolska and has a consistently excellent record in those Turkish hilly to medium mountain one dayers that the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian péloton make their money in. I think he deserves a better ride than he has got at the moment, but picking him ahead of Padun at present is an absolute headscratcher unless there's something else at play.