Tour-Vuelta double

[roundabout]

For a slight diversion and I am bored waiting for the big guns to start in Colorado

Let's look at the top-50 so far on GC and see how many of them finished the Tour and where they placed then

Chavanel 1 Vuelta 61 Tour
Fuglsang 5 - 50
Monfort 7-29
Zubeldia 14-16
Mollema 15-70
Sanchez 17-57
Roche 25-26
Sörensen 28-37
Moncoutie 29-41
Karpets 40-28
Verdugo 44-25

So that's 11 of the first 50 that finished the Tour and none of them had a particularly good one.

The first 11 from the Tour didn't bother riding the Vuelta. From the first 50 only 15 are doing the Vuelta. Some have rode the Giro and some weren't invited. Still it seems to be a bit on the low side.

Are the days of Sastre, Mancebo etc who could finish top-5 in both gone or are the current stars being a bit "lazy" combined with an unsuitable calendar with 1 less week between the races.

And yes, I know that Contador can probably at least do top-5 in both .

 

[jsem94]

Last year, J-Rod did a very good Tour-Vuelta run, 8th and 4th.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Valverde and J-Rod have both recently done well - J-Rod 8th & 4th in 2010, Ally Vally 8th & 5th in 2008. 2008 of course also saw Sastre do 1st & 3rd, while in 2007 Evans did 2nd & 4th while Sastre did 4th & 2nd.

 

[Angliru]

Yes, Andy is being lazy.

 

[roundabout]

Valverde and J-Rod have both recently done well - J-Rod 8th & 4th in 2010, Ally Vally 8th & 5th in 2008. 2008 of course also saw Sastre do 1st & 3rd, while in 2007 Evans did 2nd & 4th while Sastre did 4th & 2nd.

With Evans and Sastre getting a bit long in the tooth I am guessing that it's only a handful of people that can top-5 in both.

It does seem to be a bit of a problem to do 2 GT's in a row in on 1 calendar year well. Don't know why though.

 

[RipTRAIN]

With Evans and Sastre getting a bit long in the tooth I am guessing that it's only a handful of people that can top-5 in both.

It does seem to be a bit of a problem to do 2 GT's in a row in on 1 calendar year well. Don't know why though.

I think its because the talent level is so deep in all the GTs. You have the Italians like Scarponi Nibali and Garzelli who target the Giro and peak well for it. Then everyone is training for the Tour and occasionally you have guys like Purito and Samu and Anton who target the Vuelta. If you get worn out riding in a different GT when another guy is off training and scouting upcoming stages youre really at a disadvantage (Menchov after his great Giro win.) Plus the more fatigued guys are more likely to have a bad day.

 

[ingsve]

I think the World Championships has something to do with it as well. With the flat Worlds RR not many of the Tour contenders feel they have a shot at winning worlds so there is no need to go to the Vuelta to prepare. Next year when Worlds is much harder again I imagine that GC contenders in the Tour will also do the Vuelta to prepare for Worlds. The olympics might get in the way of that slightly but that's also a fairly flat course so perhaps the GC contenders won't bother with the Olympics.