Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

He pushed alright at the Giro. Problem is Nibali had and still has a weak team, so he had to rely on Movistar moves which never came consistently. There were no medium mountain stages designed to offer real opportunities for an ambush and after he messed up Blockhaus and cracked on Oropa there was only one real MTF left, Piancavallo. Then, a bunch of strong guys riding for podium, placements and jerseys didn't help either while Tom got maybe the decisive helping hand from Bob Jungels.

This time around, besides Nibali there are at least two aggressive riders who will make Froome sweat, Contador and Aru so the dynamic of the race might as well be different. I don't think that Froome will magically improve his climbing from TdF and the difference in TT remains to be seen regarding Nibali. Sure Froome is the favorite but I think he is less of a favorite than how it was for TdF.

On top of this hopefully Froomes team will be weaker. We should get some good entertaining racing.

 

[Gigs_98]

It's often quite underrated how hard Dumoulin was pushed in the giro. In the last three mountain stages the race exploded with more than 50 kilometers to go, in the Piancavallo stage even more than 100 kilometers to go. The problem was not that the gc contenders didn't try to put Dumoulin under pressure, but that the penultimate serious climb of each stage was both not extremely hard and extremely far away from the finish so the race always came back together after it was blown apart earlier. Therefore the only point where a guy like Nibali could attack Dumoulin was the last climb of the stage and since he didn't climb that much better than Dumoulin he also couldn't really put him under pressure.

 

[Forever The Best]

I think Nibali waited too long in Ortisei and he should have also gone full-gas in Foza. He played cat&mouse with Quintana for a bit on Foza.

 

[lenric]

Yeah, well, the last week of the Giro was the kiss of death for all of them, so I doubt they could have done something significantly different.

 

[Brullnux]

It's often quite underrated how hard Dumoulin was pushed in the giro. In the last three mountain stages the race exploded with more than 50 kilometers to go, in the Piancavallo stage even more than 100 kilometers to go. The problem was not that the gc contenders didn't try to put Dumoulin under pressure, but that the penultimate serious climb of each stage was both not extremely hard and extremely far away from the finish so the race always came back together after it was blown apart earlier. Therefore the only point where a guy like Nibali could attack Dumoulin was the last climb of the stage and since he didn't climb that much better than Dumoulin he also couldn't really put him under pressure.

You forget perhaps the biggest issues: Dumoulin was incredibly strong, and everyone seemed dead by the last stages of the third week (except Zakarin and to a lesser extent Pozzo and pinot, who was just inconsistent)

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Yeah even on Piancovallo, which was Dumoulin's worst day in terms of strength, he lost 1'10 or something to Nibali.
On all good better days he either won time back or lost only seconds.

#Shitgate not accounted for, probably would not even have lost time without incident.

 

[Red Rick]

Nibali and QUintana were both awful on Piancavallo though. I think Nibali mainly lost the Giro cause he didn't put time into Quintana there. If he had, he could've attack on the Monte Grappa, dropped Dumoulin there, and the race would've been gone for Dumoulin.

 

[movingtarget]

Without his toilet break Dumoulin wins the Giro easily. Nibali and Quintana were below their best which is probably why Pinot looked better than usual. I still think that Nibali has a chance in the Vuelta. He has had a good break.

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, Quintana and Nibali where getting outclimbed by Zakarin and Pozzovivo in the last week. That's not peak Nibali or peak Quintana.

 

[Rollthedice]

Bahrain team for Vuelta: Vincenzo Nibali, Pellizotti, Boaro, Moreno, Agnoli, Visconti, Antonio Nibali, Cortina, Novak.

 

[Red Rick]

Antonio? Didn't think he'd make it to the GTs. Havimg the right name helps

 

[Pippo_San]

Vuelta 2017 winner. You heard it here first.

 

[Laplaz]

Pretty weak team for the TTT unfortunately.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Vuelta 2017 winner. You heard it here first.

Squalo or Squabro?

 

[ice&fire]

Re: Re:

Vuelta 2017 winner. You heard it here first.

Squalo or Squabro?

Squonko!

 

[Climbing]

Let's hope he doesn't lose too much time in the TTT.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

Let's hope he doesn't lose too much time in the TTT.

It's a technical parcours so we can expect some surprises. He will have to do most of the work together with Boaro, many in his team are pretty useless in TT. As a positive it's good that it's kinda short.

 

[lenric]

Antonio Nibali is better (or not so bad) at what? Rouler? Climber?

Anyway, I can't see Bahrain not losing less than a minute to Sky.

 

[El Pistolero]

TTTs should be banned from cycling. Team events in individual sports suck. For example, does anyone believe for even one second that Allyson Felix is the greatest female athlete of all time? Lol!

At least relay races in track can be entertaining (except the women races, they're so boring because of severe lack of competition).

 

[silvergrenade]

Re:

Antonio Nibali is better (or not so bad) at what? Rouler? Climber?

Anyway, I can't see Bahrain not losing less than a minute to Sky.

Seriously?
1 minute in 15 kms is a stretch. :Neutral:
I'd say 20-40 secs.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

TTTs should be banned from cycling. Team events in individual sports suck.

Good thing cycling is a team sport then

 

[chiocciolis_calves]

Re: Re:

TTTs should be banned from cycling. Team events in individual sports suck.

Good thing cycling is a team sport then

And the strength of teams is measured out every stage. TTTs distort the results and penalize GC riders on smaller teams, which almost invariably struggle at TTTs. I wish they'd get rid of the stupid things in GTs and just have one TTT championship per season and that's that.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

TTTs should be banned from cycling. Team events in individual sports suck.

Good thing cycling is a team sport then

And the strength of teams is measured out every stage. TTTs distort the results and penalize GC riders on smaller teams, which almost invariably struggle at TTTs. I wish they'd get rid of the stupid things in GTs and just have one TTT championship per season and that's that.

I don't like TTTs either

 

[Zoophonic]

Re: Re:

Let's hope he doesn't lose too much time in the TTT.

It's a technical parcours so we can expect some surprises. He will have to do most of the work together with Boaro, many in his team are pretty useless in TT. As a positive it's good that it's kinda short.

TTTs are showcase openers and they shouldn't be decisive to the overall results in any way. This particular TTT is deadpan flat and a mere 13.7 kilometres. There shouldn't be any big time differences barring calamities. The rest of the Tour is more than lumpy enough to allow the climbers to assert their position in the GC without having to be worried by small seconds time differences in the opener.

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

TTTs should be banned from cycling. Team events in individual sports suck.

Good thing cycling is a team sport then

No, it is not. Soccer is a team sport. There, it's the team who wins, you don't have an individual world champion as an example. In cycling, it's the individual who wins. If you were asked who had won the first Tour, you would answer with a name of a rider, not of a team.

It's obviously conducted with teams, but that does not make it a team sport.

...

TTTs would be okay in stage races if they were with individual timing, so a rider (like Vino in the Giro'10) wouldn't be handicapped by too slow teammates.