Re: Re:
TMP402 said:
Libertine Seguros said:
I think you're hypercritical of Aru there. He was no weaker in the 2015 Vuelta than Hesjedal in the 2012 Giro. Four straight GT top 5s don't happen by accident, even if the team strength pulled him there. Given where he had been coming up through the ranks, his winning the 2015 Vuelta is not the outlier that Hesjedal, Horner or Thomas each are.
I wonder if Thomas is worth regarding as an anomaly now: his 2nd proved his 1st wasn't an aberration.
Winning your first GT at 32, when you've never even managed a top 10 before, is still anomalous. That he's replicated it means he's not a one-hit wonder, but compared to Aru, his career trajectory in stage racing up to that first win is very unusual. Aru went from winning Valle d'Aosta twice and finishing 2nd and 4th in Girobio to riding the Giro with no pressure and the top 10 of the Österreichrundfahrt in his first pro year, to 3rd in the Giro and 5th in the Vuelta in his second, to 2nd in the Giro and 1st in the Vuelta in his third. The Vuelta he won is the only one of the four he didn't win at least one mountain stage in. Aru's career trajectory up to and including his GT win is one of a serious, prodigious climbing talent focused entirely on stage racing. It's what's happened AFTER that that has been anomalous.
Thomas' Tour win was his 13th GT start, and on no previous occasion had he made the top 10 (the crashing out of the 2017 Giro does affect this, however, as it was the only GT prior to the 2018 Tour that he started as even co-leader, though we all know he was the #1 guy in that Giro, given how the team circled around him and abandoned Landa to his fate after the two crashed). He had put in some killer rides in the previous couple of years, but fallen away after a single bad day, nevertheless 2015, when he was 29, is the year he really kicks on as a climber; before that he only had a couple of noteworthy climbing performances, such as finishing with Bardet at Winklmoosalm in 2014. Aru
right now is the same age as when Thomas first showed he could climb more than occasionally - 2015 with his performances on the Rettenbachferner and Croix de Chaubouret followed by a strong Tour. Thomas may have become a genuine contender who can back it up, but the stage of his career at which he's done it is a major outlier; history is littered with young stars who burnt out early like Aru seems to have done, it's not littered to the same extent with people who've discovered their GT contention capabilities only after turning 30, and that's why I think Hesjedal and Thomas are more outlying than Aru.
And if two GTs on the podium is enough to say Thomas isn't an anomaly, how is four GTs in the top 5 on the spin not enough to say Aru isn't?