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Vuelta a España 2019 stage 19: Ávila - Toledo > 165.2 km

Page 12 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Bit of a stupid outburst by Lopez
  1. Whatever you think about Valverde he is much liked in the peloton
  2. Wait to see what happened before shouting your mouth off
  3. Soler said the DS told them where to ride before the crash started
  4. Valverde seemed to call a halt to the attack
  5. Watch Movistar v Astana now ...forget Red
If only "Superman" Lopez was half as well-spoken as he is good at physically hitting other people...

...he would be a lot less funny.

Spiderrrman
 
Just saw the ITV4 highlights

MAL definitley called Movistar idiots and was derogatory about Valverde ...not the opposite ...and this is according to ITV4 translation

Also very obvious from the highlights that after the crash Roglic was holding onto the LV car and far behind Astana and MAL group on the road on an open area with echelons ...Next thing he was with them...looked very suspect how he got up so fast all by himself in strong wind ..but no footage

Next thing this group of Astana lead by Lulu and containing Roglic & MAL was drafting behind 2 cars including LV car for an age

And finally there were definitely gaps at the end behind Van de Sande and Tuens

But guess only bad boys today were Movistar
 
I've just lost all respect for Lopez. He obviously has no clue what he's talking about. Lopez is critizing Movistar for doing exactly what his own Astana team did to Contador in the 2015 Giro. Guess he doesn't like turn about being fair play.

Appears the UCI has fixed the Vuelta this year from what they did on this stage.

With what happened today it's obvious the UCI has it out for Movistar.

With what the UCI did today, may as well just end pro cycling all-together. There's literally no reason to bother racing as they just told everyone they aren't allowed to have a real race as the winner must be whom THEY want the winner to be. Thanks UCI for showing us that the results for all races MUST now be questioned.

Why the heck were there not time gaps at the end that were obvious?
 
I've just lost all respect for Lopez. He obviously has no clue what he's talking about. Lopez is critizing Movistar for doing exactly what his own Astana team did to Contador in the 2015 Giro. Guess he doesn't like turn about being fair play.

Appears the UCI has fixed the Vuelta this year from what they did on this stage.

With what happened today it's obvious the UCI has it out for Movistar.

With what the UCI did today, may as well just end pro cycling all-together. There's literally no reason to bother racing as they just told everyone they aren't allowed to have a real race as the winner must be whom THEY want the winner to be. Thanks UCI for showing us that the results for all races MUST now be questioned.

Why the heck were there not time gaps at the end that were obvious?

A lot of whataboutery there. López was not even a member of the Astana team at the time of the 2015 Giro so it is no reflection on him. For all we know he could have been watching at home and been as unimpressed by that decision as he clearly is by Movistar today.
 
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A lot of whataboutery there. López was not even a member of the Astana team at the time of the 2015 Giro so it is no reflection on him. For all we know he could have been watching at home and been as unimpressed by that decision as he clearly is by Movistar today.

But it was still the team he now races for that did the exact same thing. You race for a team that has done this you don't get to complain. Same goes for Jumbo-Visma as under the Belkin name they have done the same thing as well.
 
It was four years ago… :rolleyes: Come on... people are not seriously still going on about things happening that long ago.

So what, same team. Doesn't matter when it happened, it happened and shows they are more than happy to do the same thing.

So unless the UCI has put something in the rules that state you must wait for riders after a crash, then there was nothing wrong with what Movistar did and there was EVERYTHING wrong with what the UCI did.
 
IIRC ITV4's interviewer is Daniel Friebe who has good pieces up on this site and has pretty decent Spanish, so that's a surprise. Maybe it makes for good TV but it's bad journalism.
The truth is, it's open to interpretation whether MAL was being sarcastic or whether he was trying to soften the message by actually praising Valverde. MAL's tone was ambiguous.
 
So what, same team. Doesn't matter when it happened, it happened and shows they are more than happy to do the same thing.

So unless the UCI has put something in the rules that state you must wait for riders after a crash, then there was nothing wrong with what Movistar did and there was EVERYTHING wrong with what the UCI did.

At some point you gotta focus on the racing now, and not something that happened several years ago.
But anyway, both Movistar and the UCI were wrong.
 
Movistar posted this

khPmUMc.png
 
At some point you gotta focus on the racing now, and not something that happened several years ago.
But anyway, both Movistar and the UCI were wrong.

Why were Movistar wrong? Unwritten rules are unwritten. Besides, your own statement from earlier about that you don't attack because of a crash but you don't wait in the event of a crash of a rival if you had already initiated an attack is not encompassing what could have been what happened today: That Movistar attacked because of open roads and cross-winds, and not because someone had crashed. You can't just expect to be exempt from being attacked if you crash, then people will begin faking mechanicals when the terrain gets tough.

It's like saying that Fabio Aru could not use the Mont du Chat for an attack because Froome had a problem, that Dumoulin's rivals couldn't ride on the Umbrailpass because he needed to take a dump and that Ullrich and co. couldn't use the Luz Ardiden offensively because Armstrong crashed . It doesn't make sense to require obvious attacking terrain to be neutralised just because some people are unlucky. And it especially does not make sense that a leader's jersey should enjoy that kind of luxury just because he wears the jersey (obviously all the favourites should have equal rights here, or the competition gets an unfair skewness).

Today was of course not as obvious attacking terrain as a final mountain but it was pretty obviously in Movistar's interests to put on the pressure in the event of cross-winds, and in my opinion it was nice to see them put their feet down. Until they didn't anymore.

Regarding the way the commissaires acted with the team cars being allowed to tow everybody back (IN FULL CROSSWINDS), I don't even...
 
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The truth is, it's open to interpretation whether MAL was being sarcastic or whether he was trying to soften the message by actually praising Valverde. MAL's tone was ambiguous.
Not really. I mean, sure, sarcasm is always subjective. But, to me, that wasn't anywhere near sarcastic. Starting with the fact that I can't remember him ever going for sarcasm (or even humor). He is as to the point as they come. It's usually just a smile and a cliche. And when he's mad he'll say what he means (and we've seen him be even more direct than that).

He was in an interview with a Spanish channel, and he was ending it on a smile and a high. I have not heard what that last question was, it seemed to be on how he felt about what transpired. And his answer was that [he was feeling] "angry at these silly actions by the team with the world champion, and what a famous world champion we have." It was clear as day, IMHO, that that was a remark on Valverde's stature, ie, this wasn't Rui Costa (sorry, Rui, you were a fun rider and great at the Tour de Suisse) but Alejandro Valverde, the great Spanish Champion. Yet most of the translations I've seen are jumbling up the order of the answers and skirting a word here and there. Sure, viewers like a bit of morbo, polemica sells papers, and spin is the name of the game, but spinning a translation in the most uncharitable way strikes me as cheap even for sports infotainment. Even for an informed, skeptical viewer, unless you can speak the language, there's no way to critically think your way around a translation being gamed.
 
Why were Movistar wrong? Unwritten rules are unwritten. Besides, your own statement from earlier about that you don't attack because of a crash but you don't wait in the event of a crash of a rival if you had already initiated an attack is not encompassing what could have been what happened today: That Movistar attacked because of open roads and cross-winds, and not because someone had crashed. You can't just expect to be exempt from being attacked if you crash, then people will begin faking mechanicals when the terrain gets tough.

It's like saying that Fabio Aru could not use the Mont du Chat for an attack because Froome had a problem, that Dumoulin's rivals couldn't ride on the Umbrailpass because he needed to take a dump and that Ullrich and co. couldn't use the Luz Ardiden offensively because Armstrong crashed . It doesn't make sense to require obvious attacking terrain to be neutralised just because some people are unlucky. And it especially does not make sense that a leader's jersey should enjoy that kind of luxury just because he wears the jersey (obviously all the favourites should have equal rights here, or the competition gets an unfair skewness).

Today was of course not as obvious attacking terrain as a final mountain but it was pretty obviously in Movistar's interests to put on the pressure in the event of cross-winds, and in my opinion it was nice to see them put their feet down. Until they didn't anymore.

Regarding the way the commissaires acted with the team cars being allowed to tow everybody back (IN FULL CROSSWINDS), I don't even...

I sure hadn't seen them start the attack before the crash...
 
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I think the only way one can take advantage of a situation like this is if the rider(s) that has a problem is at fault. Kruiswijk crashed in the Giro because of his own bad skills, Schleck dropped a chain because of his own mistake in the Tour 2010, Contador and Sanchez were badly positioned in the stage 1 of the 2011 Tour due to their own fault. The other reason where it is acceptable is if the race is full on. Like Nibali on Alpe d'Huez last year. Or Lopez this year in the Giro (multiple times). Or even Valverde in the Tour 2013, where racing was already on and echelons were already formed when he had a mechanical.

But today the situation was totaly different. Jumbo and Astana were not at fault for crashing. They were positioned perfectly, the only problem was they were on the wrong side of the road. The race was NOT on. Riders were going rather slow. After the crash happens (in the video you can see Valverde going by it on the opposite side of the road so he has seen it happen) riders in front start looking at each other. Then the Movistar riders start talking on the radio and suddenly we are racing full gas. That is attacking someone's bad luck. Not a mistake. Bad luck. They could have waited 5 k's for everyone to get back in and then still do their attack in crosswinds. But no. They attacked the crash. And that is wrong.
 
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What the hell are they apologising for? If this was always their tactic as they make it out to be, there's no point for a disculpe. Either you were wrong or you weren't.
Note that follow up on the need for a set of criteria for everyone to follow.

This is a "we still don't feel we were wrong, but since almost every other team feels that way, then we are sorry we did whatever you think we did wrong even though we still don't know what that was, we promise not to do it again once you spell out exactly what it was we were supposed to do instead" apology by Garate or Unzue, filtered through the PR guys.
 
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At some point you gotta focus on the racing now, and not something that happened several years ago.
But anyway, both Movistar and the UCI were wrong.

How is Movistar wrong? Are they wrong for trying to race and being told they aren't allowed to? I thought this was supposed to be a race. If they aren't allowed to race, why are we even holding an event.
Also this is unwritten. Thus not enforceable. If you want to enforce it, then put it in the rule book.
 
I think the only way one can take advantage of a situation like this is if the rider(s) that has a problem is at fault. Kruiswijk crashed in the Giro because of his own bad skills, Schleck dropped a chain because of his own mistake in the Tour 2010, Contador and Sanchez were badly positioned in the stage 1 of the 2011 Tour due to their own fault. The other reason where it is acceptable is if the race is full on. Like Nibali on Alpe d'Huez last year. Or Lopez this year in the Giro (multiple times). Or even Valverde in the Tour 2013, where racing was already on and echelons were already formed when he had a mechanical.

But today the situation was totaly different. Jumbo and Astana were not at fault for crashing. They were positioned perfectly, the only problem was they were on the wrong side of the road. The race was NOT on. Riders were going rather slow. After the crash happens (in the video you can see Valverde going by it on the opposite side of the road so he has seen it happen) riders in front start looking at each other. Then the Movistar riders start talking on the radio and suddenly we are racing full gas. That is attacking someone's bad luck. Not a mistake. Bad luck. They could have waited 5 k's for everyone to get back in and then still do their attack in crosswinds. But no. They attacked the crash. And that is wrong.


Then the UCI should have neutralized both the 2012 Tour AND Vuelta for Valverde AND the 2015 Giro for Contador. You can't pick and choose. You do this all the time or never. If you are going to enforce this then put it in the rule book so it's a real rule.
 

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