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Vuelta a España 2019 stage 3: Ibi. Ciudad del Juguete > Alicante 188 km

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No, I was just teasing a bit. I'm quite sure Hodeg climbs worse than Jakobsen but it's hard to find evidence, I think.

Late last season there was a race Bennett won that featured a moderately late hill. Probably Tour of Turkey. Hodeg was one of the minority of sprinters dropped. Not in and of itself a big deal. But it turned out that DQS knew in advance it was too tough for him and rode for his lead out man as a predetermined plan. Jakobsen as I understand it is an ordinary bunch sprinter when it comes to hills, not notable either way. Hodeg is heading into Guardini territory.
 
Late last season there was a race Bennett won that featured a moderately late hill. Probably Tour of Turkey. Hodeg was one of the minority of sprinters dropped. Not in and of itself a big deal. But it turned out that DQS knew in advance it was too tough for him and rode for his lead out man as a predetermined plan. Jakobsen as I understand it is an ordinary bunch sprinter when it comes to hills, not notable either way. Hodeg is heading into Guardini territory.

Jakobsen was dropped on the last flat(!) stage of the Belgium Tour, mentioning he was too tired from the Ardennes stage (where he was dropped immediately when the road went uphill as well), and that was 3 months ago.

Tour of Turkey was last year and (especially young) riders do improve. I've seen Hodeg (counter)attack on Tiegemberg in Halle-Ingooigem just a while ago. Though you can hardly call that a tough hill, it's not Guardini-like either. We'll see how both of them evolve I guess.
 
Terrible sprint. Everybody all over the place, cutting off opponents. Very unfair, we are lucky there wasn't a huge pile-up. Hardly anyone could actually put together an unobstructed sprint. Oh, and Walscheid can't position himself at all. From 3rd to 15th in one corner.
Not that any of this had any effect on the winner...

I thought the same watching it team trains just kept coming across each other and squeezing teams into barriers. Bennett said in the post race interview that Bora had to cut the speed twice because because of trains coming across them
 
Jakobsen was dropped on the last flat(!) stage of the Belgium Tour, mentioning he was too tired from the Ardennes stage (where he was dropped immediately when the road went uphill as well), and that was 3 months ago.

Tour of Turkey was last year and (especially young) riders do improve. I've seen Hodeg (counter)attack on Tiegemberg in Halle-Ingooigem just a while ago. Though you can hardly call that a tough hill, it's not Guardini-like either. We'll see how both of them evolve I guess.

All fair points.

What worried me about Hodeg at Turkey wasn’t really that he got dropped on a moderate difficulty climb. Pretty much every sprinter puts in a bad or even terrible climbing performance once in a while. Even Bennett, who can climb well, died very early yesterday for instance. What worried me about Hodeg was his own team shrugging and saying of course we weren’t riding for him, there was a hill. That speaks of predictably bad climbing rather than inconsistency.

Also, on a more superficial level, there’s no way DQS are listing his weight accurately. He looks like Kittel.

You are right though that these guys are young and will develop in ways we can’t be sure of. And I hadn’t noticed the bad climbing from Jakobsen you mention. Maybe he is worse than I assumed. We will learn a lot about his climbing in this race. If he can’t deal with a little climbing he’s only going to see maybe two finishes with the front group.
 
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You are right though that these guys are young and will develop in ways we can’t be sure of. And I hadn’t noticed the bad climbing from Jakobsen you mention. Maybe he is worse than I assumed. We will learn a lot about his climbing in this race. If he can’t deal with a little climbing he’s only going to see maybe two finishes with the front group.
he should be there tomorrow. I'd be surprised to see him sticking around for another two weeks to wait for the next potential sprint
 
he should be there tomorrow. I'd be surprised to see him sticking around for another two weeks to wait for the next potential sprint

Maybe. If I was in DQS management though, I’d want him to get an actual GT’s worth of climbing in his legs or as much of it as he can manage. It’s not like he has anything better to do with the rest of this season and it looks like he will be their man for either Giro or Tour next year. I think they will want to know if he can handle three weeks and if he can’t yet he will only improve by getting a big chunk of a three week race under his belt. He’s young, but he’s a second year pro with WT wins and the Vuelta pace is a little more relaxed.
 
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A few weeks ago, somebody was wondering if anybody wearing the Irish national jersey had ever won a race.

New question: How often has the Irish national champion won a stage of a Grand Tour while the only other Irish participant was wearing the leader's jersey in said Grand Tour? :D

A good couple of days for the Irish people.
Pretty sure the only other Irishman to even wear the national champ’s jersey in a GT is Nico himself.

Here’s one, though. If/when Sam gets a win at the Tour next year, how many Irishmen (and who?) will he join as winners of stages at all 3 GTs?
 
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Pretty sure the only other Irishman to even wear the national champ’s jersey in a GT is Nico himself.

Here’s one, though. If/when Sam gets a win at the Tour next year, how many Irishmen (and who?) will he join as winners of stages at all 3 GTs?

One? I think only Shay Elliott has done it. Kelly only did the Giro once and didn’t win a stage. Roche Sr only did the Vuelta once and didn’t win a stage. Martin has no Giro stage. Earley has no Vuelta stage. Roche Jr and Deignan have only won at the Vuelta, Nico doing so twice, I think that’s it for Irish GT stage winners.

On the other hand, our eight stage winners do have a LOT of stages, forty or something.
 
A pic that will be reproduced in any publication that references Irish Cycling for many years:
69705239_10206678118788471_8184166800796155904_n-600x392.jpg
 
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One? I think only Shay Elliott has done it. Kelly only did the Giro once and didn’t win a stage. Roche Sr only did the Vuelta once and didn’t win a stage. Martin has no Giro stage. Earley has no Vuelta stage. Roche Jr and Deignan have only won at the Vuelta, Nico doing so twice, I think that’s it for Irish GT stage winners.

On the other hand, our eight stage winners do have a LOT of stages, forty or something.

Well one of them has almost half of them
 

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