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Vuelta a España 2019 stage 9: Andorra La Vella - Cortals d'Encamp > 94.4km

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May 26, 2017
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Soler is employed as a domestique. Yes, a domestique can win stages. However, with 3kms to go, Soler was never going to win today's stage. His public display against his team was him trying to minimise his own failings on this stage. He should be told to leave Movistar. He looked like an idiot today. What age is he ? 12 ?
 
According to some information from Spanish speakers that overheard what Soler was saying (I couldn't understand), it was stated by the team to only drop to help Valverde if he needed help. So his tantrum was more related to Quintana if that was true (as suspected before). It didn't help that they probably told him that he could go for the stage win to later find out that he had to wait for Quintana.

I think he was probably thinking more about himself than anything else, and probably wasn't thinking right that the Vuelta could have been in play.
 
Soler is employed as a domestique. Yes, a domestique can win stages. However, with 3kms to go, Soler was never going to win today's stage. His public display against his team was him trying to minimise his own failings on this stage. He should be told to leave Movistar. He looked like an idiot today. What age is he ? 12 ?
Such whining. Full of adrenaline, the first man on the road, told to wait for a team mate, only for someone else to steal the win. I'm sure you know exactly how that feels. Focus on your own job, not that of others you don't know.
 
On a great day for Movistar, Marc Soler showed arrogance and that he is not a "team player". If he has problems with his manager he should discuss them privately and not make negative gestures towards his team on live television.
His contract shoud be terminated.
Your heart rate is at 190BPM after fours of brutal racing I am sure tempers can flare. People on this forum think its the same as their job at home in a suit in an aircon office
 
It's pretty clear Soler would have been caught and passed, obviously DS had better information than Soler did.
No it was not pretty clear, he still had 15-20 sec on those two with 2,5 km to go. We can't say for sure.
What we can say is that Movistar gain very little, lost a stage and got one very disappointed rider.
So either they call him back earlier, or wait till and if Quintana makes a junction, and then Soler starts to work.
This way they played it wrong.
 
Soler is employed as a domestique. Yes, a domestique can win stages. However, with 3kms to go, Soler was never going to win today's stage. His public display against his team was him trying to minimise his own failings on this stage. He should be told to leave Movistar. He looked like an idiot today. What age is he ? 12 ?
Do you know anything aboiut Marc Soler at all? He's not some ordinary domestique, he's former Avenir and Paris-Nice winner, he's a classy rider.
Failings on the stage?! What failings? Do you even understand cycling?
Looked like an idiot? :eek: Well, someone is certainly looking like one...
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if the decision was partly motivated by the aim of giving Soler a bit of a kick up the arse. I think Movistar thought he would have pushed on more by now, and be ready to replace Quintana or Landa at GTs. But he has really only shown up for races in Catalonia (and Andorra) in the last 18 months - not taken his other opportunities.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the decision was partly motivated by the aim of giving Soler a bit of a kick up the arse. I think Movistar thought he would have pushed on more by now, and be ready to replace Quintana or Landa at GTs. But he has really only shown up for races in Catalonia (and Andorra) in the last 18 months - not taken his other opportunities.
He's gotten a lot better even as a domestique in the GTs.
 
I think Soler is a great rider but playing the "former Avenir winner" is a bit disingenuous here.

Ruben Fernandez is a former Avenir winner too, and everybody expects him to play domestique when requested.

Warren Barguil is a former Avenir winner and he was once requested to wait for his captain in this very race a couple of years ago. Incidentally he refused to wait and the team decided to send him home (which I'm not arguing should be done with Soler, mind you).

Romain Sicard is a former Avenir winner and is a domestique more often than not (in a PCT team).

Of course Soler is much more than a former Avenir winner. He has proven he can win important WT races and he legitimately believe he can win Vuelta stages (he probably will in the future). But there have been way more accomplished riders who have been asked to wait for the captains when they were likely to win stages. Michele Scarponi, a former Giro d'Italia winner, was once asked to literally stop on his way to a possible Giro queen stage win in order to help his captain fight for a Giro podium. Turned out his captain was feeling much better than anyone thought and eventually won the Giro, but at that time it wasn't such an easy call.

So yeah, I completely understand Soler’s frustration but at the same time I believe he should have behaved more professionally. We all have colleagues we don't like, that doesn't mean we can't work with them. And this really has nothing to do with it being a good or a bad call, it's not Soler’s job to make that call.
 
I rewatched the stage. It was a masterpiece. Too bad we couldn't see what really happened on the gravel section but the racing was fantastic. Also all three big teams JV, Movistar, Astana were tactically up to the task. There were maybe minor mistakes here and there buy you can't expect from everybody to be perfect in those situations and in terrible weather conditions.

Also there are pictures leaking from the gravel sector where the TV signal was lost and you could see Pogačar pacing the Roglič, Quintana, Valverde group with the World champion already in difficulties and losing a couple of wheels.
 
It's not about whether he should help or not, of course he should. He's a rider and he must listen to team orders. But I'm questioning team orders here, I think they were wrong. Gain was minimal, and loss was way bigger than gain. Simply timing was wrong, they should've called him way earlier, immediately when Quintana went with Pogacar, or not called him at all.
You mentioned Scarponi/Nibali situation in Giro 2016. That was different, it was quite far from the finish, and they called him as soon as it was clear that Nibali broke from Kruijswjk and Valverde. Timing there was perfect, Valverde came really close, some 15 sec if I remember correctly, but couldn't make a connection. The gain there was maximal, Scarponi was eating a wind in the valley, Nibali was sheltered and thus fresh as possible for the final climb. That was good timing and good decision.
I would rather compare this case with Landa/Aru situation in the Giro 2015. Now that was bad timing, and very bad decision.
 
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Do you know anything aboiut Marc Soler at all? He's not some ordinary domestique, he's former Avenir and Paris-Nice winner, he's a classy rider.
No, but at the same time he's far from the most credentialed rider to be forced to work for others- and that's just among riders on his own team. I suspect he was promised more of his own chances for his impressive showing at the TDF, but what does he expect from a team like Movistar? They're not exactly consistent.
 
I rewatched the stage. It was a masterpiece. Too bad we couldn't see what really happened on the gravel section but the racing was fantastic. Also all three big teams JV, Movistar, Astana were tactically up to the task. There were maybe minor mistakes here and there buy you can't expect from everybody to be perfect in those situations and in terrible weather conditions.

Also there are pictures leaking from the gravel sector where the TV signal was lost and you could see Pogačar pacing the Roglič, Quintana, Valverde group with the World champion already in difficulties and losing a couple of wheels.

From what I could put together from all those short videos it happened like this:

  1. Pogačar goes to the front/attacks just before the top of the second to last climb - Kuss, Roglič, Quintana follow, Valverde is dropped for a bit, but then comes back.
  2. Pogačar attacks on the gravel and gets 5-10 seconds gap. Lopez at this point is about 20 seconds ahead of Pogačar and 25-30 seconds ahead of Rogla/Quintana Valverde. Kuss is pacing the group of four.
  3. A moto stops on the inside of the curve causing Roglič to crash. He is helped up by the people from that same moto. Kuss waits for him and they lose somewhere from 20-30 seconds.
  4. Lopez crashes with Higuita just before the end of the gravel section and is caught by first Pogačar and then Valverde/Quintana.
  5. Quintana attacks the group and joins Pogačar. This is when the pictures get back. Soler in the lead, Pogačar/Quintana about 10 secs ahead of Valverde/Lopez/Higuita/Keldermann group. Roglič is making his way back up with the help of Kuss.

That should be about it I think.
 
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Video of the Roglic crash

This video seems to show that the motor cycle wasn't (at least not) fully responsible for Roglic' crash. Something Jumbo has stated in social media and interviews, saying the motor cycle "stopped" in a corner, causing Roglic to crash. Which wasn't the case.
Still kind of difficult to see what happened. Did Roglic just cut across the moto and it clipped his rear wheel? Doesn't seem like the moto did anything wrong.

From what was said I thought the moto was ridiculously parked on the racing line round a blind corner - like the Jumbo Visma car was on stage 1.
 
Video of the Roglic crash

This video seems to show that the motor cycle wasn't (at least not) fully responsible for Roglic' crash. Something Jumbo has stated in social media and interviews, saying the motor cycle "stopped" in a corner, causing Roglic to crash. Which wasn't the case.
The moto is behind the crash. It looks like either he crash on his own or he touched or cross paths with the moto. And that path got really narrow in a hurry. Either way it would be hard to blame it all on the moto.
 
The moto is behind the crash. It looks like either he crash on his own or he touched or cross paths with the moto. And that path got really narrow in a hurry. Either way it would be hard to blame it all on the moto.
Yeah, I think Jumbo Visma was being pretty disingenous blaming it on a manoeuvre by a moto in their original response. Moto didn't seem to change speed or line at all throughout the incident.
 
Aug 30, 2019
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Video of the Roglic crash

This video seems to show that the motor cycle wasn't (at least not) fully responsible for Roglic' crash. Something Jumbo has stated in social media and interviews, saying the motor cycle "stopped" in a corner, causing Roglic to crash. Which wasn't the case.


When you are riding in those conditions, with low visibility (dirty glasses, water falling, mixture or water and mud coming from yur own wheels), any small obstacle is invisible. Also could be big ones. That moto stopped there is a threat to any rider.
 
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