was riding the giro a mistake ?

[python]

i’m looking at the gc standing for basso (27th), evans (24th), wiggins(21st), sastre (15th)… all pre-tour favourites that rode the giro this year.

then i compare it to menchov who rode the giro last year but failed at the tour and decided to skip this year.

the difference is obvious and begs the question, wasn't the mistake obvious ?

only vino rode both this year and looks energetic though he never claimed the tour’s podium being his goal.


and now wiggins comes out and tells it straight - it was a mistake.

are ds and team managers that stupid or they respond to sponsor pressures and dont care about fooling us fans ?

 

[palmerq]

maybe :S but menchov rode the giro when contador won it and did quite well and then finished 3rd or 4th at the tour ... I think it depends how hard you race aswell.. that year menchov wasnt going too hard in the giro and performed pretty good at the tour. 2009 he goes hard for the win at the giro and fails badly at the tour... doing both worked quite well for wiggins and armstrong last year too..

I think this years giro was hard going for everyone..... also I think it is very hard to go for the win in both an do well... but for training i think the giro can be very good.

 

[badboyberty]

The answer to the question is YES and NO.

Basso, doing the Giro was not a mistake, he won a GT. Doing the Tour and carrying delusions of being able to hold his Giro form for two months was.

Cuddles, no mistake. His fight at the Giro and his struggle through the Tour has won him new fans, put his sponsor in a good light and garnered them heaps of press time, and reminded the competition that if he ever has three weeks straight without any bad luck, he may win a Grand Tour.

Sastre should have focused on the Vuelta. Not training before the Giro was his mistake.

Wigan's mistake was letting everyone tell him he was GC contender. Blaming riding the Giro for his lack of form at the Tour ignores how half-arsed his Giro ride was once the roads pointed skywards.

 

[Roland Rat]

It looks like this year's parcours made it too difficult to use for training - irrespective of being in the grupetto or not, you have to give everything on climbs like the Zoncolan.

Also, for Wiggo, he made a comment in an interview yesterday that he didn't feel like he could ride the Giro in the grupetto and had to give a decent showing. He said they'll tweak next year's schedule as he knows he has to go to races where he will be able to live up to the expectations of being competitive, instead of planning to use races for training. Probably a similar schedule to Schleck's or Contador's then.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

....are ds and team managers that stupid or they respond to sponsor pressures and dont care about fooling us fans ?

The bold bit IMO. They also don't seem to care about pressuring riders to deliver a peak performance at the tour without sufficient time to naturally recover from the Giro. Wrong forum for this discussion so I'll leave it there.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

Sastre should have focused on the Vuelta. Not training before the Giro was his mistake.

I'm convinced Sastre wanted to focus on the Vuelta and not ride the tour. 09 tour he said he had done 08tour-08vuelta-09giro-09tour and it was too much. After that he was always cagey about whether he would ride the 10tour, but expressed a real interest in the Vuelta in particular.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the organizers of Giro and the Vuelta should separate out more from the Tour. 2 months gap between all GTs instead of the 1 month now. Move Giro to April and Vuelta to October.

Hopefully with a 2 month gap, more riders will compete in multiple GTs every year, raising the status of the other GTs as well as of cycling in general.

Win-win.

It's certainly warm enough in April in Italy and in October in Spain to do it.

 

[ingsve]

The mistake isn't riding the Giro, the mistake is having expectations for the Tour. Of the people listed only Wiggins rode the Giro as training with the Tour as a bigger goal. It's difficult to know if the Giro has anything to do with Wiggins Tour or if he would also have struggled if he rode other races instead.

And as mentioned this Giro was very though so it doesn't really give an indication of how good it is to ride the giro as training in other years.

 

[ingsve]

I think the organizers of Giro and the Vuelta should separate out more from the Tour. 2 months gap between all GTs instead of the 1 month now. Move Giro to April and Vuelta to October.

Hopefully with a 2 month gap, more riders will compete in multiple GTs every year, raising the status of the other GTs as well as of cycling in general.

Win-win.

It's certainly warm enough in April in Italy and in October in Spain to do it.

The question is what that would do to the classics season. The giro would probably be void of all sprinters who also ride the cobbled classics and all GC hopes that also ride the ardenne classics. I don't see them moving any of those classics.

 

[nesocip]

I think the organizers of Giro and the Vuelta should separate out more from the Tour. 2 months gap between all GTs instead of the 1 month now. Move Giro to April and Vuelta to October.

Hopefully with a 2 month gap, more riders will compete in multiple GTs every year, raising the status of the other GTs as well as of cycling in general.

Win-win.

It's certainly warm enough in April in Italy and in October in Spain to do it.

I dont think you ever saw Dolomites and Alps in April.

 

[Carl0880]

i’m looking at the gc standing for basso (27th), evans (24th), wiggins(21st), sastre (15th)… all pre-tour favourites that rode the giro this year.

then i compare it to menchov who rode the giro last year but failed at the tour and decided to skip this year.

the difference is obvious and begs the question, wasn't the mistake obvious ?

only vino rode both this year and looks energetic though he never claimed the tour’s podium being his goal.


and now wiggins comes out and tells it straight - it was a mistake.

are ds and team managers that stupid or they respond to sponsor pressures and dont care about fooling us fans ?

I think the other difference from what I recall was Vino's peak was set for the Ardennes Classic through the first week of the Giro, and train up towards peak for the last week of the tour, which provides a 2 month gap in between those peaks. Evans, Basso, and others are planned on peaking for the last week of the Giro.

 

[Rob_Roy]

I dont think you ever saw Dolomites and Alps in April.

Very lovely skiing ,specially as the weather is getting good,nice off pists...*starts to dream* . Yep,Alps in April is really great for winter sports..

 

[uphillstruggle]

I dont think you ever saw Dolomites and Alps in April.

yeah pretty much ski resorts, no chances of getting access to those iconic climbs in April. You saw this year that many of the climbs where still snow capped. I don't know about Spain in October too much. It's a shame the tour is all consuming now, in terms of achieving fame and wealth I mean. Frank Schleck or Nibali could go onto win the vuelta and I my eyes had a much better season than the top 5-10 they would have achieved in the tour anyway. The Grio was great this year too and i for one am glad Basso and Evans went to race and not pussy foot around like wiggo did.

It would be good to see Contador go for the double as if anyone could achieve it it would be him. Would also make the tour more exciting to see him turn up tired but alas he will most likely just focus on the tour for the rest of his days.

 

[Sasquatch]

Vino isn't finding it hard.

He rode a tough Giro and finished 6th and is powering along for Alberto and on the verge of finishing top ten. So I guess, it can be done.

 

[ttrider]

Yeah i think Contador will once and for all show if it is possible or not if he does it next year, however i am convinced that he will skip the giro at the end of the day, i cant see him doing the vuelta either which is a real shame

 

[Benotti69]

depends of the courses, depends on the competition, depends on luck, depends on your form, depends on the weather. it can be done.

Wiggin's was never gonna win the giro with the high mountains and not preparing properly for it, he stated it was preparation for the TdF.

he was never gonna win this years TdF due to the hard nature of it and other riders performances clean or not.

Wiggin's needs to focus on his abilities and improve others, climbing not to a loss of TT ability where he will make up for his losses in the mountains.

Also there is the question whether Wiggin's has the stamina for a GT to remain in the top 5 if it is difficult. Giro and this years TdF shows that he needs less mountains to do well.

But Contador could win the Giro and TdF if he wanted. I have no doubt about that unless he had extreme bad luck.

GTs need to rethink their courses for riders to able to perform for the whole season for the betterment of cycling. Otherwise cycling is a month long season except for diehard fans.

 

[lloydy]

April's too early to riding the big mtns in Italy, and October too late in Spain too. It's not possible to space them out much more.

Wiggins can't blame the Giro for his performance (I won't say bad, because I didn't expect much different) at the Tour this year. He didn't attack the Giro full on like Basso and Evans. For Basso, winning it was clearly a super decision to go all out at the Giro. There's little doubt Evans would be doing better at the Tour was it not for his cracked elbow.

A Giro/Tour double, or Tour/Vuelta double is possible, but very unlikely these days - the last to do it clearly doped (Pantani) and the one before most likely did too. A Giro/Vuelta double is more possible, but has less prestige.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Cadel made this comment about the giro and form

"Mentally I was okay, but physically I was exhausted," he said.

"It's not where we want to be (in the race). I always try and do my best, and considering what has happened this is the best I can do.

"As far as the GC (general classification) goes I'll just have to wait till next year."

He even admitted after the giro he was really tired.

Even so Wiggins is the biggest dissapointment as he did not actually race the giro but just used it to get form so his performance was very disapointing.

 

[icefire]

Big names will always go to the Tour. I can understand the Giro and Vuelta organisers trying to get onboard also some of the big names to get public, media and sponsor attention, but that is mostly irrelevant to make an entertaining race.

The Giro this year was exciting despite no RS, Wiggins training, no Contador, or Rabo, Saxo and Caisse sending their B teams. And if the Tour this year is not as entertaining as it might be, it isn't because of the poor performance of Armstrong, Basso, Evans, Wiggins, Sastre, etc.

Giro and Vuelta organisers may think otherwise, but I don't think we need to see each one of the big names performing well in 2 GTs per season to have an interesting show.

 

[movingtarget]

Sastre is past his best. Basso has had bronchitis. Evans had an early start to the season and is suffering from his fall. Wiggins has not showed much in either Tour. Vino has done well because he has not had the above problems and because he is aggressive and chased stage wins. Motivation has not seemed to be a problem for him. All of these riders should target the Giro next year which should make the race just as good as this year's. Even though Contador wants to ride the Giro in 2011, not convinced he will.

 

[goggalor]

Wiggins couldn't keep up with Evans, Basso and Sastre up to Morzine-Avoriaz. Doing the Giro is no excuse, he's just not good enough.

 

[kurtinsc]

I think riders should either choose the Giro/Vuelta double, or just the tour.

It wasn't until money started taking off... particularly with Lemond after his hunting accident... that riders started easing off on their racing schedules. The big guys used to race pretty much everything... because the prize money was a big part of their income.

Now... not so much.

Because other riders will focus on one race, it makes it a lot harder for a tired rider, even if a superior athelete, to win a back to back double. Back when everyone was tired from riding all the races, it was more realistic.

 

[hfer07]

i’m looking at the gc standing for basso (27th), evans (24th), wiggins(21st), sastre (15th)… all pre-tour favourites that rode the giro this year.

bear in mind that this year's Giro was really tough-& some of those guys (Evans & Sastre Specially) suffered injuries/Illness or haven't had the proper recovery & Km to peak properly to the Tour. lastly, Basso, Evans & Sastre are already bordering mids 30's, which isn't easy anymore for their bodies to assimilate that kind of effort.

 

[python]

bear in mind that this year's Giro was really tough-& some of those guys (Evans & Sastre Specially) suffered injuries/Illness or haven't had the proper recovery & Km to peak properly to the Tour. lastly, Basso, Evans & Sastre are already bordering mids 30's, which isn't easy anymore for their bodies to assimilate that kind of effort.

i sure bore it in mind just as i hope sastre, basso, evans and wiggins did.

i hope they and their coaches and dss knew how old they are in july 2010 and i trust they had the ability to see and ponder over the giro routes beforehand.

i also hope i am not breaking the news to anyone of interconnectedness of recovery, illness and fatigue. it's hardly a rocket science for professional athletes and their paid scientific staff that 5 weeks between 2 grand tours are a short time to recover...if you publicly declared yourself a podium contender. they all did.

once again, postscript rationalizations seem either silly or disingenuous.

ps.
there is a clinic element in this all i'd rather not discuss here but again it's hardly the news to the involved.

 

[CatsNK]

I hope that the riders don't think that riding other races than the TdF is a mistake. The Giro was very exciting, as stated above - even though some of the big names were MIA.

The Giro a fantastic race - for me more enjoyable to watch than the TdF. The Italian fans are entertaining, the scenery is stunning and the course is incredibly difficult. It would be a bummer if only second rate cyclists end up riding in it in favor of peaking at the TdF.

As others have stated, Vino is having a great Tour and he also did well at the Giro. He is also no spring chicken - if he can pull it off the younger guys in their 20s definitely should be able to.