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When did "protecting your podium spot" start?

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Jun 15, 2009
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Didn´t Gert-Jan Theunisse ride to protect his 4th in 1989? Or Mottet his 6th against Rooks?...
What the heck complaining about points systems?... If stages get shorter and shorter you have bigger bunches riding together, thus making a lone attack by a rider very hard. That´s one reason for conservative riding, but certainly not the point system. Riders always rode to protect something... Its cycling. If its boring, there are hundreds of other sports out there to watch...
 
Re:

FoxxyBrown1111 said:
Didn´t Gert-Jan Theunisse ride to protect his 4th in 1989? Or Mottet his 6th against Rooks?...
What the heck complaining about points systems?... If stages get shorter and shorter you have bigger bunches riding together, thus making a lone attack by a rider very hard. That´s one reason for conservative riding, but certainly not the point system. Riders always rode to protect something... Its cycling. If its boring, there are hundreds of other sports out there to watch...
If that is in response to me, I'm not complaining about the points system, I'm just saying that's why a team might protect their placing(s). Several DSs have said as much in recent years.
 
Protecting your podium spot is okay if you have no chance to win the race, otherwise you should better try to win the gc. Protecting a top 10 spot is something different. On one hand I understand that sponsors want that there team has a top 10 spot because I think a 10th place is by far more worth than an 11th place. However the difference of importance between a 4th and a 10th place is probably smaller than the difference between 10th and 11th. So I just don't get why someone protects his 5th position because the guy in 8th position attacks. In such cases you should better wait until the rider becomes a danger for the podium, so that the team that wants to attack a 3rd/2nd/1st place has to work. When the team gets weaker because of the effort you can attack yourself. Of course that wouldnt always work but when you let your team work that would maybe harm the person who are behind you in gc but it will support people in front of you because they don't get attacked. And I think there doesn't have to be a discussion if racing to hold your place instead of better your standing is lame as hell
 
Gigs_98 said:
So I just don't get why someone protects his 5th position because the guy in 8th position attacks.
Sometimes you just don't have anything other to work for than to protect your place in GC. You know your GC leader is realistically not good enough for a podium (unless kind of earthquake happens) or is not suitted for breakaways (poor explosiveness, descending skills etc.) and you don't have a guy in the team who can win a stage in any other way than from breakaway which is not chased by big guns (some of them don't stand a chance if any half-decent rider goes to the break with them). In this situation you have few guys in the team who could just sit up all throughout the race, so why better gift someone a place in GC than use those guys for chasing? Surely 6th is better than 7th and sometimes you just stands no chance of anything better so why gifting anything to anyone just because some of the fans don't care about anything other than winning? :confused:
 
Anderis said:
Gigs_98 said:
So I just don't get why someone protects his 5th position because the guy in 8th position attacks.
Sometimes you just don't have anything other to work for than to protect your place in GC. You know your GC leader is realistically not good enough for a podium (unless kind of earthquake happens) or is not suitted for breakaways (poor explosiveness, descending skills etc.) and you don't have a guy in the team who can win a stage in any other way than from breakaway which is not chased by big guns (some of them don't stand a chance if any half-decent rider goes to the break with them). In this situation you have few guys in the team who could just sit up all throughout the race, so why better gift someone a place in GC than use those guys for chasing? Surely 6th is better than 7th and sometimes you just stands no chance of anything better so why gifting anything to anyone just because some of the fans don't care about anything other than winning? :confused:
Show me one really good climber who isnt explosive enough to attack.
 
Jun 15, 2009
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Re: Re:

jmdirt said:
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
Didn´t Gert-Jan Theunisse ride to protect his 4th in 1989? Or Mottet his 6th against Rooks?...
What the heck complaining about points systems?... If stages get shorter and shorter you have bigger bunches riding together, thus making a lone attack by a rider very hard. That´s one reason for conservative riding, but certainly not the point system. Riders always rode to protect something... Its cycling. If its boring, there are hundreds of other sports out there to watch...
If that is in response to me, I'm not complaining about the points system, I'm just saying that's why a team might protect their placing(s). Several DSs have said as much in recent years.

No. More general, coz this points system bashing goes on for a couple of years now. All I tried to say is that protection of CG spots goes on since ages... and its good. Much better than deliberately losing time to shoot for a breakaway win. Which is lottery and doesnt have anything to do with rider strengh.
 
Re: Re:

FoxxyBrown1111 said:
jmdirt said:
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
Didn´t Gert-Jan Theunisse ride to protect his 4th in 1989? Or Mottet his 6th against Rooks?...
What the heck complaining about points systems?... If stages get shorter and shorter you have bigger bunches riding together, thus making a lone attack by a rider very hard. That´s one reason for conservative riding, but certainly not the point system. Riders always rode to protect something... Its cycling. If its boring, there are hundreds of other sports out there to watch...
If that is in response to me, I'm not complaining about the points system, I'm just saying that's why a team might protect their placing(s). Several DSs have said as much in recent years.

No. More general, coz this points system bashing goes on for a couple of years now. All I tried to say is that protection of CG spots goes on since ages... and its good. Much better than deliberately losing time to shoot for a breakaway win. Which is lottery and doesnt have anything to do with rider strengh.

This sounds so good.Those guys soft pedaling half of GT just to be ready to jump in a break with the hope of a hypothetical stage win are certainly not better then the guys doing their best to protect a high GC place.Not that i have anything against them,but seeing the breakaway guys hailed as heroes while the others are crucified doesn't feel right to me at all.
 
I can't ever remember a DS of a GC winner or their riders ever saying they raced the way they did because of the UCI points system?

As for race radios, what possible difference would it have made to say the Froome & Quintana battle having radios or not? All Froome needed to do was know if Quintana had attacked and what the gap was. The attack and the gap he can clearly see with his own eyes and if he can't see the gap he can look at it on the chalk board. I simply don't buy the argument that race radios allow you to defend. e.g. When Cavendish won the WC, there were no race radios then and that was probably the epitome of a team riding defensively to maintain status quo for their leader all the way to the finish line.
 
Jun 15, 2009
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DBotero said:
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
jmdirt said:
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
Didn´t Gert-Jan Theunisse ride to protect his 4th in 1989? Or Mottet his 6th against Rooks?...
What the heck complaining about points systems?... If stages get shorter and shorter you have bigger bunches riding together, thus making a lone attack by a rider very hard. That´s one reason for conservative riding, but certainly not the point system. Riders always rode to protect something... Its cycling. If its boring, there are hundreds of other sports out there to watch...
If that is in response to me, I'm not complaining about the points system, I'm just saying that's why a team might protect their placing(s). Several DSs have said as much in recent years.

No. More general, coz this points system bashing goes on for a couple of years now. All I tried to say is that protection of CG spots goes on since ages... and its good. Much better than deliberately losing time to shoot for a breakaway win. Which is lottery and doesnt have anything to do with rider strengh.

This sounds so good.Those guys soft pedaling half of GT just to be ready to jump in a break with the hope of a hypothetical stage win are certainly not better then the guys doing their best to protect a high GC place.Not that i have anything against them,but seeing the breakaway guys hailed as heroes while the others are crucified doesn't feel right to me at all.

That sums it up perfectly. I have way more respect for Mollema, Frank, etc, working their butts off day in day out, than riders giving up early just to have some air time in a break, and a 1% chance to win a stage given to the break.

Long live the points system. :)
 
Re: Re:

FoxxyBrown1111 said:
DBotero said:
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
jmdirt said:
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
Didn´t Gert-Jan Theunisse ride to protect his 4th in 1989? Or Mottet his 6th against Rooks?...
What the heck complaining about points systems?... If stages get shorter and shorter you have bigger bunches riding together, thus making a lone attack by a rider very hard. That´s one reason for conservative riding, but certainly not the point system. Riders always rode to protect something... Its cycling. If its boring, there are hundreds of other sports out there to watch...
If that is in response to me, I'm not complaining about the points system, I'm just saying that's why a team might protect their placing(s). Several DSs have said as much in recent years.

No. More general, coz this points system bashing goes on for a couple of years now. All I tried to say is that protection of CG spots goes on since ages... and its good. Much better than deliberately losing time to shoot for a breakaway win. Which is lottery and doesnt have anything to do with rider strengh.

This sounds so good.Those guys soft pedaling half of GT just to be ready to jump in a break with the hope of a hypothetical stage win are certainly not better then the guys doing their best to protect a high GC place.Not that i have anything against them,but seeing the breakaway guys hailed as heroes while the others are crucified doesn't feel right to me at all.

That sums it up perfectly. I have way more respect for Mollema, Frank, etc, working their butts off day in day out, than riders giving up early just to have some air time in a break, and a 1% chance to win a stage given to the break.

Long live the points system. :)

Good points guys. I'm in agreement.
 

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