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Tour de France

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That's not entirely fair; admittedly they didn't put their all into the chase down, but they wanted to save themselves for the sprint they were hoping for... He's obviously just targeting a specific country because he's frustrated, but I honestly think it would have gone differently if some other countries had come up to share the pace-making... But that's racing I guess, you win some, you lose some...
 

Assuming that we must be talking about the Olympic road race, I agree about team GB. They were trying to drag Cavendish up into position to sprint. Even without chasing down all the breaks, they just finally ran out of gas after doing all the work themselves. It would only have been worse if they had tried to chase down the breaks.

I'd still like to hear how Cavendish tried to blame Australia.

And I'd still like to hear why Wiggins is alleged to have "pointless arrogance." After all, today I saw him loading up with water bottles and playing super domestique for his team.
 
Reactions: IsaacND
Most teams were trying to drag their sprinters up for a go at the bloody line. And Team GB's arrogance in the race is based purely on the Sky team thinking they currently own everything and not paying enough respect to the fanatical pace that would be set by any breakaways today. Cav blamed Australia for his loss by saying they rode negatively and affected the result. Negatively? Really? Because we had the most positive move in the race apart from the medals given that it was O'Grady who started the break that stayed away for the win. Why the hell would we group in to chase down our own man?

And yeah, that's Cav's attitude too Isaac "oh if the other teams worked for me". The truth is if they DID work for him they wouldn't be called the competition.

It hardly makes you a god on a bike to grab some bottles, I've seen Lance do the same during a tour he was winning. Big deal, that's racing. Wiggins pointless arrogance? because GB honestly only has HIM as the winner because he's the known man and the world doesn't know who the hell Froome is. (Well they do now.) Sky won the Tour de France beautifully, it's true, but it was nothing to do with Wiggins as a man himself. Ad he was the fastest to dismiss his competition as not being up to it. Funny thing is, he wasn't either. Everybody forgets how hard he died when Froome left him those two times. A brilliant Sky tour, a brilliant ride by Froome, Porte, Rogers and co, but the fact they then "expected" to win the road race due to the arrogance in the press and indeed that man was insane. They had a literal bunch of people set to celebrate the imminent GB win. It's amazing because I know plently of Brit cyclists, club racers and semi-pros who all feel the same. They blame everybody else for their loss in the race because apparently nobody was helping, that's a race. And why help get the fastest sprinter up to the front for another team? They COULD have helped themselves by following basic race guideleines and following and shutting breaks when they appeared instead of thinking a 1 day race of this calibre would fade for them.

Proud to have brit citizenship, but can't handle this crap.
 
And Wiggins playing domestique is also hardly an issue, Millar was captain, Cav was the designated supported rider, and Wiggins definitely did the least on the front out of the team.
 
ReefTroll said:
they COULD have helped themselves by following basic race guideleines and following and shutting breaks when they appeared
Click to expand...

It was a team of 4 people Only , you cannot control a 250 km race with four people...quite different from the tour.
 
I think thats what Cav meant by racing negatively; the Aussies rode back so's the group couldn't catch the breakaways; which is what they needed to do obviously, to help out their man in the break, makes sense. Cav wasn't BLAMING the Aussies, just stating it as one of the key factors, but the Australian press took it as a bit of Pommie bashing. (Just checked out his twitter, backs me up on this)

Basically, I think everyone had too much faith in team GB, and just assumed they'd bring the to the line. They couldn't, which was unfortunate, but that's just how it goes; some good riders placed well, some good riders rode into the barrier. And the same thing will happen in the next race, and the next race, and so on, until cycling dies.

And onto the Vuelta.
 
ThomasB said:
It was a team of 4 people Only , you cannot control a 250 km race with four people...quite different from the tour.
Click to expand...

Well, 5. And It was an even field. They never TRIED to shut the gaps when they went, that was their arrogance, thinking they COULD comfortably control it.

And lets not get onto Twitter, because that shows Sky to be a very unorganised hate fuelled bunch iof twats towards each other during the tour. Well, at least the Btis in the team anyways. Oh, and the main European cycling journos also took it as a Cav blame game.

As for his paltry victims of his own success comment? Vos won for the women.... She was a bigger (honest, not biased tabloid view) favourite than Cavendish.

I don't really think anybody had that much faith in team GB, several came out and stated that simply due to the brits basically declaring they would win they made them work for it.

Funny thing is several British ex-pro's also backed Cav up and furthered his blame of the Aussies. You know what, it was our fault. In terms of Cav losing, Australia did it. And all my European mates thought that was magic.

Terrible thing when my british family members had called me saying what a terrible sport Cav was before I'd even seen it.
 
ReefTroll said:
Well, 5. And It was an even field. They never TRIED to shut the gaps when they went, that was their arrogance, thinking they COULD comfortably control it.
Click to expand...

So they misjudged. During the Tour they did reel the breakways back in in time. Its not a science. And misjudging doesn't equate to arrogance. You win some and you lose some.

And lets not get onto Twitter, because that shows Sky to be a very unorganised hate fuelled bunch iof twats towards each other during the tour. Well, at least the Btis in the team anyways.
Click to expand...

The difference between the old days and now is that Twitter didn't exist back in the old days, so we couldn't see all the bitterness and hate. One of the commentators on the NBC coverage in the states said he was so damn glad that Twitter didn't exist when he was riding, because it would have been very embarrassing.
 
ReefTroll said:
Well, 5. And It was an even field. They never TRIED to shut the gaps when they went, that was their arrogance, thinking they COULD comfortably control it.
Click to expand...

Well 4 since you don't put Cavendish up there chasing fugitives, would you? it's not an even field when you have so many teams with different goal than yours: everyone is there for the win at the Olimpic or world championship, while not everyone is at the tour de France for the final victory...And you can easily bargain a win in exchange for some help when needed...

I don't think it was arrogance, they simply and technically couldn't do it and needed help from other teams with the same goal, this time they couldn't find any. Single day race goes like this...Very different from the tour where they had a bigger team and being a multi day race they could get allies easily. (Btw I don't like much sky or the uk team but I believe they are doing a good job overall).
 
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Reactions: IsaacND
I know this is meant to be a thread on cycling, but maybe we ought to cut it short? I can't see it ending well, and theres too much difference of opinion for it to end with any form of agreement... It was fun whilst it lasted, but maybe we should focus on something else...?
 
Well, in terms of my comments re-Wiggins. (The man who won the weakest tour ever presented, he had 1 competitor, Nibali, as the others were missing or ill) Uhm, I don't know how else to say it, but, I was right. The new route is now unveiled, poor Brad. I told you so. I'll get back off my high horse now.
 
Cycling isn't a proper sport.

They should have baskets on for going shopping and that is that
 
Ha ha, trust you to bite me on my ultra tongue in cheek.
It is too a real sport, guys in Lycra, all sweaty, gets my pulse racing oh, wait...
 
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