It is, I accept, very hard to know what is actually going on when all you get is little snippets in the media and you have no access to the detailed prosecution or defence briefs. I’m very well aware from the work I do just how inaccurate the media are, the more so when it comes to anything scientific or technical. Having said that, if the little information we have about what was found concerning Contador last year is even approximately correct, it has always seemed to me extremely likely he was transfusing. His cover story seems monumentally improbable and convenient, and the alleged facts fitted perfectly with what you might expect if he was transfusing.
And I think he is being watched so closely now that he didn’t dare transfuse this year at the TdF.
Well, Evans had two 2nd place finishes at TdF before finally breaking through, and he’s 34. Andy’s just 26, he’s finished 2nd twice and has won the Young Rider’s classification twice as well. He should have 5 or so good years in front of him yet, and really - who’s his main rival? Evans might have a year or so in him, but probably not much more than that. I highly doubt we’re going to see Contador for a year or two - and he isn’t going to be the same rider when/if he does come back. Who else in the current crop of riders is there? Sanchez maybe? I guess the challenge might come from younger guys like Pierre Rolland.
In any event: This was one of the best Tours I’ve seen in years. And it was also probably one of the cleanest Tours in years. Let’s hope it stays that way.
The only thing left is to wonder what happened on friday.
Contador attacking blindly and forgetting to eat.
Team leopard/trek trying to have two ‘patrons’. Why isn’t one brother working for the other, they might have had an actual shot at winning the thing.
Evans realizing he has the best legs in the peleton after he’s finished (he did allright but I think he could have won the stage if he had been more aggressive)
Voekler… I don’t even know where to start. He just lost all sense.
That I can understand, but what the hell was his team doing? They let him swim forever… And then one of them wins the stage. Who cares about the stage? Keep your guy in yellow or die trying.
In short all the protagonists (maybe with the exception of Evans) completely lost the plot. Not only that, their team and team captains lost the plot. What am I missing? Can someone enlighten me to the brilliant tactical scheming I’m missing?
Great post! Indeed, I am really REALLY surprised that the media isn’t commenting more on Voeckler’s self destruction on the Alpe d’Huez stage. By my reckoning it was at least 20km he rode solo, up the Galibier no less, holding 30 seconds, then 40 seconds, then 50 seconds. It was perhaps 25km he rode solo. By any yardstick, it was self destruction…
Evans on the other hand realised that fate had turned against him with his mechanical issues and that he needed safety in numbers. He rode smart when he needed to. Voeckler needed to do the same thing.
And, with hindsight, so did Andy Schleck. That break he was in with Contador (especially after Evans and Voeckler were no longer there to help) well, it was too far… it was still 65km to go and Andy was already splattered from his epic ride the previous day. There was a 45km high speed descent yet to come. Going back to the bunch would have left Contador with no help of any substance in a break destined to exhaust itself.
Or something else might have happened… maybe all of the major players simply ignored their radio instructions and said “Fuck it! I’m going for it!”
???
This doesn’t make any sense to me, you realize that from Andy’s perspective the only people he rides against are Evans, Voekler and Contador? The only way they can help him is to ride off a cliff. (except maybe Alberto who is sufficiently behind in the overall standings)
What’s this about Contador forgetting to eat? I haven’t heard that.
In what way did the Schlecks not work for each other?
Evans, what stage should he have won? Exactly how? And at what cost? I’m thinking there is a whole lotta hindsight and armchair racing going on here. I’ve criticised him for being conservative but in the end it is damn hard to argue with the tactics of a guy who had saved the legs to put 2.31 into his nearest rival in the ITT while that rival looked like he was so tired he was pedalling backwards. Evans has always played the tactics for GC overall and not worried about stage wins. He’s never made any secret of the fact that stage wins and the yellow jersey (short of Paris) are to him merely “nice”. There is a time for criticising Cuddles’ tactics. The Monday after he rolled into Paris in yellow with a solid time gap is not that time.
As to Voeckler, some might say “keep your guy in yellow or die trying” and it has a sort of kamikaze honour ring to it, but if Voeckler knew he was blown and had no hope, him giving permission to Rolland to go for it for himself was a damn noble thing for him to do. It made no practical difference to Voeckler and it netted the team the white jersey.
Finally, I think BBF’s thinking (re “especially after Evans and Voeckler were no longer there to help”) is pretty much as he explained it. I suspect it involves a bit too much 20/20 hindsight but *if *you assume that Andy should have realised that Contador’s break wasn’t going to stay away, then he was better off isolating Contador than helping him. Sure that meant that Andy went back into the bunch, but that’s where he ended up anyway by the foot of the Alpe. If he’d done less work with Contador in the break and had more shelter in the bunch getting to the Alpe, then he might have had better legs on the Alpe to distance Evans later.
If Andy had dropped back into the pelaton, Voeckler would have too. Then maybe he wouldn’t have blown up on the last climb and Frank wouldn’t be on the podium. I seriously doubt that Andy could have gained any real time on Evans by staying in the pelaton and attacking late. Arguably he might have been in better shape for the ITT, but more than a minute and a half better?
I’m with Princhester, whole lotta 20/20 hindsight here.
Except for Voeckler, he absolutely shouldn’t have stayed out by himself. He’s obviously a stubborn cuss, though, and it was only that stubbornness that dragged him up the Galibier fast enough to save the yellow the day before. Well, his stubbornness and Cadel Evans.
But it wasn’t only Andy Schleck who was animating the Alpe d’Huez stage, it should be noted. In Contador, you had a rider who potentially was about to move from 7th on GC up to 5th, maybe 4th. Basso and Cunego weren’t about to let that happen without a fight.
On the Alpe d’Huez stage, Andy Schleck was in a break with Contador that was approximately 1:30 up the road on the Basso/Evans bunch. Andy’s break had just 5 riders, of which 3 were passengers. Andy had been out on a 60km break the previous day and there he was on the next day sharing heaps of workload with just one guy, holding off a chasing bunch that had OK numbers in it. With Evans or Voeckler no longer in the Contador/Schleck break to help share the workload, it was a break which forced Andy dip into precious reserves given the amount of turns he was choosing to do. At the very least, Schleck should have been advised to do no work at all with Contador. He was in a win/win if he did no work and Contador dragged him 60km and pulled out further time on Evans. He was in a lose/lose if he did heaps of work with Contador and the break he was in got caught.
Contador suckered Andy into doing that shitload of work, on a day he really couldn’t afford it. Evans owes Contador a case of Corona! (smile)
See, I buy most of that. Except that Evans and Voeckler were never going to do any work in that break - Voeckler because he was already only just hanging on by a thread, and Evans because he wouldn’t have cared at all if the pelaton had caught up.
I think Andy figured he needed more time going in to the ITT, and cooperating with Alberto was the best way to get it. Didn’t work out. Had he nursed his strength in the pelaton, maybe mount a late attack, he might be up 1:15 with better legs for the ITT. We’ll never know. But I don’t feel comfortable second-guessing a guy whose strength is climbing and whose weakness is ITT for attacking in the mountains alongside another great climber instead of relying on his time trialling.
Andy’s not dumb however. He would have known that Cadel Evans clawed back over 2 minutes on the Galibier climb the previous day. His body langauge by the end of Alpe d’Huez clearly showed he was shot - totally shot. After his epic ride the day before, he so would have felt the lactic acid in his legs while he was mixing turns with Contador.
Those are the moments you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If I was his Directeur I would have said “Andy, you’re in the break, you’re taking out time… don’t mix turns with Alberto… save yourself after yesterday… save yourself… don’t mix turns… sit on the back… let Alberto do the work.”
Fortune favours the bold in cycling, but it favours even more the smart.
In the Tour it seems that fortune favors the passive. If you save yourself to focus on the Tour, have your team keep you out of crashes near the front of the peloton, never go on the attack except maybe in the last kilometer of a mountaintop finish, and are strong enough to hang with the other leaders and beat them in the final time trial… you are the winner. Congratulations to Evans. This fits his style but he had to go out there and make it happen. And he did.
I just wish the GC race would favor the bold. Having 20 Cadel Evans clones in contention for the win going into the last week of the Tour wouldn’t make it as exciting for me as a single Eddie Merckx who everyone knew was going to win but still went on the attack every chance he got. Contador’s Giro ride was much better than Evans’ Tour, IMO. He was heavily favored, and rightly so, but still jumped out to take time when the others weren’t expecting it. And he rode both Grand Tours. (Though Cadel’s year was pretty solid winning Tirreno–Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie. He wasn’t a single race rider like Lance Armstrong.)
The situation in road racing reminds me of when Vince Lombardi ruined the NFL for decades by showing that the way to rack up wins was to play conservatively on offense and wait for the other guy to make a mistake. It took an entire generation before the game changed to open things up. I’m not sure what race organizers could do to make aggressive riding more attractive. (Though getting rid of time bonuses seems a step in the wrong direction.) Thus I tend to focus on the other aspects of stage races.
1999
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Prologue Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 4 Route du Sud
1st Stage 4 ITT Circuit de la Sarthe
2nd Amstel Gold Race
2000
1st Overall Tour de France
1st GP des Nations
1st Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1st Stage 3 ITT Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Individual Time Trial 2000 Summer Olympics
2001
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Overall Tour de Suisse
2nd Amstel Gold Race
2002
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Prologue
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Overall GP du Midi Libre
1st Profronde van Stiphout
2003
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
2004
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Overall Tour de Georgia
1st Stage 5 Tour du Languedoc-Roussillon
1st Stage 4 ITT Volta ao Algarve
1st Profronde van Stiphout
2005
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Points Classification Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
Though why should we count anything other than podium finishes? I remember Armstrong riding the Dauphiné for conditioning purposes. Were there really three or more riders that were better than him in that race in 2004 and 2005? I don’t think so. He was at the apex of his career. He didn’t win because he gave less than 100%. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it. It happens all the time because it makes sense. There is no better preparation than actual racing. It’s the smart thing to do under the circumstances.
I’m not convinced.
1991
1st place Tour de France
2nd place Vuelta a Espana
1st place Volta a Catalunya
1992
1st place Giro d’Italia
1st place Tour de France
1st place Volta a Catalunya
1993
1st place Giro d’Italia
1st place Tour de France
1994
3rd place Giro d’Italia
1st place Tour de France
1995
1st place Tour de France
World Championship ITT
1st place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st place Grand prix du Midi Libre
Plus he rode two grand tours in both 90 and 96, and his wiki page only lists wins in minor events, not all podium finishes. And that’s just the last dominant guy before Armstrong.
If you argue he rode fewer races than Indurain, and I’m not sure you have a convincing argument, less-than-Indurain still does not equal “single-race rider.”
It’s not that complicated. The “single-race rider” knock, such as it is, stems from the fact that he never contested let alone won the other grand tours. What non-Tour events he did enter were chosen specifically for their merit as part of a pre-Tour preparation regime rather than for their own sakes. I don’t find this terribly compelling as I’m not sure it’s even possible to double up on grand tours these days, but that’s the charge. Look at the careers of the other great repeat winners of the Tour, and they all contested and won the Giro and Vuelta in the same years they were winning the Tour. The fact that you can list the minor non-Tour races he entered as part of his preparation regime isn’t going to convince anyone that he had the breadth of domination of Hinault or Merckx, and that’s what this is about.
Look, Merckx is the virtually undisputed greatest and most dominant cyclist ever.
I just rightly contest the designation of Armstrong as a “single-race rider” (in the post I responded to, as opposed to Evans.) Clearly he was more than that.
Also, races like the Tour de Suisse, Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, Amstel Gold, and Grand Prix du Midi Libre are not “minor.” They are major events on the calendar, highly competitive, and treated with respect by any bicycle racing enthusiast. They’re just not Grand Tours. Amstel Gold of course is one of the great one-day classics, and one that Armstrong rode a number of times, despite its having little to do with training for a grand tour.
Of course most of Armstrong’s races were ridden to prepare for the Tour de France, so what? That’s the biggest one of all of them. If you have a reasonable chance of winning it, everything is geared towards that, the Tour being the highest goal in cycling.
I suspect the days are long past when we’ll see someone win the Tour de France and the Vuelta or Giro in the same year. It would have been fun to see Armstrong try, but he never did in the years in was winning the Tour (he did take 4th overall in the 1998 Vuelta). Anyway, big deal. I see almost no one seriously saying that Lance’s domination of cycling was remotely comparable to Hinault or Merckx. For my money, LeMond was a greater cyclist than Armstrong.
That still doesn’t equal “Armstrong was a single-race rider.”
This here is the key, Armstrong put everything aside for the tour; it was pretty much his only objective for any of his last 4/5 seasons. The previous greats (like a Merckx) rode multiple grand tours, classics, etc. and rode to win all of them.
Since I was too young back then, I don’t really know how Indurain fits in this scheme, but I always had the idea that Armstrong was the first cyclists to focus solely on one event. Nowadays most big riders seem to focus on one part of the season (unless you’re some freak like Gilbert), so it’s probably a natural evolution for the sport.