trail wrote:
H- wrote:
I hope there is no GC plan for Ciccone -- he's only 24 and rode Giro pretty hard already.
He's two years older than Bernal, and has been doing Grand Tours since age 20 with little trouble. Your 5th Grand Tour at age 24 is a great time to get some practice riding GC on the big stage. There's no pressure. The pressure is on Porte.
I just thought it was a little curious to send him up the road. They said they were all-in for Porte, yet send his best support climber up the road all day. And I don't think they sent him up the road in order to drop back and help Porte later. Either they don't have much confidence in Porte and are chasing mountain classification as a backup....or they're seeing how he can hang in there with the big boys to see if they want to "promote from within" for the post-Porte era or spend money going after Landa or somebody.
Good analysis. Few teams have been able to buy a Grand Tour winner (though they pay some riders like they will be). More often than not, it doesn't work out - Porte, Landa, etc.
IMO Porte doesn't have much confidence in Porte at this time; yet, he's probably happy that he got paid more for those years.
Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.