Tadej’s worst result in this spring campaign is 3rd, which is insane. MvdP bagged some big ones but Pogacar has been going since Strade and races 2 weeks longer. A true specimen.
If memory serves, I think those 2 have won every monument for the past 3 years other than Philipsen at MSR in ‘24.
Thanks for the work!
They said it on the move podcast - Remco 4, MVDP 8 and Tadej 9, I think - Mororic (Sp) Philipsen and…someone? But…crazy
Skelmosj (again…sp lol) I think?
Thanks for your time with this - it must take ages and I really appreciate it. Having not taken part before it’s been fun. It’s helped me make the effort to stay up to date with the single cycling thread, and I’m glad I did as I’m enjoying the chat, so thank you.
Remco has 2 (Liege 2x), but you’re right — he won it in 2023 when Pogacar crashed and broke his wrist. Mohoric won MSR in 2022, and Sjelly doesn’t have any (yet).
MvdP
MSR: 23, 25 (assist for Philipsen in 24)
Flanders: 20, 22, 24
Roubaix: 23, 24, 25
Pogacar
Flanders: 23, 25
Liege: 21, 24, 25
Lombardia: 21, 22, 24, 24
MvdP cracked spectacularly at Worlds the year Mads won. He insisted later that he hadn’t bonked, but it sure looked like it.
Thanks for all the work @WannaB and cheers to everyone on a great spring classics season and congrats to @echappist. Photo finish with @ttusomeone for that last podium spot… not sure who’s got the better bike throw.
I’ll say that I would like more open/competitive racing, it’s just not as as exciting when you know with such a high degree of certainty which one or two racers are going to deliver the W on a given day. And when the outcome is pretty much locked in long before the finale, that’s not great either. Fortunately we had some unexpected results here and there to keep the suspense alive (Waerenskjold way back on opening weekend, Powless and Skjelmose more recently) and the women’s racing was a lot more competitive.
It’s not as exciting, but it’s still enjoyable watching Pog and MvdP do their thing - we’re lucky they’re both racing at the same time as their head-to-head battles made for some entertaining spectating. For me there is an element of feeling like it’s a privilege to be able to watch these historical performances, even if I do lament that lack of competition.
Anticipating the Giro and hoping for it’s usual dose of unpredictability. Seems hard to look past a UAE vs Redbull battle royale, but then you’ve got some other interesting storylines like returning veterans Carapaz and Landa, the Egan Bernal comeback, Ciccone coming in on great form (and he, along with Tiberi, giving the Tifosi something to cheer for). And then there’s Lisa Bike… how are they riding this? Are they backing a GC bid from Yates? He’s got some decent support from Kruiship, Kelderman, and potentially Wout, but they could also be a hell of a team of stage hunters with all the aforementioned guys plus DVB and Kooij.
@jstonebarger - 2019 RAIN n chilly worlds - very true, but…I chalk that up to pre dominator MVdp (and yes - he blew up majorly considering how smoothly he bridged across). I havent seen that since. esp when one looks at last year’s worlds and last year’s liege - 2 courses that taxed the bejeepers out of his climbing ability and yet he hung in there and pounced for podiums.
that 2019 worlds was the beginning of the end for my fave - Sagan. I really think if he had been a bit more confident he could have had the magic 4th worlds there. he got away solo on last lap but a bit too late.
Mads win was a DESERVING precursor to his current greatness
Simmons and Sheffield are getting closer to delivering even bigger on their awesome rides there.
Sheeeeeit… that’s a baller squad for Lisa at Giro. w/o a proven GC baller like Vinge (or Primoz back in da day), let’s hope they race for chaos and strength in numbers with that depth. We’ll know if they’re up for that aggression if Simon loses some time early for a better stage hunting leash.
Time to upgrade the max/hbo sunscription…
(and yet crazy to think Coathanger Kruis was within a whisker of a giro win pre snow bank and even Simon had everyone on the ropes before Finestre - times, they have a changed with the stacked super teams).
Wout is going to light the Giro up! All aboard the Wout hype train.
I hope you are right.
I’d love to see Wout back in full beast mode.
Would love to see a good Mads vs Wout battle for ciclamino. Though they do have Kooij on their roster and there’s a relative dearth of top sprinters this year, depending on how things shake out I wonder if you see Wout acting as leadout deluxe a la MvdP.
This all likely depends on whether Kooij has signed for a new team yet. There’s a bit of a bidding war going on, and it’s always interesting to see how the current team responds when they know they’re likely to lose a top rider.
If Kooij is going to a team Lisabike views as a real rival, it’s probably less likely we’ll see Wout fully selling out for him.
As a big fan of really good athletes coming form unexpected places, I’ll admit to crying along a little with Kim Le Court when they played the Mauritian national anthem.
It’s nice to see DJ Breadsticks picking up a win in Turkey. I hope he can carry this form to the Giro and complete the trilogy of Grand Tour stages!
Brennan continues to explode onto the scene. Another favorite kid, Artem Shmidt makes the podium!
With how Brennan is going, got to wonder how hard they’ll try to keep Kool-J
He’s gone. Just a question of where, and if they pull the plug on his program before he goes.
They’ve historically been really good about not doing this, but they do have other sprinting mouths to feed now.
Brennan is exciting.
Brennan and Kooij not really the same thing though. Kooij strikes me as more of a pure sprinter who would benefit from a leadout train that Lisa Bike doesn’t seem super keen on developing. Brennan seems more like a freestyler a la Matthews or Pedersen. He’s basically delivered all his wins more or less on his own in the finale, no? I suppose he could develop into more of a pure sprinters if that’s what he/they want, but the “classics guy with a fast finish” is probably more like what Lisa wants anyway.