I’ll save my flame-bait about the Giro and Italian cycling for another post but I watched Tuesday’s stage this morning on Tivo and have to admit that it was kind of cool.
What do you all think of Popovych marking Simoni and letting Cunego go? I liked the move at the time because I agreed with Phil and Paul’s speculation that Cunego’s move was a decoy to try to get Popovych to follow and then blow up on the last climb, letting Simoni get the jersey back. Popovych had no teammates around, he had to choose one man to mark and he chose the champion rather than the snot-nosed kid. No problem there. Still, in retrospect, I think letting Cunego go turned out to be the end of Popovych’s GC hopes. Then again, it turned out that he couldn’t even hang with Simoni so he would probably have completely blown up and lost even more time if he had tried to follow Cunego.
What would you have done if you were Popovych? Is it just a race to see which Saeco rider wears the jersey into Milan now?
If Popo goes with Cunego, Simoni goes too. Popo probably stays on for a while, but has no answer when one or the other Saeco rider blasts away. Meanwhile, the other Saeco guy is stuck riding on Popo’s rear wheel, watching the other climb into the jersey. In this situation, its likely Simoni riding away. . .Saeco was waltzing into a game of poker holding a Royal flush to everyone else’s pair of dueces. It was a lose/lose situation for Popo, unless he had rocket fuel in his bottle.
That Cunego, and not Simoni, is in pink is simply due to circumstances brought about by the other contender’s riding.
My gut feeling is that this is a ruse by Saeco, and Simoni will ride away either Friday or, more likely, on Saturday’s stage, as all the other contenders mark the Maglia Rosa. Saeco is in the driver’s seat of a prison bus with all the other teams chained to their seats.
Interesting point. Jan plays Simoni and Vino plays Cunego (though Vino would not be the surprise Cunego has been). In a way that was what happened last year on that stage where Vino got away from Lance and put 45 seconds or so into him.
Does T-Mobile have the workers that Saeco (or for that matter postal) does though? I know six months ago it looked like they would but I heard bad things about Botero’s form in the spring and have heard nothing about him since. Plus they have lost two of their workers whose names escape me right now to injury.
the biggest difference is that us postal is an extremely strong team whereas popo’s squad(not even going to attempt a spelling) is not. lance isn’t going to be all alone marking two guys(not to mention that while vino is an awesome rider, i think he is lacking when the road seriously tilts upwards–he seems to do better when there is less of an incline and raw power plays a bigger factor), his team will be there to help close down some of the attacks.
I think this might be the strongest USPS squad ever and agree with you. I think Acevado (sp) for Heras was a tremendous move for blue. Plus, Beltran will have a year of blue under his belt now. Landis has made a break through this year as well. Throw the above three factors in with the usual suspect (George, Rubiera, . . . ) and you have the recipe for #6.
My favorite part of the Giro is that I am seeing a fresh Simoni for July. I really don’t like him but he certainly can shake things up if on form.
Seconded. . .No way can anyone put Lance in this position. The Posties are WWWWWAAAAAAYYYYY to strong for that. The difference between USPS and the Giro also-ran teams approaches several orders of magnitude.
The TdF is going to be an entirely different race, even if you ran it over the same exact course as the Giro is running. USPS, and T-Mobile being super strong teams will prevent one or the other from dominating. Liberty-Seguros is a very close runner up in team strength, but hasn’t got the huge leader(s) that either USPS or T-Mob have. On top of that, you have many more super strong contenders in Hamilton, Mayo, Zubeldia, and other potential guys like Beloki if he can pull it together and Aitor Gonzalez.
All of that competition will make for some much more interesting tactics in the TdF than recent editions have seen. Hell, USPS HAS to have the strength it is currently demonstrating. They HAVE to be able to take over the race at certain points and enforce their will. T-Mob will certainy return the favor whenever they see fit. Put Lance on another team, like Euskatel, without the solid rouleurs, and T-Mob runs him out of the race on a stretcher.
That Cunego, and not Simoni, is in pink is simply due to circumstances brought about by the other contender’s riding.
My gut feeling is that this is a ruse by Saeco, and Simoni will ride away either Friday or, more likely, on Saturday’s stage, as all the other contenders mark the Maglia Rosa. Saeco is in the driver’s seat of a prison bus with all the other teams chained to their seats.
I don’t know. I think Cunego was just was the stronger man that day. Of course it could still be a ruse.
From Velonews:
“The plan was for me to go with Damiano, but I couldn’t. He was strongest yesterday, and he deserved the support of the team,” said Simoni, who now sits fourth overall at 2:38 back. “Damiano did what I wanted to do yesterday. Now I promise to help him win this Giro.”
I agree I think Cunego is the man, Simoni has not been the same since he cooked himself last year on the tour when he was sick and kept on going, was courageous but may have had long term effects.
Tinman
Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
I never believe these guys when they talk tactics during the race. Its not like they’re going to announce what they are going to do. . .the plan. . .right. . . Only the remaing racing will really show the truth.
I’m not claiming it is DEFINITELY a ruse. . .I’m just not falling for the banana in the tail pipe. . . Whatever. . .it will be interesting to watch the rest of the race. . .
Trading Heras for Azevedo was not a step up. No disrespect to Azevedo and the team did a great job getting someone who could even partly fill Heras’ shoes on such short notice but it was not even close to an even trade. Watch the tapes from '02. If Roberto was riding for another team, he would have kicked Lance’s ass on stages 11 and 12 (this from a huge Lance fan). Roberto will never be a GC threat because he is not a good enough time trialist and if he was ever going to become one, he would have by now but I think when he is on form like he was in '02, he is the best pure climber in the world. Obviously, Lance had a lot of bad luck last year but the biggest thing and the thing that nobody talks about is the virtual absence of Heras. That’s why he got attacked in the mountains.
Popovych made absolutely the wrong move. He was riding not to lose and as a result guaranteed he lost.
I am not sure if Popo just didn’t have it or was afraid to try but either way if he wanted to win he had to try and cover Cunego’s break and let the chips fall where they may.
T-Mobile can try that trick all they want but an on form LA is just going to bridge up to whomever they send up the road, drop them and keep on going. Jan’s ultimate problem is that he and Lance has roughly the same maximal power output and Lance weighs 20 pounds less and that’s fatal in the mountains.
As an aside it does somewhat justify Jan’s lower cadence - there is no way he could stay close depending on breathing his way up the mountains. By substituting muscle strength to some degree he can make of some of the power/weight difference, at least if he waits until the final climb.
the point is that 02 is the only year where Heras did much . . . and he really just rode his role on the team that year - talk about a boring TDF. He was always the last one pulling LA up the hill, but that was after a couple of blue boys pulled both of them to that point. Beyond that very specific situation, there have not been many times where he has filled a void for blue that azevado cannot fill, and I’m not sure azevado couldn’t mimic that setup in the same situation. Heras is just too specialized and I don’t think there are many places in the Tour this year where his very specific prowess of riding up VERY steep slopes will be needed for LA.
I’m not sure I disagree with you but there is at least one and maybe two scenarios where you would be wrong. The possible one is if Simoni thinks “this is a decoy. Simoni is the real threat and the man Saeco wants to win.” Yes, he could cover the attack just to be safe but at that point, he is really marking Cunego, not Simoni. Obviously in retrospect, that’s the right play but at the time, if you had to pick one to mark (and when you’re all alone you kind of do), you’d probably have picked Simoni. I know I would.
The scenario where covering Cunego is absolutely wrong is if Popovych thinks “shit, no way I can stay with someone riding like that. I hope its a decoy but even if it isn’t, trying to cover Cunego will make me blow up and lose even more time than if I ride within myself.” If you’re saying that is riding for second, I agree but he is riding for second with two (albeit outside) chances to win. One if it is a decoy and Cunego does die and the other if he limits his losses on that stage and then attacks later when he feels better and gets the time back. Neither is likely but if he blows up and loses seven minutes, in the words of Lil Sis, “That’s it and that’s all.” No win, no podium, no way.