You can’t help but admire Vino and his relentless fighting style. And after yesterday’s performance all you hear is “heroic Vino” this and “Vino the hero” that. But, with two teammates in the top 10 who until yesterday had been his loyal domestiques, isn’t it a bit selfish to go for solo glory instead of helping them on the first day that he is out of GC contention? What if he hadn’t managed the stage win, would it have been worth it? Shouldn’t Kloden, who hung back for Vino in the Alps and lost valuable time he’d surely like returned to him now, be a little pissed that Vino wasn’t there to help him when he could have used it on the Peyresourde? Yes, Astana got their stage win, but their chance at a podium place just diminished as well.
Yes, he is both. That is his style. Great rider with a big heart, but small brain. He just killed Astana’s podium chances. I personally like him a lot, fun to follow, but wouldn’t want him on my team. Pretty much the opposite of riders like Horner or Hincapie (for referrence) and any number of unknown domestiques that do their job for bike racing in the Grand Tours. Honestly, I’m not sure whey he doesn’t do any better in the 1 day classics races than he does.
hero. vino and astana knew they’d be able to rely on rabobank to get klodi to the base of the final climb, where it would have been every man for himself regardless if vino was there to help him or not.
Selfish, unless the team management would rather have one of their home county heros win a stage rather than place a “foreign” rider on the final podium in Paris. But with that said, I don’t think the words team rider could ever be used to describe the way he rides; Vino doesn’t have a history of being able to ride as a domestique, to see that all you need to do is look back on his days as a teammate of Jan’s.
Do you think he acted without the direction of the team director? Plus because of his ride Astana is keeping the team race close and they have 2 stage wins.
Vino is the Tour’s version of Ricky Bobby. He must follow the Ricky Bobby motto that if you’re not first you’re last. Either he wins or crashes (bonks) with not much consistency.
I am just waiting to see him in a Wonderbread Jersey.
It’s my theory that Vinokurov and his team manager got together after things went wrong early in stage 14 and decided that by becoming a non-threat to the GC men, he could go unmarked in future stages and thus have much greater chance of winning one. Chances for a TDF win were shot anyway.
The strategy seemed to pay off yesterday. Now, he’s got a time trial win, a road win, and great potential to get one more road win and another TT victory. Four stage wins would be a pretty decent outcome for Astana, about as good as could be hoped for two days ago. At this point, Astana’s remaining contenders don’t have much hope of a podium finish, and Vinokurov wouldn’t be much help to them anyway.
Hero. Kloden may have a valid gripe that the team picked the wrong guy to drop back and help Vino in the Alps. But, having Vino work for Kloden yesterday would not have made any difference. Kloden had plenty of other folks to draft off of until Contador attacked. Kloden couldn’t react to that move. Having Vino there would not have helped (and I am not sure Vino could have covered that move either). If I owned the team, I’d be happy with Vino’s work yesterday. He has done a lot to give the team a good image. In terms of being on camera during the race, Kloden, Leipheimer, Sastre and Evans have been largely invisible.
I don’t think anyone will know until we find out was the team managers plan was for yesterday. If he told Vino to attack- then no not selffish. If he told Vino to get into a break so he could either fall back or attack depending on how things worked out- then no not selfish. If he told vino to stay with Kloden and ride for Kloden and he went anyway Selfish as hell. The point is while on paper yesterdays stage wins seems a bit selfish, I wouldn’t blame Vino one bit if he was doing what he was told by the team manager.
So far I have not heard any talk about vino doing otherwise so right now to me the win is heroic. And until we hear that he defied his manager I don’t see how anyone could come to the conclusion it was anything less than heroic.
