# Tour Stage 10 Discussion - possible spoilers



## weltyed (Feb 6, 2004)

sorry i didnt get a stage 10 thread going everyone. we were hit with a nasty storms and i lost power from 8am-8pm. i also lost 1/2 a tree. where did it go? crashed into my fence. i spent the 98 degree day with the tree, bow saw, and my mind. we still dont have cable or internet. luckily we have power. over 800,000 customers were hit. i think 400,000 are still in the dark. but enough about me!

greiple gets one over on cavendish! OMG!!!


----------



## Marc (Jan 23, 2005)

I loved that finish. Better, Hoogerland finished the day.


----------



## Dan Gerous (Mar 28, 2005)

Wondering if Cav will still say Greipel only wins $hit-small races...


----------



## 32and3cross (Feb 28, 2005)

CAv really dosn't have anyway out of this one other than Greipel beat him heads up. Lotto played it to perfection sending Gilbert off which could have easily worked out with Gilbert winning but also forced HTC to chase and use their guys up alot earlier leaving Cav looking for wheels at the end. 

HTC can't even complain they were the only ones working as BMC and Liquegas were on the front at times there Oss even leading Cav into the final turn. 

Cav is def the fastest spinter but it shows that with out a huge leadout things are more evenly matched and since he was forced to go early on a hard stage the advantage was not with him as much.


----------



## harlond (May 30, 2005)

Zabel and Aldag were interviewed afterwards, and Zabel said Greipel beat Cav fair and square. Neither seemed at all bothered by it, pointing out Greipel was on their team last year and they were happy for him. So that was nice.

Well played by Omega Pharma. I know there was some dissension within the team last week, but Gilbert really sacrificed for this win. He could have sat in the pack and scored some sprint points, but instead he laid it out there so Greipel could win, and Greipel delivered. That's leadership on both their parts.


----------



## TWD (Feb 9, 2004)

......and Levi and VDV hit the deck....again. 

As much as I like Leipheimer, Vandevelde, and Horner, I find it hard to really get my hopes up for their chances because they can't stay on their bikes. 

Yes, there have been a lot of crashes in this tour, and yes crashing is part of racing, but at some point you can't just keep chalking it up to bad luck.

They each seem to be cut from the Tyler Hamilton mold - climb well, TT well, but can't stay on the bike and healthy.


----------



## wiz525 (Dec 31, 2007)

Cav's reply. Calls it as is:

@MarkCavendish 
Well, that's me beaten. Went with 250m to go, but didn't 'kick' until 200m. Greipel rode it perfect & got speed by running up on me #hatsoff


----------



## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

I am confused by the Lotto sprint. What is more important to the team? Greipel winning a stage, or Gilbert scoring big on points and holding a commanding lead on the green jersey? Seems the green jersey has more punch than a stage win from a sprinter who is not in contention at all for the green jersey.

Gilbert got 5 points at the first sprint and four in the finish. Greipel was over 100 points behind gilbert before the stage started, and is still eighty points behind. Why would you not support gilbert in maintaining the green? Rojas made huge ground on Gilbert by finishing third. Confusing. Terrible managing in my opinion by Marc Sergeant.


----------



## Dan Gerous (Mar 28, 2005)

spookyload said:


> I am confused by the Lotto sprint. What is more important to the team? Greipel winning a stage, or Gilbert scoring big on points and holding a commanding lead on the green jersey? Seems the green jersey has more punch than a stage win from a sprinter who is not in contention at all for the green jersey.
> 
> Gilbert got 5 points at the first sprint and four in the finish. Greipel was over 100 points behind gilbert before the stage started, and is still eighty points behind. Why would you not support gilbert in maintaining the green? Rojas made huge ground on Gilbert by finishing third. Confusing. Terrible managing in my opinion by Marc Sergeant.


To many, a stage win is more important than a jersey that is not yellow... If you look at regular, non-cycling focused medias, they will report about the stage winner and the GC leader, not about the other jerseys so for sponsors, it might be better to have Greipel win than add a few points to a jersey lead...

But I think it may just be that Gilbert knew he couldn't get much more points than he did in such a finish so he attacked, if it sticked, great, if not, it would force HTC to burn more men before the finish.


----------



## 55x11 (Apr 24, 2006)

spookyload said:


> I am confused by the Lotto sprint. What is more important to the team? Greipel winning a stage, or Gilbert scoring big on points and holding a commanding lead on the green jersey? Seems the green jersey has more punch than a stage win from a sprinter who is not in contention at all for the green jersey.
> 
> Gilbert got 5 points at the first sprint and four in the finish. Greipel was over 100 points behind gilbert before the stage started, and is still eighty points behind. Why would you not support gilbert in maintaining the green? Rojas made huge ground on Gilbert by finishing third. Confusing. Terrible managing in my opinion by Marc Sergeant.


PhilGIl was fried after his solo attack - he was all-out with 5K to go. No way he could get many (any?) points. Greipel's win is worth a lot to the team, Gilbert will have to keep getting points at intermediate sprints.


----------



## 55x11 (Apr 24, 2006)

Dan Gerous said:


> Wondering if Cav will still say Greipel only wins $hit-small races...


I think it's telling that winning a single stage against Cav is now a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime achievement for the likes of Farrar, Petacchi or Greipel. It's as if we have two very different metrics for success for Cav (must win at least 5 stages in a single tour, anything less is an epic FAILURE, any time he doesn't win a bunch sprint is the time to start talking about how he is over the hill, total failure, can't do anything without his team, too fat etc.) and for the rest of the sprinters (winning a single bunch sprint is a huge, HUGE success, In your FACE, Cavendish, who is the fastest sprinter in the world now?). Unfortunately the answer to that is - still Cavendish.


----------



## AJL (Jul 9, 2009)

I'd have to go with the win being more important. As far as Gilbert goes, I'm with DG on that one.


----------



## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

So judging by his attack with 5k to go, you don't think he had the legs to win had he waited and finished for himself instead of setting Greipel up? That was the whole purpose of the attack BTW. Make the field (HTC) work at catching him and breaking up the Highroad train. Having watched all of his victories this year so far and the power with which he attacks with here, I think had he waited till 1k to go and had a different team mate make the first attack at 5k he likely would have won.


----------



## Marc (Jan 23, 2005)

spookyload said:


> So judging by his attack with 5k to go, you don't think he had the legs to win had he waited and finished for himself instead of setting Greipel up? That was the whole purpose of the attack BTW. Make the field (HTC) work at catching him and breaking up the Highroad train. Having watched all of his victories this year so far and the power with which he attacks with here, I think had he waited till 1k to go and had a different team mate make the first attack at 5k he likely would have won.


As it was, it was a clever gambit to prematurely burnout the Cav-train and get it dropped...and with anyone other than the green-jersey attacking, I doubt HTC would have taken the bait. As it was, Greipel won by all of a wheel-diameter.


----------



## AJL (Jul 9, 2009)

55x11 said:


> I think it's telling that winning a single stage against Cav is now a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime achievement for the likes of Farrar, Petacchi or Greipel. It's as if we have two very different metrics for success for Cav (must win at least 5 stages in a single tour, anything less is an epic FAILURE, any time he doesn't win a bunch sprint is the time to start talking about how he is over the hill, total failure, can't do anything without his team, too fat etc.) and for the rest of the sprinters (winning a single bunch sprint is a huge, HUGE success, In your FACE, Cavendish, who is the fastest sprinter in the world now?). Unfortunately the answer to that is - still Cavendish.


Well, maybe that's the way things play out in the media and it was probably close to true except this year. Aldag and Zabel's comments, I think, are pointing out the obvious that there _*are*_ handful of sprinters who can match Cav. Normally don't get the chance because of the dominance of of HTC-Highroad's sprint train. The bottom line for me is that Highroad's train isn't as strong as it used to be, other teams have found ways to disrupt it and Cav has probably lost a bit of top end when he trimmed down this year.

Still, I'd mark him as the best sprinter in the world ATM (and most likely will be historically).


----------



## dana109 (May 1, 2009)

I was impressed at how Cavendish handled it with humility. I don't know what else he would do. he got beat fair and square. 

But Cav has definitely grown up a lot in the last year or so.


----------



## JoelS (Aug 25, 2008)

I'm starting to think that Cav's wins are a result more of the HTC leadout train than due to his "mythical fastest man alive" persona.


----------



## ProdigalCyclist (May 3, 2011)

55x11 said:


> I think it's telling that winning a single stage against Cav is now a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime achievement for the likes of Farrar, Petacchi or Greipel. It's as if we have two very different metrics for success for Cav (must win at least 5 stages in a single tour, anything less is an epic FAILURE, any time he doesn't win a bunch sprint is the time to start talking about how he is over the hill, total failure, can't do anything without his team, too fat etc.) and for the rest of the sprinters (winning a single bunch sprint is a huge, HUGE success, In your FACE, Cavendish, who is the fastest sprinter in the world now?). Unfortunately the answer to that is - still Cavendish.




LOL... Very well said!

It's kind of like Michael Jordan... remember, back in the day, they would say he had a bad game if he scored less than 45? It's pretty much the same way they talk about Cavendish. It was a great day for Greipel... no doubt... but if he thinks this some how proves he's a better sprinter, he's got another thing coming... Cavendish still has 16 more stage wins than he does (and that's just in the TdF)


----------



## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

JoelS said:


> I'm starting to think that Cav's wins are a result more of the HTC leadout train than due to his "mythical fastest man alive" persona.


 He won the first time here with almost zero leadout from HTC. He beat Greipel head to head last time, this time he just didn't have the gas. I am guessing the climb right before the finish took some of it out of him.


----------



## OldEndicottHiway (Jul 16, 2007)

55x11 said:


> I think it's telling that winning a single stage against Cav is now a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime achievement for the likes of Farrar, Petacchi or Greipel. It's as if we have two very different metrics for success for Cav (must win at least 5 stages in a single tour, anything less is an epic FAILURE, any time he doesn't win a bunch sprint is the time to start talking about how he is over the hill, total failure, can't do anything without his team, too fat etc.) and for the rest of the sprinters (winning a single bunch sprint is a huge, HUGE success, In your FACE, Cavendish, who is the fastest sprinter in the world now?). Unfortunately the answer to that is - still Cavendish.



That's human nature.

The little birdie sitting alone at the top of the tree is the birdie everyone is taking shots at.


----------



## ocean-ro (Nov 23, 2009)

Thor again in top10 stage finish. I expected him to win if Cav.&other sprinters wouldn`t make it over the last climb. Also happy to see no more broken bones


----------



## AJL (Jul 9, 2009)

spookyload said:


> He won the first time here with almost zero leadout from HTC. He beat Greipel head to head last time, this time he just didn't have the gas. I am guessing the climb right before the finish took some of it out of him.


I'm amazed that Greipel made it, that guy looks _*huge*_ compare to Cav


----------



## erj549 (Jul 26, 2008)

AJL said:


> I'm amazed that Greipel made it, that guy looks _*huge*_ compare to Cav


Yeah that guy's massive. Or maybe it just seems that way because he actually has an upper body.


----------



## cda 455 (Aug 9, 2010)

AJL said:


> I'm amazed that Greipel made it, that guy looks _*huge*_ compare to Cav





erj549 said:


> Yeah that guy's massive. Or maybe it just seems that way because he actually has an upper body.


From what I've read, Cav had to go earlier than he would have liked. And Omega Pharma-Lotto isolated Cav from his team.


----------



## Dan Gerous (Mar 28, 2005)

Back to Gilbert and his team tactics, Gilbert said (quote from cyclingnews.com):


Philippe Gilbert said:


> I haven't changed my attitude for the green jersey," he said. "I take it day by day. I don't snub the points' classification at all. At the hot spot sprint, I just follow the move to score some points. If it brings me the green jersey at the end, I'll be happy with it, but I've always thought that winning a stage is my priority. I love to win and I often do it with panache, so I won't start calculating points instead.


Basically, fighting for points isn't up there with fighting to win. I agree with that...


----------



## atpjunkie (Mar 23, 2002)

*Omega Pharma Lotto*

made that big dig in hopes of sluffing off some of the bunch sprinters so Gilbert could get a higher placing

so much so that Philippe was taking pulls cause he's manly like that
when a rider countered Gilbert countered, TV chased with a few others
when they saw they had a gap they took a chance
Gilbert had the most to gain (a top 5 would have given him more points than any other sprinter) and thus did the most work
most of the rest just sucked wheel
so after doing most the work, Gilbert still rode those punks off his wheel and went alone
he may have made it if there wasn't that last little climb
so it didn't work and OPL had another card in their hand and it did
well played
was already a Gilbert Fan, am more so every day


----------



## MattSoutherden (Jun 24, 2009)

While I think it was another super effort from Phil, I do wonder if OPL may have blown too many points for green with that move. It certainly blew up all the HTC train trying to catch them, so their tactic to get the win played out perfectly. But I think Cav did get a bit panicked and went too early. Greipel however timed it perfectly.

I think the whole Cav/Greipel thing is blown up out of all proportion by the media. And I think they both play off it. I think they have a lot more respect for each other than they put on.


----------



## baker921 (Jul 20, 2007)

MattSoutherden said:


> I think the whole Cav/Greipel thing is blown up out of all proportion by the media. And I think they both play off it. I think they have a lot more respect for each other than they put on.


Agreed. On reflection if Cav is prioritising Green, yesterday was a great result. Without Gilbert's attack Cav *might* have won but Gilbert would almost certainly scored a lot more points at the finish and kept a bigger points lead overall.

PS I have serious concerns about your Rep Power Apologies if it has already been discussed in a Forum I don't visit.


----------



## superjesus (Jul 26, 2010)

55x11 said:


> I think it's telling that winning a single stage against Cav is now a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime achievement for the likes of Farrar, Petacchi or Greipel. It's as if we have two very different metrics for success for Cav (must win at least 5 stages in a single tour, anything less is an epic FAILURE, any time he doesn't win a bunch sprint is the time to start talking about how he is over the hill, total failure, can't do anything without his team, too fat etc.) and for the rest of the sprinters (winning a single bunch sprint is a huge, HUGE success, In your FACE, Cavendish, who is the fastest sprinter in the world now?). Unfortunately the answer to that is - still Cavendish.


Well said 55x11. :thumbsup:

This is EXACTLY what I said to my wife after watching Greipel win the stage. She's a huge Cav fan, btw.


----------



## albert owen (Jul 7, 2008)

Fundamental Law of Cycling #4b:
Cav will never lose two winnable stages in a row if he is seated on a bicycle which is in good working order.


----------

