Latest comments
- So you don’t respect athletes who will sacrifice their personal priorities for others? What is wrong with an MVDP deciding to quit a race he’s only participating in to help a team-mate because his personal objective was always a different event after causing a clash in preparation? Why should athletes be expected to adapt their program to the desires if spectators? It’s not as if you are paying him directly (be careful about answering that because it might trap you into having to justify hypocrisy with respect to general economic consumption). You say you admire and watch principally because of the excellence on show, in that case you should just accept and enjoy it when you see it and look for it elsewhere when some aren’t showing it? I often enjoy watching schoolkids or amateurs trying and racing as much as watching the best, it can be just as exciting, interesting, enjoyable, educational and impressive. Enjoy the moment. Everyone does something better than another.
- Everything is debatable but you cannot just transplant a Merckx into the modern era. Almost every keen amateur today beats the best sportsmen of 100-150 years ago in almost every sport so if you want to make a comparison first you have to define what Merckx riding today means to you, the same guy born 70 years ago in a younger version with only the rivals, tech, knowledge, help, money, etc. of back then or the Merckx that would be born in 2000 if he hadn’t existed back then, with all the advantages. improvements, material available since then. For me a more interesting question would be to know if ge’d have been more or less motivated with today’s earnings, i.e. did the fact he had to race a lot to earn hus bread make him much better or would he have been better if he could have picked and chosen more because money wasn’t an issue? This obviously assuming he’d be able to have his attitude of back then in today’s very different world.
- Cigar farmers.
- This is probably the most accurate way of putting it, nobody knows what’s going to happen, am sure plenty of us are old enough to remember people saying Senna was going to be the greatest ever.
- Merckx had more or less exactly the same situation as Pog with very capable rivals in each of his « specialities » only difference is that Pog doesn’t do hour records or track (which he’d probably not be that successful at).
- Have they given del Toro the same, er... stimulants they give Pogacar?
- Fingers crossed for Isaac, he only has to worry about Carapaz, I think Yates and Visma are spent, yesterday should have been Yates day. Doesn't matter what the team does, if he can't attack he can't put time into his rivals, it's up to him in the end
- I watch sporting events because I admire excellence. The sight of Tadej attacking with 50 kilometers to go and eventually winning solo is just as exciting to me as when MVDP beats him and Filippo Gana in a sprint. What's boring to me is when MVDP abandons a race because he feels he has nothing to gain by racing against Pogacar in a mountain stage, but would gladly hold his wheel for 300 kilometers because he knows he can beat him in a sprint finish. Or Jonas V deciding to skip the Giro because he fears the 21-days of racing would expose him to racing accidents which might derail his TDF participation. I admire competitors who try their very best even if the odds are stacked against them.
- He's mentioned his dislike of the gravel sections multiple times throughout the Giro. I'm starting to wonder if he actually dislikes them or if he just can't get the capitulation of 2018 out of his mind. Alternatively, like so many other people, he might just be knackered!
- This was the year Pog missed his entire team altitude training for the Tour due to a complex wrist fracture! Sean Kelly correctly predicted Pog would 'run out of gas' in the last week due to his extreme lack of training, based on Kelly's own experience of this. Gianetti appointed Adam Yates as co-leader of UAE in that Tour because 'there are no miracles in cycling' - Pog had not been able to put in the training to win.
