Volta Ciclista a Catalunya

Sniffer wrote:

Froome and Sky had Bernal.  Simon and MIS had Adam.  Movistar though?

I don’t think it is as much a Quintana issue as the well funded Movistar team is so often less than the sum of its parts (though I do recognise that Valverde’s palmares in week long, stages and classics is excpetional).

Without Valverde, they would be a discinctly average team. 26 wins last year, half of which were Valverde. I’m not a fan of Quintana, never have been. Why doesn’t the man attack? Was it all just hype 3-4 years ago? He has 2 GT wins and 4 other GT podiums. The last one at the 2017 Giro when he lost to Dumoulin. I was waiting for him to attack in that race and it never came. I don’t think he’ll win another GT, other riders have figured out how to beat him.

Dr Winston wrote:

MinardiM189 wrote:

Dr Winston wrote:

Dan Martin on the other hand is a winner but also somebody who shows his hand too soon sometimes and sinks…not today though….although he did nearly fall off the back a couple of times.

I couldn’t believe when Dan Martin launched an attack as soon as he caught the leaders & then went on to be the 1st to attack in the finale.

If he had waited for Yates or Bernal to go he could have won.

I’m coming to the conclusion Quintana is exceptionally stupid and can’t do anything unless the DS tells him too.

Today all he did was mark Bernal, when Yates attacked he did nothing and left it to Bernal to chase Yates down.

The other year he did something similar with Contador, he was just making sure Contador didn’t get away and let about 10 other riders go up the road.

I agree. Some riders like Kruiswijk or Kelderman just don’t really have the raw talent to win many stages…they just grind on and do what they do really well…top riders…Quintana on the other hans has all the ability but just doesn’t seem to know how to maximise his own attributes….his Palmares should be better than it is.

The fustration with Nairo is perpetual. However last year the criticism seemed to be he didn’t race enough prior to the tour and that’s why he lacked sharpness. Perhaps this year he has bigger fish to fry.  Ultimately he’ll be judged by the number of Grand tours he wins so a stage or the overall in Catalunya may not be that important. Froome and S yates didn’t even compete on the stage.

Dr Winston wrote:

Dan Martin on the other hand is a winner but also somebody who shows his hand too soon sometimes and sinks…not today though….although he did nearly fall off the back a couple of times.

I couldn’t believe when Dan Martin launched an attack as soon as he caught the leaders & then went on to be the 1st to attack in the finale.

If he had waited for Yates or Bernal to go he could have won.

I’m coming to the conclusion Quintana is exceptionally stupid and can’t do anything unless the DS tells him too.

Today all he did was mark Bernal, when Yates attacked he did nothing and left it to Bernal to chase Yates down.

The other year he did something similar with Contador, he was just making sure Contador didn’t get away and let about 10 other riders go up the road.

Dr Winston wrote:

Happy to see Cuadros in the break again. Seemed risky dropping both of Schachmann and De Gendt…but well…9th for this game (won it last year) and no point replicating those above me. Hopefully Schachmann won’t find anything extra today. Taken care to arrange the furniture so that TDG and/or Matthews are an easy swap back in.

Cuadros was my second choice behind Rosskopf 🙁

Do ther people find Quintana frustrating?

He looked to have no trouble following Bernal but didn’t make any attempt to attack at all.

MinardiM189 wrote:

My team for today –

VALVERDE
BERNAL
MAS E.
LOPEZ
QUINTANA
MARTIN D.
ROSSKOPF
VAKOC

Dropped Degendt as I don’t think he will do much today. Maybe bring him back in again depending on today’s results

I brought in Adam Yates, Lopez, and Zakarin. The latter will probably disappoint again, but he was cheap. Already had Woods, Martin, Bernal, and Valverde.

Condor Andy wrote:

Some weird glitches in the admin side of things keep switching the deadlines by an hour. The stage starts in a few minutes and the deadline was still an hour away, so I’ve switched ot so the deadline is now in 15 minutes so as not to screw over anyone wating until the last minute.

Ooof, I got lucky then.  I was sitting on a call prevaricating and on one of my “reset team start again” clicks noticed the deadline had come inwards.

Five Colombians ‘in’ today for me.