[superbarney]

Is (and if so when) is the Vuelta 2023 going live as a competition?

Topic

[11waterloo]

I definitely need the rest

I definitely need the rest day to have a re-think. I’ve just got this race wrong so far and you have got it right. Hopefully the USA won’t mess up my playing the last race! 

[Daniel Norton]

Haven’t booked the flights

Haven’t booked the flights yet, but I think I’ll be away in Spain again for the season finale.  Hopefully I’ll be in cycling mode and be zoned in.  It still seems practically impossible to catch you, but at least it’s more interesting now.

I honestly thought I’d never be in the running for the overall.  I think the way racing has changed makes it more likely someone with my style can win.

[Daniel Norton]

Guanxi?  Is that the one with

Guanxi?  Is that the one with a load of easy stages and just one “hard” one?  What’s happened to my memory?

[MinardiM189]

Only two of us at this stage

Only two of us at this stage

[11waterloo]

To add a bit of spice, I am

To add a bit of spice, I am in USA when it is on. West coast for part & East coast for end…. Can’t get my head round when I’ll be making transfers! 

[MinardiM189]

It has been cancelled because

It has been cancelled because of Covid the last 3 years. Usually 5 sprint stages & one hilly one.

I think I won the standard competition once

[Daniel Norton]

I didn’t realise the Tour of

I didn’t realise the Tour of Guanxi was a world tour race.  Game on!

[MinardiM189]

I stopped playing when Covid

I stopped playing when Covid started and only began again this year.

This year my Grand Tours have been awful, pre-covid I was regulalry top 10 but this year the top 100 has been a challenge.

I think there are times when nothing you do goes right.

[11waterloo]

I rather foolishly didn’t

I rather foolishly didn’t bring him in…. I seem determined to liven up the season long competition by collapsing completely! Same thing happened the year I won it. It was Covid year & the Vuelta was the last race of the season and I barely clung on in the face of a late assault by Mountain Renegade. Feels very much the same currently, I just can’t make the right calls!

[MinardiM189]

I brought him back in for

I brought him back in for today. Unless he decides to pull out on the rest day he is a good bet for a lot more points.

I fancy Ganna for today but it was either him or Evenepoel.

I agree with you regarding his future GC chances, they are very limited unless other riders have problems, of course his team don’t offer much help either.

[11waterloo]

Taking Evenepoel out seemed

Taking Evenepoel out seemed logical to me as a rider normally takes time to recover after a day like that as it normally signals impending illness – either that or they abandon. Yesterday’s performance makes his collapse the day before even more mysterious! I ended up without Evenepoel or Bardet which stopped me enjoying the stage! The real insult is when a rider you don’t have just rolls through first in the sprint as an incidental thing for a bonus 10 points! At least I had Evo in my purist….

[Daniel Norton]

It definitely wouldn’t be

It definitely wouldn’t be surprising if Evenepoel did it in protest at the difficulty.  If that is the case, then he needs to tell his team boss that being a GC rider is not for him.  I don’t think he is a consistent enough climber to challenge the best in le Tour if that is the aim.  He won last year because the third week was easy.  He will get more Vuelta titles on easier years, but he looks unlikely to win the Giro or Tour unless the other big riders are sick, crash or there happens to be an easy field/route one year.  No way does he beat an in form Vingegaard on a tough route.  Maybe he will recover better as he ages, but these things are normally evident when riders are pretty young.

Don’t know about bringing him back in, but I couldn’t fit Storer and Bardet in without dropping him.  I see you had them both too, which meant we scored better than many who kept Evenepoel.  He certainly can’t score that many points in normal stages, even if he wins them (mountain points).

Depends on how confident we are in our break picks.  I have to try to do something to give me any hope of winning the overall – however faint that hope is now.  If I just wanted to win the Vuelta and stay in second overall, I doubt I’d be going this aggressive with my transfer strategy.  I’m naturally aggressive, but this is ridiculous, really.  Risky.

[MinardiM189]

I meant, did he deliberately

I meant, did he deliberately give up all that time in a huff yesterday?

It certainly makes the Vuelta less like a slow torture for him and he can now enjoy the race without any pressure.

It now makes the competition more interesting, I dropped him for today but he could now win most of the remaining stages from the break. Do I bring him back in again ?

[Daniel Norton]

I don’t think he had a public

I don’t think he had a public tantrum, he was too busy crying and didn’t speak to the media after the stage.

I suspect he has a tantrum every time he doesn’t win.  He’s very childish in many ways, but he is still a kid tbh.

[MinardiM189]

Did Evenepoel have a tantrum

Did Evenepoel have a tantrum yesterday?

I read that he wasn’t happy with the route of the stage and was calling the race organisers ‘assassins’.

I can imagine that the idea of trying to hold off JumboVisma with virtually no help might be slightly demoralising.

[Author]

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