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So what exactly happened yesterday then with froome almost dropping wiggins, then easing off and coming back to him. Was it confusion, was it froome saying '**** this, I'm off', was it wiggins not having the legs to accelerate with him, or choosing not to? What happened and what does it mean? And what happened on twitter yesterday? Apparently the wags started on each other on twitter. So somebody fill in the blanks for me.
They took their go juice at different times?
Brads tourettes kicked in again and he called him a *ing *! So he stormed off to have a sulk
2011 Vuelta.
That's Belgians and Kenyan's for you - just can't play nicely together. 😀
2011 Vuelta.
What happened there then?
Everyone seems to think that if froome rode away from wiggo yesterday he would have won the tour
Reality in my opinion is that he would have blown it wide open for nibali as wiggo hadnt recovered and froome was up and down on form like a yo yo all day.
Armchair experts seem to forget the tour is 3 weeks yesterday was but 1 ( albe big) day
Wiggo said team instructions were "slow" but Froome heard "go" as it was really noisy.
Outside the team, does anyone really know!?!
I think it was Froome advertising himself to the highest bidder: "look what I can do", to get himself on another team next season so he can have a go at GC for himself. I expect him to be a good boy and behave impeccably now for the rest of this Tour, helping Wiggo all the way.
Or he could actually have misheard "slow" for "go!" in his ear-piece as claimed by Brad...
Outside the team, does anyone really know!?!
No but shouldn't stop us interpreting, speculating and gossiping should it?
Anyway has froome inadvertintly or otherwise exposed a potential wiggins weakness, ie he doesn't have quick accelerations in him?
I suspect it was just Froome's inexperience. He got carried away with the fistfight with Nibali and forgot that his job was to stick with Brad.
I suspect he got a right rollicking over the radio which was probably why he seemed a little bit miffed in the post race interview.
Anyway has froome inadvertintly or otherwise exposed a potential wiggins weakness, ie he doesn't have quick accelerations in him?
Anyone with any knowledge of cycling has known this for the past 5 years...
Everyone seems to think that if froome rode away from wiggo yesterday he would have won the tourReality in my opinion is that he would have blown it wide open for nibali as wiggo hadnt recovered and froome was up and down on form like a yo yo all day
+1
It's a team effort. Every modern winner of the tour needs their team to work for them. I still think Wiggo is the better all round rider and represents Sky's best chance of GC. Froome is a good few minutes behind Wiggo, as has already been said, the only thing he would've succeeded in doing by going alone is allowing Nibali the opportunity to gain time.
Anyone with any knowledge of cycling has known this for the past 5 years...
How do you write oooooOOOOOOoooooo?
ok, ok, just trying to get up to speed here....
Much as I want Wiggo to win
It does provide some interest in this tour. Long may the suicide attacks by cadel and nibali continue..
Van Garderen looked strong and did the same thing to Evans at one stage.
2011 Vuelta.
Wiggo blew up in the time trial. Froom could have won GC but didn't get support.
Wiggo said team instructions were "slow" but Froome heard "go" as it was really noisy.
Is the more likely explanation. Never ascribe to maliciousness, what can easily be explained by incompetence.
Of course, Brad hasn't won five times yet 😉
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To me it just looked like that Froome kicked expecting Wiggins to go with him. Just caught him by surprise.
Anyway has froome inadvertintly or otherwise exposed a potential wiggins weakness, ie he doesn't have quick accelerations in him?
2011 Vuelta - Alto di Angliru.
What happened was that Froome appeared to have a moment when instinct took over, got told over the radio that Wiggins had been distanced then acted very professionally and went back to support his team leader.
Froomes time will come for a GC win. If he can remain healthy then I wouldn't be surprised if he finished his career with a more impressive road record than Wiggins.
How do you write oooooOOOOOOoooooo?
Soz Feenster, didn't mean to sound so patronising!!! 🙂
It's widely known to be Wiggo's weakness. He's a tester by trade, so his talent is to set his metronome for a consistent effort throughout, and he does this far better than almost everyone else in ITTs.
But, and he's shown this many a time, he lacks the grunt to respond to attacks on climbs.
Froome knows this, so he should not have accelerated away like that. It was pretty stupid, he would have known that Brad would have been unlikely to match, and if he'd thought things through, he would have seen that it just gave Nibali the wheel he needed to gap Wiggins.
As I said, inexperience.
Wiggo said team instructions were "slow" but Froome heard "go" as it was really noisy
Yep it's all Sean Yates fault for his drawn out poor enunciation on the radio 😀
Wiggo seems a bit like Indurain in that he doesn't do accelerations... he keeps the big diesel chugging over and grinds away.
Perhaps Sean Yates had one two many Pernod's at lunch and was slurring into the mic?
Froomes time will come for a GC win.
A point already made by Dave Brailsford. They're an unsentimental lot at Team GB/Sky. It could be as soon as next year. It ain't this year though
didn't mean to sound so patronising
No worries, thanks for the background info there
So what about the twitter spat with the WAGS as referred to in today's gaurdian write up?
Might just be me but I can't imagine 'slow' ever being something they would say in a race!
As explained in the interviews, the plan was to allow Froome to go for the win if it was favourable, he took off as wiggo was getting breath back, wiggo's radio was on the blink. Froome then backed off.
after dropping Vockler before the previous stage from my fantasy team the only way froome will win one is when I swap him out....
the plan was to allow Froome to go for the win if it was favourable
If he could have won the stage from there it would have been well impressive
I guess we won't really know what froome can do this year
Team orders is as old as the tour
Having watched the video it does look very much like a mis-understanding. IMO Froome was trying to lead Wiggins up the hill and as soon as he realised he wasn't going with him he slowed.
Re the Twitter spat-this may be what you're looking for
http://road.cc/content/news/61829-team-sky-wags-show-strain-tour-hots-up%E2%80%A6-twitter
Zoolander - Member
Might just be me but I can't imagine 'slow' ever being something they would say in a race!
I don't know, there's no point in belting along when you don't have to, particularly when you want to win in Paris. It all costs energy.
The idea is to finish first in the slowest time possible!
Matt
Just check the body language out in this interview! Froome doesn't believe for one moment what he's telling the camera.
http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/news/froome-explains-stage-11-tactics/
Slow and go is probably the truth
Froome jumped realised wiggo didn't and then slowed. Still plenty of racing to go and why should wiggo attack this early when they had dropped the defending champ and pulled back every attack.
Sit with them, gain time on cadel, don't lose to any other gc contenders. And save every ounce of energy for the rest of the tour.
Perfect day.
More fuel on the fire. To be fair, he's got a point - Froome could and should have won the Vuelta last year.
this reminds me of the GB womens team in the Worlds, except that Cooke didn't wait
wait for a rerun in a few weeks
My opinion, and it is purely an opinion, was that froome was told to go and keep going if he was sure he could drop Nibali, and if he couldn't drop him then get back in the group with wiggins. He cou;ldn't be 100% sure he would drop him so he went back. Sound tactic in my opnion.
This would have consolidated Froomes 2nd place and put some pain into Nibali.
I think if Nibali and co didn't chase after Froome after the attack then he would have been left to go it alone and make some time up for a 1-2 Sky tour finish (which may happen anyway).....
I guess we'll never know for sure but I do think if Froome had been a team leader on another team and been protected on stages in the same way other team leaders have he could probably have won this years tour.
He was doing huge turns on the front yesterday to pace Wiggins and still seemed to have the legs on the main contenders towards the end of the stage.
I do hope his time does come, he's probably passed up chances to have won the Vuelta and now maybe the Tour by being at Team Sky. Not sure what his contract position is with Sky but he can't be happy staying there for another year unless he's given the chance to ride as the team leader in the Grand Tours.
if he'd been allowed to go, and took Nibali with him, he could have significantly dented Bradley's chances without necessarily improving his own. He might have subsequently dropped Nibali but there was no way to know that at that point and hence he had to go for the safe option. I hope that in the Pyrenees next week, if Bradley isn't feeling topper he'll repay that favour.
What i don't quite understand is why when Froome had opened a 25 yard gap taking Nibali and VdB with him, but then sat up, if they had quickly mounted their own attack then it would have forced Sky to make a snap decision BW vs CF, instead of having a week to work out all the what-if's.
When all's said though - the what if's are pretty good just now because the only guy i potentially see beating BW is CF.
Not sure what his contract position is with Sky but he can't be happy staying there for another year unless he's given the chance to ride as the team leader in the Grand Tours.
pretty sure they were on the verge of dropping him at the end of 2011, then the Vuelta happened and he suddenly got a big cheque for a (2 yr?) contract?
Froome has benefited from being Wiggin's wing-man, having the strongest team in the tour doing all the work for them. On any other team he'd be in the same position as Nibali, Evans et al and pretty much riding on his own. I think he probably is the better rider, certainly a more accomplished climber (wiggin's one speed already well known from 2009 TdeF Ventoux stage and 2011 Vuelta) and he will captain a grand tour with Sky, and the Giro organisers love of crazy steeps would suit him more than Wiggins?
if he'd been allowed to go, and took Nibali with him, he could have significantly dented Bradley's chances without necessarily improving his own. He might have subsequently dropped Nibali but there was no way to know that at that point and hence he had to go for the safe option.
Also, he'd looked like he'd popped shortly before that- in the team car they'd probably be wondering how likely it was that would happen again if he took off on his own.