2019 Tour de France
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Tom Dumoulin nears Sunweb exit as Jumbo-Visma wait in the wings
Team Ineos and CCC also interested but Spekenbrink holds the power
More on that...
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@Chris-B said in 2019 Tour de France:
Tom Dumoulin nears Sunweb exit as Jumbo-Visma wait in the wings
Team Ineos and CCC also interested but Spekenbrink holds the power
More on that...
Interesting point from that article Chris-B:
A possible switch to Jumbo-Visma may have looked strange when it was first surfaced in the Dutch press due to the fact that the rival squad are already stacked with GC riders, but a deeper analysis suggests that the move is based on solid reasoning. Cyclingnews understands that, despite having Primoz Roglic, Steven Kruijswijk and George Bennett under contracts for the next few seasons, they see Dumoulin as the icing on the cake in terms of stage racing power.
Jumbo-Visma have increased investment in the last two seasons and believe that in order to dismantle Team Ineos’ stranglehold on the Tour de France they must arrive at a Grand Départ with between three and four of the 10 best stage race riders in the world. It’s understood that Jumbo-Visma believe that Dumoulin would sacrifice some of his own Grand Tour ambitions in order to fit in with a more powerful GC group and aim for a more collective win, rather than be the only focal point on the squad, as he currently is at Sunweb.It's kind of like out Ineos-ing the Ineos team strategy if they manage to do it.
Would be a massively powerful team if you have Roglic, Domoulin, Kruiswijk and Bennett in it. Question would be - can they play nicely together?And what about their sprint ambitions? They have some very handy quicks too..
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@Billy-Webb Yeah - there were hints in an earlier article that there were a few ego games between Kruiswijk and Roglic in last year's TdF.
I wondered the same thing about the sprinters - Ineos pretty much put all of their eggs in the GC classification - 8 guys riding to a single purpose. If it doesn't come off, you might end up with nothing much - a TTT stage win.
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LJV must have a farking MASSIVE budget.. if they're bringing over TD, they already have SK and PR who are defo at the top end of the pay scale..
not to mention they have 2 new stage winners in the TDF this year which generally means a big payrise..
they surely have to change their focus to be purely a GC team.To be honest George has never looked anything more than a super domestic - he just doesn't have that real attacking top end or TT speed that the pure GC guys have
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@WillieTheWaiter Yeah - you could see George finishing sort of 7th to 10th at the TdF if everything went well for him - not to be sniffed at, but also a bit "so what".
He could go away and be a team leader for a little team or he can probably be Wout Poels at TJV.
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@Chris-B said in 2019 Tour de France:
@WillieTheWaiter Yeah - you could see George finishing sort of 7th to 10th at the TdF if everything went well for him - not to be sniffed at, but also a bit "so what".
He could go away and be a team leader for a little team or he can probably be Wout Poels at TJV.
He's definitely a super domestique for the tour but Vuelta and potentially the Giro are 3 week rides that suit him...if anything this Tour has raised his public profile and inter-team professional reputation. The guy he reminds me most of is Hincapie - someone who can actually wear down the opposition. It helped that the SBS Aussie comms duo big upped him throughout the tour and he won a lot of plaudits for his work post crash and in getting Kruisjwijk back onto the podium
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@SynicBast the Aussie guys were loving him.
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@mariner4life said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast the Aussie guys were loving him.
Heresy to admit this but their commentary is lightyears ahead of their predecessors liggett and sherwen - watching on Tour tracker means I avoid Tomolaris as well thankfully . Robbie's been around France so long he actually makes the effort to not butcher the language and Matt Keenan doesn't do too much damage. Sure they have that quintessential Aussie bias, but unlike many, it's not quite as obnoxious.
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@SynicBast said in 2019 Tour de France:
@mariner4life said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast the Aussie guys were loving him.
Heresy to admit this but their commentary is lightyears ahead of their predecessors liggett and sherwen - watching on Tour tracker means I avoid Tomolaris as well thankfully . Robbie's been around France so long he actually makes the effort to not butcher the language and Matt Keenan doesn't do too much damage. Sure they have that quintessential Aussie bias, but unlike many, it's not quite as obnoxious.
yeah, they are not bad, and Robbie gets better every year i think.
Tomalaris at the start drives me nuts, and for some reason, every night i forget to watch on the app, and get pissy at the TV for not showing live pictures! I'm not the brightest.
Liggett and Sherwen just liked to talk about Cavendish a lot. Even in the mountains. Used to drive me nuts.
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@SynicBast said in 2019 Tour de France:
@mariner4life said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast the Aussie guys were loving him.
Heresy to admit this but their commentary is lightyears ahead of their predecessors liggett and sherwen - watching on Tour tracker means I avoid Tomolaris as well thankfully . Robbie's been around France so long he actually makes the effort to not butcher the language and Matt Keenan doesn't do too much damage. Sure they have that quintessential Aussie bias, but unlike many, it's not quite as obnoxious.
I am happy with their commentary, but not the French. Robbie isn't so bad, although his accent it very strong. But Keenan's is appalling. What's worse, it isn't consistent -- so he'll call a place by three different pronunciations in short succession (when they rode into Rheims it was hilarious how many ways he said it).
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@Chester-Draws said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast said in 2019 Tour de France:
@mariner4life said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast the Aussie guys were loving him.
Heresy to admit this but their commentary is lightyears ahead of their predecessors liggett and sherwen - watching on Tour tracker means I avoid Tomolaris as well thankfully . Robbie's been around France so long he actually makes the effort to not butcher the language and Matt Keenan doesn't do too much damage. Sure they have that quintessential Aussie bias, but unlike many, it's not quite as obnoxious.
I am happy with their commentary, but not the French. Robbie isn't so bad, although his accent it very strong. But Keenan's is appalling. What's worse, it isn't consistent -- so he'll call a place by three different pronunciations in short succession (when they rode into Rheims it was hilarious how many ways he said it).
Sorry when referring to Matt Keenan, I meant to say that he doesn't damage the commentary so much - the linguistic damage is agreed, pretty dire. Robbie's French is very much influenced by the fact he speaks with a Flemish intonation - his pronounciation of the Dutch riders' names is very Flemish as well - probably because he lived in a Flemish town for years and his wife is Flemish
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@SynicBast said in 2019 Tour de France:
@Chris-B said in 2019 Tour de France:
@WillieTheWaiter Yeah - you could see George finishing sort of 7th to 10th at the TdF if everything went well for him - not to be sniffed at, but also a bit "so what".
He could go away and be a team leader for a little team or he can probably be Wout Poels at TJV.
He's definitely a super domestique for the tour but Vuelta and potentially the Giro are 3 week rides that suit him...if anything this Tour has raised his public profile and inter-team professional reputation. The guy he reminds me most of is Hincapie - someone who can actually wear down the opposition. It helped that the SBS Aussie comms duo big upped him throughout the tour and he won a lot of plaudits for his work post crash and in getting Kruisjwijk back onto the podium
Wasn't Hincapie a pretty good time trialist? Bennett definately isnt that
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@SynicBast Yeah, agree with that. I've got used to him over the years.
I had the misfortune of listening to Liggett and Sherwen during the drug era when they just tried to ignore what was clearly in evidence -- and I've never really forgiven them for it. They were also far too fond of all the English-speaking riders. Whereas while Keenan was happy to plug Caleb McEwen and George, he barely mentioned the minor Kiwi and Aussie riders.
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@Chester-Draws said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast Yeah, agree with that. I've got used to him over the years.
I had the misfortune of listening to Liggett and Sherwen during the drug era when they just tried to ignore what was clearly in evidence -- and I've never really forgiven them for it. They were also far too fond of all the English-speaking riders. Whereas while Keenan was happy to plug Caleb McEwen and George, he barely mentioned the minor Kiwi and Aussie riders.
Liggett is pretty much an unrepentent Armstrong apologist...hence why he's was commentating for NBC and linking to Armstrong. I have no time for him because of his tacit acquiescence to Armstrong's attacks on people's livelihoods and reputations. That also goes for Tomolaris - his weak ass self-exculpatory weaseling about bringing back armstrong onto the tour as media was cringeworthy asf - He "had his doubts" but you wouldn't have known it from his silence about the way Armstrong attacked the whistleblowers.
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@SammyC said in 2019 Tour de France:
@SynicBast said in 2019 Tour de France:
@Chris-B said in 2019 Tour de France:
@WillieTheWaiter Yeah - you could see George finishing sort of 7th to 10th at the TdF if everything went well for him - not to be sniffed at, but also a bit "so what".
He could go away and be a team leader for a little team or he can probably be Wout Poels at TJV.
He's definitely a super domestique for the tour but Vuelta and potentially the Giro are 3 week rides that suit him...if anything this Tour has raised his public profile and inter-team professional reputation. The guy he reminds me most of is Hincapie - someone who can actually wear down the opposition. It helped that the SBS Aussie comms duo big upped him throughout the tour and he won a lot of plaudits for his work post crash and in getting Kruisjwijk back onto the podium
Wasn't Hincapie a pretty good time trialist? Bennett definately isnt that
I was thinking more of the way Hincapie ground the GC contenders into the dust on the big climbs by settinga really hard pace rather than pure tempo like Skineos
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Since we are commenting on the commentators and we clearly got the same feed as you guys in NZ / Aussie - I thought this was the best commentary pair performance for quite some time.
If you're interested in some background on this pairing at the TDF this year, there's an interesting read here:
Commentating the Tour de France is an Ironman sport
Inside one day of the hardest job in sports commentary.
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@Billy-Webb said in 2019 Tour de France:
Since we are commenting on the commentators and we clearly got the same feed as you guys in NZ / Aussie - I thought this was the best commentary pair performance for quite some time.
If you're interested in some background on this pairing at the TDF this year, there's an interesting read here:
Commentating the Tour de France is an Ironman sport
Inside one day of the hardest job in sports commentary.
That's a pretty good piece right there. It underpins why the pairing has grown on me, and why I rate them as about as objective as they can get. One thing I took away from Keenan is that he's taken a lead from Benaud in letting the visuals tell the happenings but commenting on the backgrounds, the why and hows, not the whats
