Is Cavendish the Lance Armstrong of Sprinters

I’m thinking from a fan’s perspective. Here at PdC, we all “generally” like (the spring classics) and dislike (Stephan Schumacher) the same things. The two topics I think people are really split on is there love/disdain of Armstron and Cav. You have people that absolutely love these riders, and others that can’t stand them.

I am very confident saying that. Without the teams, they maybe wouldn’t have won as much, but they were still the best at what they did. Combine that with awesome teams, and they were dominant.

bagging an Olsen twin.

or when he simply finishes the Tour

Talking about sprinting specifically, Cav is dominant. Boonen was never really dominant, you always had McEwen and Peta around to spoil the party. Not so anymore.

I probably can’t comment. I never got bored watching Lance win, and I don’t find it boring watching Cav win. But I enjoy watching excellence. Even if there is a level of predicatability to it.

If I didn’t like Cav, it might be hard for me to be excited about tomorrows stage, even though GHH is going to win it.

Sprinters are only dominant for a short period of time. Plus, sprinters separate easily into flat sprinters and sort-of-climby sprinters.

The last two dominant sprinters were Peta and Cipo. Cipo seemed to last a while at the top of his game; Peta not so much. Both were long-leadout, flat-finish, maximum speed guys. (People forget easily, but Peta’s beautiful aero sprinting form was a sight to see back in the day.) Cav seems to be another guy in that mold, with maybe a bit more acceleration (or weaker competition).

Cav won’t last long enough as the dominant sprinter to cause the kind of fan antipathy that Armstrong did/does. Then he’ll have to reinvent himself, and we can judge him based on that—-will be be the next Zabel? the next Boonen?—-my bet is that he’ll find his own place.

and that if he caught fire, he’d burn for a thousand days…

well, there’s nothing very interesting about blind love or hatred. Maybe in clan warfare or Shakespeare. But in sports, you have to dig deeper into the action or nobody will care what you have to say.

Mind you, that doesn’t extend to extended rhapsodies about watching riders do what they do best. Some skills are worth watching endlessly, and gushing over. But as you point out, that’s pretty much automatic for a cycling fan, absent a “hate” issue with a particular rider.

I watched the “Tony through the team cars” clip several times. If they had done two or three more replays of today’s Cav win, I could have watched them all, and probably would have noticed a few more things each time. Same with an inspired Schleck bro’s tag-team in the spring, or the moment that Chavanel or, yes, Devo (otherwise a rider of no great subtlety) turns a slight wiggle and a look of distracted misdirection into a power-jump for a solo break that never gets caught. Contador climbing? Yes, that too.

I somehow miss the subtlety and skill in Boonen’s wins (I don’t know if it isn’t there, or if I’m not looking for it because I don’t expect to see it—I see a big guy who can muscle to the front and keep chugging, which is impressive but not instructive). That’s why I don’t get much out of his wins. The old Armstrong, on the other hand, was perhaps too subtle for me—everything was so planned and smooth that the team basically worked as a unit, not a collection of personalities. I couldn’t muster much interest anymore than I could get thrilled about watching a metal and glass train pick up speed on a track—it’s cool, it’s satisfying on some level, but not edgy or compelling. Now that the team dynamic is more dysfunctional and out in the open, I’m getting a lot more out of Armstrong’s riding.

On paper, Cav has the same strategy at each sprint in some sense, but it plays out differently in the details. I can know he’s there, I can know he will somehow win, but I still can’t necessarily figure out, short of teleporting, exactly how he’s going to jump and end up at the front. I have to assume that this unpredectability, as well as his insane legs and panther-leap attitude, play a role in his ability to win. (Or maybe I’m slow, and everyone else can forsee his path, but still can’t do anything about it.) When the process, as well as the conclusion, becomes “ho hum,” I may stop watching (or he may stop winning).

Regardless, I’d hate to mistake those transcendent moments for actual insight into their lives. You can like to watch someone ride because you like them as a person. That makes sense. But to like someone as a person because you like to watch them ride… that’s different. It sets you up for defending the Antequil’s of the world.

Because it’s not as difficult as some would like to think. After all, Petacchi won a few years ago.

The question is whether inevitability makes a stage (or a race) not worth watching. And whether you resent a rider for making something (a stage or a race) inevitable, presuming that the inevitability does, indeed, interfere with your commitment to viewing said stage or race.

Maybe we’re looking for a correlation here:

a) disliked lance (entire tour) for inevitability, dislike cav (single stages) for the same reason
b) liked lance for the inevitability, like cav for the inevitability
c) liked lance for whatever reason, dislike cav
d) disliked lance for whatever reason, like cav

There are plenty of other options, of course, if you include “conflicted” and “meh” for either / both riders, Given that not everyone actually is as polarized as the discussion might suggest. And once you include “hate him, but it’s not because of the mastery, it’s because I think he’s a prick,” the multiple choice gets very long indeed.

Harumph! Harumph! Hey, I didn’t get a “harumph” out of that guy!

… yep.. that’s a new one to me :)

Soooooooooo wrong. I’ve heard this said and implied so many times and it simply isn’t true. Cav has many times won on his own and improvised and bobbed and weaved to win races. When it was seen how damn fast and talented the kid was then a team got together and built a train for him. And wasn’t today considered an uphill sprint?

As far as his development goes, the sprinting part is there so no easing off is necessary there. What he may accomplish over the years to came like in the classics, yes, we’ll wait and see how that development goes.

(Freire)

When he won Gent Wevelgem, 2 stages at the Tour including on the Champs and 17 races overall…

no matter how long Cav’s palmares get he is going to have to win about 300+ races to super-cede 5 monument titles and counting… If you look at Boonen’s palmares they are of considerable length as well and in his first two “big years” he won 31 races (post tour crits not included) which included a Roubaix, Flanders, and World Title…all before 25