When teammates turn traitor - Bridie O'Donnell blogs on the TdF
"All the hoo-ha about gentlemen's agreements and attacking the yellow jersey. I'd be more worried about a ruthless and disgruntled teammate sabotaging my chances in the third week of the Tour."
Bridie rides for Valdarno, and I'm loving her blogs on the TdF
almost 2 years ago
Sarah Connolly
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meh
Ladies and gentlemen: the story you have just heard is true. Only the facts have been changed to protect the innocent
Both the Cunego and Vino stories are half truths at best.
wrt the vino story...
Did not Contador know exactly what he was getting by resigning with Astana when Vino was coming back? I also view Vino as being quite complementary to Conta in this TDF. Vino’s attacking allows Conta to bide his time. To me, they are working as excellent compliments and will be one reason why Conta (if his luck holds and he doesn’t have a bad day) will likely win this tour…
I agree with you... I'm a fan of Bridie, but this is not her best work IMO... Jens will love it :)
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
My bad... I'm reassured you weren't impressed... but did you think Bridie was too kind about Vino?
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Her version of Vino/Bert relationship
is so obviously false. It’s been proven over and over by now. The Vino vs. Jan et.al. is also grossly exaggerated. By all accounts they got along fine even after Vino’s less than stellar teamtactics.
That was my thought too... I'm wondering what planet she's living on at the moment..
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Why is Gadret still riding?
You simply cannot disobey your DS. Gadret should have been removed from the race by his team.
I seem to recall a race in 1987, an Italian one I think, in which a rider disobeyed is DS and his DS shoulda chucked hm off the team, as the disobedience hurt the team’s leader. What was that race? The rider’s name began with an R, I’m pretty sure of that.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
So you're saying
that following the examples of big Pat and R senior we should see John Gadret on the UCI board in a few years?
Not all teams have that kind of extreme hierarchy
I’m not saying Gadret was right, but Roche demanded his wheel. Some team captains earn respect through their leadership and results. I don’t think Roche has done that yet. So, when he treats Gadret like a servile underling, he got back the respect that he had earned.
Again, I’m not saying Gadret was right, but I do have a lot of sympathy for him. He’s got good legs and is the leading French rider. All of a sudden, his teammate is demanding that he sacrifice his good form to defend 14th place on the podium. That is a lot to stomach, and given the view we’ve had into Roche’s people skills, I can see why he hasn’t made enough friends to get the support his thinks he deserves.
Vlaanderens Mooiste
Though, being the leading French rider when you're barely top 20 is just sad
And not much to go after. He should be stage hunting, and since he didn’t have any chance to win the stage he could just as well given Roche the wheel.
Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...
by TheFigurehead on Jul 21, 2010 2:51 PM EDT up reply actions
I do not think Gadret is the leading French rider
I seem to recall that Nicolas Roche had dual citizenship (IRL and FR) until 2005 at which time he declared for France – his mother is French. This means the top French rider is, drum roll please, Mr. Roche.
Now if Gadret is culturally implying that Nicolas is not French enough. . . that is kinda reveling.
If Roche is French how come he raced this year in the Irish nat champs jersey and won’t be wearing it nxt yr cause he got beaten for it in a sprint?
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
huh
The Cunego-Simoni thing, that’s long over. They kissy-kissed and made up last winter, the winter before? I forget.
Vino and Gadret are such despicable vile human beings...
of course they are…this article really doesn’t do much justice to the complexities of such situations. I would think a professional cyclist would understand that teammate relationships can be bumpy and difficult at times. Vino is Vino, he’s gonna attack, his team knows that by now, and its worked well. gadret’s been a valuable team helper who had a selfish moment, but I think Lavenu has effectively put him in his place. Both team problems may be overstated by the media (and maybe us too) for the purposes of sensationalism.
"You know if there's any contact at all Cristiano Ronaldo's gonna go down...maybe even just a puff of wind"
Yeah
I don’t think we’d even hear about this if Roche didn’t have an English language blog.
Vlaanderens Mooiste
When the media is writing about squabbles between two pack fill riders . . .
. . . . you know the stages have been a bit boring.
Ooh, a guy from Ireland is bickering about how a guy from France is not helping him.
Roche, dood; seriously if your reading this.
You’re on a French team, in a Glacially Huge French Race and the guy you happen to be pissy with is French and 2 minutes down from you.
HTFU will ‘ya.
Or closer to six minutes
But who’s counting, eh?
Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...
by TheFigurehead on Jul 23, 2010 4:14 AM EDT up reply actions
General classifiation after stage 17
15 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale 0:16:00
17 John Gadret (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:17:59
Ha!
Do you really think you should look at the gap right now, and not the actual gap after stage 14 (5 minutes and 47 seconds, btw)? That’s funny.
Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...
by TheFigurehead on Jul 23, 2010 5:38 AM EDT up reply actions
I wonder what part of French Team, French Guy in a Glacially Huge French Race did you guys miss?
Da’ Fig – Yes, in fact the GC standing after stage 17 does matter in the context of this issue; and the GC after the TT will matter even more simply because Roches’ hissy fit will be looked upon as just that.
If he could have grabbed the race by the bit and made something of it, he would have; but in the end what did he do?
A whole lotta’ nothin’, and then found a convenient excuse to publicly railroad a teammate for making the decision not to help his team leader battle it out for the glory of top 15.
Shit man, Horner has been pacing the Dark Helmet and getting Coke this whole time and he’s in the Top 10!
Roche needs to do less whining and just HTFU.
Still laughable
I’ve haven’t heard anything from Roche on this since that rant 4 days ago. Maybe he’s been busy doing other stuff, like riding his bike in that race where he’s the team leader. And top 15 happened to be the goal in that race, which Gadret choose to ignore on his own quest for nothingness. So yes, the reason why Rochde had a “hissy fit” was because his team mate decided to screw him over, the same team mate that was almost 6 minutes behind and achieving even less than Roche. Perhaps Gadret should’ve stopped to throw Roche’s bike out from a cliff and gain even more time. Gadret is after all French, and it’s a French race. Don’t take into account that Vincent Lavenu had his own “hissy fit”, please.
And you can’t have seen too much of the Tour if you believe that Horner has been babysitting Armstrong. Horner is pretty much riding for himself, and the team classification.
Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...
by TheFigurehead on Jul 24, 2010 5:02 AM EDT up reply actions
Top 15 was Roche’s goal. But as you’ll have noted from the number of AG2R riders in breaks, stage wins were also a prime goal. And when Lavenu asked Roche to go for a stage in on the slow day last week Roche demurred, finally agreeing only to make a little attack in the final ten or fiftenn klicks. For some reason, the kid seems to think a forgettable GC position is more important than an unforgettable stage win.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
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