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We have almost certainly seen the best of Cavendish but it is becoming a bit tiring to see how armchair critics continue to use him as a human punching bag. As this topic is about TDD why not rather focus on the non performances of Gasporotto or O'Conner who lost 15-21 minutes respectively yesterday on a course that was supposed to suit them instead of abusing a sprinter who pulled out in order to freshen up for an upcoming championship race?

Based on his performances over the last few years a top 20 overall finish at the Vuelta will be a very good result for him.. a top 30 is probably more realistic. O Conner is also not living up to the hype. The rider from TDD who has made the most progress this year who I can think of is Stefan de Bod. Perhaps because there were not much expectations or hype.

He managed a 3rd overall in Austria ....not bad at all... 70 UCI points.

A place that produced the Beatles and Steven Gerrard cannot be that bad can it?

She is not a Scouse. I think you might confuse her with Coleen Rooney Not that there is anything wrong with Liverpool. YNWA.

We are dealing with human emotions ..... top champions in any sport are very seldom the meek and mild type who just accept things and "go quietly into the night". A person needs to put him or herself into Cavendish's shoes.... the massive effort that he put in to beat the sickness and to be in a position to try and challenge for the record and then this disappointment. Also the fact that the team selection was obviously not straight forward , in fact the performance director and team principle are now contradicting themselves in the media about the issue. Also the fact that other non - performers were selected for the team. I am not saying the decision to drop him from the team was wrong but I can understand the reaction of his camp and in some media circles. There are no winners here and that include Doug Ryder who should have managed this issue much better.

This bloke played a key part in 3 out of the 4 stages that Mark Cavendish won during the 2016 TdF. Why should he have retired then? It is not his fault that things went haywire for Cavendish from then on.

True, but as the overall decision maker who hires and fires staff including riders Doug has also not covered himself in any glory specially over the last year.

You made very fair points. I did not think of Cummings as a second road captain so in that sense there is perhaps logic in his selection. Interesting though is that (according to the press) Rolf Aldag wanted Cav to be in the team but was overruled by Doug. I wonder what that is all about as one would expect the performance director to be on top of stuff such as training data etc in order to be in the best position to make such a call? Anyway, lets see how it goes.

Personally I think Doug Ryder stuffed up here. If current form is the yardstick I can understand that he left Cav out ... but how can he then justify the inclusion of a 39 year old rider (Cummings) who has hardly finished a stage race this season never mind getting a decent result in one. His third place in a watered down British ITT competition during which he beat exactly 4 World tour riders surely cannot count for much. I wont be surprised if sponsors soon start to walk away from this sad lot.

So, I’ll see that I’ll be having another holiday in France – three weeks! It’s going to be perfect - Michael Valgren on his selection for the TdF team

According to an article in the latest SA Bicycling Magazine Meintjes more or less confirmed that he does not have the power to go on sustained and successful attacks and therefore he just follows hoping for the others to fade. His honesty is refreshing but the contend of the article does not give me any confidence that he will win a stage

I saw Eddy came third in the Norwegian ITT yesterday. He was going for his 10th win of that title so the result is a bit of a disappointment I guess. Maybe he was on a mtb with slicks in order to give the others a chance

Meintjes or Cummings will be the best for that purpose.

As there are hardly any riders from TDD who have covered themselves in glory this year I will rather take a rider like Cav to the tour as his super star status will at least draw attention to the team.

The only change I would make to that list is to replace Meintjes with Nizzolo.

Nizzo is not the greatest sprinter in the world but he is very consistent and probably deserves a spot in the TDD TdF squad at this stage.

I honestly do not think they have any "young hungry guys" capable to pull off a TdF victory. IMO the only riders in the team who are capable of getting a stage win in the TdF are Eddy, Cav, Ben King and perhaps Kreuzinger. They are taking a strong sprint team to the Tour of Slovenia and hopefully Cav will get a result there to boost his confidence.If he don't get at least some sort of a result there I will rather take Nizzolo to the TdF as the main sprinter. At least the vibe towards the team (and hopefully also the vibe within the team) seems to be a bit more positive after the good performances of Eddy over the last few weeks.

Bora has done exceptionally well and has managed more wins this year alone than TDD managed since Dimention Data became the title sponsor in 2016. I assume they have a much bigger budget though?

Since 2016 TDD managed 16 wins in total at World Tour Level. 10 of these wins were during 2016. Cav- 5 EBH-4 Cummings-4 Ben King- 2 Fraile - 1

If Cav gets any result in the Tour of Slovenia (starting on 19 June) he is a certainty for the TdF.

Perhaps, with the exception of Vermote, the riders selected to support EBH at this race are just not good enough to be competitive at this high level of racing even if they try.

Nick Dlamini also abandoned.

My point to Patch was that TDD (EBH) do not have to enter amateur events such as Panorama as they are fully capable to win at races that include top international stars (such as Alex Kristoff in the Tour of Norway).

The BMC bikes did not stop Rohan Dennis from winning the world time trial championships last year, neither did it stop Greg van Avermaet from winning numerous races. I reckon we must look somewhere else.