Jump to content

Mark Cavendish leaves Tour de France


News bot

Recommended Posts

Mark Cavendish is to parts ways with the Tour de France to focus on his preparations for the Rio Olympic Games. Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka issued a statement reflecting on what has been a most successful Tour de France.



Click here to view the article
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 40
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

I knew it was coming when he had no chance of getting the green jersey and the mountains were getting tougher.

He has ridden a good tour so Im sure the 4 wins he got were enough for him and Rio is his big focus for now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do not like this at all.  If a rider leaves a tour, any tour for that matter, just because, he should lose all record of the tour in question, including any wins against his name, or his team's name.

 

Lost respect... Not cool. :thumbdown:

Edited by The Commuter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do not like this at all.  If a rider leaves a tour, any tour for that matter, just because, he should lose all record of the tour in question, including any wins against his name, or his team's name.

 

Lost respect... Not cool. :thumbdown:

Shows you how much you know about cycling

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im not a fan of him... for other reasons.  

 

Two nights ago he claimed on a Belgian tv show that he is focused on Paris and feeling very strong.  Now this.  However, Im not naive, so I think there were pressure put on him from British cycling to exit.

 

It is a Olympic year... so I guess even the TDF has to take a backstep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fair play. He's taken 4 stages, the mountain coming up are going to nothing for his tilt at Gold and knowing his desire to win in Paris it can't have been an easy decision. Cav' is a rider that respects races and their history but this is he last chance to fill that one hole in his record.

His year has been sterling so far and especially for Team DD. He's taken a World Champ', some overall stage races, silenced the people who had buried him last year, show Dougie Ryder to be very shrewd about running his team, killed it in TDF, worn the Yellow Jersey, worn the Green Jersey and now head's to Rio. Where are the other contenders for the Olympic Track medals? Fine tuning, not riding up the Alps and not done 16 hard days of a grand tour.

Ask most riders if they are going to quit then they say 'nope', it's a way of avoiding the same Q's and speculation from the press, twitter and the rest of the spotlight. Plus he's much heavier due to track training and hasn't had the warm weather training sitting in Manchester velodrome. He needs to manage his recovery so he can go for gold and still have enough in the tank to swing for the World Champs in Dohar... That's a decent years work! 

Whether you like him or not the guy is champion, always speaks well about the team and his team mates, carries bottles on dom' duty etc. He's taken *** for the last couple of years and shown the naysayer his quality again this year. So a few more people trying to write him off for knee jerk reasons aren't going to do much apart from show themselves up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do not like this at all.  If a rider leaves a tour, any tour for that matter, just because, he should lose all record of the tour in question, including any wins against his name, or his team's name.

 

Lost respect... Not cool. :thumbdown:

 

you're being sarcastic right? no chance that was a serious comment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another factor is that the spirit stages up until now have been characterised by the fact that no one has managed to get a full bore sprint train running and working 100% well in the last 2kms. This has meant that Cav' has been able to duck and dive in the chaos after being dropped off by Renshaw etc and freelance his way to the line.

The run it to the Champs' is a very different scenario, the big open boulevards will be a massive battle between the big trains to get the first 4 wheels into the final corner. As good as they have been I don't think DD have got the fire power left (esp' with Renshaw gone) to mix it with Lotto, Ettix and the other players.

On balance, Cav' isn't going to be able to freelance his way to win that stage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another factor is that the spirit stages up until now have been characterised by the fact that no one has managed to get a full bore sprint train running and working 100% well in the last 2kms. This has meant that Cav' has been able to duck and dive in the chaos after being dropped off by Renshaw etc and freelance his way to the line.

 

The run it to the Champs' is a very different scenario, the big open boulevards will be a massive battle between the big trains to get the first 4 wheels into the final corner. As good as they have been I don't think DD have got the fire power left (esp' with Renshaw gone) to mix it with Lotto, Ettix and the other players.

 

On balance, Cav' isn't going to be able to freelance his way to win that stage.

 

I dunno.... He's been on Kittel's wheel almost as long as Qintana has been on Froome's!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So up front I don't get all the intricacies of the TDF.

 

It does however seem somewhat wrong for a sprinter to burn himself out on the sprinter type stages win a few than withdraw

 

Seems a bit like going flat out to get the strava KOM segment than getting a lift home with KOM bragging rights !   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So up front I don't get all the intricacies of the TDF.

 

It does however seem somewhat wrong for a sprinter to burn himself out on the sprinter type stages win a few than withdraw

 

Seems a bit like going flat out to get the strava KOM segment than getting a lift home with KOM bragging rights !   

I completely agree, if it's okay to race the first 2 weeks and then pull out before the big Alpine stages, why is it not okay to skip the Alpine stages and come in just to contest the final stage up the Champs Elysees? Hypothetical situation I know... but hopefully you get my point!

 

Just to be clear - I'm no fan of Cav. Would have far preferred to see Louis remain in the DD team (with some solid support climbers to assist)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Settings My Forum Content My Followed Content Forum Settings Ad Messages My Ads My Favourites My Saved Alerts My Pay Deals Help Logout