Pro-cycling thread

Lol

He’s Manx, not English you plum.

How many sprint stages are there? Could he do it?

Crash on stage 1.

It's been changed now, but without the usual Grauniad notice 'this article was edited on ... because ...'

*amey hastily edits his post to link to a picture featuring Manx flag-wavers*

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/about/article/Team-GB-Announce-Cycling-Team-Tokyo-2020-Olympics

Thomas, Yates x 2 and are brave Tao for the ‘lympics road race.

Thomas and are brave Tao for TT.

I know zero about track cycling - even less this year because there has been none. I was surprised to see Clancy keeps on trucking.

Hope he turns it into Taokyo. :)

So is Bennett definitely injured and not just dropped?

https://sporza.be/nl/2021/06/21/lefevere-twijfelt-aan-uitleg-bennett-ik-laat-dit-niet-zomaar-voorbijgaan~1624283739775/ (You can use google translate)

"I cannot prove that he does not have knee pain, but I am starting to think more and more that it is more fear of failure than just pain. Yesterday he had to come to Belgium, but then there were problems with his plane again. Then you start strange things to think. He'll have to come anyway. I'm not going to let this pass."

Lefevere not amused

Surely with that lead out dropping him off he’ll win a stage. I reckon I’d get one sat behind Morkov*.

• *obviously tongue in cheek.
  
  

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https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/sam-bennett-ruled-out-of-tour-de-france-through-injury-1.4599287

Sounds like knee injury meant he's been off bike and now can't hit the numbers he needs. Hard to say if this is dropped as Cav has been performing better than anyone expected, so I suppose they had quite a decision to make / someone came in with some extra Cav cash....

edit - didn't see extra stirring from Lefevere above.

Sounds like mind games . I feel for sam knee or no sore knee thats a lot of pressure to have pre tour.

You need to be able to handle squad competition in elite sports.

Quite. If you're rider is under so much pressure he can't face riding, throwing him under the bus is pretty shit. And if his knee isn't up to it, then it's not up to it. Poor person management whatever the true story is.

Really is a top shit head

Classy as ever for Lefevre to be gaslighting him over ‘performance anxiety’. I hope Bennett goes to Belgium and shoves the silly old bastard up against a wall.

Wow. That’s some next level sandbagging from J Williams to ensure a win.

Sagan to Total Direct Energie apparently: https://twitter.com/cirogazzetta/status/1406991226705006593?s=20

Is it really? I don't know his background, maybe it's like 3 generations ago and he qualifies. But maybe it's his mother or father's side and it's a part (maybe a small one) of his identity? Maybe it's not, in any case presumably he qualifies so it doesn't matter.

There are plenty of other sports where athletes have travelled far and adopted citizenship so they can feature at the highest level and compete against the best. There's plenty of examples from football and cricket, and probably a host of other sports I have no interest in.

It may be plain old sandbagging but if he has a shot at a world class international event then why not?

Sagan leaving the world tour for a pro conti team?

Y’avvinalaff.

Would love to see Sags at Delko, tho.

I just calls em like I sees em.

Looks like nothing more than big fish/small pond syndrome to me. But as we all know, our individual opinions are completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. If that’s the way he wants to go, then more power to him. I just couldn’t quite believe it seeing as how much he yaps on about being the ‘champ’ on social media.

Plenty of examples in cycling too. Felix English and Emily Kay have done it to get FT support and then Olympic berths for Ireland. Professional sport innit, do you what you can to maximise your results.

Could Belizean champ get him a ride at the Olympics?
Even just taking part would be a monumental achievement.

@leggy_blonde Froome too.

• legally
  

lol, in pro sport???