Saturday, February 20, 2010

Egoi close (as usual)

Breakaways are not Euskaltel's cup of tea. I can't remember the last time an Euskaltel rider came out on top from a break. It was the same story today. RadioShack rider Sébastien Rosseler broke away early on today's fourth stage in Algarve, and a quartet, including Egoi, went in pursuit later on. They almost caught him, Rosseler came in 20 seconds ahead of them, and the four of them were left to fight it out for the remaining podium places. No prizes for guessing who came in last. This might seem overly critical, after all he came in 5th, which is pretty good. But it's just so annoying to no rider in the team seem able to win from a break. Why is that? Is it down to finishing-speed, or lack thereof? Yes. Is it also down to a lack of tactical nous? Most probably, but I'm no expert, so I wont say that's definetely the case. Anyway... The rest of the guys came in with the pack, with Samu retaining his 4th place overall ahead of tomorrow's concluding time trial.

2 comments:

Bolsen3 said...

It seems like they need a little of the good old EPO to win from breakaways (Astarloza, anyone?) :P But in all seriousness, I think it's a combination of the two things you're mentioning: finishing speed and tactical smartness. The Euskaltel guys are not fast in general, and there will in most breakaways always be a couple of fast guys, so statistically they will loose more breakaway situations than many other teams. But they also seem to lack a lot in the tactically part of the game as well, will never forget the blunder Egoi made in the Tour 2008, allowing Gerrans to come back and win. Don't really know who, but someone should learn them a thing or two about cycling tactics!

Magnus said...

Yeah, definetely. They just seem to attack at the (obviously) wrong time in every break, if they are capable of attacking at all...

 

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