What they are doing right now, to me, is getting the most publicity they can during the part of the race that theoretically should have little effect on GC (Mayo might not agree with that, though). There is some risk in doing that. But with Voight and Piil off freelancing, they are getting plenty of exposure.
One point I forgot to mention is that I would bet in the next week, the tactics of Riis will change to focus more on Sastre and Basso than what we've been seeing so far.
"alex" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
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I could only see some sprinters and C. Moreau in the second group. Does anybody undertand whatCSC was trying (other thta appear in front of the camera)?
I think they were trying to split the field just as they did. Unfortunately, the cross winds let up and it wasn't possible to hold that gap. They used the same tactics to great effect during Paris-Nice, putting five minutes (I believe) on the field during one stage. If they could've done the same on the Tour stage, Sastre, Basso, or Julich would have put in doubt Lance's coronation.
"Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
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"Howard Kveck" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
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In article <[email hidden]>,
John Forrest Tomlinson said:
On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 08:45:43 -0700, "Chris" <[email hidden]> wrote: >Something some can't let go. It let's you know how "in-the-know" they
are
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>about doping rumors and cycling in general.
Even if he was doped to the gills in his heyday, he is clearly an aggressive and clever leader too.
I definitely agree with this, but there really isn't a lot of evidence that he was doped, just rumors and speculation. The main source for the doping speculation seems to be because he "came out of nowhere" to win the Tour. But if you look at his palmares, you can see a gradual progression. Everything before the '96 season was ridden as a domestique, too. http://www.trap-friis.dk/cykling/hof/danmark.Riis.htm
That being said, however, I am not saying that he was 100% clean. But I don't know for sure that he did use. The fact that he rode for Gewiss in their heyday does lend some suspicion to the question.
This is a pretty good discussion about this subject. I don't think that the "coming out of nowhere" theory holds any water at all since he was in the top ten for a couple of years.
And regardless of what he did then, the only thing under discussion now is what he is doing now. And he seems to be getting far more out of riders than any other DS. Since Bobby Julich is Mr. Clean (he's one of those guys who wants to eat only "organic" vegetables without any hint of chemicals about them and that sort of thing) I don't believe that Riis is getting results by putting his riders on better dope.
As John says, I think that Bjarne Riis is a clever and intelligent DS who can motivate his men. I also think that one of the ways he does that is by not forcing the team to ride for a single leader but instead let's them go for their own victories. The down side of that is that his team will never compete in the GC because of that. On the other hand, they really don't have any leader capable of seriously challenging for the GC anyway so they might as well have riders in breaks and going for stage wins anyway.
So far CSC has had the effect of a cream pie in the face of each player at a poker match.
It's certainly entertaining, but makes me wonder if they really don't have some ulterior motive behind Voigt and Piil attacking and probably Sastre and Basso doing the same thing in the mountains. Smart move of Postal to let Brioches slave away to hold onto the Maillot Jaune.
"Mapei81" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
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they really don't have any leader capable of seriously challenging for the GC anyway so they
might
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as well . . .
Basso? Hasn't he been top 10 before, and done well in one of the other
GTs,
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too? I guess it depends on how conservatively one interprets "seriously challenging" . . .
Not knocking Ivan at all. He's a good rider but not up to winning a Tour yet though I think that in another couple of years he's going to be dangerous.
