Cav ** May contain spoilers **

[Beebo]

So Cav is now level with Hinault and 6 behind Merckx. But both these guys won Yellow, Green and Polka jerseys.
Hinault won loads of ITT's and Merckx won plenty of mountain top finishes, which Cav will never win.

Can the older and wiser members explain how this was possible? Were the points systems different? Are riders now bred for a single job, ie sprinter, climber, because the age of the all rounder seems to have gone, there is no way that any current rider could win all 3 jerseys over the course of their career.

 

[smutchin]

A quick Google shows Gerrans taking kids up when he took pink at the Giro, and Lance also did it

I'm sure I remember Cuddles posing with his kid on the podium in Paris. (Edit: google says it was in Italy, not France.)

 

[suzeworld]

So Cav is now level with Hinault and 6 behind Merckx. But both these guys won Yellow, Green and Polka jerseys.
Hinault won loads of ITT's and Merckx won plenty of mountain top finishes, which Cav will never win.

Can the older and wiser members explain how this was possible? Were the points systems different? Are riders now bred for a single job, ie sprinter, climber, because the age of the all rounder seems to have gone, there is no way that any current rider could win all 3 jerseys over the course of their career.

I dont think it is new for sprinters to be a class apart in this sort of stage race. Back in the day Cipolinni used to blast out a few wins in the first week then GO HOME. he never even tried to hang on to get a win in Paris!

It is very easy for a single rider to win polka dot and yellow ... the GC leader stays near the front and scoops plenty of moutain points ... the polka dot sometimes worn by the guy who was second in that classement cos the guy who was first is in yellow, which takes precedence in the ride. Think at the end they can win more than one jersey, pretty sure Froome got both last year.

The green thing seems to me to have always been a compensation shirt for the all rounder type ... and they do change the rules about how the points for that are awarded quite often. It suits riders like Zabel and Sagan who are punchy, strong, quite good at lots of things but not supreme in any of them.

I guess the way that teams work like machines now limits the opportunities of individuals acheiving random success on different aspects of the discipline. Armstrong masterminded that machine approach and we see it more in other teams now, too.

I also think there is a courtesy in the peleton that you don't chase more than one jersey, so the tour leader COULD get green, but with a team to focus on the GC you dont chase the individual intermediate sprints etc, to scoop those points, which you COULD do, but why bother? it preserves your energy for the main prize. Also it is a sort of sharing the the three weeks of honours ... perhaps?

Dont forget cycling racers often forge alliances across teams etc to gain advantage like in breakaways, or who is going to work at the front to chase down breaks. They are used to some co-operation.

This year, my view is that if any one is going to beat Froome/SKY machine the other GC guys will need to work like a team against him to push him down the ranks, before they fight it out between themselves.

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

Oops wrong thread.

 

[lutonloony]

Itv were saying that if you ignored individual TT then cav was ahead of Hinault. They might as well have said if you ignored flat stages where his team had led him to the line cav had no wins

 

[martint235]

Itv were saying that if you ignored individual TT then cav was ahead of Hinault. They might as well have said if you ignored flat stages where his team had led him to the line cav had no wins

What they are trying to say is that Cav is by far the best TdF sprinter of all time which is true as Merckx and Hinault won stages that weren't sprints and of a kind Cav is never going to win.

 

[lutonloony]

What they are trying to say is that Cav is by far the best TdF sprinter of all time which is true as Merckx and Hinault won stages that weren't sprints and of a kind Cav is never going to win.

Was a bit tongue in cheek, obviously he is the best, and unlike the clown Cippolini finishes the tour

 

[smutchin]

Were the points systems different?

The points competition changes all the time and to say Merckx and Hinault are the only riders to win both Green and Yellow isn't the whole story - it overlooks the fact that in the early days of the Tour (from the third edition onwards, I think), the overall winner was decided by a points system, but they changed it back to a time classification after Eugene Christophe was robbed of the overall victory he deserved in 1912 by the sprinter Odile Defraye.

When they brought the points classification back in 1953, as a separate competition, the scoring was initially penalty points for riders outside the top places, so the rider with the fewest points was the winner. The intermediate sprints didn't come until later.

When Merckx won all three* jerseys in 1969, he didn't win any sprint stages - but he did win three time trials and three mountain stages. That was also the year Barry Hoban won back-to-back stages, but he didn't even finish in the top ten in the points competition. In fact, there's a noticeable lack of recognised 'sprinters' in the top ten of the points classification that year. So clearly the race was very different in those days and the points competition favoured consistent all-rounders rather than pure sprinters. It was changed a few years ago with the unabashed aim of giving Cav a chance to win and IIRC one of the changes was dropping the intermediate sprints, so it was purely down to stage finishes.

If you look at the final points classification in recent years, the main GC riders are always near the top just by virtue of the points they pick up in the mountain stages. Some GC riders have a very fast finish but there's too much at stake for them to risk getting involved in fighting it out with the pure sprinters, so they tend to stay out of it (notwithstanding that they're always tussling for a spot near the front of the peloton to avoid getting caught out by crashes). Plus as @suzeworld says, there's an element of etiquette - letting the riders with no GC ambitions have a chance at a consolation prize. Not that Merckx or Hinault would have ever countenanced such lily-livered behaviour.

*four, if you include the combination classification

 

[martint235]

Was a bit tongue in cheek, obviously he is the best, and unlike the clown Cippolini finishes the tour

There was something about Cipp though. He knew that in a flat sprint no one could touch him and although he obviously took it seriously he kind of gave the impression that he didn't and that it was all a bit of a joke. I was always a bit sad to see him go home but you always knew he would.

How would he have fared in today's tour, for example today we heading upwards and it's only Weds. I think his sponsors would have been miffed if he didn't make it to Saturday.

 

[smutchin]

Cipo in his prime was phenomenal to watch. And to be fair, he was more interested in the Giro, which he did finish several times.

Hard to separate them in terms of achievement. Both won Milan-Sanremo. Both wore the Rainbow jersey. Cav has won the points competition in all three Grand Tours compared to Cipo winning the Giro points classification three times. Hard to see Cav going on to win 42 Tour stages, but that's partly because Grand Tours have changed - you won't get anyone replicating Cipo's achievement of winning four Tour stages in a row simply because we're unlikely to see four pure sprinters' stages in a row these days (also Cipo never wasted his time fannying about on the track).

 

[brommers]

sure Froome got both last year

Yes he did win KOM

 

[Hont]

IIRC one of the changes was dropping the intermediate sprints, so it was purely down to stage finishes.

Sort of. They dropped having three intermediate sprints with small points on offer to have only one with much larger points.

I remember Prudhomme being delighted with this change as you had almost full lead outs for the intermediate sprints whereas before the breakaway had hoovered up all the points so the peloton just rolled through. The sprinter's teams don't quite commit such resources to it now, but that's probably because everyone expects Sagan to win green anyway and they just go through the motions in case he abandons.

 

[brommers]

I'd like to thank Cav for giving us plenty of excitement over the past couple of weeks. Still at the top of his game and I hope he gets the medal he's dreamt of at the Olympics.

 

[Adam4868]

Given his commitment to the Quebeka cause, he will be there to the
Finish. He regrets quitting the tour in 2008 for the Olympics and can't see him doing it again

Didn't think he would,but he did well ..

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

I see that Cavendish has been diagnosed with glandular fever
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mark-cavendish-diagnosed-with-epstein-barr-virus/