Hi! Love the newsletter. Two things - 1) is there a BTP discord?
2) I have a theory about pogacar’s behaviour. Compare him to Max Verstappen (equivalent age and talent level). Max is aggressive and angry in close races - but the nicest man in the world when he is miles ahead in first place. Pogacar loves an attack, a feint, a sprint just for fun and a close victory. if the win comes too, even better (see comments after Milan San Remo). Max loves to win, but Pogacar loves to RACE. That’s why he is so grumpy. They should let him be him and race (or in more grownup terms - you get your best performance when you allow athletes to embrace their built in talents). Poor pogi.
I have to agree that the beginning of the stage looks tempting for alpecin to make it hard for groves to take the intermediate sprint and tire his rivals for the finish sprint. But all that flat before the final will likely dull the effect of their efforts. Gotta be a Milan power win, unless Groves can come off his wheel in the last few meters as Kooij did in Naples.
Yeah it’s a lot of flat, which would certainly give me second thoughts about trying something if I was Alpecin. On the other hand, they’ve been so aggressive with the sprint points, I wonder if they’ve just decided that only the most aggressive strategy is worth pursuing since Milan will run away with the jerseys otherwise.
I'd like to know specifically if INIOS was one of those teams complaining to UAE about their aggressive riding. I'd have thought they'd be perhaps one team which would encourage it.
Hi! Love the newsletter. Two things - 1) is there a BTP discord?
2) I have a theory about pogacar’s behaviour. Compare him to Max Verstappen (equivalent age and talent level). Max is aggressive and angry in close races - but the nicest man in the world when he is miles ahead in first place. Pogacar loves an attack, a feint, a sprint just for fun and a close victory. if the win comes too, even better (see comments after Milan San Remo). Max loves to win, but Pogacar loves to RACE. That’s why he is so grumpy. They should let him be him and race (or in more grownup terms - you get your best performance when you allow athletes to embrace their built in talents). Poor pogi.
Hey, thanks!
There is a discord (link below), but I have got out of the habit of checking it and feel quite a bit of anxiety and guilt about my neglect of it.
https://discord.com/invite/znh2MkxbE2
I have to agree that the beginning of the stage looks tempting for alpecin to make it hard for groves to take the intermediate sprint and tire his rivals for the finish sprint. But all that flat before the final will likely dull the effect of their efforts. Gotta be a Milan power win, unless Groves can come off his wheel in the last few meters as Kooij did in Naples.
Yeah it’s a lot of flat, which would certainly give me second thoughts about trying something if I was Alpecin. On the other hand, they’ve been so aggressive with the sprint points, I wonder if they’ve just decided that only the most aggressive strategy is worth pursuing since Milan will run away with the jerseys otherwise.
I'd like to know specifically if INIOS was one of those teams complaining to UAE about their aggressive riding. I'd have thought they'd be perhaps one team which would encourage it.