Not sure how much use he'll be in that given he dropped out of the TT due to a lack of form. Sadly Cavendish's year aside, GB have a pretty awful record in the Worlds, especially given their exceptionally strong showing over the years.
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Not sure how much use he'll be in that given he dropped out of the TT due to a lack of form. Sadly Cavendish's year aside, GB have a pretty awful record in the Worlds, especially given their exceptionally strong showing over the years.
lichfieldblue
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He ain't got much left to win. Would have been a magnificent last hurrah to win this, but difficult to criticise given how much effort must have gone into finishing 2nd at the Tour.
Disgruntledgoat
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Apart from Cav, we've never really had a route that suited a rider... Wiggins won a TT worlds and was on the podium a couple of times, Millar too (discounting his win, obvs).
The point I was making was that GB's top riders generally do show up to the worlds... Froome, Thomas, Cav, Stannard, Cummings etc have always rocked up and done their job.
Disgruntledgoat
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He hasn't got the form and it ain't his course... GVA or VDP for me.
lichfieldblue
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He's never had the form post Tour. As I say, difficult to criticise, but if there was one year....
Can't really see where Thomas goes from here. Fantastic career and all.
I've never had a sense that Froome and Thomas have ever turned up for the Worlds (TT aside). The one that sticks out for me was the 2013 race that Rui Costa won in Italy. A real climbers course and Froome had won pretty much every race he entered that year, plus of course Wiggins was 2012 Tour winner, yet it peed down with rain and no GB rider made it past half way. An awful showing, led by Wiggins who continued his awful performances in the rain at that year's Giro by leading the abandonment..
Disgruntledgoat
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Wiggo was in total CBA mode that year. Felt sky had screwed him and didn't want to be there.
I think the way BC are, the riders need a "project" to buy into like Cav in 2010 and in the middle east (2014?) , that was a great performance by everybody.
Hopefully Pidcock can be the guy to focus on for the next 10 years.
I'm all in for Gregskse next weekend (cos my girlfriend owns a bar in Belgium...)
their downturn in performance coincided with team skys inception
Disgruntledgoat
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Umm... no it didn't. A few years before Team Sky you had riders and coaches getting banned from the national team for life for taking money to ride for the Italians in the early part of the race.
Post Team Sky you have one win and one podium. Pre team sky you have one win (1965) and no podiums. GB have always been rubbish at the worlds.
theres been a downward trend since team sky really got going and brailsford split from his dual role and his sole focus became sky. sky riders pull out of europeans, worlds and classics, and if they do show barely look interested
Disgruntledgoat
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Apart from the 2 world championships on the road sky riders have won... and the team of mainly sky riders who worked for Cav in both his podium finishes. Froome had a go in Ponteferrada, Thomas was active in Richmond.
Theres a lot to dislike about Brailsford, but this gripe doesn't stack up. Like I say, the bottom of the barrel has to be Tom Southam and Peter Keen getting life bans for taking bribes on the road, surely.
active in richmond, 'had a go' world class efforts them haha!
cav won the world champs in 2011, i think brailsford left team gb around 2013, his interest in their success was ended and the attitude towards their national cycling at team sky changed, I really don't think thats a big reach
Disgruntledgoat
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I think you're looking in the wrong place. Sky riders who arent British have frequently turned in good performances at the worlds and their British riders have made up the bulk of the GB squad. If you dont like them, fair enough, but GB have always never been one of the big hitters at the Worlds as we simply dont have one day riders of that quality...
But I'm happy to agree to disagree.
yeah, really looking forward to bernals big performance at the worlds this year
On a course that 'should' suit him, Simon Yates is another noticeable absentee. Ineos probably made him or something. The lack of classics success is a shame, but they are primarily a GT team, and are up against either a Belgian superteam who focus their season on the classics, or a bunch of once in a generation riders (Cancellara, Sagan, VDP et al). You 'could' argue that they could have a better go at the hilly classics, but looking at the winners of those, it 'tends' to be guys like Nibali and Valverde who aren't really top drawer GC contenders any more but are fantastic racers. I'd love to see Thomas turn into that kind of rider in his final years, but he crashes so often I'm not sure it's really him. Say what you like about Nibali and Valverde but they're both exceptionally smart racers. I thought Adam Yates might evolve into that kind of rider after he broke through at San Sebastian a few years ago, but he's stagnated a bit lately.