OK - Remco had a bad day today at the UAE tour. His tour is in jeopardy, he’s washed, he should retired. The European cycling press is in a furor.
I know this is nothing new and our sport is kinda defined by this type of angle, but I’m just so done with it. This type of catastrophizing erodes the trust that a journalist can provide meaningful analysis and generates a ton of alarm fatigue of us as readers.
I appreciate that EC has very little of this. We’ll talk about stage 3 of UAE on the pod then move one with the rest of our lives and Remco can go on being the good rider his is.
I agree, Dane gave a very measured assessment. The only aspect he didn’t bring up is that Remco really hasn’t ever shown commanding performances in stage racing on the big tests. Also he always seems to slump following a TT. Top rider and seems to be a good professional. Hasn’t cracked the secret to performing on the big climbs yet is all.
Not here to argue Remco is washed……that said, this happens to him more than any of the other top 5-6 stage racers.
Many of the others talk about bad days, days where they could only hold the wheels, or maybe lose 10-20 seconds in the final sprint to the line.
Remcos bad days seem to lead to multiple minute loses. Until he figures out a way to minimize the number of bad days and/or his ability to suffer through a bad day, I just don’t see him as a Tour winner.
first time poster here. This looks like a better bad day than usual for him. but agreed with the above - limiting the losses on a bad day is a definite must to be a grand tour guy in the era of Pogi/Vinge/and their super teams/and all the very close next gen talent (Seixas, Ayuso…). Of course Remco has won a grand tour and been a wrecking ball in Sepp’s Vuelta win and teh Giro before his covid positive. I’m also quite bullish (red bullish?) on his start this year and his world’s ride and euro champs ride last year. To keep Pogi that close in such brutal all races is something I think only Remco can do. Much like Pogi without MVDP (or vice versa) might have 5+ more monuments, I think that is true for Remco and he MAY still get to their level. Let’s see if Remco wreaks some havoc on the next hilltop finish (stage 6 - i think?).
