Paris-Roubaix 2012 **SPOILERS**

[raindog]

They dont really have a squad for the classics though do they ?

Who, Sky? Flecha's supposed to be their classics man, and EBH is a good one day rider, who was expected to do well in stuff like that, but.......

 

[tigger]

I'm interested in cycling not blindly supporting any particular national interest.

The fact remains that both by the standards they have publicly set themselves and by what one would have reasonably expected looking at their squad, the classics have not been a success for Sky. Now, they may well do better in the GTs other stage races to come - as they have already at Paris-Nice. We shall see. But at this stage Omega Pharma-Quickstep are kicking most other teams arses, also including as Raindog points out, BMC who also looked really something coming into this season. In any case there are still a few classics left for this all to change around...

Not sure if I'd agree with that. Other than OPQ (read Boonen) who else has had a resounding classics performance so far? Flecha's 4th at PR was pretty decent given a recent broken hand and the Sky team worked very hard at the front trying to bridge the gap to Boonen (failed admittedly). They brought the whole peloton back at the Tour of Flanders to get EBH back in contention. Some early season wins for Cav and EBH etc for the sprint/classic team. Cav's had mixed fortunes and was poor at MSR granted.

Then there's Wiggins and Paris-Nice. Porte winning the week before.

Sky were No 1 in the UCI team rankings and are currently 4th. Generally they figure as a team, if not always at the end individual result, in pretty much every race I've seen this season.

Other than signing Boonen, what else are they missing so far???

 

[rich p]

I agree with tigger. Sky probably hoped rather than expected Flecha and EBH to do someting in the classics. The fact that Porte and Wiggins have won 2 stage races of the few there have been, and also the ones that don't boil down to a sprint bonus, is a good start to the year.

 

[ceepeebee]

So I took some photos - here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/brassica/sets/72157629795776727/

 

[raindog]

brilliant! Get any drinks bottles?

 

[ceepeebee]

not a one - didn't see any flying stuff at all, and the caravan went through early so we missed that too, not that people seemed to have much.

The guy on the central reservation was chancing it a bit - can't work out who it is though