Peter Sagan

[thom]

Lets just sit back and enjoy the "Sagan era" without too much judgement.

If he wants green jerseys that is well and good but I think with Kittel, Cav & Greipel around it won't be spectacular stage wins that he will accumulate. Classics he should get better at. Not sure this will be remembered as an era of Saga dominance really - in tour terms, it kind of depends on how Prudhomme chooses a parcours for 2014.

 

[smutchin]

If he wants green jerseys that is well and good but I think with Kittel, Cav & Greipel around it won't be spectacular stage wins that he will accumulate. Classics he should get better at.

He should model himself on Sean Kelly.

 

[Pedrosanchezo]

If he wants green jerseys that is well and good but I think with Kittel, Cav & Greipel around it won't be spectacular stage wins that he will accumulate. Classics he should get better at. Not sure this will be remembered as an era of Saga dominance really - in tour terms, it kind of depends on how Prudhomme chooses a parcours for 2014.

Yeh i was just having a laugh, quoting what magazines and the TDF commentators have been saying.
Very few riders have dominated enough to call it their "era". Merckx, Hinault, Armstrong maybe, but these guys were all GC contenders. Merckx would also win the classics which truly showed the dominant force he was.
Sagan has shown that he will be a formidable classics rider. His 2013 classics season has been an impressive one indeed but he is no Eddie Merckx. Now i don't mean that as in he isn't as good a bike rider. That would be impossible to compare. What i mean is that he won't be as dominant as Merckx was in GC and classics. Sagan will have to pick one and focus on it. For my money he will become a hybrid of both worlds and neither a specialist of either. Maybe a bit like EBH promised but could never really deliver.
One thing i am sure of though is that he will win the majority of the classics and many Green jerseys from the 3 Grand tours.
Maybe the "Sagan dominance" will sit better with most.

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

If by inappropriate celebration you mean the 'V' sign directed at the press who had been critical of him during the Tour de Romanie he was not chucked of the event, I believe he was withdrawn by his team HTC highroad. Or is there another act I am not aware off?
Not Cavendish's greatest moment I must admit though.

 

[smutchin]

he was not chucked of the event, I believe he was withdrawn by his team HTC highroad.

Yes, come to think of it, I think you're technically right on that...

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

If he wants green jerseys that is well and good but I think with Kittel, Cav & Greipel around it won't be spectacular stage wins that he will accumulate. Classics he should get better at. Not sure this will be remembered as an era of Saga dominance really - in tour terms, it kind of depends on how Prudhomme chooses a parcours for 2014.

Are you expecting more courses to suit the pure sprinters or fewer intermediate sprint points - Sagan does seem to have aggregated more points over a wider range of courses without being the fastest?

 

[thom]

Are you expecting more courses to suit the pure sprinters or fewer intermediate sprint points - Sagan does seem to have aggregated more points over a wider range of courses without being the fastest?

There won't be as much climbing I think - somewhere between last year and this. It will give Sagan the chance to go for lumpy stages more so at which he'll excel but for the rest he'll be a high place accumulator that wins the points jerseys he goes for.

I just don't see him as dominant in the way Cav was with more stage wins than you could shake a stick at in the TdF. He has a fantastic talent but really there are a good few other sprinters now that are better than him. This year he didn't crack the classics like people thought he would. I'm sure he will get those results in due course but I'm not sure they will come with the ease people think.

 

[smutchin]

It's about consistency rather than number of wins though, isn't it?

Erik Zabel was never a prolific stage winner (12 Tour stages in total) but took the green jersey six* times. He only won one stage when he took the green jersey in 2000 but was in the top 3 seven times, and won no stages in 1999 but was in the top 8 ten times. On this Tour, Sagan was in the top four nine times. Sean Kelly likewise - Sagan is already only one stage win off matching Kelly's total of 5.

Given that Sagan is still only 23, I think Zabel's record might well be under threat. He certainly looks likely to beat Kelly's four green jerseys, and I believe will go on to emulate Kelly in other ways - in the classics and maybe even in the GC eventually.

 

[thom]

It's about consistency rather than number of wins though, isn't it?

Yes but my point is that to label consistent accumulation of points in grand tours as being dominant is somehow a bit one-eyed - clearly in coming 2nd, 3rd, 4'th a lot, you have come in behind some other people. Cav dominated sprint finishes but won the green jersey once.

Edit : So what Sagan & Cannondale did succeed at yesterday was screwing up the OPQS train at a critical point. By sticking a rider behind Trentin but in front of Steegmans, they created indecision and an opportunity for Argos to steam into a strong position. Trentin & the Cannondale guy hardly did anything on the front but did leave Steegmans exposed earlier than appropriate and Cav less well placed. It's all part of the game but it seemed Sagan was there for the sake of keeping up appearances in that sprint, rather than with the unequivocal backing of his team to win it.

 

[Pedrosanchezo]

There won't be as much climbing I think - somewhere between last year and this. It will give Sagan the chance to go for lumpy stages more so at which he'll excel but for the rest he'll be a high place accumulator that wins the points jerseys he goes for.

I just don't see him as dominant in the way Cav was with more stage wins than you could shake a stick at in the TdF. He has a fantastic talent but really there are a good few other sprinters now that are better than him. This year he didn't crack the classics like people thought he would. I'm sure he will get those results in due course but I'm not sure they will come with the ease people think.

I do agree he is not the best sprinter but i believe he is reportedly working on his climbing and not so much his sprinting. He seems to have lost a slight edge in the sprints imo.

Regarding the Classics i would have to say that it's very high praise indeed that he has not been successful in 2013, given that he has placed so highly. See here on the mans reaction to his 2013 classics campaign.

A quick summary hardly reads as an unsuccessful campaign - such is the expectancy on the young Slovak that we consider his results poorer than predicted.

 

[Buddfox]

Confirmed to be doing the event in London on 4th August, for those that want to see him live...

 

[thom]

I
A quick summary hardly reads as an unsuccessful campaign - such is the expectancy on the young Slovak that we consider his results poorer than predicted.

This is success but it is not the same as dominance though - this is my point.
For me, Ciolek's win of San Remo will linger longer in the memory than any particular thing that Sagan won this year (admittedly partly because he managed to outfox the pre-race favourite of Sagan himself...).

 

[smutchin]

Yes but my point is that to label consistent accumulation of points in grand tours as being dominant is somehow a bit one-eyed - clearly in coming 2nd, 3rd, 4'th a lot, you have come in behind some other people. Cav dominated sprint finishes but won the green jersey once.

Sure. I wasn't really disagreeing with you, just looking at it a slightly different way - he won't dominate the bunch sprints but he could well dominate the green jersey competition for a few years to come.

The stats don't tell the whole story either - the Strade Bianche this year being a brilliant example. That was a tactically perfect race by Cannondale and the way Sagan took 2nd place behind his team-mate was in its own way as memorable as Ciolek's win at MSR. I'd agree that he does need to add one or two Monuments to his palmares before he can be considered the finished article though. There's still the Giro di Lombardia and maybe even the Worlds left this season for him to aim at...

 

[lay]

I love his interviews - as entertaining as Sean Kelly speaking

 

[Radchenister]

'Unluck' is a new term in this house .