Are the Worlds in the wrong place?

From the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------
10/5/2004
After Spain coast to their fourth title in six years, the question
once again arises of whether the world championships take place at the
best time to ensure the best field.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Read the rest at http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=598





J. Spaceman

Jason Spaceman wrote in message . ..
From the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------
10/5/2004
After Spain coast to their fourth title in six years, the question
once again arises of whether the world championships take place at the
best time to ensure the best field.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Read the rest at http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=598


off course not. 2nd or 3rd week of August is ideal: top-riders from
the tour might be convinced to ride a few more weeks (while most of
them now end their season after a few crits). Classics riders who
prepared for Zurich and San Sebastian are also in good shape then. So
you get a representation of the best Tour riders and the best classics
riders on the WC.

Kenny

Wrong race, wrong place, wrong time.

Andy Coggan

Andy Coggan wrote:
Wrong race, wrong place, wrong time.

How do you think the riders feel when you say things like that?


--
Trends and bias in election polls:
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"Robert Chung" wrote in message
...
Andy Coggan wrote:
Wrong race, wrong place, wrong time.

How do you think the riders feel when you say things like that?


The ones who raced or the ones who didn't?

I am sick of this crap. If people don't want to show up to the
world's that is their choice. It is their job to race bikes. They
know when the world's are and have plenty of time to prepare for them.
I think most of the best one day racers show up anyway.

The "best" riders are the ones who race all season. The Tour-heads
put on a good spectacle, but they do not appeal to my own idea of what
bike racing is about: fighting all season, battling time, fatigue,
isolation, pressure, and constant disappointments to come up with the
goods on one or two glorious days out of the year.

-Sonarrat.

It is funny that some raises the nationality of the cyclists as the
leit-motif for the source of concern. No matter that Freire has won 2 with
non-spanish teams and that he also won MSR at the beginning of the season
(not to mention Zabel that was also 2nd in both). The same applies for
Astarloa last year (he won in Spring and the WC). When Olano won Indurain
was second and Pantani 3rd in a very hilly WC.

Who are supposed to be those stars missing? The three major national teams
had pretty strong and full squads. As for the Americans...Lance, who knows
why he does not participate in the WC or even in events that could have
great repercussion for him in the US such as the Olympics. The rest of the
Americans were put back into their proper context in the Vuelta.

The same logic could be applied to the spring classics. We could contend
that the field for a PR is in fact substantially weaker than that of a WC.


"Ryan Barrett" wrote in message
om...
I am sick of this crap. If people don't want to show up to the
world's that is their choice. It is their job to race bikes. They
know when the world's are and have plenty of time to prepare for them.
I think most of the best one day racers show up anyway.

Are you channeling John Kerry now? I realize he is coming to town tomorrow,
but do not get too enamored.


"Andy Coggan" wrote in message
ink.net...
Wrong race, wrong place, wrong time.

Andy Coggan

Jason Spaceman wrote:

From the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------
10/5/2004
After Spain coast to their fourth title in six years, the question
once again arises of whether the world championships take place at the
best time to ensure the best field.

Crap.
If you take the top 5 riders of the UCI rankings and the top 5 of the World
Cup classment, they were all there except for Rebellin and we all know that
the reasons for which Davide wasn't racing have nothing to do with the date
of the event.

Which other guy was missing?
A guy who races only 3 weeks in July? Then you are giving too much
importance to a race that in a few years will end up like the Isle of Man
TT ended up in motorcycling.