Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Thinking Outside the Box
That’s what the boys at Liberty Seguros will have to do during tomorrow’s rest stage at La Vuelta. To review: over the past two arduous mountain stages – the favored terrain of Liberty captain Roberto Heras – Manolo Saiz’s squad has worked their game plan to perfection. Incredibly hard riding on the front has smashed the peloton and left the head’s of state isolated in the front. Only one small problem with the plan – they weren’t able to put race leader Denis Menchov into difficulty. So, gasp, a Russian is now leading the race ahead of the thoroughbreds of Spanish climbing.
The Spanish press will certainly soon start calling for a combine between the Spanish teams to depose Menchov. But even today when some Euskadi riders were working with Liberty it didn’t make a lick of difference. And it is not like Menchov is taking advantage of in-fighting between Mancebo and Heras. If anything the Spaniards are able to pick up some crumbs because Menchov is not contesting the stage finishes while he maintains the overall lead. For a man not hailed as a natural climber, the Rabobank captain is finishing the stages looking the freshest of all the riders.
With only one real mountain top finish left (although still a few mountain stages), Liberty will need to take some desperate measures to attack Menchov harder and longer maybe take a page from the Mar-Jac playbook and go right from the starting gun.
Or just put a stick in his spokes.
The Spanish press will certainly soon start calling for a combine between the Spanish teams to depose Menchov. But even today when some Euskadi riders were working with Liberty it didn’t make a lick of difference. And it is not like Menchov is taking advantage of in-fighting between Mancebo and Heras. If anything the Spaniards are able to pick up some crumbs because Menchov is not contesting the stage finishes while he maintains the overall lead. For a man not hailed as a natural climber, the Rabobank captain is finishing the stages looking the freshest of all the riders.
With only one real mountain top finish left (although still a few mountain stages), Liberty will need to take some desperate measures to attack Menchov harder and longer maybe take a page from the Mar-Jac playbook and go right from the starting gun.
Or just put a stick in his spokes.
Comments:
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since you have discovery's website linked, you may as well have laf and sheryl crow's...
# posted by 
: 1:07 PM
: 1:07 PM
Mar-Jac is supposed to be my senior Spanish correspondent. And now we get calls back to the home office about riders in his own neighborhood?
Anyway, I'll go ahead and guess that the Madrilleno Carlos Sastre is following the fine Latin tradition and still lives close to home -- maybe still with his parents.
As for his training route, he'll either do up the Mar-Jac special and only ride rollers at home, or maybe he'll head out of town by way of Moncloa?
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Anyway, I'll go ahead and guess that the Madrilleno Carlos Sastre is following the fine Latin tradition and still lives close to home -- maybe still with his parents.
As for his training route, he'll either do up the Mar-Jac special and only ride rollers at home, or maybe he'll head out of town by way of Moncloa?
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