Originally Posted by
one4smoke
Kool Kuss wins a stage at the Vuelta! Great to see our American win!
But someone please explain to me how in the hell IF Roglic had fell off the wheel of Valverde, Kuss would've had to relinquish the win to go back and "help" him, like they all kept saying?!? What did he have, a special shot of GoGo juice in his jersey pocket to give to him? He would need to go back to cheer him on?? Oh, THAT's worth giving up a stage win in the Vuelta for. 
How in the world with a handful of kilometers left, would ANYTHING that Kuss might have done ...have helped Roglic??
I can follow the strategies and tactics most of the time, but by golly sometimes ...like the scenario today... their logic just goes right over my head.
ask marc soler...just kidding. poor bastard had to wait a few stages ago and lost a potential stage win. soler has some talent and i can see him leaving movistar.
i think he'd be better at the week-long affairs like the dauphine, tour de suisse, etc vs the gt's tho but who knows what he's truly capable of if he becomes one of the
protected riders on a team not named ineos, jumbo visma or ef education?
i think the breakaway rider in the lead, dropping back to help his highly-placed gc teammate, is more of a morale boost than anything. it's a friendly face to help the gc guy regain some rhythm, catch their breath, settle them down and slowly pick up the pace vs the frenetic slow/fast attacks/consolidations that got them into difficulty. i look at it as limiting losses/damage control. obviously, if a gc contender totally blows/crashes hard, then it's open season. these guys train together through all sorts of conditions in all sorts of weather. the teammates (and directors) have a pretty good idea of whether a guy can fight through a rough patch or not. all the teams have different objectives as well. clearly, they all want to win...but is it more prestigious for the team sponsor(s)-in this case jumbo visma-to have a gt winner or two+ stage wins? or just have their company displayed/mentioned prominently and consistently with breakaways and maybe the kom jersey? jumbo-visma looks to be all in on the gt's with roglic, kruisjin and dumou (and covering the classics with wout) but not every team has that budget.
expect to see more of these intrateam contortions with jv and ineos scooping up all the proven gc guys for the gt's. movistar has consistently played it passive-aggressive the last few
years with carapaz, quintana, landa, valverde, etc. it usually doesn't work out...at least it hasn't for movistar. 2 gc wins in the last 6-7 years is better than nothing but i think that's far less than
what they were expecting and they caught lightning in a bottle with carapaz.