Originally Posted by
Shadco
I go back to my previous post.
I generally pull for Quckstep, I’m thrilled for Fabio’s win in a sprint stage but overall the were horrible this tour. It’s not like they weren’t aware of this years challenges.
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I'm a big Quick-Step fan, I have ridden with them the last couple of year's for a couple of days when they were in my region and I was in Belgium. Fabio is an awesome power-house.
This year they knew it would be tough and that there would only be 2 or 3 realistic chances. They took advantage of an early opportunity and won. They lost their key lead-out man. After the mountains, Fabio was wrecked. It was incredible that he was still in the race and not collected by the broom wagon - the pace on those mountain days was killing the sprinters.
Fabio told his team he couldn't compete on the flat stage before the TT, he had no legs, needed to recover and aim for the final day. They stood down for him. In the end, his chain dropped and he didn't get to contest the last sprint of the Tour. Bad luck, the fastest Tour, one of the hardest overall and terrain unkind to sprinters. I don't think they did horribly at all when we really look at what happened. They are essentially a Classics team that does well in Tours with obvious sprint stages and when things go well for them. This years TDF was not that.
