Laggard

Maertens
Kelly
Cipo
Zabel
Peta/Cavendish

Cavendish may raise some questions but Kelly and Cipo were both quoted as saying that if all the past sprinters showed up today, only Maertens could challenge him. He stays healthy and he could be the best ever.

Not all these riders are pure sprinters.

Dubbayoo

Petacchi has 46 grand tour stage wins plus points jerseys in the Giro and Vuelta. If his teams had been invited to the Tour every year he'd easily have 4-5 more. I don't see how you put Cav even with him when he has less than half that...otherwise I like it.

harlond

Oscar Freire has a nice palmares, maybe not the sheer number of wins, but he shows in the big ones, and I think his 3 Milan-San Remo victories and 3 world championships keep him ahead of Cavendish right now.

OrionKhan

I agree with harlond. I'd put Pettachi, Freire, or McEwen on that list before Cavendish. That's going on the criteria of overall career. Cav is still young and hasn't won a green jersey. He's got a lot of wins but need points championships in GT's to get over the top. He's getting there though.

USAZorro

Come back and make a list in 5 years.

kimconyc

I'd put people like De Vlaeminck and Saronni way ahead of Cavendish. Heck, at this point in his career, I'd put a doped up Djamolidine Abdoujaparov ahead of Cavendish.

Laggard

Maertens
Kelly
Cipo
Zabel
Peta

I'll take Peta off there and replace it with Cav in 5 years.

GV27

Any of these lists are extremely subjective. But right off hand I'd say you're missing the Tashkent Tornado and Bepe Saronni. Eddy Merckx had a wicked sprint on him as well. In the 21st century, Petacchi, McEwen and Cav all deserve honorable mention.

I DON'T think Green Jerseys (or their equivalents in the other Grand Tours) are really a good way to judge sprinters. It's a consistency award, not a sprinters award. Yeah, it usually goes to a sprinter but definitely NOT always the BEST pure sprinter in the race. Witness last year's tour - or this one for that matter. Cav was/is definitely the best pure sprinter in the field but he didn't win it last year, and odds are (though he's still mathematically in with a shout) he won't win it this year. It's ironic that Pettachi has his best chance ever of winning it this year, while this year is definitely NOT his best year.

Also note that Cadel Evans brought home the "sprinters" jersey at the Giro this year.

Then there's the whole matter of lead-out trains. McEwen has never had a great one, and I remember with at least one of his green jerseys he road somebody else's train every day! Compare that to Pettachi in the Fassa Bortolo days where he'd be riding a full 9-man train to easy victory over and over and over again.

Dubbayoo

If Cav wins 5 grand tour stages per year for the next five years he will still be short of Petacchi.

McEwen has never wanted a leadout train. He has a very high but short top end, 75 yards at best. He is much better sneaking out from behind someone else.

jamesdak 

LOL, yep......Where's Cavendish now?

Searching for info to validate a possible Oscar Freire bike and stumbled on this. Just had to revive it.....forgive me. LOL!

jamesdak 

Yep, much respect for how Oscar seemed to show up big when it mattered.

That's why when I was offered what was supposedly one of his training bikes I grabbed it. The price was really good regardless but it will be super cool if I can actually confirm he rode it. Bike ultimately came from Tony Tom at Bike Odyssey so while I leaning towards the bike being authentic I won't claim so unless I can actually get it confirmed by Oscar or someone else on the team at the time. Obviously not one of the team race bikes as they were aluminum but this is his first team and the one he won his first WC with.

diphthong

abdou!

sincos

Ewan. If you keep running into people you're clearly quicker than them, right?

slcbob

Only if it is a steel cage match.

Perhaps him, Sagan, Groenewegen, Bouhani, with Renshaw doing a few head butt leadouts.

diphthong

gotta throw in robbie mcewan as well. dude did more w/o a dedicated leadout train than anyone.

slcbob

I was thinking of the argy bargy pugilists rather than proper sprinter chops. Basically, GCN meets Rollerball.

I'm a fan of Robbie McEwen and would expect him to magically slice through the fog to appear in the last 50m, perhaps with a shoulder rub, but more through pure ju jitsu and ninja skills.

I didn't put Caleb Ewan in the mix because he's already on the ground enough lately.

MinnMan

I'm not even sure what this zombie thread means. What defines the best sprinter? Total accomplishment over years? Or most fearsome competitor in their best form, for however brief they may have held it.?