Old 10-01-13, 12:33 PM
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Originally Posted by Leinster
Costa had been strong enough to catch up to Rodriguez from behind. So Purito knew that Rodriguez was the stronger. Yes, there's an element of timing the jump, and if Rodriguez had managed to accelerate when, say, Costa was in the middle of shifting down, then he might have got away.

Funnily enough, I just read last night in the 7-Eleven book how Jeff Pierce won on the Champs-Elysees from a similar situation; he saw that Steve Bauer was catching him close to the line, so eased off, let Bauer burn himself out catching up, and then just at the moment Bauer made contact, accelerated away again. It's a tactic Roriguez could well have used on Sunday.

Certainly Purito needs to have a look at his tactics in that situation, because he's lost 2 big one-dayers this year in the same way (the Worlds, and to Dan Martin in Liege-Bastogne-Liege).
Purito rarely wins in a straight sprint. His strength is his explosive acceleration on climbs. Typically he tries to distance the opposition on the final climb and win alone. When that tactic doesn't work he has to settle for a podium place, sprint tactics or no sprint tactics.
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