Road Bike Racing - Petacchi News

You would have thought that he might have tried to hang on for at least one mountain stage. He didn't even make it up the first climb let alone the stage. Kind of put a bad mark on this 4 wins.

And so many people think that Cipo didn't deserve a ride because he has a history of dropping out...

Shall we now ban Petacchi from the event in favor of yet another crap French team that will quickly fall to the bottom of the standings?

I think the tour needs more riders who can't or won't finish the tour.

I respect their sprinting but don't see them as complete bike racers.

He wasnt in it for the overall. It's not his kind of race. He ran the part he wanted. To ride the entire race could damage his sprinting conditioning. I dont see a problem with him withdrawing at all.

Originally posted by Laggard
I think the tour needs more riders who can't or won't finish the tour.

I respect their sprinting but don't see them as complete bike racers.

You don't see riders who can't or won't finish the tour as complete racers? Like Lance Armstrong?

This is Petacchi's first TDF and he already rode a hard classics campaign as well as part of the Giro (despite a hard crash).
You need to understand what kind of men these guys are before you say they aren't complete racers.

He took 4 out of 6 stages. That seems pretty complete. :)

His goal was probably to win one.

I'll argue to the end of my days that you're not a "real" Tour de France rider if you can't finish, or at least TRY and finish the race. It's a race that consists of more than just a few sprints. When I see the pain that riders will go through just to finish the tour, I'm amazed that some will quit so easily.

One dudes opinion though. :)

I must admit that after being so dominant in the sprints it looks pretty feeble to watch him slow down, get off the bike and pack himself into the team car. I mean we KNEW he wouldn't climb that fast but he's a strong enough climber to be able to finish isn't he!?!

Perhaps he felt his stage wins would be minimized if he finished at the bottom.

I still think he rocks and is perhaps the 'next' Cipo but it's pretty clear how the race orgainzers feel about the lion king not finishing tours.

Maybe next year? Just Petacchi's tactics for this year? He did after all win several mountain stages in the Giro, as I recall? Some question Lance Armstrong tactics for never riding the Giro and only being competitive in the TDF.

No. No mountain wins for Petacchi. All ten Grand Tour wins were bunch sprints.

I know this is over-simplification but couldn't one liken it to riding around the country to 24 hour MTB races and beating everyone in the first lap then leaving? I mean everyone else is pacing themselves. If the tour were only 4 or 5 days long Petacchi might not have won those sprints because everybody else would have been going all out too.

I know, I know...tactics. And everyone's got their specialty. But I am one of those who would like to see the sprinters finish the tours they enter and the tour champs ride the Giro AND Vuelta even if it means they don't dominate.

Anyway, this all just makes Eddy Mercx look like a god.

Eddy Merckx is a god........

He took home all three jerseys from his first tour, in 1969- yellow green and polka-dot.....plus six stages

Other notable wins that year included

Milan-San Remo, Paris-Nice, Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Tour of Valencia.

A respectable career total for most riders- in one season.

I guess Petacchi is the next "Soouper Maryo" after all.

I mean it is called the Tour de France not the Tour of 5 Stages. Next year he and Mario can go golfing instead and let some other teams in who are at least going to try and finish the entire race.

Originally posted by Captain Crunch
I mean it is called the Tour de France not the Tour of 5 Stages. Next year he and Mario can go golfing instead and let some other teams in who are at least going to try and finish the entire race.

Amen to that!!:)

I get a whole different take on Petacchi than I've gotten on Mario. Mario strikes me as a vain primadonna. I always assumed dropping out was part of his shtick. Petacchi is getting up in years (in cyclist terms) and emerges from domestique-ville to become the premier sprinter. If he were trying to make a statement (e.g. "where's Mario?"), he probably would have done it in front of a microphone. I think he must genuinely be toast!

Complete racer? That's a tough call. Is Simoni an incomplete racer because he burnt his all matches in the Giro and the TdF team time trial? Petacchi could have hung in and missed the time cut, I suppose. I'll withold judgement on whether he's a complete racer or not. Right now, I'd be hard pressed to fault him.

He's pulling the same bratty Crap that cipo pulled. That's why Cipo wasn't invited to the Tour. If you're in the race, then stay in it. What is it with these sprinters??

Originally posted by flyefisher
What is it with these sprinters??

They're doing what they get paid to do. They ride in the group, risk their lives at obscene speeds to win sprint stages, get on the covers of magazines, etc.

Nobody is paying them to waste themselves hauling their butts over massive mountain summits. Obviously there is the occasional Erik Zabel who can finish consistently, but for many of these guys the objective is different.

Petacchi rode a great Giro, winning six stages, before crashing and then missing the time cut. He woun FOUR tour stages. His team can continue to show without him over the next few weeks. What's the problem here?

And why doesn't anyone jump on Kirsipuu or the other guys who dropped out? Some people just love to hate the winners, I guess.

THis is Petacchi's first TDF. If we were to stop everyone that did not complete their first TDF, Lance would not be in the race today.

Petacchi didn't just say, "Look mountains, I'll stop" He tried. He said previously that this would be a struggle. THE TDF WASN'T EVEN ON HIS SCHEDULE THIS YEAR! He is frickin' tired! He has raced all spring- ALL spring and ramped up to the Giro where he crashed HARD but continued.

I guess it's only brave when Tyler soldiers on with injury? Due props to Tyler, of course.

Petacchi has proven himself. You guys sound like the French when they talk about Lance. Now you guys know what it's like to be a naysayer.

Petacchi is THE MAN. He came, he kicked a$$.

And how can anyone call Petacchi a brat?? He is a class-act all the way from his demeanor off the bike to the way he races on the bike. Everyone in the peloton likes and respects him.

I thought I read Petacchi was 25. He has a few good years yet to work on both the Giro and the TDF. Maybe it is we Americans that worship the TDF, so much. Maybe to an Italian the TDF is anti-climatic?

No, Petacchi is 29 years old.

Erik Zabel was in a nasty crash in stage 6, finished the race and in stage 7 was seen going back to the team car to get water bottles for his team. Erik Zabel is a class-act and Petacchi could learn a few things from Zabel on how to finish a race, since Zabel has already won six green jerseys in the Tour.

maybe this explains some of it too-

THIS JUST IN: The Fassa Bortolo team ranks have been ravaged by the flu. Alessandro Pettachi, Marco Velo, Aitor Gonzàlez, Volodimir Gustov and Sven Montgomery are out of the race, all reportedly suffering viral symptoms for the past 2 days.

Oh yeah! There is that mystery flu bug that always seems to attack only quitters. :D

RacerX and EasyRider made the most important points when they stated that Pettachi is far from the first rider to not finish his first TdF. Of course all of you "experienced pros" ignore that and continue to pile on the negatives.

Kinda sad but predictable.

I mean I'd much have preferred to see Pettachi finish the stage even if it meant he got DQed on time limits but when all's said and done he has earned his right to make the decision he made.

I would imagine there is some veracity to the sickness in the FB camp. Athletes in that condition are susceptible and those withdrawals puts 6 of the 9 FB riders out; a situation any team would try to avoid if at all possible.

In some of the riders eye's Pertacchi's final effort was a little ordinary. New green jersey wearer Cooke suggested that if the first week was all it was about then any team could have pulled a Sean Eadie over a few hills and let him loose in the bunch sprints. Now that would be something to see. Cooke infers an interesting point - these boys train to get to Paris via numerous bunch and intermediate sprints - it looks like Pertacchi concentrated on flat sprinting and the first week. He and his fans feels justified - the others feel cheated - that's cycling.

I think Petacchi did a great job- he's an awesome sprinter and all, but at the same time, it seems to me like he was just wheeled out there to win some stages for the team. If he wasn't even supposed to race, then all of a sudden, he gets into the race, and he's been doing all these other races, and wasn't scheduled to race this Tour, why else is he really there? It looks like he was just brought in to win stages, which he did. And now, he's gone, when I really would have enjoyed seeing him race to the end.

If he was so tired from all the other races, and he wasn't even scheduled to be in the Tour to begin with, maybe he shouldn't have raced. Give the slot to someone else on another team who would have had a chance to complete the tour. Then let's sit back and watch the drama coming out of the mountain stages.

I hope at the end of all this, Petacchi comes back next year and races, AND completes the Tour. But if he comes back and drops out, he'll just be the next Cipo, and that'll be too bad. He has a good reputation right now, but reputations can go downhill as fast as I can snap my fingers. I really would like to see him racing for a few more years, and if he's as strong in the mountains as some folks thinks he is, he will maybe be a team leader in the next year or so and be a real contender to win the Tour.

Koffee

I said to my wife earlier last week that Petacchi would pull out at the start of the mountains. It was just a feeling, it seemed appropriate that the Tour lost one great Italian sprinter that can't climb (Cipo) only to be replaced by another.

Baden Cooke was pretty p!ssed off about Petacchi doing a Cipo. He called him "soft" and talked about the previous stage where Petacchi had been dropped on the last rise before the finish and how his team mates pushed him for a kilometre over the rise which enabled him to get back on an then win the sprint. Good teamwork? Yes. Was it good sportsmanship? NO.

If I was running the Tour (like that's gonna happen:) ), riders would only keep their stage victories if they finished, regardless of crashes, injuries, illness. As it is, Petacchi surrendered his Green points and Baden Cooke inherited the lead. If there was an incentive to finish (other than pride), would Petacchi have still pulled out? NO



Mark

"If I was running the Tour (like that's gonna happen ), riders would only keep their stage victories if they finished, regardless of crashes, injuries, illness."

Agreed.

you can look at it this way as well. when tyler hamilton and team decided that he was going to start the 2nd stage, he didn't know that we would finish that stage let alone be in 10th place after 8 stages. tyler hamilton is now a legend in courage. Petacchi must have been allowed to quit. Is he the leader of his team? i want to reserve judgement till i know some more. (did he know even before the hills that he'd quit? did he know when the team was going over the course months earlier? is he just not a team player and suck it up for the team? is there any glory to finishing > 1 hr down and being kicked out? was the strategy to win the sprints then retire all along?) i think it would have been funny if the team car sped off and left him no choice but to continue.

Originally posted by Captain Crunch
I mean it is called the Tour de France not the Tour of 5 Stages. Next year he and Mario can go golfing instead and let some other teams in who are at least going to try and finish the entire race.

Here here.

I did not mean to say he did not kick ass. I guess my wording was a bit out of line. I respect the guy and what he's done this year. It's truly amazing. Maybe the riders should consider that if they consistently drop out of races before mountains, they may risk their team not getting invited again. Kudos to Petacchi for his marvelous performances.

Originally posted by Captain Crunch
I mean it is called the Tour de France not the Tour of 5 Stages. Next year he and Mario can go golfing instead and let some other teams in who are at least going to try and finish the entire race.



Yup, seemed like he just stopped trying. He dropped with seemingly a reasonable bit on energy left.

Yep, I lost all respect for Petacchi when he just quit like that. If he had tried to help his team as best he could (like his team helped him) and failed, I would have respected the heck out of him. But from me, you dont get respect unless you TRY, give it 150% like Tyler, push until you get dropped like Heras, or get the water for the team while wearing the yellow like Pena. There are many more whom I respect from various other teams (Telekom comes to mind) but they all have one thing in common, they push until they cant push any more. Win or lose, they are all fantastic when they do that.

Allan

Originally posted by Flea77
. . . but they all have one thing in common, they push until they cant push any more. Win or lose, they are all fantastic when they do that.

Agreed. I thought that was actually the point of the race to begin with.

In all due respect to Mario and his abandoning
as RacerX stated Fasso Bortollo has been hit hard
by a viral illness. It wasn't just Petacchi who abandoned
They have a total of 3 riders left, all of them either
abandoning in stage 7 or not starting stage 8.

Compare Cipo and Petacchi due to one abandon?
for this year its like comparing apples and oranges they
ain't the same thing.

Marty

There has to be a way to check out the teams before the race- I mean, that spot that FB pretty much took could have accomodated for another team that would have stayed until the end.

If you got a team of sick folks, you shouldn't even come. Seriously. That's the biggest shame of the tour- some good teams got left out, and now folks are just dropping like flies, and we got a team pretty much out of contention before the first week has ended!

Koffee