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Why do teammates compete against each other ?

Old 07-12-09, 02:29 PM
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Why do teammates compete against each other ?

It's the first sport where I see this happen. How can you trust your teammates if they're gonna try to beat you too ? Like Contador vs. Lance for example. Can someone make sense of this for me ?

I'm new to Pro Cycling, please understand.
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Old 07-12-09, 03:04 PM
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sells more papers. I guess you don't watch football much. There is always some young gun looking to be the starter versus sitting on the bench or some guy that is beyond his prime moving to a new team with a chance to earn the starting spot. No one with a ounce of competitive juices would rather be a back up unless they just did not care.
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Old 07-12-09, 03:15 PM
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Originally Posted by zeo_max
It's the first sport where I see this happen....
Yes, never happens in F1 (Alonso vs Lewis)....
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Old 07-12-09, 03:56 PM
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Originally Posted by zeo_max
It's the first sport where I see this happen. How can you trust your teammates if they're gonna try to beat you too ? Like Contador vs. Lance for example. Can someone make sense of this for me ?

I'm new to Pro Cycling, please understand.

You don't have to be new to cycling to be know the nature of the E-G-O. We all have one . . . but some are totally driven by it, some are not. It's not limited to sports . . . . it's likely in your very own family and every other corner of the world. It just so happens we get to see it played out for real on TV with the TDF. It's the ultimate race to win, and as we know . . . to win some are willing to do anything.
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Old 07-12-09, 04:20 PM
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Originally Posted by zeo_max
It's the first sport where I see this happen. How can you trust your teammates if they're gonna try to beat you too ? Like Contador vs. Lance for example. Can someone make sense of this for me ?

I'm new to Pro Cycling, please understand.
This happens in basically every racing format. It's like auto racing, except without the drafting assistance for the most part. In auto racing, teammates will race each other and sometimes race each other so aggressively that they crash each other out of the race.
Contador and Armstrong haven't raced against each other (yet). Most of that talk is hype and discussion of what may be inevitable. The only stage they could have competed against each other so far was Arcalis, and instead what happened was Armstrong played the role that a loyal teammate would. Teammates work together, except in this case we may see Armstrong vs Contador as the two strongest riders in the race - if they're likely to finish 1-2 overall, obviously they will have individual motivation to race each other. Time will tell.
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Old 07-12-09, 05:01 PM
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Originally Posted by Mr IGH
Yes, never happens in F1 (Alonso vs Lewis)....
Yeah, that was a good one. Armstrong/Contador have a way to go to reach that point.
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Old 07-12-09, 07:07 PM
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Originally Posted by zeo_max
It's the first sport where I see this happen. How can you trust your teammates if they're gonna try to beat you too ? Like Contador vs. Lance for example. Can someone make sense of this for me ?

I'm new to Pro Cycling, please understand.
You are quite right to be confused. Lance and Alberto Contador aren't in direct competition in reality. Only in the minds of people who can't get it up to just watch and understand a race and must inject some tabloid news to make it "interesting".
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Old 07-12-09, 07:09 PM
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Originally Posted by Dolomiti
...what may be inevitable...
Gotta love a good contradiction in terms...
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Old 07-12-09, 07:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff
Gotta love a good contradiction in terms...
haha
Yes, in a way.
It's the idea that if they have strong reason to race "against" each other, they will. If they don't, they won't. Being, what happens on the road that is outside of their control will decide whether they "for certain" choose to race "against' each other.
Or do you want me to spell it out in even more detail?
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