Originally Posted by Vuroth

I, too, disagree.

I would agree completely with this, and with the complaints about Cadel possibly winning without winning a stage, if we'd never heard of Cadel before this year.

The thing is, the guy doesn't have stealth. EVERY GC contender knew that they would have to attack him in the mountains. Lotto could have painted a bullseye on his back on every mountain stage. He simply had to be attacked in the mountains, we knew it, the GC guys knew it, and he knew it.

That simply can NOT be an easy way to ride.

But despite every single GC hopeful knowing that they had to beat him in the mountains, danged few of them could do it. If he'd lost 3 minutes or 5 minutes on one of the climbs (like, say, VDV), we'd have all said "yup, he's not a climber, that was expected".

Instead, he rode WITH pretty much every single guy who knew they had to break him. Some got ahead of him, but nobody, except MAYBE Sastre, broke him.

If you can ride what 5, 6 days in the mountains with a bullseye on your back and fight them all off, well, that's good enough for me.

I love attacking riding as much as the next guy. That said, Cadel has been like a boxer with no arms, standing around in the ring, trying to endure until the final bell.

Everyone's taken their shot at him, and he's still here. My hat is off to him.

V