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Can Sagan beat Cavendish this summer?

slcbob

I think Sagan will be in contention for several sprints where Cav won't be in the running and will be VERY strong for the green jersey.

Head to head, I guess we'll see. It will make for good racing. And don't forget Goss.

canam73

I think when it's a pure field sprint and Cav has at least one good lead out man to launch off of he will win more often then not. His timing and peak speed are as good as it gets. Greipel and Farrar will get some podiums on those, too.

But if there is anything to upset that things will open up and guys like Sagan and Boassan-Hagen become the favorites. Those two and Thor can also get over medium mountains close enough to the lead to be there at the finish while Cav and the like will be relegated to the autobus.

mattm

I think it depends more on their leadouts than their actual sprinting ability.. but I'd love to see them go head to head!

DiabloScott

Reality check... the dude won Milan San Remo.

DXchulo

Not in a pure sprint on a flat stage, but I agree that he has a good chance to win the green jersey if he can survive all the crashes and mayhem. I think Cav will be more focused on the Olympics and he'll probably abandon early.

Personally, I'd rather have Sagan's set of skills than be able to beat Cav in a sprint. Sagan has so many more options of which races he can win.

ultraman6970

You have to consider that in the ToC nobody sent a super team... well maybe radioschlek. But all of the others european circuit teams sent just a "A- to a B" team... or teams with guys that are really tired (bonnen and bmc team for example). Sagan is literally coming back from the beach so he is not tired at all, so pretty much he had chances to just beat the crap out of everybody in the flat stages. The kid was world champion junior, so starting from there you can tell he is not just a limping horse at all, the real deal?? IMO yes but there are other factors like for example he is not a pure sprinter, not all the races are the same in europe, the kid has a lot more to give and sometimes I feel that he is just too competitive, not a thing that is bad but look... everybody in the ToC looks like wimps at his side and compared with liquigas right now.

If you look at it, there are a bunch of sprinters around but the guys are different... mcewen was super fast, fast freddy did not get the fast part in the lotto either... if you speak pure speed probably the fastest man alive over a road bike is darn Teo Bos. But that guy is always doing stupid things and he is really unreliable as sprinter. Teo bos dominated world class pure sprinting in the track for several years and im sure cav wouldn't keep up with him in the track eventhought cav has a WC tittle in the track also... but in the road BOS is just a disaster. He lacks what Cav and the other sprinters around have. Bos in the track was incredibly fast... even Chris Hoy was in troubles with BOS in the track years ago. No money in the track... bos is in the road right now and he just sucks, a sprinter that can't get to the front of the group to sprint is just useless.

IMO i would call sagan the real deal, but sagan to me is more like a jack of all trades i wouldn't cal him a sprinter at all, so probably elbow to elbow cav should win him, but who knows. The other thing, as i said before.... sagan looks unreal now because the guys that he is racing with now arent like in the best shape you know... Everything sagan does he does it pretty good... but pure climbing and TTs (but he tt descently too)

canam73

Yeah, that's reality. 3 years ago.

This year? What, he dropped off the back, has 3 guys pacing him and still abandons. Meanwhile, Sagan may have won if it wasn't for team tactics and Boassan Hagan was 20 seconds back.

But hey, thanks for illustrating the point.

DiabloScott

Message received.
M-SR: Cavendish 1. Sagan 0. Bo-Hag 0. Hushovd 0.

Your true metric though, would be the fraction of big races ending in field sprints following tough climbs that Cavendish got dropped on and wasn't there for the final. M-SR this year was def one... M-SR '09 wasn't.

canam73

So where was Cav on last year's TdF stages 13, 16 and 17? Throwing them a bone? Or when was the last time Cav has a win like Sagan's in the 2011 Tour de Suisse stage 3? That's what I had in mind when I said 'medium mountains' anyway.

As for your thoughts on Milan-San Remo, I'm glad you can live in such a simple world.

byrnemm

speaking of their leadouts, Daniel Oss is doing a fantastic job for Sagan.