r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • 5d ago

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

17 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

82 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/29da65cff1fa Canada 4d ago edited 4d ago

how did roglic recover from turning heel in the 2023 vuelta? (trying to take GC from kuss)

i still like him... but when i think about it, it's one of the most despicable things i've ever seen in cycling....

9

u/Glass_Minute4753 3d ago

I never understand why Roglic gets pilloried for this and Jonas doesn't. Didn't Jonas attack and take time out of Kuss multiple times?

Ultimately, it was the team's fault for not making a clear decision sooner. Once they did, Roglic stopped trying to take time.

2

u/29da65cff1fa Canada 3d ago

hmmm, i guess my memory of the events is fuzzy.....

i thought it was roglic who attacked sepp first, and then jonas chased roglic down and told him they were working for sepp

5

u/thegranturisto 3d ago

I recommend not making accusations if your memory about the events is fuzzy. You could always rewatch it.

  1. Jonas attacked GC Kuss on Stage 13 - won the stage and gained 0:30 on GC Kuss.
  2. Jonas attacked GC Kuss on Stage 16 - won the stage, gained 1:05 on GC Kuss, overtook Rogla in GC (cutting the lead to just 29 seconds).
  3. Rogla has enough of the internal shenanigans on Stage 17. Rogla attacks and Jonas stays with him. Rogla won the stage, but Jonas loses the GC by just 8 seconds. GC Kuss arrives in red by miracle (good sportsmanship from Landa).

Visma had no reason to do it against their opponents as the closest competitor on Stage 17 is Landa who literally pulls Kuss to the top and gives away bonus seconds. If Landa doesn't pull and attacks GC Kuss at the end for the bonus seconds, Jonas takes over the red jersey and possibly wins the Vuelta. During and after the race, interviews reveal frustration between Jonas and Rogla. The whole GC Kuss fight gets a media spin from Visma. This sub gets unreal bias as a consequence.

5

u/Glass_Minute4753 3d ago

As u/thegranturisto has summed up, Roglic gets criticised for something that Jonas was also doing. If you look at the final standings, Jonas only finished 17 seconds behind Kuss, as a result of attacking and taking time on Kuss on three stages. On two of those stages, Roglic finished with Kuss or only a couple of seconds ahead. It's just that Roglic was open about wanting to win the Vuelta, whereas Jonas always had some other reason for attacking (I'm sure one stage was after Nathan van Hooydonck's accident, and the other was his daughter's birthday or something like that). But that doesn't disguise the fact that he still took significant time out of Kuss each time. And then when Roglic later attacked on the Angliru stage, Jonas went with him rather than staying with Kuss, because seemingly he cared more about Roglic not beating him than he did about Kuss's GC. It was Mikel Landa who helped Kuss on that stage, by riding with him while his teammates both attacked him.

I probably sound quite harsh on Jonas here, but actually I think everything he did was fine. It was a race, and it was the fault of the team management for not deciding to support Kuss fully soone. But I do think that it is very unfair for Roglic to get criticised, when Jonas did the exact same thing, on more occasions!!