I'm picking Servais Knaven to finish 6th.
You heard it here first.
Sure, it's a brave pick. Everybody else will be picking Boonen for the win, or Cancellara, or Hoste, or maybe Pippo. Not me.
I'm picking Knaven for 6th.
That is all.
Update: and one other thing. George Hincapie will report after the race that he had great legs, but his (1) freakish mechanical; (2) missing the break; (3) invention of an entirely new way not to win at Roubaix - was completely unexpected to him.
6 comments:
I am piking TB myself for a historical symmetrical trinity on a Sunday in hell no less. I can't see this TB being dropped or out sprinted so aside from a mechanical or crash at a critical time that's the limb I am standing upon. I'd figure Pippo will not quite have the form and I have not seen Thor too much so far this season. But I like a spectacle as much as the next guy so lets bring it on and see what goes down.
I like your pick of Knaven for sixth. I'd throw in Hoste and Hincapie as likely 6th place finishers as well.
MP
I think your post race Georgeisms will be bang on Jim.
-B
I guess if TB wins it would make 4 for him and the trinity would be if he finishes 2nd to go along with his M-S-R and Ronde efforts.
MP
Well,
Fabian. I lost count after ten looking for your boy and well... where's Waldo. Oh excuse me, I mean George...
Nice to see Thor take second supporting a small Canadian team.
-B
I couldn't find any link to the 6 you dreamed up for George. 29th in the groups sprinting for 12th, 7:05 behind. The only chance for a 6 and George to be in the same room together would be if there was a 6 somewhere on his saddlecloth. Sadly, he was so far back that there were no cameras behind him to take a snap which might have included his race number.
The more I think about it, the more it becomes obvious that there was some good done by Lance during his reign... he was somehow capable of making Hincapie look good. I'm sure he's a very capable rider, but the most prominent adjective keeps circling around to "ordinary".
How could Knaven have let me down for 6th? He finished 39th. Knaven... what happened, brah?
Hincapie also surprised me by admitting he just didn't have the legs.
Boonen surprised me because it was his race to lose. Cancellara couldn't drop Boonen as long as Boonen grabbed his wheel immediately, and if they came into Roubaix together Boonen (and maybe Hushovd and Pippo) were damn straight going to outsprint Cancellara. No little hills here to help shed the big men. So when Boonen went to the back of the lead group to get a drink and maybe encourage others to bang out some tempo, and Cancellara stomped on it, it was over. Stupid mistake - a comment that sums up a lot of things that Boonen does. I like the guy but that's a bad way to blow a race. And we shouldn't sell Cancellara short; his earlier efforts to "get away," particularly where Boonen marked him and chased him down, may have been halfhearted, and conducted only to see what Boonen had in his legs, how long it took him to close little gaps and how hard he was working.
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