No no I’m not. But I think if you asked 100 US non cyclists if they could name a spring classic, the whole group couldnt come up with one. Whereas I bet each of the 100 has heard of the Tour de France.
Just looking at it from the perspective of someone who doesnt follow cycling. So…Wout is a good road cyclist if we get rid of 20 of 21 stages, and remove all the mountains?
He’s won a ton - 40+ wins over his career so far. Including… 3 World Championships. 8 National Championships. 8 classics wins; 1 of which was a monument. But, he probably won’t win a grand tour.
Put in other terms… In F1, nearly half the champions (14 of 35?) have never won at Monaco. Clark, Mansell, Fittipaldi, Andretti, Villeneuve. Would anybody claim they weren’t some of the best of their generations because of one missing podium?
Yeah, no, I do agree the general public has no idea. I thought you were seriously saying WVA isn’t that good. 
Probably doesn’t even need to be that drastic…
If we replace Huatacam and Galibier with two individual TTs, does Wout have a chance? Maybe.
I think it would be interesting if a team actually tried to make him a GC contender. I mean he hangs with people up the mountains while doing a TON of work throughout the tour for his team, as well as launching mind boggling attacks for stage wins. I dont thinks it’s unreasonable to think he could place well in the GC if a team worked to protect him.
Plus he’d almost certainly put time into other GC people on the TT, and he’s be a threat to gain time on flat stages in a breakaway. Or at the very least keep teams constantly on edge with a threat of attack.
I think it would be interesting if a team actually tried to make him a GC contender
That’s called rebuilding his body into something like Froome or Wiggins (when he won the Tour). Usually that was done with cortico steroid injections.
I just don’t think WVA would want to spend several years making himself a waif like GC rider reducing his chances to win monuments like Paris-Roubaix or Flanders.
No I wouldnt either lol! But…follow up question…would it be 100% necessary? Could he make up any time he lost in the mountains with attacks on the flats and TT performance with his current body makeup?
It’s certainly been a while since there has been someone as well rounded of a rider as he is…it all comes down to how much time he bleeds in the mountains. It might not be catastrophic.
I’m not sure making him a protected GC rider in today’s typical Tour format would be enough. And based on interviews, he has little interest in losing any weight/power and sacrificing his current abilities.
I doubt we’ll see it intentionally. But what if Roglic AND Vindegaard were to go down?
I’ve had a theory on the whole ‘why can’t wout (or insert superb classics ride) win the tdf’ argument for a while.
It’s not about wkg. Winning ventoux and dropping pogacar are examples showing that the absolute and relative watts are there.
The theory is this: it’s about energy expenditure. Simply put, wout can’t eat enough over a 21 day race to stay competitive every day whereas a light GC can, or at least can do better.
Eg jonas averages 5wk for a stage and wout 5wkg, but Jonas pushing 300w and wout 400w. Wout might go faster on average, but he can’t do this stage after stage because 400w burns enormous amounts more cals than 300w and the human body can only take in so much fuel.
Interesting review written by a golf journalist who was specifically asked to review it because he was a non-cycling fan with almost no knowledge about bike racing. He ended up really getting into it and gave it a 9 out of 10.
I think it’s a concern, or at least certainly a factor. That said…I mean the guy still won the TT after 3 weeks of racing. So Indont think you can say it’s a hard limit on what one can do. Plus he was doing way more work than a GC contender would.
Jumbo would go all-in on the points classification, maybe team points, and stage wins. They wouldn’t care about GC time gaps at all. Maybe give Kuss or another top domestique free reign to get in breaks and go for stage wins.
If it happens mid tour I think you’re 100% right. If it happens BEFORE though, and both are out at the start…I think anything is on the table. It would be a heck of a story just having them send Wout for the GC.
He won the TT because it was a tt that suited him, a short event, and because he was gifted it by Jonas. Exactly my point - he can recover enough to fuel a shorter effort, but not for back to back 180k mountain stages at the front…
Those moments are lacking context…he won on Ventoux because he got in a break and he was the strongest guy in the break. He didn’t win becuase he is a great climber.
He dropped Pog, but then also blew himself up. He didn’t go on and win the stage.
Everyone cites these examples but never mention the stages where he gets shot out the back immediately.
Wout is a generational talent…he arguably the most well-rounded cyclist in the peloton. What he is not is a generational grand tour rider. He is also somewhat cursed in having come of age as another generational talent (MVP).
We seem to be in a golden age of all rounders. Pogacar with 4 monuments to go with his 2 Tours. Remco with 2 monuments and a GT. Roglic with an Olympic TT and a monument win to go with his 4 GT wins. Not to mention MVDP and to a lesser extent Pidcock capable of winning the biggest races on MTB, CX or road. Fun times to be a cycling fan!
However there is a lot more of the planet outside of the US…I imagine 95% of Europeans couldn’t name hardly any baseball or American Football or Ice hockey players…doesn’t mean they aren’t any good.
Oh, agree 100%. I tried to be clear I was only referring to the US. Also…these days I personally couldnt name a single player in baseball or hockey confidently. I still keep up with basketball, but that’s about it for american sports. The older I get the sillier the sporting scene strikes me…I follow cycling races because it’s my hobby.