Also
@Ari Gold Bawse @Kunty McPhuck @Liu Kang Tinkoff, Contador's manager, threw down the gauntlet and challenged all the other contenders to ride a Giro-Tour double next year. Contador has been saying for a while he was going to try it again.
Nibbs says he wants to do it
Honestly, I don't think ASO cares about the nationality of the winner. This year's tour debut was great in the UK and it's not the first time it had started there and they will do it again and again as long as it's popular and that generates overall revenue because that's all about ASO cares. In cycling, from a french perspective, pretty much every neighbor country is an enemy (Spain, UK, Belgium) and even though we hated Armstrong, it was not because he was american but because he had that arrogant steez and obviously because of the doping process going on in US Postal. Even though the breh learnt french and tried to speak it to appease us, it didn't work (though it works usually) because of that. Obviously, there is a special rivalry with the Brits (no denying that) which lives both on road and track (?) cycling (above all with Team GB being godlike since the last Olympics
) but in the last few years, we all knew that only a foreigner would win the Tour (same with the French Open) because we had NO riders able to do it.
About Wiggo's 2012 win, let's be honest, it was boring. It was because of Wiggo's riding syle but also because it was obvious that Froome was way better than him and that his second place was some kind of Ferrari Barrichello/Schumacher orchestrated first place. 2013 Froome victory was also boring but not for the same reason : dude obliterated the competition in the first climb stage and it was obvious that nobody was on his level (and Contador was nowhere nere ready for that Tour). Even last year was kinda boring after half of the Tour because Froome and Contador got injured and Nibali had nobody to fight against. A 100% climbs based would favor Froome who is a machine who doesn't like hazard and that was proof. A more diverse Tour would favor more complete riders who can shine on classiques but also in Tours. For real, a good Tour needs fukkery and when it's plain boring like Froomey and Wiggo's wins, it's just not interesting at all. The best Tour I've witnessed was the 2003 one where fukkery was at an all time high.
Also, the problem about the Giro/Tour double is these days, the Giro is too hard and make it impossible to perform well in both. Last person who did the Giro/Tour double is Pantani and we know he wasn't on water only regimen. Contador did the Giro/Vuelta in 2008 (Sastre won the Tour, another boring victory) because he didn't do the Tour and had 2 months to rest between them. I really think nobody can do it nowadays.
And yeah, I need my boy Quintana in this Tour. He proved he could won a Grand Tour so he needs to perform this year in the only one that matters
. 2015 race with him and Contador, Nibali, Purito, Aru, Van Garderen, Koenig (Froome ?) and with young promising Frenchies like Bardet or Pinot could be GOAT status if all of em are 100% and survive the cobbles.
Casillas is a snitch. He stayed ratting out locker room secrets to his journo wife.
He's not as good as he was once and refuses to hand it to the younger generation both in club and in NT. Diego Lopez was better than him at the time and Mourinho chose him but Casillas took it bad. And you also got to consider all the pro-Madrid papers (Marca in the front line) only rides for him by constantly campaigning for Iker and downplaying his competition. That forced Diego Lopez out and Casillas is now keeping Navas (in Real) and De Gea (for Spain) out currently. He should have done like Puyol and bow out gracefully. I respect the player but as a man Iker is garbage.
In France, we had the same in 2008 with the likes of Thuram, Gallas, Makélélé and them and we ended up getting trashed because we had
players who used to be great and were living off their past. Spain will only solve their current problems once they get rid of the old guard. Starting by Del Bosque obviously.