Overheard

From an e-mail to someone asking about where I thought Garmin fucked the sprint up today:

I watched it live, and then again now, and thought they were fucking it up all over the place. I was glad they at least finally tried today.

1. They started way too soon.

2. Because they started to soon, they didn't go fast enough in the final K.

3. They never got organized. They were in two groups of two as they neared 1K to go, and should have been a train of 4. Dean had to bring Farrar up to Millar, but then Millar was already pulling off.

4. Farrar actually battled for his wheel today, but not enough. He let Dean's wheel go, he spent too much time fighting with Cav's leadout guy for his own teammates wheel, and he did what he normally does, which is always try to hide, stay on wheels, wait too long, never hit out. Hincapie used to do that, too.

5. When Dean finally hit out, he went to the left, not knowing that Farrar was stuck on the right, and had to switch over to follow. That put him in the wind because Cav just took the wheel and it left Farrar flapping. Sprint was over at that point.

6. Farrar was so out in the wind that Renshaw just dropped Haedo on Cav's wheel like he was pedaling his bike for him. I'm sure that was a hard effort for JJ, but he was in a good spot.

Anyway, they just need more practice and better organization. They don't think they're real sprinters, so they start too soon. Farrar just isn't that strong right now. He's under too much pressure before the sprint even starts, and doesn't ever really sprint. He just follows. They need to start later, take over, with more guys in front of him, for as long as possible. He'll still get 2nd, but still...

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