And the worst kept secret in Pro Cycling has been confirmed. Landa to Movistar next year.
Ok now it's official, I still think it's a shame he's leaving Sky - he's a young talent and ideally needs to be with a team who will develop him into a real GT winner. I personally don't think he's quite there yet, yes he's done well before but the competition is getting tougher/harder/closer these last few years with 3 week GT's top spots being decided by seconds.
I don't think he'll get the chances at Movistar, yes he'll do well, yes he may even win more, but I think he'll find more pressure on his results and have to work harder in service of Quintana/Valverde in GT's, than he did for Froome, so he'll win less in them. It's a tough one, there's very little team loyalty in professional cycling so a real 'team spirit' must be hard to build/culture year on year. Teams like Orica and BMC (& more recently Sunweb) obviously do quite well at it but they generally fly quite below the radar compared to teams like Movistar and Sky. The animosity Sky experience as a team from various other host nations I think actually helps their team 'spirit'. Couple that with obvious higher wages from some other places much of their support staff stick with them and we're seeing that from some riders too. Riders like Knees & Lopez, even though they have very little 'nationality loyalty' to an English speaking mostly British team, have stuck there. What I guess I'm trying to say is - I see Sky as a better 'development' & progress orientated team than others, I guess mostly due to their budget and cutting edge techniques/ideas/staff.
Froome will win for the double
Yeah I'm kinda hoping he does, will shut lots of the doubters up!
Looks easier than all the hassle of multiple different vehicles transporting all the kit around to totally different venues every day which they'd otherwise be using...
