WRR WTF is going on?

lol

On last year's form this would have been an ideal course for Jonathan Tiernan-Locke - oh, wait a minute...

I think its fair for most of the criticism to be directed at Froome. The others were there to help him and once he'd dropped out there was little point in them continuing. In fairness he has never been a classics rider and has no history of performing well over 250+km, unlike J-Rod and Valverde. But that might excuse him if he had faltered in the last couple of laps, not halfway through the race.

His interview after he'd stepped off was lame. Weather conditions blah blah, and then at the end he admitted that the conditions were the same for everyone! We all know Froome is much more at home in the warm, but if he'd trained as hard for this as he says, then he would've been able to stay the course a lot longer than that.

So I suspect drh is actually right, that this wasn't really a goal for Froome. Unfortunately, GB have no other riders that could have led the team on a course like this, so their only option was to build Froome up as leader and hope that the weather held, and that he had better legs than they suspected.

And we shouldn't excuse Wiggo either, we all know he's crap on wet descents, but Pinot managed to stay with the leaders most of the way, and he's awful.

"Having a British jersey on their backs, they should be very disappointed," Ellingworth, who masterminded Mark Cavendish's ride into the rainbow jersey in 2011, told The Guardian. "We should be very disappointed with that as a team and with the approach to the race. I don't think the lads' attitude was where it needed to be. Luke Rowe and Cavendish were OK, average, the other guys were below average.”

'drheaton wrote:

The fact is, the Worlds weren't a big target of any of the top class British riders, Wiggins wanted the TT and Froome wanted the Tour. Neither started the season targetting the worlds so you can see why it's ended as it has.

Froome was probably the only Brit with a chance of a medal but traditionally, if you're targetting the next TdF you're resting now so preparing hard for the Worlds like the Spaniards and Italians did was counterproductive to his major goals, winning multiple Tours.

Sorry mate that is a load of bunkum..... Its the world championship...'

No, it's not bunkum, it's absolutely right.

Nibali, Valverde, Rodriguez, Costa. They will be targeting the Tour, and the Giro next year too, so the resting excuse holds no water whatsoever.

Okay so we do not think we have a chance of winning, so why start? why build up the expectations of the public with all the pre race talk of "we are all here for Froom" etc etc.

Frankly it is embarrassing not to have a single rider trying to finish the race, there is nothing else to go for this year, so if you are going to start why bail out half way through? Frankly, it looks like British Cycling has gone to all the expense of flying these guys and the teams to Florence for a beano.

They should be ashamed!

The fact is, the Worlds weren't a big target of any of the top class British riders, Wiggins wanted the TT and Froome wanted the Tour. Neither started the season targetting the worlds so you can see why it's ended as it has.

Froome was probably the only Brit with a chance of a medal but traditionally, if you're targetting the next TdF you're resting now so preparing hard for the Worlds like the Spaniards and Italians did was counterproductive to his major goals, winning multiple Tours.

It was too hard for them and there were no race radios to tell them what to do.

Bottom line, the best riders came through to win!

Find the excuses about the weather conditions a little lame from the British team....we probably have the wettest climate in the entire peloton....The medallists came from Portugal and Spain.....I thought those countries were renowned for their sunny climates....

Basically our cycling superstars could not be bothered...Really poor showing...

Wiggo got dropped as doesn't like the rain,Cummings suffered puncture.cav and rowe did the work getting to Florence.the others just didn't have the legs.shocking performance

It's been live on the red button all day
Crashes weather not strong enough there are the issues