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Bartoli Says Cunego is Making a Mistake

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | June 20th, 2006 | Trackback

The end result of the “will he or won’t he” saga of whether Damiano Cunego would ride the Tour (which ended with “he will”) has a well-known - and vocal - detractor. Former World Cup winner Michele Bartoli has said he’s “perplexed over his decision, as it would have been better to ride his first Tour de France without having ridden in the Giro beforehand. If I were his sporting director, I would not have entered him for two big tours in just one season.” Cunego, who won the Giro d’Italia in 2004, eked his way to fourth place overall this year, 18 minutes behind winner Ivan Basso.

In Bartoli’s (unsolicited, I imagine) opinion, Cunego should focus not on the Tour, but on the World Championships which will be in September in Austria. “After the end of the Tour, he will have one month and a half to prepare, but he has to conserve his energy and preserve himself.”

It’s a kind of a damned-if-he-does, damned-if-he-doesn’t decision for Cunego, really. If he rides the Tour and does poorly, Bartoli (and countless others like him who surely exist) will spout “I told you so” all over the place. If he doesn’t ride the Tour, focuses on Worlds and does poorly there, there will undoubtedly be those who’ll say he should’ve ridden the Tour to prepare better for Worlds. Basically, now that he’s committed to riding the Tour, the only way to silence the critics will be for Cunego to do well in France. I guess we’ll see how that goes soon enough.

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