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Comment by loblollyboy | Hacker News Reader

That's a stage race, that happens a lot. Help me win my war and I'll let you reap the spoils of the battle.

But in a 1 day like the national championship I really do not think that such verbal agreements are valid at all. Ok, I've never raced, but I've watched a lot of racing and have literally seen this scenario happen multiple times to just one rider alone (Peter Sagan). He was/is often the strongest rider but was on a bad team and was prone to tactical mistakes when he was younger, so he would do a lot of the pulling and get screwed at the end. Nobody wanted to see Sagan lose, but nobody called the winners cheaters either.

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> But in a 1 day like the national championship I really do not think that such verbal agreements are valid at all.

That would be the case if each rider would have the same chance of winning and each rider would be there to win. However, for many riders, the national championship are not their main focus. They might be exhausted from a long program of races in the previous weeks and are not at their best. Or they might be preparing for other more important races in the coming weeks and are not yet on their best, for example when coming from a training camp at height, or are unwilling to take extra risks to prevent injury. And, of course, some races are better suited to certain riders than others.

All these factors mean that there are a lot of riders that know they aren't there to win, but would be willing to help another rider. For example, one who has helped him before, or a team mate, or one would could beat a rival, or one who is an underdog, and so on.

You have said a lot of things that are kind of true and not relevant to this. First of all, I think most of the people at the U-23 USA race in 2001 were not there to be domestiques. For an U-23 rider in a non-European country I think national championship is your big break. We can safely assume that at some point towards the end of the race they were both in it to win it. Then Mike kind of played Ian, but Ian LET HIMSELF get played. This scenario is very common in 1-day races. Like 10-50% of (pro, 1-day) races I would say end up with a breakaway getting away without enough of a cushion to have the luxury of cat and mouse, and in many of these cases 1 rider is stronger than the other. It's 'unfair' to the stronger rider, but this story proves that you can only trust yourself and teammates. So either drop the weak guy or make him help. If he doesn't help, well, actions speak louder than 'verbal agreements.' I still think it is a fascinating story and mad respect for both guys.

You have to take the long view. Sure, its a one day race, but if you make a deal and back out of it, the rest of the peleton is going to hear about that and you aren't as likely to get one in the next race.

Secondly, coming in 2nd in the National Championship race is still a huge deal. Far better than coming in 122nd, and enough to get you attention, and possibly a professional deal. There are real reasons to make a deal for 2nd.

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