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The material or moral victory?

Here's the situation. Two riders out in front of the peloton with the survival of the break depending on their mutual cooperation, but at the same time their individual efforts potentially handing victory to the other. One rider is not putting in his fair share of the work while the other's effort is keeping the peloton away. Assuming the rider who put in all the work loses in the final sprint due to his earlier efforts, who would you see as the winner?

Obviously the more important the race the less the moral aspect tends to be a factor, as choosing to miss one's turn is a race tactic that becomes more easily justified when winning really is all that matters. In reality directeur sportifs, on-the-road deals, rider personality and confidence make it much more complicated than this, but I've put it up for the vote this week.

Is wheel-sucking a race winning strategy or a dirty tactic?

Comments:

Whoever crosses the line first is the winner. :)

If you want to determine a winner purely based on athletic performance, than look to the ITT.

Mags
By  mags
 

exactly!..this is road racing and why we love it.
By  Richy
 

I guess it's part of strategy so I guess it's a valid tactic. There is only one winner after all, and the two that kinda work together, one will have a stronger break at the very end than the other.
By  Tom Stormcrowe
 

Good points, how about Armstrong's "Ooo, I don't feel too well today I think I'll sit at the back with a strained look on my face and let Telekom take me to the foot of the final climb." ;-)
To be honest I think pretty much anything goes and can be intepreted as tactics, but I would draw the line at going back on an on-the-road deal. Does anyone remember a famous case of someone breaking a deal? I seem to recall something with Hinault and Lemond?
By  iain
 

There are a few examples of riders who did all the work and managed to keep the other riders off their wheels when the sprint came.
It's parasitic for one rider to suck the juice out of another and then win it, but I don't think you can call it dirty.
By  Caloi-Rider
 

cyclesport is far more complicated than this and everyone has a choice of where to sit in a race after all...

Eddy Merckx never won every Classic [he never took Paris-Tours] simply because his close friend and great rider De Vlaeminick had an idol and veneration in the powerful King of the Classics champion, Van Looy [who won them all!] and sacrificed even his own chance to win because of this

...the winner is the winner and that is it

R
By  Anonymous
 

Nicely put R. I admit, I have over-simplified the point for the sake of argument but by the looks of the comments there's not much too it, everyone seems to agree, it's No. 1 or nothing.
By  iain
 

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