Good stage from Gadret, now I'm hoping that the breakaway bug won't make a return

It's time for the first important cobbled race of the season: the Omloop het Nieuwsblad, and with the .HC category it should be prestigious. According to the Belgians (who are a bit weird) it's the real start of the cycling season, and many have looked forward to it.

The history of the race runs all the way back to 1945, starting out as the Omloop Van Vlaanderen. This year the Belgian Jean Bogaerts managed to become the winner of this race.



Due to name similarities the name was soon changed to the Omloop Het Volk in 1947, named after Het Volk, the Flemish newspaper which hosted the race. Until 2008 this name was held, but afterwards Het Volk became part of Het Nieuwsblad, meaning the name changed to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Since its first edition the race has been cancelled three times, twice due to snow, in 1986 and 2004, and once due to lack of organisation, all the way back to 1960.

The race has three record winners, each of them with three victories. Ernest Sterckx won in 1952, 1953 and 1956, Joseph Bruyère won in 1974, 1975 and 1980 and most recently Peter van Petegem won in 1997, 1998 and 2002.



Last year the race was decided by a group sprint of no less than twenty riders. In this group cobbles legend Tom Boonen was present, and he once again confirmed his status by obtaining his first ever victory in this race after already coming second in 2012.





The route, running from the Belgian city of Gent to the Belgian city of Gent, provides us with the typical cobbles challenge. A total of 11 sectors of cobbles are in this race, including three rides over the Haaghoek. Most notorious are the ones near the end of the race though. The Molenberg, Paddestraat and Lange Munte will definitely mark the race.

The favourites for this race are hard to mention this year. Surprisingly both Trek and Omega Pharma did not make their way to the start line, meaning Taaienberg icon and last year's winner Tom Boonen is not present, as well as Fabian Cancellara.

Their absence leaves the space to those who usually play a second violin in these cobbled races. It has to be said that they also have some notable results in cobbled races though.

Firstly Sep Vanmarcke should be mentioned. His main result comes from last year's Paris-Roubaix, which he won. Having a good past in this race, winning it in 2012, makes him the man to look at for today. Boom, Tjallingii, Van Keirsbulck and Wynants provide him with strong support

His rivalry will be strong though. Firstly Peter Sagan, winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, deserves a mention. The Slovak allrounder does show he doesn't always need a team, and that's a good thing, as his support is rubbish. Only Sabatini should be valuable.

Another Belgian has made the list of favourites. BMC's Greg van Avermaet already won the Ronde van Vlaanderen last year. Compared to that the Omloop is a piece of cake. He carries a very strong team with him, including Philippe Gilbert.

Erik McDermott already came 2nd last year after a strong late attack. This year he'll try to improve on that result, and with Stybar, Nuyens and Vansummeren by his side his support is very strong.

Alexander Kristoff does not have a cobbles past as large as the aforementioned riders, but the Norwegian from Katusha should be a dangerous contender today. His main problem may however be that his support is weaker than Sagan's.

Outside these 5 favourites there are many many outsiders. Sébastien Turgot, Rudy Verboven, John Degenkolb, Jurgen Roelandts, Heinrich Haussler, Matthieu Ladagnous, Yoann Offredo and André Greipel.

Hell Yeah!!!!!!!!! Great first win for Diego, now Orica just have to protect his lead.

Esteban you are a star 6th on GC is a great result hopefully he can keep that.

Jesus I'm happy.

Excellent preview! I hope we can get some points here, but it usualy ends in a sprint with a small group so I'm putting my money on Sagan.

Oh come on!
Are we being BMC-backup here or what? Of course I knew it would be hard for Poorseyedi to stay up in the GC and it was lucky to even get to that good spot.

But getting 11th when you have a Top10 goal is just...so..BMC

Now guys get ahold of yourself, I really don't wanna join that 11th-place-club


@Luigi: great preview.
@Ollfardh: I'm really wondering why teams like Crelan, UHC and Novo are in Omloop when you said you couldn't grant invitations to all the applicants. I'd certainly like it more when unmanaged teams are only used to fill startlists in races with too less interest from the managers. When they are taking spaces, mangers could have been granted, it really looks stupid to me.
(I understand you want them to get some points, but they certainly don't anyway and when they do it's frustrating to all the managers).

Don't worry, you'll still drop because of De Maar

Very strong stage from the Caja Rural guys - again much like on Green Mountain in Oman really kicking on now in the mountains.

Was strange to have a guy in the break as well on a day when our Classification guy Alarcon was going for a big GC result. It all worked out though pretty well with Jose perhaps a bit unlucky to miss out on getting up to second. No disgrace in losing to buffed up Orica guy.

Good Omloop preview. Really looking forward to the race. McDermott liked it last year and have grown much stronger since then - and then it's the first outing for the Basque cobbles-train.

what?

Well, I restricted spots to half the WT so CT teams get some chances in the bigger CT races. Crelan will always get a spot though, as a Belgian team, but I did use UHC and Novo as filler teams for this, was hoping more CT teams would be interested.

I doubt well achieve our goal for Omloop

Won't be too hard for Sagan to do better than last year. Hope he at least gets on the podium.

Well, yeah, I meant Selwink. Somehow mixed that up

Back to sprinting. Will anyone be able to challenge AG2R this time?
We will most likely also see a close to the KOM competition today.


5 riders make todays early break: Augustyn, Mironov, Rusli, Friedeman and Malacarne.
Engoulvent has the chance to steal the mountain jersey from his teammate so that will be interesting to see play out.

The intermediate goes uncontested to Friedeman. 153 km to go and a gap of 6'46
140 km and 8'30
130 km and 9'55
Augustyn is the best placed rider in the break 10'05 behind.
120 km and 11'16

Malacarne is here to take Lequatres jersey!
110 km and 12'38
100 km and 14'32

Apparently having the yellow jersey is not enough to make Orica look like a team either. If things continue like this they won't have to worry about that tomorrow anyway.
90 km and 15'12

Not much doubt that the break will get the stage, but will they also get the GC?
At this point only Rusli is not in the provisional top 4.
80 km and 14'38

Malacarne took the 2nd KOM without challengers as well.
70 km and 14'25

Still no sight of Orica wanting to defend Johnson's jersey…
The last KOM goes to Malacarne as well postponing the final secision a bit. The jersey will go to Bretagne-Seche though.

50 km and 12'56. CCC is showing the right attitude here,
40 km and 12'12
30 km and 11'33

21 km to go and 9'43. Rusli attacks followed by Augustyn, who immediately counters.
The South African is looking strong in his comeback season!

15 km and 7'54. The break is back together and Johnson can thank CCC for saving his jersey.

Rusli tries again 7,5 km from the finish line

Again countered by Augustyn, who goes into the final 5 km with a small gap to the other four.

All but Rusli bridges the gap. One at a time though.

Friedeman with a gap going into the final 1,5 km

And he takes it.

Augustyn with a disappointing 4th after a very strong stage.

Meanwhile in the peloton Orica is acting like a team building a train for Howards aim at finishing 6th on the stage.

And that is how you beat Markus in a sprint.

1	Matthias Friedemann	Champion System Pro Cycling Team	5h01'12
2	Alexander Mironov	RusVelo	s.t.
3	Gaël Malacarne	Bretagne - Séché Environnement	s.t.
4	John-Lee Augustyn	MTN - Qhubeka	s.t.
5	Amir Rusli	Drapac Cycling	+ 1'18
6	Leigh Howard	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 3'40
7	Fabian Brookes	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	s.t.
8	Mario Guido	Colombia	s.t.
9	Ramon Sinkeldam	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	s.t.
10	Barry Markus	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.

1	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	21h45'19
2	Thomas Damuseau	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 42
3	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 55
4	John Gadret	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 1'48
5	Gorka Verdugo	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 2'33
6	Esteban Chaves	Colombia	s.t.
7	Cadel Evans	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 2'55
8	Janez Brajkovi�	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
9	Simon Clarke	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 3'16
10	Alfredo Balloni	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	+ 3'36

1	Barry Markus	AG2R La Mondiale	6	81
2	Fabian Brookes	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	9	65
3	Leigh Howard	Orica - GreenEdge	10	58
4	Mario Guido	Colombia	8	54
5	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	0	39

1	Geoffroy Lequatre	Bretagne - Séché Environnement	0	36
2	Gaël Malacarne	Bretagne - Séché Environnement	18	34
3	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	0	20
4	John Murphy	UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team	0	16
5	Jimmy Engoulvent	Sojasun	0	16

1	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	21h45'19 (1)
2	Thomas Damuseau	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 42 (2)
3	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 55 (3)
4	Esteban Chaves	Colombia	+ 2'33 (4)
5	Alfredo Balloni	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	+ 3'36 (5)

1	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	65h21'11 (1)
2	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 1'17 (2)
3	Astana Pro Team	+ 6'23 (3)
4	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 11'52 (4)
5	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 13'04 (5)

Wtf was that... At least the sprint, but seriously...

Good pace of reports Atlantius. Good to see the effort someone is putting in.

Solid team effort here and Sinkeldam got 4th in the bunch sprint and might take his first podium soon Great pace and your definitely the right reporter for this race

Not much more to say. Nice to see Augustyn in the break, pity of the result.

Hopefully more successful breaks

Looks like my guys really don't care for breakaways this time around. I had hoped to get them in there and since most of them had fast legs, they could win a reduced bunch sprint. Today was perfect opportunitiy for that.

Volta ao Algarve