Can't see us getting anything here unsurprisingly.

Mantes-la-Jolie - Mantes-la-Jolie (161 km)

Welcome to the first stage of the 72nd edition of Paris - Nice, today we start in Mantes-la-Jolie and today is a day for the sprinters. Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan and Bryan Coquard are the favorites for the podium.

The Race

The break was formed without any chaos and Team Sky seemed upset on making sure the right riders were in the break. The teams represented today is Y.Huguet (GIA), J.Vermote (OPQ), Y.Gomez (COL) and N.Oliveira (TFR)


Julien Vermote (OPQ) takes the first Intermediate Sprint of today as they venture back on the circuit, set in the town of Mantes-la-Jolie.

Rider	Points	Time
Julien Vermote	3 pts	-3
Yoann Huguet	2 pts	-2
Yelko Gomez	1 pts	-1

Julien Vermote (OPQ) takes the 2nd Intermediate Sprint of the day, but the break only has a 2'20 gap with 36 km left.

Rider	Points	Time
Julien Vermote	3 pts	3
Yoann Huguet	2 pts	2
Yelko Gomez	1 pts	1

26 km left and 1'21 from the pack to the breakaway! Team Sky and Katusha are making sure that it will end in a bunch sprint.


Julien Vermote (OPQ) tries to give his chances of a stage win a last call, but there is only 55 seconds down to the chasing pack.


The break is catched with 12 km left, now it's time for the sprinters to show their strenghth in a bunch sprint.


Now to summary the current situation up; Coquard has the Chavanel brothers as his leadout. Kristoff and Bouhanni are splitted from their persepective leadouts, while Sagan only has Pedersen to help him, but is too far away from the front. Cavendish sits on the wheel of Coquard.


Coquard has Bennett on his wheel, while Team Sky's train is trying to squeeze themselves beside Europcar's train. Sagan and Kristoff is both alone and trapped.


Team Sky hurls away with Swift starting the sprint for Cavendish, Chavanel remains patient with Coquard. Meanwhile Calzone and Bennett are fighting for space, Kristoff suddenly has Bole at his side, but where is Sagan ?


Calzone tries to follow Cavendish's wheel, while Bouhanni and Kristoff are launched, but Swift is still waiting to release Cavendish for the final sprint.


Cavendish finally opens his sprint, Calzone can't follow and Kristoff seems to be the only one to challenge Cavendish! Bennett, Bouhanni and Sagan is fighting for the secondary positions on the far right.


Cavendish was released on the right time and his victory credits will go to Swift for an amazing leadout! Kristoff takes second and Coquard finishes of with 3rd place.

Points

Wtf Bouhanni

Good quiet start to the Paris - Nice for us. Would have been nice to be in teh break though.

Unfortunately not a lot of interest in Nokere Koerse this year. The Flanders semi-classic that features hills and cobble sections only managed to attract three World Tour level teams which presents a great opportunity for the Pro-continental teams too take a victory here. Last year victory was taken by Sky and Matthew Haymen but there will be a new winner in 2014.



The 194km route from Ronse to Nokere will navigate 12 cobble sections, the largest coming a long way fro home so won't be a major factor in the race. They will enter a circuit that they will lap 10 times to the finish which features a short cobble section on the finishing straight, what affect that may have on the finale is too be seen.

Please not Rusvelo are racing but there start list didn't fit on the picture.

The favourites are a mix of strong cobblers and fast sprinters:

Vanmarcke (BEL)
Van Avermaet (BMC)
Boom (BEL)
Haussler (IAM)
Roelandts (LTB)

Special mentions to:

Grepiel (LTB)
Ladagnous (FDJ)

Good to see Calzone coming close to that podium after the first races, now to grab a win one of those days dude.

Bah, 11th in Paris-Nice

Nokere should bring us a bit more points in theory, but looking at Omloop and Kuurne, we can't be too certain.

Good to see Giant in the breakaway, not for the only time this week hopefully. Expected Cav win also and Ben Swift is great lead out for him.

Coquard with a 3rd place, nice \o/

Good to see the pace rising again by the way, a few San Luis stages would make it perfect now

Meh.. horrible from Cannondale. Not sure where Sabatini and Lasca were.

Let's hope Nokere won't end in a farce like last year

Good to see Calzone improving. It's just such a tiny step left to the top...

Also nice to see Sagan without bonus seconds. He should not get the chance to get a jersey bonus because then he would be very hard to beat.

Good start

Guess I should say this again, is there any fix for the sprint points not working?

change the race classification xml

Paris Nice is here and I've got a podium goal so I'm hoping Betancur can accomplish exactly that.

Well, nobody crashed or lost silly time on stage 1 so I'm fine with Fenn not trying. He wouldn't have got any points anyway.

That Nokere startlist is, uhm, interesting. We'll still manage to fail somehow.

Cofidis have top 5 GC goal in P-N and top 10 in N-K.
On current form will be delighted if we get anywhere near these.

To what?