Lets hope that Costa has a Great Race to the Sun

Thanks guys.

Stage 1 - a short ITT



After his good TT from Algarve we have good reasons for a TOP 10 even if Wiggins , Evans , T.Martin , Cancellara , Rogers and L.L.Sanchez are all here .



Westa , the Duch national champion sets the best time.



Rogers disappoints.



Boom beat Westra.



Here is our man ,Rui Costa . Super performance , 3rd provisional time.



Chavanel is now the leader.



Cancellara show! His second TT win of the season. Takes the yellow jersey.



Kiryenka 6th , Rui Costa 8th . Good start.

Wiggins and T.Martin were very weak . Paris-Nice was acatually their first race of the season.

Decent performance from Costa, I'd say!

8th place is a Good start for Rui

Meanwhile we raced in Vuelta Murcia . The organizers offered us 7000 euros for the participation of Valverde . We accepted and Alejandro started the seson 2 weeks sooner than we expected . Although he performed really well finishing 8th overall . David Millar won the ITT and the overall.

Stgae 3 report from Paris-Nice will be in a few hours.

Good job!

Stage 2 - a flat stage



Without Ventoso or Rojas who will ride Tirenno-Adriatico we had no chance in a mass sprint.



Here we can see the FDJ train for the French champion Nacer Bouhanni and the Orica trian for the Australian champion Goss. Petachi , Lighart and Se.Chavanel were also there.



A win for Goss. After the 5 wins from Qatar and this one he showed he is in a great shape and he looks he can win MSR again.

Unfortunately Kiryenka was caught in an incident . He is ok but lost more than 3 minutes . The top 10 in GC remained unchanged excpet Kiryenka of course.

1.Goss
2.Se.Chavanel
3.Pettachi
4.Farrar
5.Bouhanni

Stage 3 - an uphill sprint



This stage can really suit Rui Costa . Lets hope for a good result.



When the break-away was caught Gallopin attacked on the downhill.



Gallopin was caught and he was sitting now next to Cancellara
Rui Costa was wll placed while Sgan was exposed in the front.



What a sprint from the OPQS riders . A win for Chava . Rui Costa missed the poduim by a little . Still a good result.



1.Chavanel
2.T.Martin
3.L.Westra
4.Rui Costa
5.T.Gallopin

Chavanel took the lead. Cancellara is 4s behind while Rui Costa is 7th 15 seconds behind Sylvain

Points
1.Chavanel 47p
2.Goss 36p
Westra 36p
Gallopin 36p

Stage 5



This is the most difficult stage so far. We will try to win some seconds and move up in the GC.



The break-away got caught and on the last climb Kiryenka set the pace for Rui Costa. Chavanel looked very strong and still had 2 team-mates in front of him.

In the last km we lost some postitions but still a good result.


Stage result
1.L.L.Sanzhez
2.R.Porte
3.J.Rodriguez +19s
4.Chavanel +29s
5.N.Roche +39s
6Rui Costa +39s


GC

1.L.L.Sanchez
2.Chavanel +24s
3.Cancellara +36s
4.R.Porte +43s
5.L.Westra +44s
6.T.Gallopin +46
7.Rui Costa +46s

Rui Costa is still close...anything is possible.

Costa seeing some regular finishes in the top ten

I had some rpoblems yesterday with the screenshots from stage 4 and I decided to post stage 5 .Now it is ok and I will post the report now . Stage 6 will be in a few hours.

Stage 4





We had Samoilau in the BOTD.



Unfortunately the break-away was reeled in and Ballan attacked.

He was caught as well and it looked like it was going to be a mass sprint.



What a double for Cofidis!

Stage results

1.S.Doumulin
2.LDuque
3.L.Mondrory
4.R.Perez
5.F.Sabatini

What a surprising TOP 5. The GC remained unchanged until stage 5 where you saw that L.L.Sanchez took the lead.

Good racing in Paris-nice so far. Rui costa is doing really well there.

Its time for stage 6.



The break-away got caught and it looked like it was going to be a mass sprint. L.L.Sanchez , Gallopin , Feire , Goss were all there.
Rui Costa decided to take Sagan's wheel.





I noticed that Cameron Meyer was tired and he just did not have a high speed . So i decided to start the sprint and take them by surprise . I already had a small gap when we enterd in the final km which had a slope of 2%.



What a win for Rui Costain Sisteron! First goal of the season : stage win in Paris-Nice was achieved.



Stage rankings

1.Rui Costa
2.T.Gallopin
3.P.Sagan
4.MGoss
5.O.Freire

GC
1L.L.Sanchez
2.S.Chavanel +24s
3.F.Cancellara +36s
4.Rui Costa +40s
5.T.Gallopin +42s

Rui is now 4th. Finishing in the Top 5 would be amazing.

Points

1Rui Costa. 72p
2.Chavanel 69p
3.T.Gallopin 67p

Great win! keep it up!

Stage 7 - it will probabli end with a sprint . Now lets see what sprinters can stay in the 1st group . Sagan is #1 favorite.





Kiserlovski , Morbaito , De Clerq , Simon , Thomas - some strong riders in the break-away.

It will be very close. 20 km to go and they had 1 : 30 over the peloton.



Rabobank was chasing . Rui Costa is in front just like Sgan .
Rui Costa will sprint to make sure that he takes home the Green Jersey.



A nice lead-out by Kiryenka.



Sagan , Rui Costa and L.L.Sanchez are psrinting to catch the break-away. They were in front with 1.5km to go.



A win for Sagan. Thomas was caught with 200 m to go.

Stage results

1.P.Sagan
2.M.Marcato
3.S.Doumulin
4.G.Thomas
5.B.De Clerq
......
7.Rui Costa

With another top 10 Rui Costa will win the Green Jersey.

A Great win for Costa on Stage 6, Well Done

Sutty68 and Alexanderlens Thanks

Its time for the last stage : an ITT on Col dÉze.



Already having the stage win and the Green Jersey , our biggest goal win be to defend our GC position . A top 5 would be amazing!



Here is Andy Schleck . He had a disappointing tour being way behind in the GC but now he sets the best time , also catching Devolder.

These are the last 5 men to go


Richie Porte - 2 seconds behind Andy . Great time.


Rui Costa


Fabian Cancellara


Sylvain Chavanel


The leader - Luis Leon Sanchez


Stage results

1.Andy Schleck
2.Juaquim Rodriguez +2s
3.Richie Porte +2s
4.Nicolas Roche +10s
5.Bradley Wiggins +12s
6.Rui Costa +13s


GC

1.Luis Leon Sanchez
2.Richie Porte +30s
3.Joaquim Rodriguez +35s
4.Rui Costa +38s
5.Sylvain Chavanel +45s


Points
1.Rui Costa

KOM
1.Julien Simon

Young Rider
1.Cameron Meyer


Well Paris-Nice ended . I can say I am very satisfied with the performance of Rui Costa , winning a stage ,getting the Green Jersey and finishing 4th overall.
Also great performance by Luis Leon who rider of the year until now . He won Paris-Nice , Tour of Qatar and Vuelta Mallorca and has 7 wins by now.

*The reports from Tirreno will come in the following days.

Great results!

Tirreno - Adriatico

Our team :



The goal imposed by the sponosrs for Tirreno is to win a stage . Rojas , Ventoso , Castroviejo and Quitana are all capable of doing it.