Wow great report! Vague back on top in fine style.

Can we have a 6-8th place count please ?

Thanks Ian. Great read. Now back to own work in some Vague-style.. pounding my chest.

Came earlier then expected and I missed tactics, probably wouldn't of made a difference. Thanks for the report , 4th isn't bad especially on ice, I just didn't realise the conditions were that bad and thought he could win.

Uh oh to find a positive, erm.. Well Matt finished the race
Yeah Francis was Vaguely untouchable today, not much to add.

Oh found another positive! Matt now is in a battle for the 4th place after losing 3rd in a single race! Cornelis wil be tough to stay ahead of but with a condition similar to Aosta all is possible.

Thanks for the astonishing read

And proving that these two weeks of December were the real Superprestige weeks, the classification right before Lisbon, just 2 in game weeks ago:

Superprestige


compared to:




Can open a discussion; are 4 Superprestige races in 2 weeks too many? If you have a bad shape for 2 weeks, you're out of the trophy. Or is that the name of the game? We'll have to see for next year's calendar if the UCI will change it

But then you can argue that to win the world championships you have to peak on one day. So as long as the other classifications have more spread out races, then I think it's just part of the game.

Oh and to round off this long, long day :p
A final small piece of information. Halfway the season, this is the battle for the World Championships spot (top 30 gets to race):

25	Jan Soucek	370
26	Ronnie Hira	333
27	Karol Konva	327
28	Arda Akdeniz	280
29	Ferdi Kloet	278
30	Gregory Bernard	260
31	Mustafa Moli	242
32	Thijs Van Lookeren	212
33	Camilo Osorio	201
34	Guido Visconti	188
35	Josiah Bennett	178

Riders in green seem safe, for now.
Riders in orange might show a nice battle to reach the top 30.
Riders in red need to get their act together if they want to qualify for the Words.

Just something to sleep on.
Good night ;)

Josiah still wants his arguments against the rule heard by the UCI, he just sent a letter off to be considered.

I like the Superprestige December very much and in fact I hope it stays this way. It's nice to have a focus on something and have some real gamechanger weeks whilst most of the other months follow a regular order.

Thanks for the preview Ian, I'm excited for what imo is one of the biggest races of the season.

@jandal: You kind of did say he was going to build form.

Wow, big thumbs up for Shonak as he managed to update almost all of his semi-active riders right now. (Besides Vague and the retired Dobransky,) we now have seen pieces on Welling, Van Overberghe and Visconti.

Wonderful reads, all of them, and I thought that deserved a special mention. Seeing they were all written this evening!

Yeah clearly nothing better to do on a saturday night, thanks for pointing that out Ian.

(I actually used it to vent a bit off from university learning)

Haha always happy to point that out

Anyway, with the WC today, don't expect a report!

And here is the Christmas Classic! Hope you enjoy it!

Cool report, I see that there's a noticeable lack of action without Matt

Nice to see Sylvain taking it at home, and even though it's always funny to see Cook 2nd once again, it's a bit of a bitter sweet for some reason. Always look forward to the Cookie Monster's cocky blog posts

Yeah another fine report. Sucks that Vague lost UCI lead though.

Great report Ian! Wondering when Milan will stop getting in the wrong end of the top 10. Every single race!

Reminds me of the sprint (3:40) in this video:

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

Sylvain won the Christmas Classic! I am very very happy now.

Thanks for the great report Ian.

Okay, slight drop in pace, sorry for that
Hope to get the next preview up here today. But funny story, been busy because later today I have to perform with our band at a press conference never done that before, so with lots of media there, it'll be interesting and worth rehearsing for