The GP Ouest France in Plouay is one of those races that is difficult to predict. In principle the race is mostly flat but the cumulative climbing after almost 240 kilometers is around 2,500 meters, which many sprinters find difficult to handle. Therefore, the winners in Plouay are very varied: Jose Joaquin Rojas, Jakob Fuglsang and Alessandro Ballan. Last year the Italian won thanks to an attack in the last kilometers that the peloton could not reel back in.
The race takes place in a circuit around the town, which includes two hills, most notably the Cote de Ty Marrec, only 1.3 kilometers long and averaging almost 6% but with a tough section at the start. This is the place where the strongest riders of the race try to leave the sprinters behind. However, a sprint of a rather big group cannot be discarded.
Favorites:
- Simone Ponzi (Team Katusha): Ponzi had not raced since the National Championships until last week's Vattenfall Cyclassics and, even without much race form he managed a place in the Top 10 in Germany. Nevertheless, even though it is difficult to predict his performance he should be close to the front if his form from the first part of the season is an indication. He did not get two important wins for nothing.
- Alexander Kristoff (Euskaltel - Euskadi): Alexander Kristoff is the rising star of the season and leads the win count with 7 this season. The Norwegian won in the Vattenfall Cyclassics last week and is in deadly form. The race in Plouay is the last target of the season for Kristoff, although it remains to be seen whether Euskaltel will work for him or for another rider in Plouay.
- Lloyd Mondory (Euskaltel - Euskadi): Euskaltel has other legitimate option other than Alexander Kristoff and that is the local Lloyd Mondory. The French has already won the Gent - Wevelgem and one stage in the Tour de France, so he has already proven what it takes to tackle and win a World Tour classic. Mondory will probably the option for Euskaltel if the race is hard on the climbs as he goes over the hills easier than Kristoff.
- Kenny van Hummel (Belkin Pro Cycling): The Dutch might be slightly behind the three men above in order to win the race in Plouay. However, if the races end in a sprint of a rather big group he should have almost as big a chance as the others. Van Hummel has already won stages in both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France so it would not be a surprise if he get a good result.
Other important riders in France will be Francisco Ventoso (Euskaltel - Euskadi), Ben Swift (Team Sky), Jose Joaquin Rojas (HTC - Highroad), Marcel Kittel (Astana Pro Team), Bjorn Leukemans (Lotto - Belisol) and Andre Greipel (Trek Factory Racing).
The circuit in Plouay has two climbs but only the second one, which is 4 kilometers before the finish line might possibly break the mass sprint. The climb to Ty Marrec has 500 meters averaging 9.5% where the strongest riders might leave the sprinters behind. Alessandro Ballan attacked a few kilometers before this climb to take a solo win in Plouay, so this outcome cannot be discarded either.
The break of the day was really small today. Only 3 riders managed to get into it: Juanjo Lobato (Movistar), Maarten Tjallingii (Ag2r) and Sergey Firsanov (Lotto). With 116 kilometers remaining they got the biggest margin on the main bunch, 8 minutes. However, several teams were collaborating to set a pace at the front of the pack, including Quickstep and BMC. It is surprising that those 2 teams are working as the sprint should not be an option for them. They will probably have to try to attack from far out.
With 38 kilometers to go it was last year's winner, Alessandro Ballan, who was leading the main bunch. It seems like BMC has some faith in what Tony Gallopin can do in the sprint because they seem to be burning their other option to reel back the break. Euskaltel and Trek are also very keen to have the race controlled. It is normal that the Spaniard team is at the front because Alexander Kristoff is very strong. The gap to the break had dropped to 2' 40'' with less than 2 laps to go in Plouay.
Lieuwe Westra was the first rider to seriously attack today. However, Luca Paolini overtook him after the attack and was close to connecting with the break when they are about to cross the finish line for the last time. Lieuwe Westra is chasing 30 seconds behind while the main bunch is only 1 minute behind the leaders of the race. Philippe Gilbert and Rinaldo Nocentini were leading the group through the climb of Ty Marrec and that meant that a few riders started to drop out of the bunch.
Rinaldo Nocentini joined the attackers after crossing the finish line but Euskaltel and Trek put their teams to work and reeled back all of the attackers with around 20 kilometers to go. The two teams are working for Alexander Kristoff and Andre Greipel and have strong squads in France. The peloton is starting to be much stretched due to the high pace at the front but most of the sprinters are well positioned at the front of the pack.
Chris Sutton and Johan Vansummeren attacked at the 10 kilometers mark but only Yoann Offredo managed to stay ahead of the bunch and with around 7 kilometers to go he had a gap of 15 seconds. This was the point where Alessandro Ballan attacked last year to take his solo win. Astana is clearly on an attacking mode even though they have Marcel Kittel, but the German has more trouble going through the hills and maybe he will have trouble at the last hill of the day.
Bad news for the Trek team as Andre Greipel crashed before the last climb to the Ty Marrec. The main bunch caught Yoann Offredo in the climb but Chris Sutton attacked, surprisingly strong for an attack from a sprinter in a hill. Giacomo Nizzolo was chasing with Tony Gallopin and Alexandre Kristoff following the wheel of the Italian. The peloton is starting to break in the last climb and we will probably have not a very big group for the sprint.
Chris Sutton did not go anywhere on his own and a group of 35 riders stayed at the front to fight for the win in Plouay. Simone Ponzi took the lead early in the sprint and already at the last kilometer he was followed by Fabian Cancellara and Tony Gallopin. Jurgen Roelandts and Giacomo Nizzolo were right behind. The Italian surprisingly found himself in the spotlight after Andre Greipel's crash meant that Trek's chances were lying on him.
Tony Gallopin wins in Plouay! The French rider wins the final sprint for BMC and takes his first win of the season. Gallopin won fair and square to end more than 1 year without winning. He will hopefully return to the good shape he had in 2012, when he got 5 wins in the season. He will be accompanied in the podium by Jose Joaquin Rojas and Alexander Kristoff. The Spaniard did a great final sprint but Gallopin was way too strong today.
The top 5 was completed by Simone Ponzi and Kenny van Hummel. In the end only 35 riders made it in the front group, which gives a hint of how hard the final of the race was. Trek was very unlucky with Andre Greipel's crash and Giacomo Nizzolo could only get the 8th place, while Astana was right in attacking as Marcel Kittel never looked like taking a good place in the race.
The Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec will be the only Canadian race in the calendar this year. The races in Montreal and Quebec have been the alternate venues for the Canadian race in the World Tour but from 2016 they will both feature in the calendar. The race in Quebec has only been raced twice so far and has similar characteristics as the one in Montreal. The circuit is only 12.5 kilometers long and raced 16 times for a total race distance of 202 kilometers.
Joost van Leijen is the defending champion and should be among the riders to have a shot at the win. However, if Van Leijen takes the win it would be a bit of a surprise. The podium in 2013 was completed by Rui Costa and Philippe Gilbert. The other winner, Janez Brajkovic, will also be at the starting line but given his recent performance it does not seem like the Slovenian is capable of fighting for the win.
Favorites:
- Simone Ponzi (Team Katusha): Simone Ponzi made a target for him these late season classics and started not too bad in the Vattenfall Cyclassics with a top 10, followed by narrowly missing the podium in Plouay. However, the race that fits his characteristics the most is probably the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec. The Italian will probably have no problem following the best in the hills and his speed in the sprint could prove crucial.
- Bjorn Leukemans (Lotto - Belisol): The Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec is a tricky race for Bjorn Leukemans, who normally favors longer, tougher races. However, the fact that the final sprint is slightly uphill will favor his chances. Otherwise he would most likely need to break the race before the final sprint. Leukemans has not had any results since he was in the podium of the National Championships so he should be looking for a good result in Canada.
- Rinaldo Nocentini (Team Katusha): Katusha brought a very strong team to Canada and that means that they have two good options to take the win. Rinaldo Nocentini is probably a bit better than Simone Ponzi over the hills and he will have to close down any dangerous attacks. The problem with Katusha's riders is that their best strategy to win is a defensive one and either sprinting with Ponzi or for Nocentini to be dragged to the finish by others.
- Simon Gerrans (Trek Factory Racing): Simon Gerrans, along with his teammate Philippe Gilbert, are on the same boat as Bjorn Leukemans. They need to drop Simone Ponzi before the final kilometer to have decent chances of taking the final win. Lotto, Trek and even Tinkoff should be on the attack in the last laps of the race to try to make the result a bit more unpredictable.
Other important riders in Canada will be Philippe Gilbert (Trek Factory Racing), Davide Rebellin (Movistar Team), Jose Joaquin Rojas (HTC - Highroad), Rui Costa (Tinkoff - Saxo), David Lopez (Euskaltel - Euskadi) and Joost van Leijen (Vacansoleil - DMC).
The Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec is, as Plouay was, raced in a circuit. However, Quebec's race has the circuit all inside the city. The race is therefore quite tricky, as the changes in direction are a constant. The only difficulty of the circuit is the hill where the finish line is placed, the Montee du Fort. That climb will be tackled 16 times, which will make the race much more difficult than the flat categorization in the profile.
Only 4 riders formed the break of the day: Andy Schleck (Quickstep), Jan Bakelants (Lotto), Christophe Riblon (Belkin) and Nacer Bouhanni (Ag2r). Schleck the strongest rider by far in the break and that meant that the bunch never allowed them to take a huge gap. The maximum was 7 minutes, with 107 kilometers remaining. Katusha, BMC and Astana were the teams leading the main bunch. Even though they were not setting too high a pace the race was uncomfortable for everyone with the continuous climbs.
The rain started to fall around halfway through the day and it was pouring as the riders headed for the start / finish line with 40 kilometers to go. It had made the roads slippery and caused a crash for Andy Schleck in the break and another one for Oliver Zaugg in the main bunch. HTC, Astana and Katusha had considerably picked up the pace and the gap for the break had shrunk to 2' 40''. It also seemed like Katusha had made up their mind and they were working for Simone Ponzi only, as Rinaldo Nocentini was helping to control the pace at the front.
A few more kilometers went by and still no serious attacks in the main bunch. With a lap an a half to go it seems like all the teams think that they have someone that can beat the likes of Simone Ponzi and Bjorn Leukemans in the final uphill finish and that is unlikely. HTC is especially confident on Jose Joaquin Rojas' chances and they have almost everyone working at the front. The gap went down to 1' 15'' with 20 kilometers to go so the break seems to be completely controlled by the bunch.
The break was about to be caught with 10 kilometers to go despite the efforts by Andy Schleck to keep it alive. There were still no attacks, which is surprising as we are already in the last lap of the race. However, the selection came in the form of crashes, most notably affecting Luca Paolini and Steven Kruijswijk. The Italian was probably the best Astana man, a team that has been working all day long. It seems unlikely that Kittel can scrape something out of today.
Cameron Meyer, Yoann Offredo and Alessandro Ballan tried to break from the bunch but only Sylvain Chavanel held on to a gap at the front of the pack with 4 kilometers remaining. He is maintaining a gap of 20 seconds before the hill heading towards the finish line. The bunch should not allow the French to build a bigger gap as he is already dangerous enough. Katusha is chasing but Mauro Finetto seems to be the only helper left for Katusha, which is surprising considering that Rinaldo Nocentini should be there with him.
Sylvain Chavanel held on to his 20 seconds lead with 2 kilometers to go, which gave him serious chances of winning the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec. Trek made an appearance with all of the team at the front of the pack to chase, including Philippe Gilbert and Simon Gerrans. They should have a good chance today. However, it was Marcel Kittel who tried to make a surprise movement and attacked first dragging Simone Ponzi, Jose Joaquin Rojas and Francesco Gavazzi with him. They were almost starting the climb at that point and Kittel's chances should be slim at best.
The riders reached the last kilometer of the race with Francesco Gavazzi leading the chase for Sylvain Chavanel, who still had 10 seconds on the peloton and his chances of winning the race intact. Marcel Kittel had started to fade, while Simon Gerrans, Simone Ponzi and Tejay van Garderen were chasing Gavazzi in the climb. The usual suspects in the uphill finishes were making an appearance in Quebec with the only surprise of not seeing Bjorn Leukemans around yet.
Simone Ponzi wins in Quebec! In a very narrow sprint for the line the Italian narrowly beat Sylvain Chavanel, who suffered a huge Zabel as he was already celebrating his win. Ponzi showed that he is among the very best in the uphill finishes and today was no different. He also seemed to be in a great shape ahead of the World Championship. This is the third and most important win for Ponzi in the year. The podium was completed by Francesco Gavazzi, while Jose Joaquin Rojas was 4th and Jelle Vanendert 5th.
In the end Trek had to settle for a 7th place for Simon Gerrans, even though the Australian seemed to start the climb close to the front. Meanwhile, Astana's best man was Yoann Offredo in a poor 10th place. Not too good for a team that was working all day long. The next competition will be the World Championships, which will feature as many as 3 races instead of the typical road race. We will have the first TTT and ITT champions.
It has been a long time since the riders visited the USA but Richmond, Virginia, has been selected to host the 2015 World Championships. It will also be the first time that the Time Trial Championships will be held, both in the team and individual versions. The first race of the three will be the Team Time Trial, where the commercial teams will fight for the first Gold medal of the Championships.
The circuit will run in the area to the south-east of Richmond in a route that goes back and forth between Richmond and the common finish for all the races in Broad Street. The route is not very demanding, especially considering the fact that it is only 35 kilometers long, a rather short distance for a team time trial. The only real difficulty for the riders will be the last hill in Governor Street, which has 1 kilometer with peaks at 14%, although averaging 5.7%.
Favorites:
- Omega Pharma - Quickstep: Quickstep might not have had a great year in terms of wins but if they have a discipline where they should excel it is team time trials. Their formation is very solid but the names that are outstanding in it are Cameron Meyer and Marco Pinotti. To a lesser extent, Janez Brajkovic is also good against the clock. Meyer has been the only rider to give wins to the team this season and he will also like to contribute in the team time trial.
- Trek Factory Racing: Trek also has a super team, including Tejay van Garderen, Michael Rogers and Fabian Cancellara. However, their depth in the squad is not as good as for Quickstep. They will have to keep 2 among Adriano Malori, Philippe Gilbert and Giovanni Visconti, which might end up being tricky. Nevertheless, even if the front 3 riders relayed they would still have a good chance to end up winning the gold medal.
- HTC - Highroad: HTC is also a firm candidate to the medals in Richmond. They bring Andrew Talansky and Levi Leipheimer as their best riders but Geraint Thomas is also very good against the clock. The weaker links of the team will be Paul Martens and Chris Horner but they could even have the luxury of not wearing one of them too much until the last kilometers.
- Astana Pro Team: Astana is probably the unsuspected favorite for the team time trial of the Worlds. The Kazakh team is one of the weakest in the World Tour but their roster, if unspectacular, is really solid: Yoann Offredo, Marcel Kittel, Anthony Roux, Tony Martin, Andreas Kloden and Franco Pellizotti. They clearly have 5 strong riders that will not have to wait for anyone else.
Other teams with a chance to be on the podium are Vacansoleil - DMC, Discovery Channel, Tinkoff - Saxo, Belkin Pro Cycling, Garmin - Sharp and BMC Racing Team.
The profile for the first TTT World Championship is almost completely flat. The only hill is Governor Street, inside the last kilometer of the race. The hill will be a good test to the strength of the members of the team in the closing stages of the day. It will be interesting to see which teams are able to manage the efforts of their riders not to lose time waiting for others. Other than that, the 35 kilometers are good for the teams to develop their coordination.
The first among the important teams to start was HTC. The Americans were unlucky enough to start 2nd the team time trial, which will not allow them to have any references of the times set by the front runners. However, their performance was lacking for a team this strong in the time trials and they did not even manage to improve on Giant's time. HTC set a time 4 seconds worse than the Pro Continental outfit.
Vacansoleil were only the 4th team to start. The roster included Bauke Mollema, David Millar and Lieuwe Westra, so they were supposed to have a good performance. They easily managed to take the first position at the finish line in Richmond beating Giant's time by a decent 10 seconds. The tight differences at the finish line are a reflection of the fact that the distance of the time trial is probably a bit too short for the discipline.
One of the favorite teams for the win at Richmond was Quickstep but their performance was far from what they expected. The Belgian team, with a roster including Cameron Meyer, Marco Pinotti and Janez Brajkovic only managed to set the 4th best time so far with lots of teams still to run. The 12 seconds that separated them from Vacansoleil are inexplicable looking at the quality of their riders but maybe Jens Debusschere and Enrico Gasparotto were too big a liability.
Discovery Channel was also one of the teams with good time trialists, most notably the current European Champion, Jean-Christophe Peraud. The American team was quite solid but, even though they set the best time in the intermediate step they lost out to Vacansoleil by only 2 seconds at the finish line. Discovery has been an underachiever this year and they will surely be happy to see the season finish.
Sky had surprisingly taken the lead at the finish line when Tinkoff - Saxo entered the last kilometers of the race. The Russian team had a couple of good men against the clock, most notably Rui Costa and Tiago Machado. The Russian team was very good but lost to Sky with a gap of less than 1 second. Tinkoff is therefore 2nd, not a bad performance for them considering their potential.
Astana took the start today close to the middle of the field. The Kazakh team was a potential contender for the medals but their performance was absolutely surprising. The coordination of the team showed that they had worked hard on the disciplined and they managed to take the lead at the finish line, a staggering 15 seconds ahead of Sky. The team including Marcel Kittel, Tony Martin and Anthony Roux became the favorite to take the gold medal at the end of the day.
The other strong pre-race favorite was Trek Factory Racing. The American team featured the American time trial champion, Tejay van Garderen, Michael Rogers and Fabian Cancellara. Their performance was quite good but only enough to take the second place 9 seconds behind Astana. Trek will also have a few men in the Individual Time Trial, where they have a decent chance to take the Gold medal.
The chances of medals for Garmin - Sharp were a long shot, even with Mathias Frank and Jerome Coppel in the roster. The American team nevertheless fought the battle but only managed to take the provisional 8th place, 27 seconds behind Astana. Nevertheless, it was still a good effort for them that placed the team ahead of squads like Omega Pharma - Quickstep and HTC - Highroad.
BMC's options for a good result were also remote but the American team has to fight the battle for the win in the overall World Tour rankings against Lotto and any result is a good one. The strongest team from last season managed to take the 7th place when they crossed the finish line, 21 seconds behind. Their coordination after the hill was not very good and Johann Tschopp crossed the line a bit behind their teammates to set the time, which maybe cost them a couple of seconds.
The last team among the favorites for the medals to start was Belkin but just before them a surprising Katusha squad managed to snatch the 3rd provisional time from Sky. Belkin managed to grab the 8th best time as they crossed the finish line, the place they would go on to finish the day. The rest of the teams behind Belkin where rather poor in time trials, including Lotto and Lampre. The position for the Italian team is really difficult and it looks like they will be a Pro Continental team next year.
In the end the team time trial World Championship provided a few surprising results, including the win for Astana. Although the Kazakh team was in principle consider a contender for the medals their win was rather unexpected. Even more surprising was the bronze medal for Katusha. The World Championship week will now go in crescendo as the Individual Time Trial will take place on Thursday and the Road Race on Sunday.
always celebrate after you have crossed the line 
