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Nordic Cycling | Final Farewell
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| Matthew21rp |
Posted on 01-02-2014 17:58
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Domestique
Posts: 444
Joined: 07-10-2011
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Complete Domination 
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 02-02-2014 07:53
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
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VoetsT: Happy that you think so. Still one to go 
SSJ2Luigi: It was. Especially since I started at the start that I wanted a monopoly if teh NC's
Matthew21rp: Could be the title for the final installment 
Won't be home much today, so I probably won't get the time to post anything until tomorrow.
Apart from the 2016 review it should be some big news though...
Edited by Atlantius on 02-02-2014 08:00
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 02-02-2014 15:12
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 34654
Joined: 22-08-2010
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2015 was definitely the most productive season yet
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 03-02-2014 09:09
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
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sutty: It was. Yet it was to be beaten by 2016...
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 03-02-2014 10:52
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
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The 2016 Team: Novo Nordisk - SAS  For a large part a team identical to the 2015-edition. The only changes are some new talents for the future and the fact that pretty much every captain of the team have become stronger over the last year.
In the opening race of the season everyone was looking to us to take the lead. So when we managed to sneak Jussi into the break no one remembered to chase and Veikkanen ended up stealing the GC!
After Chris took Tour of Oman and Fuglsang won Paris – Nice Bøchman took a win very similar to Veikkanen’s in Tirreno – Adriatico. A very weird route with no mountains or TT.
Milano – Sanremo was our main goal of the early season as Matti won it last year and was massively determined to repeat it wearing the rainbow jersey. Unfortunately Philippe Gilbert ruined the plan by suddenly getting back to his previous level – and that in his final year as a cyclist. A 2nd place is still good of course, but we went for the win.
In the following races we experienced a very changed attitude towards us leaving us almost no room for our usual attacking style of riding. Guess that’s the downside of being the world’s best team.
Still a massive highlight came when Johann Nokkvason became the first Icelandinc cyclist to win anything y taking the mountain jersey in Catalunya and later repeating that in Tour de Suisse and the young riders jersey in Tour de l’Ain making it a historic season for Nordic cycling and Iceland in particular.
Early in the season we did a lot of experimenting with our sprint train for Edvald. That resulted in a good early season form for him allowing him to take the win in E3. We thought that should be the kick-off of a great cobbled year since Matti also won Dwaars door Vlaanderen, but no.
Gent – Wevelgem and Ronde van Vlaanderen both turned into massive disappointments due to McDermott lacking on the hills and the others lacking on the cobbles. Good thing there’s no hills in Paris – Roubaix…
Erik had a lot of help making the race hard and forcing the other favourites to start working hard early on. That allowed him to drop the others with 10 km to go and ride solo into the velodrome. A beautiful win for our home-bred superstar!
Fuglsang went into the Giro as the big favourite being defending champion and winning the warm-up race of Romandie. The team did an amazing job winning the opening TT and keeping the jersey on our team throughout the entire race. In a combination of strong tactic, especially on the cobbled stage, great tactics and brilliant form no one ever really came close to threatening Jakob. The Giro is really turning into Fuglsang’s race!
We continued our monopoly of national championships looking strong going into a Tour de France with two targets: Willy Ipsen for the GC and Edvald Boasson Hagen for green. We quickly saw that Eddy was the by far fittest sprinter in the race and that resulted in us being forced to do all the work on the flat satges to secure the bunch sprints. Something that cost a lot of energy for Willy’s helpers and we often even saw Ipsen himself pulling towards the finish on the flat stages in spite of that coming back to haunt him in the hard mountain stages.
At first we went for stage wins and points, but as the Tour progressed the fans encouraged us to go for the record of most stage wins in one year. At first we missed the chance by failing a couple of sprints, but then Edvald reminded us that he is also a world class TT’ist by winning the last TT and perfecting the race by taking his 9th stage in green on the Champs Elysees!
The second big goal of the season for the World Champion was Clásica San Sebastián, but again it resulted in a 2nd place. Fortunately he found the form to redeem himself by winning three stages in the Vuelta making himself a favourite to regain his jersey. And he was even on a lone mission in Spain as the rest of the team was focused around Willy Ipsen.
Not only is the Vuelta the first place Ipsen got himself noticed with a strong last week two years ago helping Chris on the podium, it is also the race on paper most suiting for him with a medium amount of TT’ing and some big mountain finishes without too many 200+ km stages.
He demonstrated his skills on the first mountain top where he surprisingly cracked Antón completely – there’s no room for finding form when riding against us. Antón should know that by now…
Henao surprised by being very strong on the big mountains and on the hills he found collaboration with Antón and did gain a good bit of time in Willy on several occasions. Time that Willy took back on the TT and the mountain tops.
That left a frantic last week where Willy had to fight for his life every single day.
Sørensen and Löfkvist kept the pressure high and the pace too high for proper attacks and with 40 km to go of stage 20 the front of the peloton turned flat with Antón stretching his back as the sign of the GC battle being called of.
Willy wins by a margin of just 25 seconds with Ludvigsson taking a surprising youth jersey along the way.
In a new Norwegian race officially designed as a world championship preparation race it almost looked like everyone agreed that Thor Hushovd should finish his career with a win. A real fairytale ending to the story of the most important rider for Norwegian cycling ever.
And the fairytale continued in the World Championships in Luxembourg where Boasson Hagen took gold with Quaade next to him with a silver medal on the podium in the Time Trial.
In the road race it was Italy, Norway and Denmark calling the shots throughout the race with Matti being too tired to do better than 9th in the final sprint. Good thing for us that Edvald had Thor and Nordhaug by his side helping him right to the end allowing Boasson Hagen to write another page in the big history book of cycling.
He continued the tradition formed by Breschel last year by winning Il Lombardia in the rainbow jersey.
Victories in 2016, Novo Nordisk - SAS
One-day Races  Grand Prix la Marseillaise - Alexander Kristoff 
 DanCake Classic - Matti Breschel
 Dwars door Vlaanderen - Matti Breschel
E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Paris - Roubaix - Erik Meineche McDermott
Norsk Mesterskap, ITT - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Danmarksmesterskabet, ITT - Jakob Fuglsang
 Svenska Mesterskapen, ITT - Tobias Ludvigsson
Norsk Mesterskap, RR - Thor Hushovd
Danmarksmesterskabet, RR - Thomas Nybo Riis
Svenska Mesterskapen, RR - Tobias Ludvigsson
 Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec Thomas Nybo Riis
 World Championships, ITT - Edvald Boasson Hagen
World Championships, RR - Edvald Boasson Hagen
 Il Lombardia - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Stage Races, GC  Santos Tour Down Under - Jussi Veikkanen 
 Tour of Qatar - Edvald Boasson Hagen
 Tour of Oman - Chris Anker Sørensen
Bornholm Rundt - Jakob Fuglsang
Tirreno - Adriatico - Lasse Bøchman
Paris - Nice - Jakob Fuglsang
 Tour de Romandie - Jakob Fuglsang
Giro d'Italia - Jakob Fuglsang
Jylland Rundt - Erik Meineche McDermott
Tour de l'Ain - Chris Anker Sørensen
 Vuelta a España - Willy Ipsen
Autumn Tour of Norway - Thor Hushovd
Stage Races, Stages Tour of Qatar, Stage 5 - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Tour of Oman, Stage 2, 5 & 6 - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Tour of Oman, Stage 4 - Chris Anker Sørensen
Vuelta a AndalucÃa, Stage 1 - Jakob Fuglsang
Vuelta a AndalucÃa, Stage 4 - Thomas Löfkvist
Paris - Nice, Stage 1 & 5 - Jakob Fuglsang
Paris - Nice, Stage 7 - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Vuelta Ciclista a Catalunya, Stage 1 - Lasse Bøchman
Vuelta Ciclista a Catalunya, Stage 6 - Alexander Kristoff
Tour de Romandie, Stage 6 - Jakob Fuglsang
Giro d'Italia, Stage 1 - Team Time Trial
Giro d'Italia, Stage 9, 15 & 17 - Jakob Fuglsang
Jylland Rundt, Stage 1 - Tobias Ludvigsson
Jylland Rundt, Stage 5 - Erik Meineche McDermott
Tour de France, Stage 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 19, 20 & 21 - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Tour de l'Ain, stage 2 - Alexander Kristoff
Tour de l'Ain, stage 4 - Chris Anker Sørensen
Vuelta a España, stage 1 - TTT
Vuelta a España, stage 3, 12 & 20 - Matti Breschel
Vuelta a España, stage 4, 14 & 15 - Willy Ipsen
Vuelta a España, stage 10 - Alex Rasmussen
Autumn Tour of Norway, stage 1 & 3 - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Autumn Tour of Norway, stage 2 - Thor Hushovd
Autumn Tour of Norway, stage 4 - Matti Breschel
 Tour of Beijing, stage 1 & 2 - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Stage Races, Points Jersey Tour of Oman - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Vuelta a AndalucÃa - Jakob Fuglsang
Paris - Nice - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Tour de France - Edvald Boasson Hagen
Tour de l'Ain - Chris Anker Sørensen
Stage Races, Mountain Jersey Vuelta Ciclista a Catalunya - Johann Nokkvason 
 Amgen Tour of California - Jeppe Lykke Hartvig Nielsen
Critérium du Dauphiné - Jakob Fuglsang
Tour de Suisse - Johann Nokkvason
Vuelta a España - Willy Ipsen
Autumn Tour of Norway - Thor Hushovd
Stage Races, Young Rider Santos Tour Down Under - Thomas Nybo Riis
Tour of Qatar - Magnus Cort
Vuelta a AndalucÃa - Brian Steen Matzen
Vuelta a la Région de Murcia - Brian Steen Matzen
Tirreno - Adriatico - Brian Steen Matzen
Jylland Rundt - Erik Meineche McDermott
Eneco Tour - Tobias Ludvigsson
Tour de l'Ain - Johann Nokkvason
Post Danmark Rundt - Brian Steen Matzen
Vuelta a España - Tobias Ludvigsson
Autumn Tour of Norway - Tobias Tonning
Stage Races, Team Classification Santos Tour Down Under
Tour of Qatar
Tour of Oman
Vuelta a AndalucÃa
Vuelta a la Région de Murcia
Vuelta Ciclista a Catalunya
Amgen Tour of California
Jylland Rundt
Eneco Tour
Post Danmark Rundt
Vuelta a España
Autumn Tour of Norway 2016 became the season where it became undisputed that we have managed to build the world’s best cycling team with only Nordic riders. We consolidated a monopoly of NC’s and we even managed to put an Icelandic rider on the final podium winning a jersey in three races.
The three main goals proposed by the board when the team was established five years ago.
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 03-02-2014 11:13
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Team Leader
Posts: 7295
Joined: 11-04-2012
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What a year. Just what a year
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 03-02-2014 12:20
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 34654
Joined: 22-08-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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You were not kidding when you said 2016 was the Best year yet 
2017 will have to be totally awesome to beat that
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| Matthew21rp |
Posted on 03-02-2014 13:08
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Domestique
Posts: 444
Joined: 07-10-2011
PCM$: 200.00
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Another fantastic year
Bring on 2017
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 03-02-2014 16:09
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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 Time to comment on the rumours following my interview in the Writers Block and reveal why I didn’t go with the team to Asia to finish the season.
As the walk-through of the team history have proven Nordic cycling have gone far with me in charge of this team. In fact we have gone to the very top fulfilling all the dreams stated when the team was founded.
We have won the WT-rankings comfortably, we have two years in a row won both world championships and all the national championships and we have expanded professional cycling to Iceland.
The team sees two riders retiring after this season. Jens Erik Madsen, who have been a key member of the team all five years getting points in the start and helping the new guys get into place in later years.
Thor Hushovd is a legend of Norwegian cycling, who believed in our project from the start and was instrumental in our establishment on the World Tour and the attraction of other big names.
As those two I find my mission here has been fulfilled and I don’t think I can contribute much more. Once a dream has been reached I need to find a new dream to chase.
For that reason I will be stepping down from management of Novo Nordisk – SAS leaving the reins to my very competent colleagues. My only regret here is that they have decided that there is no room for the young Swedish fighter Joel Wallin on the team due to his tendency to always try to attack instead of slaving on in the peloton. I’m sure you will be hearing more from him though!
I myself will be taking a more withdrawn role. I will still be around the world of cycling in the North, but from now on I will be focusing my work on helping individual riders and leaving the spotlight for others.
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 03-02-2014 16:24
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 34654
Joined: 22-08-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Its a shame that you will be stepping down from the Management side of things  , I hope you will soon find that new dream, Good Luck
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 23-11-2024 23:08
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Bot Agent
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| Dippofix |
Posted on 03-02-2014 16:27
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3905
Joined: 29-01-2013
PCM$: 300.00
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Sad to hear, but Cycling in the North has come a long way in yozr reign, and i hope it'll survive the end of it without too many problems.
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| Shonak |
Posted on 03-02-2014 16:27
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15615
Joined: 16-07-2013
PCM$: 350.00
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Sounds like you beat the final boss. It was a blast. Still though, this announcement doesn't sound like "story is over", but rather that the story continues some place else. In any case, congratulations to the(?) longest running story on PCM and to clearly one of the best too!
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 03-02-2014 16:51
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
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I hope you will follow that young attacker and see to it that he finds his place in the right team
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| The Rider |
Posted on 03-02-2014 17:38
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4543
Joined: 29-02-2012
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What a way to go. When you win pretty much everything in the last 2 months of the season, you can do nothing but end in a blaze of glory.
What a story, thanks for the all great reports Atlantius. Hope you continue in the save after you have come so far.
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| Miguel98 |
Posted on 03-02-2014 17:58
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World Champion
Posts: 10497
Joined: 23-06-2011
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Sad to see this end
PCM 2011 section is definetelly legendary.
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| Jesleyh |
Posted on 03-02-2014 18:07
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15274
Joined: 21-07-2012
PCM$: 200.00
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Hmm. Shame to see this end(if it does, I'm not sure ).
This was an amazing story for sure!
Feyenoord(football) and Kelderman fanboy
PCMdaily Awards: 12x nomination, 9x runner-up, 0x win.
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| the_hoyle |
Posted on 03-02-2014 18:24
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7651
Joined: 28-05-2009
PCM$: 200.00
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Great 5 year review nice to see how the team evolved and grew.
Shame that it going to be ending. It has been a fine read, a pleasure to follow and hope to see you back soon
.: Manager of :.
.: My Awards :.
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| The Hobbit |
Posted on 03-02-2014 18:26
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2730
Joined: 18-08-2013
PCM$: 200.00
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I haven't commented much/at all. But this truly is one of the best stories ever. And a nice way to end it, with the possibility of continuation, I hope it does and you go on to equally successful things.
Thanks for a great read!
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 03-02-2014 18:27
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 18187
Joined: 12-05-2012
PCM$: 0.00
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Shonak wrote:
In any case, congratulations to the(?) longest running story on PCM and to clearly one of the best too!
Dienblad and Petronas will hold title for a long long time to come (257 pages)
In terms of seasons it falls behind the long 2100 project and similar stories.
But i digress... DSG archived says it all from me
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| welker3257 |
Posted on 03-02-2014 23:10
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2336
Joined: 29-05-2013
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Thanks for posting my favorite story on PCM
Gig 'em Aggies
Fast N' Loud Cycling Project - ICL
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![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
