Stage 21
The final 181 km is flat as a pancake. Both Farrar and Petacchi have survived the mountains and will be highly motivated to make this a sprint.
As predicted the sprinters team put the pressure on to make sure no break will succeed, but somehow with 12 km to go it seems like Machado, Vaugrenard and Nicki Sørensen might have a chance of beating the sprinters.
5 km to go and the trio in front have a 50 seconds lead. Vaugrenard opens the sprint with Sørensen in his wheel, but the sprinters are approaching fast behind and in the end it is the expected sprint finish.
Results:
1. Simon Ponzi, Astana
2. Elia Favilli, Fanese Vini – Selle Italia
3. Damiano Cunego, Lampre - ISD 39. Lasse Bøchman, Falcon – STARK
With 3 hilly stages and 9 mountain stages with 6 mountain top finishes the Giro organizers had prepared a very hard race.
This resulted in only 104 riders finishing the race and three teams finishing with only two riders left. There was never really any doubt who was the strongest in the mountains and with only 58 km of individual TT'ing Antón was not going to let the win slip away this year.
Final Standing:
1. Igor Antón, Euskaltel - Euskadi
2. Michele Scarponi, Lampre - ISD
3. Vincenzo Nibali, Liquigas - Cannondale
4. Rigoberto Urán, Sky Procycling
5. Nairo Quintana, Movistar Team 23. Jesper Hansen, Falcon - STARK
Before the season some people in the cycling community thought we weren't ready for the WT and would go down even faster than we promoted. I think we have now definitely proved them wrong. I'm a very happy manager after this race!
- Allan Grønborg
Jesper, I dare say your name is on the lips of a lot of cycling fans out there right now. You have just completed your first GT at the age of 22 and even riding so well that you were given the status of captain. How does that feel?
Try drinking a case of Falcon, and go run on the beach at sunset with 60’s psychedelic rock in your ears. That is pretty much how the last month have felt like for me!
Okay, I guess I’ll have to try that some time…
But how did you find the resources for being so consistent staying inside the top-20 for almost the entire race?
When you feel like I described before you don’t really overthink things. My teammates and the manager told me I was the captain and was worthy of riding alongside Basso, Froome etc. so I guess I just believed them because I was so overwhelmed by it all.
Usually we see young riders such as yourself making some bold, some would say stupid, moves to see how far the legs could carry them – and then collapse completely for a stage or two. You didn’t. How did you manage to keep your head so calm?
I didn’t! Especially in the first half of the race I really wanted to attack and show myself, but Allan convinced me otherwise. He kept saying that I could either chase a stage top-10 or a GC top-20. And he said that he needed me to learn how to ride GC in a Grand Tour. Seeing how tired I felt for the last couple of stages I’m really happy I listened to him.
May in Cycling
Rider of the month: Igor Antón. With 5 stages and GC win in Giro d’Italia he really didn’t have much competition... Nordic rider of the month: Michal Reihs, Christina Watches – Onfone. May had a lot of good results by Nordic riders, but Reihs’ consistent riding resulting in the overall win and the points jersey in Glava Tour of Norway as well as good placings in both Rogaland and Uppsala secured him this title.
World tour ranking:
1. Thor Hushovd, Falcon - STARK
2. Jelle Vanendert, Lotto Belisol
3. Igor Antón, Euskaltel - Euskadi
CQ-ranking:
1. Vincenzo Nibaili, Liquigas - Cannondale
2. Thor Hushovd, Falcon - STARK
3. Igor Antón, Euskaltel - Euskadi 26. Lars Ytting Bak, Falcon - STARK
105. Gustav Erik Larsson, Vacansoleil - DCM
146. Kjell Carlström, Falcon - STARK
1. Falcon - STARK (WT)
2. Euskaltel - Euskadi (WT)
3. Lampre - ISD (WT)
10. Cofidis, le credit en ligne (CNT)
13. Vacnasoleil - DCM (CNT) 15. Saxo - Tinkoff
27. Christina Watches - Onfone
57. Glud & Marstrand
68. Blue Water
62. Joker Merida
66. Øster Hus
73. Concordia Forsikring
NA. Svenska Cyklister
Sponsor news
- ISD is replacing Lampre as main sponsor. A secondary sponsor will be announced at a later time.
- Sky will end their sponsorship. Vodafone will take over as title sponsor.
Transfer Rumours
Quite a lot of Nordic riders are currently without a contract for the next season. We should expect both Saxo-Tinkoff, Falcon – STARK and Christina Watxhes – Onfone to make a bid for several of the most prominent names:
Current Team
Age
Chris Anker Sørensen
Saxo-Tinkoff
28
Jakob Fuglsang
RadioShack – Nissan
28
Nicki Sørensen
Saxo-Tinkoff
38
Thomas Löfkvist
Sky Procycling
29
Troels Rønning Vinther
Saxo-Tinkoff
26
Jussi Veikkanen
FDJ – BigMat
32
Rasmus Guldhammer
Christina Watches – Onfone
24
Gustav Larsson
Vacansoleil – DCM
32
Jonas Ljungblad
Differdange – Magic-Sportfood.de
34
Patrick Clausen
Glud & Marstrand – LRØ
22
Sebastian Lander
Glud & Marstrand – LRØ
22
Stian Remme
Joker Merida
30
Frederik Wilmann
Christina Watches – Onfone
27
Vegard Bugge
Joker Merida
23
Lasse Norman Hansen
Blue Water
21
We have had a chat with Bjarne Riis his thoughts concerning the transfer season:
It looks like your team might lose three of it’s biggest Danish profiles. How will you compensate for that?
First of all we still have a lot of contracts we want to extend. I would feel very weird seeing Chris and Nicki riding anywhere else, and obviously we will stretch very far to extend with both Alberto and Jesús as well.
But what if you can’t get the riders to sign a new contract?
As of now I expect that we’ll reach an agreement, so there is no reason to speculate in any other scenario, but when all is said and done I consider my team the natural place for the most talented Danish riders.
the_hoyle: Thanks. There are some great riders without contract in deed. I think Nicki Sørensen is probably starting to get a bit old (38 years), at the same time Larsson and Löfkvist would be important for the Swedish part of the team. The same could be said about Veikkannen being the perhaps best Finnish rider. We'll see what happens. Some of them might extend their contracts and some of them might sign with other teams...
Ian: Thanks I did not expect Hushovd to keep us up there so far in to the season, but hopefully it will help us attract the best riders in the transfer window.
We have absolutely no goals for this race except to get some riders in shape for the NC’s. The race collides with Tour de Suisse where our sponsors want us to win a stage so this race is for secondary riders and rider out of shape.
Stage 1 – TT
We’ll start with a 6.4 km prologue. Nissen is probably Falcon – STARK’s strongest TT-rider today. He starts as second Falcon but disappointingly only get provisional 11th 24’’ behind Riblon.
When Jens Erik Madsen is off both Nicki Sørensen (Saxo-Tinkoff) and Martin Mortensen (Vacansoleil) is in top 5. Riblon have really put in a good time as not even Tony Martin is able to beat him!
Swedish TT-champion Gustav Larsson gets provisional 4th 7 seconds slower than Riblon. Brink sets the by far best time by any Falcon with only Hushovd to go. Brink is 15 seconds slower than Riblon who maintains his lead. That is good enough for provisional 15th.
Time for the captains to enter the course. Among those Hushovd, but we shouldn’t expect much of him today since this is his first race day since Amstel and as expected he is provisional 74th 25 seconds behind.
Danish TT-champion Jakob Fuglsang have been given the chance to captain Romandie, but finishing 29th today won’t help him rise in the RadioShack hierarchy. While Fuglsang was out on the course Sicard surprisingly got provisional best. Evans is obviously highly motivated to redeem himself after a very disappointing Giro and fight his way to a winning time.
Results:
1. Cadel Evans, BMC
2. Vincenzo Nibali, Liquigas - Cannondale
3. Jean-Christophe Peraud, AG2R La Mondiale 29. Morten Kruse Brink, Falcon – STARK
Stage 2
A day with lots of small hills. Could be a good day for a break unless the favourites want to start the GC battle early.
A lot of riders work hard to get in the break. Among the most active Tom Boonen. The final successful break counts 13 riders including Boonen, Brink, L.S. Haedo and Pineau.
With 80 km to go the break has 7’20’’ to the peloton where Liquigas, BMC and Garmin have taken the lead.
25 km and 2’30’’
Brink is starting to wonder what to do. He can’t match Boonen and Haedo in the sprint or Pineau, Boonen or Klimov on the final hills. With 20 km to go the break hit the first of two hills in the finish. Brink is keeping his calm at the back getting a few bottles.
15 km to go with 1’30’’ to the peloton. Brink is using the small descent to pick up speed and attacks on the flat. He gets a small gap but is caught at the intermediate sprint, but his attack pushed up the speed in the peloton and with 8 km to go it is almost up to two minutes.
Boonen set the pace on the final hill as Evans attack from the peloton and joins the breakway right at the top of the hill.
The Belgian have used a lot of energy keeping the break alive and can’t produce his wellknown sprint at the finish while Evans makes it two out of two.
the_hoyle: True, age is not everything. Nicki is certainly on my shortlist, but my first priority is riders with a bit more future. With anything but Cya-logic he will surely extend with Saxo-Tinkoff, but who knows
Ian: It is certainly very nice for both him and the team to hold the jersey in a big race like this, but there is no chance what so ever that he will be able to hang on to it. He really isn't a very good climber (to say it mildly) and we have a lot of uphill sections to go - including a finish on Alpe d'Huez...
Jakstar: Thanks. The team have already exceeded our expectations
sutty: He is. A very solid performance by the young Dane. Lets hope it will inspire some of the others.
Stage 3
Another hilly day where Falcon will chase the break and see what happens.
The break is not easily allowed to get away, but then Nibali crash once again. A solo-accident like the one that ruined his Giro.
Nibali is quickly helped back, but it seems the peloton have lost a bit of speed and they loosen their grab on the break. Jebjerg get away with 13 riders, among those Petacchi, Larsson, Weening and Appollonio.
With 78 km to go the break has reached the two main climbs of the day and the break has 7 minutes to the peloton. This can still go either way.
As expected Jebjerg is suffering on the climbs but if he can keep within reach there is plenty of time to recover after the climbs. At the summit the front group has two minutes to Jebjerg/Appollonio and a further 4 minutes to the peloton. 48 km left to ride.
The duo in between is not able to gain any time on the 12 riders in front, who on the other side is keeping their distance to the peloton, which have been broken into pieces leaving a main group of 59 riders.
Since all riders in the break are older than 25 Brinks youth jersey is not threatened right now and Falcon is just taking it easy.
BMC is leading for Evans in the yellow jersey but with 20 km to go the break still has more than four minutes.
Going in to the sprint Gène has taken the lead, but Petacchi is the big favourite. 1.5 to go and of goes the fireworks. Petacchi still in 9th position, but you only have to be in front when you hit the line… Haavardsholm win the peloton’s sprint, but Tosh van Der Sande had attacked early and managed to steal the white jersey.
Stage 4 – TT
49 km against the clock. The route has a small hill in the beginning, but nothing too bad. This could be the Hattrick for Evans if he has a day like on the prologue. Madsen is out as the first Falcon. At this time Malori is in the lead 1’12’’ in front of Sergent on the 2nd place and more than four minutes in front of number three.
Madsen is pulling of an amazing TT getting best provisional time at the first intermediate and 3rd at the second. He can’t quite keep it up though and gets a provisional 10th in goal.
Martin Mortensen (Vacansoleil) on the other hand keep the Danish flag high getting a second place.
While Jebjerg, Nissen, Nybö and Cort are all out on the route the real specialists starts stealing the spotlight as first Castroviejo and soon after Tony Martin sets new intermediate bests. Nissen gets provisional 6th but will surely soon be beaten.
No one threatens Martin, but Larsson gets provisional third. That should help him find a contract for next season.
Final Falcon to go is Brink, who will fight to win the seven seconds that will put him back in white. Should be possible as he is a better TT’er on paper than Tosh van der Sande. It looks good when Brink passes Pichon with 2 km to go, but it is only a disappointing 22nd at the finish.
Gène tries his best to defend the jersey, but was definitely not born to ride alone…
Results:
1. Tony Martin – OmegaPharma - QuickStep
2. Jean-Christophe Peraud, AG2R La Mondiale
3. Jonathan Castroviejo, Movistar 23. Morten Kruse Brink, Falcon – STARK
Provisional standing:
11.
Morten Kruse Brink
Falcon - STARK
+ 3'02
Mountain: Yohann Gène, Team Europcar Points: Cadel Evans, BMC Racing Team Young rider: Romain Sicard, Euskaltel - Euskadi Team: AG2R La Mondiale
Too bad we lost the white jersey, but still we never expected to have it in the first place and there's no way we could have kept it all race. Just goes to show that these riders are top motivated for every race. They usually find a way to bring something home...
- Allan Grønborg
Giro d’Italia 
Lasse Bøchman, Falcon – STARK 
Igor Antón, Euskaltel - Euskadi
Rigoberto Urán, Sky Procycling
Thor Hushovd, Falcon - STARK
Jelle Vanendert, Lotto Belisol
Rabobank
Gustav Erik Larsson, Vacansoleil - DCM
Kjell Carlström, Falcon - STARK
Cofidis, le credit en ligne (CNT)
Tony Martin is able to beat him!
Evans is obviously highly motivated to redeem himself after a very disappointing Giro and fight his way to a winning time.
L.S. Haedo and 
Klimov on the final hills. With 20 km to go the break hit the first of two hills in the finish. Brink is keeping his calm at the back getting a few bottles.
Sergent on the 2nd place and more than four minutes in front of number three.
