Hey guys,
today it´s all about racing against the strongest. Back in the elite of cycling. 8 days of pain are behind me, I hadn´t had a tougher race than Paris-Nice for years now. Maybe that Tour of Norway but still, this tour had everything I that could make me suffer except cobbles.
The prolouge was ok, I came in in the 40´s while Dumoulin took yellow. Already on stage 2 there was a hell of a race, with crucial sidewinds. The whole team was caught out with 20k to go, and a group of 20 went for the victory. Cav took it, I came in 72nd, somehow counted same time with the winner, whil Froome two places behind me lost over 3 minutes. So he went on the attack on the calm third stage, taking the polka dot but coming nowhere near the victory on the flat finish. Modolo took it while I stayed in the pack safely. Stage 4 was a flat one with a slightly uphill finish; not much action here, Cav took victory again. But the fun started on stage 5...
Stage 5 was the one with the toughest profile of all, categorized as a hilly stage but with a mountain finish. Howes was in the break for us, while I wanted to wait for the last climb. Sadly I was involved in a crash with vdP and van Garderen, and from this moment on my legs shut down. On the last climb I had nothing to offer. Aru took it in front of Kwiatkowski and Teuns, while I lost nearly 2`30 on the winner on place 27.
After that bad day it was time for rehabilitaion. On the bumpy day 6 the break was my goal, many mountain points to give for my group containing Gaudin, Haas and El Fares. We were caught late before an uphill sprint won by van der Poel beating Cav and Modolo, but I could deliver despite the upset on the last 10 kilometers and take the lead in the mountains classification from Rabottini.
Now there was something to fight for, and on the hilly seventh stage I badly wanted to defend that jersey creating a group. Howes was here guiding me, also in there were Gougeard, Durbridge, australian champ Howson, Haas and Gautier.
Gautier bet me on most of the mountain sprints, but I tried to save a little and Howes went all in for me. So finally I was able to crack all my opponents including Gautier on the last climb 20 km before the finish.
Over the top I still had an advantage of three minutes with 18,9 km to go. Coming into town it looked better and better to hold an advantage, and on the line I could celebrate my first World Tour victory for a long time.
The chasing pack llead by Ion Izagirre and Teuns came in 49 seconds delayed.
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
4h42'18
2
Ion Izagirre
Desigual
+ 49
3
Dylan Teuns
Lotto Soudal
s.t.
4
Tom Slagter
Team LottoNL - Jumbo
s.t.
5
Simon Spilak
Tinkoff-Saxo
s.t.
I climbed the GC up to 15th and a disadvantage of 1"37, so it looked much better in terms of GC ambitions before the final time trial up Col d'Èze.
There I had to chase the time of Roman Kreuziger.
Crossing the line I was third, but in the end four rider were faster than me as well. But a seventh place was a very good ending to the race to the sun, especially with that two breakaways in the legs. Finishing the day best was Aru to take away the victory from Dennis.
Stage 8, Mountain Time Trial, Col d'Èze
1
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
18'47
2
Nairo Quintana
Desigual
+ 10
3
Wilco Kelderman
Team Giant-Alpecin
+ 12
7
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 31
Quintana was second, at the day and in the final GC, Kwiatek third. I moved two places up to thirteenth.
GC
1
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
26h15'07
2
Nairo Quintana
Desigual
+ 15
3
Michał Kwiatkowski
Nike
+ 24
13
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 1'59
Not the Top 10 I hoped for before Paris-Nice, but some other achievements that not only made up for that.
Mountains Classification
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
71
2
Cyril Gautier
Cofidis, Solutions Crédits
53
3
Alex Howes
Bora - Argon 18
27
The stage win, but also the mountains jersey are clearly some great achievements on my way back up to the top.
Hey guys,
sometimes you have to try something you are not made for. The chances of success are low, but you don´t have anything to loose. So there can´t be any regrets afterwards.
Under this motto I tried myself the Classicissima, racing all the 293 km from Milan to the finishing line on the Via Roma in San Remo. Dal Col should´ve been our man if it comes to a big bunch sprint, but this time MSR was different.
The cold winds made the Primavera even tougher than the last editions. With 30 kilometers to go I was our only man left in the bunch, whihc was reduced even further over the Capi punches. Despite the fact I was involved in a crash including world champion Nacer Bouhanni.
Cipressa couldn´t crack me, but starting the early slopes of the poggio my energy was gone. The sidewind had finally done it´s job, so I joined a group of 8 chasing the leading group of 20 sprinting for the victory.
At the end it was a big one for Michael Matthews, taking it for FDJ with a decent advantage over two Rusal (former Katusha) guys. Surprisingly Tsatsevich was the strongest of them, coming in second directly in front of his captain Kristoff and Kittel, who surprisingly could hang on over the hills.
I came in 27th, pretty much at the end of the first chasing group.
1
Michael Matthews
FDJ
6h45'25
2
Alexey Tsatevitch
Rusal
s.t.
3
Alexander Kristoff
Rusal
s.t.
4
Marcel Kittel
Orica-GreenEDGE
s.t.
5
Nacer Bouhanni
Phonak
s.t.
6
Tiesj Benoot
Lotto Soudal
s.t.
7
Yves Lampaert
Rusal
s.t.
8
Carlos Barbero
Rusal
s.t.
9
Mark Cavendish
Bwin
s.t.
10
Zdenek Stybar
Bwin
s.t.
27
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 2'40
A day which will still helpp me a lot for the future, especially preparing my endurance for the hilly spring classics. I´m pretty sure I might come back to this, hoping for a race decided on the small climbs...
Next stop is the Vuelta a Catalunya starting tomorrow.
Hey guys,
this is me calling from Catalunya. The first of two one-week World Tour races is left behind now, the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (2.UWT).
After the short prolouge where we didn´t lost too much time there was stage 2, a mountain stage with a flat finish. The "creme de la creme" of Stage racers was here (all Top 5 climbers excluding Quintana).
But the favourites only attacked half-herted on the last climb, mainly because it was 40 kms away from home. So the break of the day had a real chance, which de Gendt brought to the finish line so nicely. This was a real upset for me, as I was isolated after the last climb and couldn´t do anything to chase him down. We nearly caught him; I surprisingly won the bunch sprint against Chernetskiy on the same time as de Gendt, but it was just not enough.
1
Thomas De Gendt
Lotto Soudal
3h55'15
2
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
s.t.
3
Sergey Chernetskiy
Rusal
s.t.
Stage 3 gave us the only mountain top finish, and the list of contenders was impressive:
Pic del Port vell was my target, but I had a strange day. Already on the penultimate climb I struggled and lost contact, only to recover lateron and chasing the bunch alone through the flat losing too much energy. At the end I could opvertake a lot of riders, but lost 5 minutes to victorious Sergej Chernetskiy (Rusal), who could beat Aru, Nibali and Froome.
1
Sergey Chernetskiy
Rusal
3h32'31
2
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
s.t.
3
Vincenzo Nibali
Tinkoff-Saxo
+ 16
4
Chris Froome
Astana Pro Team
+ 26
5
Joseph Dombrowski
Etixx - Quick-step
+ 1'31
6
Frederico Figueiredo
Caja Rural - Seguros RGA
+ 1'39
26
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 5'05
Stage 4 was hilly, a place to go on the attack after the last days...so we took a group with Adam Yates, Carthy, Sarmiento and Jose Herrada.
We tried everything, but there was no chance of coming through. Nibali took victory in the uphill drag, winning in front of Aru. The small gap the couple created to young guy Semberas lead the Shark of Messina into the leaders jersey.
Stage 5 was pan flat, what didn´t held me off trying to get into the breakaway and sucessing with that.
My breakaway companions Pichella, Delio Fernandez and Terasaki couldn´t hold my pace as we reached the last 15 km with an advantage of one minute. One by one they got dropped and the peloton couldn´t organize themselves, so there was a chance:
But could I deliver? Yes! The sweet taste of victory I had on the line was a great feeling.
Beating the peloton let by Van der Sande and Guardini in order to win on time on them on a flat course was just amazing and a confidence boost to try something again on the further stages.
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
3h26'29
2
Tosh Van der Sande
Nike
s.t.
3
Andrea Guardini
Desigual
s.t.
In the green jersey I started the day with the goal of defending it, knowing that this would be hard. Facchini was in the breakaway for us, so I didn´t went for it. My legs were just tired after the last days, so I had nothing to offer this day. The break - only two of them - made it, and lately Semberas was victorious in front of Wellens. Chernetskiy once again lead the bunch to finish third.
The final stage was also no breakaway for me as Facchini was in there again. On the medium hilly circuit the break came through again, Bacon was first for Cofidis while Facchini went fifth. For me it was P18 and no chance of getting green back that day.
Aru took the overall win just in front of Nibali and Chernetskiy; my 22nd GC was a disappointment at all.
1
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
15h20'09
2
Vincenzo Nibali
Tinkoff-Saxo
+ 7
3
Sergey Chernetskiy
Rusal
+ 45
4
Chris Froome
Astana Pro Team
+ 1'24
5
Joseph Dombrowski
Etixx - Quick-step
+ 2'32
6
Frederico Figueiredo
Caja Rural - Seguros RGA
+ 2'47
7
Andrey Amador
Team Cannondale - Garmin
+ 2'50
8
Simon Yates
Bwin
+ 2'57
9
Rubén Fernández
Lampre-Merida
+ 2'58
10
Lachlan Morton
Lampre-Merida
+ 3'02
22
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 5'50
Luckily I had that stage win on the flattest of stages here, so I don´t go to Pais Vasco having a complete desaster as a backpack. But sadly there is no flat stage, so I have to find my climbing legs...
Bis bald, AndyEdited by Croatia14 on 14-10-2015 16:00
great to be in the Basque Country. Especially in Bilbao, the biggest city and cultural core of proud Pais Vasco, where the the beginning and the end of 2017s edition of Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco took place.
It´s always great to do the home race of the maybe most inspiring team of all gone ones. Euskaltels orange will be in the memories of every fan and cyclists of this century, hopefully they will return once the financials of the Basque Country allow that.
Now to the racing action.Stage one was pretty lame - categorized as hilly, but with a group of 50 coming over the last climb - and all looked like a sprint of a much bigger bunch than expected. Over the past 2 years my sprinting really improved, but I didn´t want to come up against the likes of Primavera-winner Matthews (FDJ), so I went on the attack on the last descent.
The poursoulvants couldn´t decide who should do the chase and Matthews was isolated. The GC boys didn´t took me as the biggest danger, so they allowed me to go for the victory. I couldn´t deny this opportunity, so I told my legs to shut up and won with an advantage of 25 seconds over Matthews and van der Poel to take yellow.
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
3h54'36
2
Michael Matthews
FDJ
+ 25
3
Mathieu van der Poel
Tinkoff-Saxo
s.t.
4
Rafał Majka
Tinkoff-Saxo
s.t.
5
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
s.t.
I could begin stage 2 in the yellow jersey, having a slight advantage on all others.
As no bonusses are to give my goal was now just to hold the peloton together. That was harder than you might think.
The stage went mainly like the first one, there was a similar group like yesterday. Midrace I had a go with Valverde and Kwiatek, but got caught. Then I crazily attacked again on the last descent. No one chased really hard this time either, so teh copy of stage one was perfect. The only difference was that I could celebrate my victory in the yellow jersey.
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
4h07'23
2
Michael Matthews
FDJ
+ 28
3
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
s.t.
4
Mathieu van der Poel
Tinkoff-Saxo
s.t.
5
André Looij
Team Giant-Alpecin
s.t.
Stage 3 was hard to ride, my last man standing Konrad was left behind early on that hilly circuit. As I had to work myself and with no teammates I took tenth at the end, having to let go a group containing winner Matthews and losing 41 seconds but remaining in yellow.
1
Michael Matthews
FDJ
4h08'53
2
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
s.t.
3
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
s.t.
4
Louis Meintjes
TEAM Touch Africa
s.t.
5
Rui Costa
Rusal
s.t.
10
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 41
The toughest day was the fourth. The favourites made the race a hell for me. I had to pay the tribute for the last days and hand the jersey over to Fabio Aru, who finished second behind Valverde on the climb. Between us wasstill a rider, young south african Louis Meintjes.
I could take fourth in front of Alaphilippe, being also fourth GC now.
1
Alejandro Valverde
Desigual
3h48'41
2
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
s.t.
3
Louis Meintjes
TEAM Touch Africa
+ 16
4
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 49
5
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
+ 1'23
Day five was mostly flat day with steep hills. My goal was to secure the top 5 now, couldn´t do anything for the chase after Majka and Meintjes, which failed. Neither Áru nor Valle had the manpower left to stop Meintjes grabbing yellow. He lost the stage to Majka though.
1
Rafał Majka
Tinkoff-Saxo
3h55'57
2
Louis Meintjes
TEAM Touch Africa
+ 22
3
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
+ 1'32
4
Alejandro Valverde
Desigual
s.t.
5
Rui Costa
Rusal
s.t.
6
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
s.t.
So before the closing time trial it´s over one minute to Meintjes, a couple of seconds to Valverde and only a couple of seconds advantage to many other riders including Kwiatkowski, who was the biggest danger for my struggle for P4 on the last day.
The 18.1 km were flat in the first part; the second was dominated by two steep climbs and a small descent between them.
On the first intermediate time I was already 40 seconds behind leading Ludvigsson, placed 141th. But I had left most of my power for the last two climbs. The first one was full gas, and surprisingly I went up from 141th to 1st. But maybe I gave too much, because the struggle on the second climb was unreal. I somehow could hold on to my pace and won the TT by a marginal advantage over Thomas, Kelderman and Aru.
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
31'18
2
Geraint Thomas
TEAM Touch Africa
+ 6
3
Wilco Kelderman
Team Giant-Alpecin
+ 8
4
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
+ 10
5
Rui Costa
Rusal
+ 25
Surprisingly this performance brought me not only on top of the podium because of the stage win and the points classification, but also because of the GC win.
At the end I had the slight advantage of one second over Meintjes, who was near to tears after missing his first World Tour-GC that close.
General Classifiaction
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
20h29'50
2
Louis Meintjes
TEAM Touch Africa
+ 1
3
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
+ 22
4
Rafał Majka
Tinkoff-Saxo
+ 41
5
Alejandro Valverde
Desigual
s.t.
6
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
+ 1'32
7
Rui Costa
Rusal
+ 1'37
8
Alberto Contador
Desigual
+ 2'57
9
Daniel Martin
Team Cannondale - Garmin
+ 3'05
10
Michał Kwiatkowski
Nike
+ 3'38
Sprints Classification
1
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
95
2
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
72
3
Louis Meintjes
TEAM Touch Africa
66
4
Michael Matthews
FDJ
65
5
Fabio Aru
Team Giant-Alpecin
62
For me it was a great moment, one of the greatest in my career. I´ve shown that I can compete on top level again. Damn, winning against the worlds elite felt so good again.
I told you, my goal was to use my body better, and you see how I improved on descents/flats/sprints over the past two years.
This race gave me another wave of strength towards the next tasks: the hilly classics, Romandie and the Giro!
Hey guys,
this years hilly classics campain shouldn´t run past me without participating in the racing action. Starting up were the 251.8 kilometers of hilly roads around Valkenburg to end on the wide open straight behind the legendary Cauberg. Amstel Gold Race at its best.
Captaining was shared between Visconti and me in our team. We tried to bring someone into the break, but couldn´t deliver in terms of that as a group of three (Eijssen, Baldi, Dall'Oste) went clear.
The favorites were surprisingly calm until the final 10 kilometers. As Dall'Oste had still an advantage of 1"18 I thought that I had to do something and went on the attack. I came of the favourites`group of 60 riders excluding Visconti, who had a bad day. With my attack I overtook the former companions of Dall'Oste,
but Matthews and Kwiatkowski (surprisingly a helper for Alaphilippe) went after me. They caught me, and also a second attack of me on a descent got neutralized by Kwiatek.
As we reached finally reached the Cauberg with a group of 17 I knew why the favourites stayed calm all the way till now. They sprinted up the climb, while I had absolutely nothing left to offer against them.
Coming to the finishing straight in Valkenburg I was at the end of a bunch of riders sprinting for minor places, while at the front a Tinkoff rider raised his arms where I expected Matthews.
But the fans were celebrating extraordinary, and then I knew it was Mathieu van der Poel celebrating the first classics win of his career. What a day for him in his home country, and what a day for dutch fans. Matthews and Meintjes came in behind him, I placed myself directly behind the Top Ten.
1
Mathieu van der Poel
Tinkoff-Saxo
6h20'27
2
Michael Matthews
FDJ
+ 4
3
Louis Meintjes
TEAM Touch Africa
+ 9
4
Julian Alaphilippe
Nike
s.t.
5
Rui Costa
Rusal
+ 12
6
Daniel Martin
Team Cannondale - Garmin
+ 16
7
Eddie Dunbar
Astana Pro Team
s.t.
8
Alexis Vuillermoz
Etixx - Quick-step
+ 18
9
Alejandro Valverde
Desigual
s.t.
10
Tiesj Benoot
Lotto Soudal
s.t.
11
Andy Schleck
Bora - Argon 18
+ 23
Seems like it was a lesson to relearn today, sadly Amstel has developed to a race decided only on the last 3 kilometers. But we had great success with our attacking style of riding so why should I change that. Maybe sticking to attractive racing will already pay off at one of my next two races, Fleche Wallone or famous Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Hey guys,
sometimes cycling is tough. But at the end it´s all worth it, you know. How long does it take to come to the end? Fleche Wallone is the second race of the World Tour Ardennes week. Coming nearer to the grand final in Liege we want to improve our result of the Amstel Gold Race and go for a Top 10 here.
Pretty much I wouldn´t have to write how the shortest of the classics went. Because until 15 km to go all was the same, despite that the break of three was already caught. Stuff happened 11.3 km before the finishing line when Dunbar and Amstel-winner van der Poel attacked. I tried to follow them, but reacted too late so that I couldn´t get into Mathieus slipstream.
While the duo went away, I was in no man's land. Having an advantage of ten seconds but a deficit of 20 I reached the Mur third, but then it was all about the struggle. Man by man they overtook me, and in the end it was again the eleventh place.
Mathieu made it two out of two, Valverde came in third...
One chance left to get a top ten, but it´s the toughest of all, Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Still I have the faith to say that it´s possible for me to reach that goal.
Nice, 14.03.2017 
San Remo, 22.3.2017 
Barcelona, 30.3.2017 
Valkenburg, 19.04.2017 
Huy, 23.4.2017 
