I like the story this style, of course I wouldn't want every story to be this way, but it's interesting to watch just how much one team can dominate. So keep up the good work Ripley!
The World Championships 2019 were held in Verona, Italy. I was in charge of Team USA. Talansky was the best American in the ITT as 18th, just ahead of 8 Up's best rider, Foure (TTR 76). Birtz (81) wasn't allowed to race, Luxembourg could only send one rider and made the right choice with Bob Jungels (82), who wins the title after two silver medals in the previous editions. Durbidge (84) was beaten by 13 seconds, bronze goes to the Polish rider Damian Lech (80). He's 25 years old, in his second professional season, possibly a future TT champion.
The road race was considered flat, though the course featured a steep hill that had to be tackled 10 times. USA's best bet was Taylor Phinney (SPR 77), but he found himself trapped behind an early escapee on the final hill and lost 60 seconds to the top group of 30 riders, using up all his energy to reach them again.
By that time Van Avermaet had launched a late attack which nobody followed, the other nations were all protecting their top sprinters. Van Avermaet easily retained his advantage and wins the WC by 1:01. Young Yupanqui, featured previously, took 2nd place ahead of Degenkolb. The rest of the top 10: Kristoff, Favilli, Demare, Sagan, Bouhanni, Matthews and Vanmarcke. 8 Up's best rider was De Vos as 21st, Phinney was 33rd.
Yes, at the age of 34 Van Avermaet celebrates his biggest coup yet, World Champion. He previously won the Fleche Wallone (2016) and Amstel Gold Race (2017) as well as the Tour of Beijing (2015) and De Brabantse Pijl (2017, 2019).
The Belgians don't have a good sprinter so they go for late attacks. Two years ago Gilbert and Roelandts were beaten to the punch by Smetannikov, of course, but this time Van Avermaet's attack went unchallenged.
By the way, how was Smeta's first season away from our team, now with Tinkoff? His best result was a 3rd place in the Portugal Tour, a stage win there was his only win of the season. He was also 4th in the Tour of Luxembourg and 8th in the California Tour. In the WT he only managed two top 25 results, 18th in Gent – Wevelgem and 23rd in the Tour of Flanders. He's still considered a star, having won the WC title and Milan - Sanremo with our team, but I'd say his star is fading, even though he's still only 25 years old.
The Giro del Lombardia is one of the toughest races on the WT calendar and can only go to one of the best riders in the world. The hard penultimate hill had reduced the peloton to 35 riders. The final hill split the remaining peloton into pieces and we we happy to have 3 riders left in the second group.
At the front the Italians Ulissi and Villella were battling Betancur and Dan Martin for victory. Betancur came out top in a two-men sprint against Martin, Ulissi and Villella had to settle for 3rd and 4th place. Van Avermaet, sporting his brandnew rainbow jersey, was fastest in the second group and finished 5th, ahead of Slagter, Aru and Carter. Our best punchers, Mayordomo and Romeu, completed the top 10, a great result.
This year's Tour of Beijing, without TTs or mountains, wasn't for stage racers or climbers, so we sent our punchers and sprinters. Stage 2 featured a few hills, Hermanski was part of the breakaway and collected more points than his fiercest rival, Lutsenko. Hermanski was caught late and still had the energy to stay with the front group of 14 riders, which included all 8 of mine. But it was Stybar who won ahead of Kelderman and Puder, a 23 year old German.
The next stage featured an uphill finish and led to some time gaps. Hermanski collected more KoM points and ended 17th on the day, 1:27 behind stage winner Slagter. The Dutchman was 17 seconds faster than Van Avermaet and Henao, with the latter taking the lead in the GC. Romeu was in the next group, 31 seconds behind, Sepulveda, Gross and Mayordomo lost 45 seconds.
The final stage offered a late cat. 1 hill, once more Hermanski joined the breakaway, once more he was caught but able to stay with the top group to the finish line, he wins the mountains jersey by a large margin. Our best men attacked at the top of the final hill and formed a top group of 10 riders with 5 others. Slagter wins his 2nd stage ahead of Stybar and Henao. With the next group 1:22 behind these 10 riders form the top 10 in the final GC.
Elia Favilli won the two mass sprints and the points jersey, Puder beats Mayordomo by 4 seconds in the U25 competition.
Villella's 4th place in Il Lombardia was vital to Lampre's survival in the World Tour. With a total of 124 points Lampre moved up from 18th to 16th in the table, past Garmin (114) and Belkin (110). Those teams will be replaced by NetApp and MTN next season. Astana once again tops the WT teams competition. Team 8 Up already finds itself in 3rd place, well ahead of Tinkoff and Lotto.
Rui Costa wins the individual competition, moving past Kwiatkowski with his 3rd place in the Tour of Beijing. 8 Up's best rider is Romeu in 5th place, he won Milan – Sanremo, San Sebastian and the Eneco Tour and finished in the top 10 in 9 other WT races. Sadly, he's leaving us for Team Sky. Our two stage racers from Luxembourg end 11th and 13th in the rankings thanks to their great results in the TdF and Vuelta. Gross (23rd), Mayordomo (25th), Bunce (28th) and Olesen (29th) also made the top 30.
Degenkolb and Kwiatek recorded 14 wins each this season. Our best rider is Sepulveda with 6 wins, 3 of them are from the Tour of Britain, where he won 2 stages and overall, but he was also able to win a stage in the Giro, in Catalonia and Poland. The “Golden Bicycle” goes to Froome, ahead of Van Avermaet. Both riders only have the one notable victory of the season, Froome winning his 5th TdF, he was also runner-up in Paris-Nice and the Dauphine. Van Avermaet won the World Championships but was only 36th in the WT rankings. Aru was 3rd thanks to his decisive Giro victory, where he also won three stages as well as the points and KoM jerseys.
Quickstep are looking to replace Astana as the number 1 team next season, having secured the signature of Quintana (AVG 84). Together with Betancur and Degenkolb (both AVG 83) they now have the three best riders currently in the world in their team.
We welcome 11 new riders to our team. Despite our still moderate budget we now have the 4th best team by average rating, only behind Astana, Quickstep and Orica. Over the last two years we have really strengthened our stage racing potential. Vuelta winner Bernar will lead the team during the first half of the season, while Schuermans, Mohoric and Birtz will race the Tour and Vuelta.
We will be less competitive in the tough one-day races. Romeu's replacement Michel Koch will be our best bet, followed by Mayordomo. Our cobblestone team remains quite weak (AVG 72 to 74), though our new addition Basuela Jaton has the potential to become a dominant force in the northern classics some time in the future.
It should be no problem to please the sponsor, he's not demanding any wins from us, just top 3 and top 5 results, the biggests goals being a top 3 finish in the Vuelta and top 5 results in the Basque Tour and San Sebastian.
The 2020 season kicked of with the Australian Championships. Defending champion Bunce was allowed into the two-men breakaway and the gap steadily grew to 11 minutes, but around the half-way mark the peloton really picked up speed. Bunce also picked up the pace and was still 4 minutes ahead when he reached the final 20 km. The favourites started their attacks, shrinking the gap rapidly. But it was just enough, Bunce rolls across the finish line after a long solo ride, just metres ahead of Simon Clarke, Haas, McCarthy and Porte.
The first stage of the Tour Down Under was an impressive display by Quickstep, Degenkolb wins the stage while his team mates Kreder, Petit and Colbrelli are 3rd, 5th and 9th. Degenkolb caught a virus, however, and had to abandon two stages later.
Stage 2 to Rostrevor featured a late hill before descending to the finish line. Ligthart was the lone escapee on this short stage, but he was caught on the climb. Dan Martin attacked and was followed by Vichot, our three best punchers – Mayordomo, Gross and Koch (all HIL 80) – also got separation at the summit and attacked downhill. They caught Vichot, but not Dan Martin, who won the stage by 17 seconds ahead of the group of 4 riders, with everbody else losing at least 57 seconds.
Race leader Dan Martin crashed a day later and had to abandon with a fractured hip. Ligthart once again initiated the early breakaway, he was only joined by Geschke, who was still the virtual leader with 20 km to go, Team 8 Up had to lead the peloton and counter late attacks. Bardet went on to win the stage ahead of Slagter and Rui Costa, we were happy that our best men held onto the group of 15 riders. When the Dust settled, Koch was the new leader ahead of Gross, Vichot and Mayordomo.
Stage 5 finished on Old Willunga Hill and first to attack was yet again Ligthart, desperately trying to win the KoM jersey. But despite taking top points on the first climb up the hill, his 22 points wouldn't be enough, Rui Costa went on to win the climber's jersey.
We led the peloton with all our riders into the final climb, were overtaken by the best and waited with our uphill sprint. Slagter won the stage by 16 seconds, moving up into 5th in the GC. Costa, Vichot, Bardet and Pinot were next, but none of them gained time on our three riders, the bonus seconds for Vichot moved him into 2nd place, just 2 seconds behind Koch.
Degenkolb's team mate Colbrelli won the final stage ahead of Yupanqui and Maes. But none of the sprinters collected as many points as Rui Costa, who wins the points jersey as well. But our new rider Michel Koch, the Romeu replacement, wins the Tour Down Under ahead of Vichot and two team mates and three more 8 Up riders also make the top 10.
To be honest, Koch didn't deserve this victory, first Dan Martin crashed and then his opponents must have been unhappy with the time keeping on Willunga Hill, there were notable gaps which weren't recorded.
21 of our 30 riders used the races in late February and early March to gain their rhythm. None of the races were objectives for us, the only victory came from Reichenbach, who claimed the Clasica de Almeria.
The course of this year's Paris – Nice was slightly better suited for climbers than Tirreno – Adriatico, so our stage racing team headed to France. The first of four hilly stages was won by Bardet ahead of Herklotz and Moser, our riders made up the tail end of the top group of 16. A day later Moser beat Herklotz and Quintana, winning from a group of 10 riders, with our Bernar and Reichenbach at the back as 9th to 10th. Stage 5 could be considered the queen stage with a short but steep uphill finish in Mende. Pinot beat Quintana and Bardet, with our riders losing at least 46 seconds.
On the flat stage 6 the breakaway would claim victory, our De Vos was the favourite on paper with his SPR 70, but he was beaten by Dillier and Vandousselaere. Nikolaev fared even worse a day later, 10th out of 10 breakaway riders, De Gendt wins the stage.
The Race to the Sun finished with a short MTT up the Col d'Eze. Bernar was 4th in the GC before the stage, he was 10th on the day, 28 seconds behind Quintana. As we'd hoped, Moser couldn't keep up and dropped back from 2nd to 8th overall, lifting Bernar onto the podium, fulfilling an objective.
Reichenbach was only 6 seconds behind Bernar in the MTT, enough for 7th overall. Herklotz (who refused our offer last summer) wins Paris – Nice ahead of Quintana. A good return to the World Tour for the Colombian, he would have won the race had he not lost 38 seconds on the first hilly stage. Herklotz also takes home the points jersey, Malacarne the mountain jersey. 8 Up's Foure is the best U25 rider and we win the team competition, 6:16 ahead of Movistar.
The sponsor also asked for a top 3 finish in Tirreno – Adriatico, however, that would prove impossible. Our men would lose time in the hills and the race ended with a short and flat ITT and that's not our forte.
The opening stage took us from Pisa to Florence across 7 hills, our best riders - Koch, Mayordomo, Gross and Skujins – stayed near the front of the peloton, while the others fell back and lost at least 9 minutes to join breakaways in the following days. A group of 12 riders fought for the win, Mollema squeezed past Villella in the final metres, Kwiatkowski was 3rd, our riders made up the end of the group, 9th to 12th. Some co-favourites lost time, Majka and Rolland 1:07, Betancur, Froome, Sagan and Romeu 1:48.
Yupanqui won the two mass sprints on stages 2 and 4, both times ahead of Demare and Kreder. The breakaway with Wynton Christie on stage 3, up to Montecassino, didn't stand a chance. 6 riders separated from the rest in the finale, Ulissi beat Mollema, Villella, Betancur, Costa and Kwiatek. Our men lost 44 seconds like the rest of the reduced peloton.
On the fifth day Brandtzaeg joined the early breakaway. As the attacks in the peloton began, I set him on the dot at 80 – and totally forgot about him. He ended 5th, 38 seconds behind Locatelli, he could certainly have done better. Betancur, Ulissi and Costa gained nearly half a minute on 11 other riders, including out four main contestants.
Stage 6 was the queen stage of this race, 231.6 km long, 10 categorised climbs, most of them very steep, and even some dirt roads towards the end. Rui Costa won, Villella was 2nd, they were just ahead of a larger group by 22 seconds, only Mayordomo made it into the group and is now 7th in the GC, 1:50 behind. Skujins and Gross lost a little more time, they are 9th and 10th. Koch crashed towards the end and lost 3:16.
15.6 km in San Benedetto would decide the GC. Rui Costa was the best rider in the hills and only lost 13 seconds to stage winner Jungels in the ITT, he wins The Race of the two Seas. Mollema was only 1 second slower, Ulissi lost 50 seconds, but that was not enough to knock him off the podium. Mayordomo was slighty faster than Aru and ends as 6th, a good result. Skujins also makes the top 10.
Could we make it a hattrick in Milano - Sanremo after Smetannikov's and Romeu's victories in the last two years? Michel Koch has the right skillset for the job: HIL 80, FLA 77, STA 76. It was a beautiful variant, but a relatively easy one. The breakaway and Stybar, who'd attacked 32 km out, were caught on the penultimate climb, but the peloton didn't slow down. We still let Koch attack, it took most of his red bar to gain separation, but once he did the gap quickly grew to nearly a minute.
Other riders attempted unsuccessful attacks on the Poggio, our team was trying to disrupt the chase, keeping near the front of the peloton. However, when the final descent started De Vos flew past the other riders even though he'd been told to keep his position and we allowed him to use his momentum for an attack, which immediately created a small gap.
At the front Koch was still going strong, though without any sprint energy. When the peloton reached the 3-km-mark the best sprinters – Degenkolb, Sagan and Coquard – flew away from the pack. They overtook De Vos but couldn't reach Koch, who makes it three in a row for our team.
Degenkolb and Sagan again had to settle for 2nd and 3rd, just like last year when Romeu won. De Vos held onto his 5th place behind Coquard, the rest of the top 10 were Demare, Kristoff, Rui Costa, Goss and Fauconnier.
The Volta a Catalunya opened with a TTT which was won by Astana, 18 seconds ahead of 8 Up, 19 seconds ahead of FDJ. Rolland and his Tinkoff team lost 2:15, taking him out of contention for overall victory.
Stages 2 and 3 went to the sprinters, Mezgec and Favilli, our ex-rider Hita was runner-up both times. Then came the first real mountain stage of the year, 222 km long into Andorra, taking us up the Collet de Montaup (15.4 km @ 5.9%) and after a short descent finishing up in the ski resort Pal-Arinsal (8.1 km @ 7.5%).
We sent Brandtzwaeg into the breakaway, but seeing there were better climbers in there and only a minute back in the GC, he dropped back to perform protection duties, the breakaway didn't make it anyway. The speed steadily increased up the long climb and a top group of 30 riders formed, rolling downhill at a more leisurely pace. The attacks started at the bottom of the last climb, the first few were caught but 5 km from the top Pinot attacked, König followed.
Pinot dropped König and went on to win the stage, 26 seconds ahead of Rolland and the two Astana riders, Izagirre and Kiserlovski. König was 5th, Reichenbach and Olesen 57 seconds behind Pinot, Bernar 1:12, Hansen 1:40. Izagirre has taken the GC lead, 1 second ahead of Pinot. The screenshot tells the whole story.
A MTT up to Andorra Arcalis will decide the GC, the last two stages are flat. Pinot beat Rolland by 5 seconds and slips into the leader's jersey. Kiserlovski rode a good time trial, he was 3rd, just 7 seconds behind Pinot, and also overtakes Izagirre. Our riders are 24 to 35 seconds behind and can hold onto 4th, 5th and 6th place in the GC, only Hansen dropped out of the top 10.
Elia Favilli won the final two stages in mass sprints, making it 3 overall and the sprinter's jersey. King of the Mountains is, oddly enough, Sky's Isao Miura (MON 62). Team 8 Up just missed the podium, but 4th through to 6th is a strong team result which completes a 4-star, top 5 objective.
The E3 Harelbeke saw the usual war of attrition in the last 50 km. We reached the final flat section with our two best riders, Juul Jensen and Jaton (who improved to COB 81), in a group of 6 riders. However, they could not keep up with Senechal, Sagan and Vanmarcke, who left them and Stannard behind. Sagan wins ahead of Vanmarcke and Senechal, Stannard outsprints Jaton and Jensen. The next group arrives another minute behind, Yupanqui, Kristoff, Sustronck and Degenkolb complete the top 10.
In Gent – Wevelgem our riders used an effort of 80 on the second ascent of the Kemmelberg and four of them managed to break free and form a top group: Jaton and Jensen as well as Gross and Mayordomo. They relayed at 84 all the way to the finish line. Vanmarcke attacked and joined our group, everybody else was surprisingly quiet and we quickly created a gap of 2 minutes.
Vanmarcke stuck to the end of our group until he attacked again, we decided not to counter and hoped to reel him back in. But we wouldn't catch him again, he won by 47 seconds. However, we managed to hold off the next group, Jaton was 2nd ahead of Mayordomo, Jensen and Gross. We are very happy with the result. Once more the next group crossed the finish line another minute behind, Sustronck ahead of Degenkolb, Kristoff, Demare and Fauconnier.
Our fifth win of the season came on the opening stage of the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco, we even managed to take the first four places. There was a very short but very steep cat. 4 hill just 5 km from the finish line. All our riders were at the front of the peloton up the hill and attacked at the summit. We created a small gap and seamlessly went from attack to sprint, the rest could only catch up but not pass our best riders. Olesen takes the stage.
Stage 2 was the only flat stage of the race and won by Ratto. The following stage separated the best from the rest: The final climb up to Osma was 4 km long and the gradient consistently over 10%. Betancur won 21 seconds ahead of Kwiatek and Mollema. Herklotz, Rui Costa and Henao came next, 53 seconds down. While our riders were outside the top 15, 1:38 behind.
Stage 4 was quite similar, though the was a small downhill run into the finish after the last steep hill. Bernar had enough energy left to keep up with Mollema and Herrada and was 3rd behind those two, moving up to 8th in the GC. Mollema thus takes the GC lead, Betancur lost 30 seconds on the stage and is now 9 seconds behind, Rui Costa remains 3rd. One tough stage follows the next, we had to tackle 9 categorised climbs on our way to Bilbao. Mollema won again, ahead of Betancur and Kwiatkowski, but this time a group of 39 riders was awarded the same time as the winner, including 5 of our riders.
The hilly ITT on the final stage couldn't help our team. Bernar was 23rd on the day and dropped back to 9th in the GC, Olesen ended 17th, Foure 18th, he took the white jersey. The stage was won by Rohan Dennis, who was 2 seconds faster than Talansky, Spilak was 3rd. Mollema was 5th on the day and won the Basque Country Tour by over a minute ahead of Kwiatkowski and Rui Costa, Betancur dropped back to 4th.
39 year old Valverde wins the KoM classification, Mollema takes the sprinter's jersey along with the overall. Tinkoff-Saxo wins the team rankings, just 6 seconds ahead of Katusha, Team 8 Up was only 5th this time, unsurprising, since the team feels more comfortable in mountainous terrain.
The Ronde van Vlaanderen proved to be too tough for our riders. In the finale Sagan and Degenkolb attacked and only our two best riders, Jaton and Juul-Jensen, managed to hang onto a chasing group of 13 riders. Our men just about made it into the final 3 km but had no energy left for a sprint and were left behind.
Sagan easily beat Degenkolb to win his second Tour of Flanders. Vanmarcke took third place with a late attack from the chasing group. Juul Jensen arrived another 30 seconds back and was 9th just ahead of Stannard, while Jaton narrowly missed the top 10 as 11th.
All six riders with COB 80+ were present for the Hell of the North, and two of those riders wear 8 Up's jersey, Chene and Jaton. But they could not keep up with the best, those other four riders, Vanmarcke, Senechal, Sagan and Sustronck. Our men were in a group with Kristoff and Cancellara (now COB 76) as well as their team mate Jensen and arrived 3:31 behind the winner.
Victory went to 26 year old Massimo Sustronck. Since he arrived on the scene in 2017 it was clear that Sustronck would one day dominate the northern classics. He was 11th in his first Paris-Roubaix appearance, then 9th, last year he was 5th, now he's won this prestigious race.
8 Up's good result in Paris-Roubaix wasn't unexpected, as mentioned before, there is little competition on cobblestones currently.
So keep up the good work Ripley! 
