Our men did very well in their national championships, all wins coming from early breakaways, of course. Nerz (Germany), Hansen (Denmark), Reichenbach (Switzerland), Warbosse (USA), Parra (Colombia) and De Sousa (Portugal) will be wearing their nation's colours in the next year.
Tour de France preview
The 2020 Tour de France does not feature many mountain stages. Just four, to be precise, and one of them is a MTT to Chamrousse 1650 (16 km @ 6%). Stages 11 and 18 feature mountaintop finishes, the latter is the queen stage with six climbs including the Peyresourde, Aspin and Tourmalet and finishing up in Hautacam. Seven stages are hilly and of varying difficulty, the other ten stages are flat and include an opening TTT in Nantes of 26.5 km and a 33.6 km ITT on the penultimate day.
The two big favourites are Quintana and Kwiatkowski. The Colombian is the best climber in the world, he recently won the Romandie and Dauphine, beating Kwiatek in the latter. However, the Polish superstar is better in hilly terrain and against the clock, the course is tailor-made for him. Defending champion Froome is now 35 years old and has deteriorated too much in the last year to have any chance of winning, in fact, he should be supporting Kelderman.
Team 8 Up brings a team full of climbers, we would have preferred a course with more mountains and fewer hills. Four of our riders have a shot at the top 10, Schuermans, Mohoric, Birtz and even Boothroyd. They'll each have a man to protect them and one rider will be free every day to join breakaways.
What don't you like about 8 Up? That it's a soft drink? I really dig the green jersey, that was my main reason for picking them.
As for Froome: Going by salary he has to be the captain, he earns 191k, way more than any other rider in the expensive Astana lineup (Sagan 132k, Porte 131k, Martin 128k, Aru 112k, Nibali 90k, Jungels 87k, then Kelderman 77k). But Froome is down to AVG 78 (MON 79 TTR 79), while Kelderman has AVG 79 (MON 82 TTR 74).
FDJ won the opening TTT of the 2020 Tour de France, putting Lars Boom in yellow, ahead of Astana, 8 Up is 3rd, 20 seconds behind. So is Kwiatkowski's Orica team, while Quintana and Quickstep lose 46 seconds.
The following 6 stages were all flat. Many of the world's best sprinters turned up, most of them will be disappointed – even more so since late attacks prove very successful even this early in the race. Demare beat Kristoff and Sagan on stage 2, but the next stage goes to Kwiatkowski ahed of Sagan and Degenkolb, the simulation accounted for a nasty little climb just 3 km from the finish line, up to 14.2% for 200 metres.
Only a day later there was a successful late attack and the stage won by Ligthart ahead of Cancellara and Wallays, Demare won the sprint from the peloton, 51 seconds behind. The result put 39 year old Cancellara at the top of the GC and into yellow. In similar fashion Simon Yates won ahead of Van Avermaet on stage 6.
Stages 5 and 7 end in mass sprints and are both won by the great Peter Sagan, he now has 20 TdF stage wins since the career started in 2014, 24 altogether.
We finally reached the hills on stage 8. It finished on the Mont d'Or, 5.3 km @ 7.3%. No one was able to match the power of Kwiatek's late surge, he won by 22 seconds and takes the yellow jersey off Cancellara. Only a dozen riders arrive together in a group behind Kwiatkowski, with 4 of our riders in the top 6. Froome, Mollema, Rolland and Pinot lose between 1:18 and 1:58.
A day later we won our first stage of the Tour this year. Nerz was in the breakaway, left his companions behind, and was so close to winning when the favourites caught him inside the final kilometre. And his team mates were mostly to blame for that, they attacked late, not realising they could catch him. But Mohoric went on to win the stage ahead of Boothroyd and Henao, the sprinters were too late, there were no time gaps among the first 59 riders. The last stage before the first rest day was flat and once more a late attack was successful, Stybar beat Carter and Kleina.
Sadly, on the rest day Mohoric is diagnosed with pneumonia and we have to withdraw him from the race. Stage 11 was the first of the few mountain stages with two early cat. 1 climbs followed by a long flat stretch only broken by a cat. 3 hill before the final ascent to Valmorel, 13.4 km @ 6.8%.
Heiner Parra (MON 78) was near the front of the peloton at the start and immediately attacked. Surprisingly, nobody cared to join him and he was alone on the road all day. With his last drop of energy he finished the stage after 5 hours over high mountains, takes the stage and slips into the polka dot jersey.
Kwiatek arrives next, 2:29 behind Parra and 19 seconds ahead of Quintana and Schuermans. Birtz is 5th, losing over a minute to the man in yellow, but gaining 20 seconds on a group of 11 riders containing all the other big names as well as Boothroyd.
Stage 12 featured two big climbs, Madeleine and Glandon, but a long way from the finish line, hence it was just a hilly stage. 52 riders arrived in a reduced peloton and Rui Costa won ahead of Kwiatkowski and Simon Yates.
A day later we tackled the MTT to Chamrousse 1650, 16 km @ 6.1%. Quintana needed to reduce the gap to Kwiatek, which was 67 seconds before the stage. The Colombian won the stage, but only by a second ahead of the race leader. Schuermans loses 32 seconds and drops down to 3rd, 5 seconds behind Quintana. Birtz and Boothroyd rode good time trials and are now 4th and 7th overall.
Stage 14 from La Mure to Castellane was riddled with difficult hills. Elizondo was among the dozen riders which made up the early breakaway. He made it to the final summit at the head of the group and attacked downhill to win the stage just ahead of Spilak. Kwiatkowski did the same with the reduced peloton and even my good descenders couldn't keep up with him. He was fortunate to get awarded a time difference of 37 seconds on a field of 86 riders – there were gaps everywhere, but only his one was counted. His lead on Quintana has increased to 1:43 and he's getting closer to winning his first TdF.
The next day was very similar, though with an uphill finish, 5.4 km @ 8%. Our best man in a hilly terrain, Nerz, was in the breakaway and managed to win the second stagen in a row for us against strong competition, beating Dumoulin, Gertjan De Vos, old Contador, Rohan Dennis, De Gendt and Fuchs.
For the man in yellow it was another chance to increase his lead and he launched a late attack. Only Yates, Costa and Gallopin managed to stick with him. Quintana arrived 59 seconds behind together with our three top men and half a dozen more riders. Froome, Kennaugh and Van Garderen lost even more time.
The final week began with a mountaintop finish in Eyne 2600 but the climb was too gradual to be classified as mountainous and despite the name the arrival altitude was “only” 1819 metres. Nerz had excellent freshness again and was hoping to win his second stage in a row but didn't quite manage, he was runner-up to Talansky. Who else but Kwiatkowski came 3rd on the day and took time off the rest of us, just 9 seconds this time. Boothroyd and Yates were involved in a massive crash which split the peloton into three parts for a short while, they both returned to the front but in the finale Yates lost 48 seconds and his 6th place in the GC to Boothroyd. So Team 8 Up has Schuermans in 3rd position, Birtz in 4th and Boothroyd in 6th before the Pyrenee stages.
The stage to Saint-Girons was the easier of the two Pyrenee stages and yet it proved to be the more decisive. Parra had lost the polkadot jersey a day ago to Edet and attacked as soon as the race started and was alone up front for a while, but Edet, together with Taaramae and Harkonnen, bridged the gap. Parra was first on the early summits and collected 57 points, while Edet faded and only claimed 24 points, at the end of the day Parra is back in the lead of the KoM classification by 25 points.
It was a very tiring day in the peloton, at first because Edet was only 15 minutes back in the GC and after a third of the stage he was in virtual yellow, so the peloton laid down a brutal pace to close the gap. And then Quintana and Kwiatek attacked 5 km from the summit of the penultimate climb and it cost us a lot of energy to catch up with them again.
Then Quintana attacked once more, but Kwiatkowski followed, overtook the Colombian and all the escapees, and rode on to win the stage by over 2 minutes and extend his overall advantage to over 5 minutes, he seems to have the TdF in the bag. Quintana, Schuermans and Parra followed, all 2:12 behind, Birtz was 2:39 back. Kennaugh surprised and gained two minutes on Boothroyd and Yates and moved into 6th overall.
Stage 18 was the final mountain stage, the queen stage. Parra's freshness was down to average, so we let Warbosse attack, but then Edet joined him, so Parra had no choice and also slipped into the breakaway. 2 of our riders against 4 others created no conflicts, Warbosse relayed while Parra saved energy and attacked on the climbs. Parra collected 53 KoM points, Edet managed 36. Kwiatkowski eventually collected 50 and moved past Edet in the KoM classification, but the advantage of 37 points should be enough for Parra.
Kwiatek goes on to win his second stage in a row, 8 seconds ahead of Schuermans and 25 ahead of Quintana, so Schuermans slips back into 2nd place. Birtz was 6th on the stage and retains his 4th place. Boothroyd is 2:12 behind and drops to 8th overall, Van Garderen passed him.
A day later Kwiatkowski narrowly misses winning his third stage in a row, Jungels survived from the early breakaway and takes the stage by 29 seconds ahead of the yellow jersey who wins the sprint from a group of 52 riders.
The ITT on stage 20 would produce the final shifts in the GC. Froome wins the time trial ahead of his team mate Jungels, it is only enough to place him 11th overall. Kwiatkowski is 3rd on the day and will thus win the TdF by nearly 6 minutes. Quintana actually rode a faster ITT than Birtz (despite TTR 71 vs 81), he remains second while Birtz completes to podium, relegating his team mate Schuermans to 4th overall. Kennaugh, like Schuermans, loses over 3 minutes against the clock and drops back behind Van Garderen and Boothroyd, Costa and Mollema also swap positions.
The winner of the green jersey would be decided on the Champs Elysees, Demare and Sagan had been equal on points for days. Coquard won the stage, but Demare was 2nd while Sagan finished only 18th, so the Frenchman wins the jersey.
An excellent Tour for our team. We won four stages, one each for Mohoric, Parra, Elizondo and Nerz. Birtz, like last year, is on the podium in Paris and wins the U25 competition. Schuermans and Boothroyd record great results, Mohoric would also have made the top 10 had he not caught pneumonia.
By the time the TdF ended we had completed our squad for next season. It won't look much different from the current squad, we used the budget increase to extend contracts with our best riders. Birtz remains our highest earner, but Bernar and Boothroyd now earn a similar amount. We also offered Foure a new contract, but he signed with Quickstep instead. With Babou Sprague and Hillary Van Ness we added two American stage racers to our team, with Pericas a third Spaniard. The sponsor will be a little unhappy that we once again won't have an Italian rider, oddly enough, nobody stood out.
Nine riders will be leaving us: Foure signed with Quickstep, Nerz will join Astana, Hansen and Gross move to Tinkoff, Barwell and Bunce will ride for Orica, Reichenbach joins MTN, Chene was picked up by Sky, Brandtzaeg by Gourmetfein.
Team 8 Up is proud to announce its first rider with AVG 80: Basuala Jaton. At the start of the season I mentioned what an exciting prospect this young man is and he's improved his skills significantly this season. He's reached his limits in COB (84) and STA (83) and should be a real force in the northern classics next season (and maybe in the upcoming Eneco Tour).
Yes, but he'll be up against two riders with similar stats, Senechal and Sustronck. And so far Vanmarcke is still looking strong despite his advanced age. Those races will be tough and exciting.
We now enter the two "easy" months of August and September in which our team can theoretically win every WT race. We had a brief discussion about this last season, it isn't exactly realistic if all our riders end in the top 10. I repeat I wish the game was more of a challenge in general and throughout the whole season, but I won't change the way I play, if the same hard work which results in a single 9th place in LBL leads to all our riders making the top 10 in Hamburg or Quebec, so be it.
Well, we couldn't repeat the success of last year's San Sebastian, when Romeu won ahead of Mayordomo. This time it became a rematch between Kwiatkowski and Quintana – with Kwiatek coming out on top again. They relentlessly attacked each other, Mollema was the last man to follow them but then faded. In the end it was a clear victory, while Mollema was able to hang onto 3rd place, ahead of three of our riders and the rest.
This year's Tour of Poland offered 5 flat and 2 hilly stages, of which only the second one seemed destined to produce time gaps and possibly not in our team's favour. All the flat stages ended in mass sprints with Demare winning two stages and the points jersey once more. The other winners were Fauconnier, Sokol and Kreder, maiden WT victories for the latter two riders.
The GC would be decided by the two tricky hilly stages. On stage 5 we sent our weakest rider, the Canadian Dwayne De Vos, into the early breakaway. With no time differences to speak of before the stage breakaways are doomed to fail, though we still remember how Pfingsten was able to claim a great result and lots of WT points for us in the Eneco Tour in our first season in the World Tour in a similar situation.
And De Vos delivered, he left his breakaway companions behind 50 km out and pushed as hard as he could, he was exhausted as he crossed the finish line and ended 1:51 ahead of a group of 14 riders which included our 5 men. Would he hang onto his lead after the tougher next stage?
We tried our luck with Nikolaev in the breakaway, but this time the peloton took no chances and caught the escapees early. The others took turns protecting De Vos and tried to keep anybody from attacking, but Herklotz and Kelderman got away in the final kilometers. The German won ahead of the Dutchman and they will take 2nd and 3rd overall, their time gap wasn't large enough to dislodge De Vos. He and his team mates arrived 43 seconds behind in a group of 21 riders.
De Vos thus wins the Tour de Pologne, thanks to his courageous performance, ahead of Herklotz and Kelderman. Haas and Moser picked up bonus seconds with a 3rd place each on the hilly stages and end 4th and 5th. There was nothing to differentiate the next 7 riders, Battaglin is placed 6th while Gross and Nikolaev just miss the top 10.
The course of the Eneco Tour was not to our liking, with both a TTT and an ITT and the usual hilly and cobblestoned stages merged into a single stage. Of the four flat stages, two were won in mass sprints, both by Peter Sagan. On the opening day 4 riders managed a late escape, Wallays won, right behind him was Sky's Isoa Miura, who has the right skillset to go on to win the whole Eneco Tour.
Miura slipped into the leader's jersey a day later after the TTT. It was won by Astana, putting Sagan into a good position to fight for the win, Sky and Miura were 4th, 29 seconds behind, Team 8 Up only managed 5th place, 36 seconds down.
Sagan won stages 3 and 5, in between Lotto's Vandousselaere took a stage with a late attack. The ITT went to MTN's Haritz Arabidurrutia (TTR 78), Miura was 12th, 30 seconds back. Before the final stage Miura leads Arabidurrutia by 27 seconds, followed by Froome (0:36), Sagan (0:39) and Sicard (0:50), all our riders are outside the top 20, Koch is 21st, 1:37 behind.
We didn't have much hope of salvaging anything on the final day, a stage from Maldegen to Geraatsbergen, which includes the cobbled Kapelmuur, to be tackled three times. De Sousa became part of the breakaway, which was strong and dangerous, 14 riders, including specialists like Offredo and our ex-rider De Troch. Quite possibly the group wouldn't be caught and maybe a rider would snatch victory out of Miura's hands.
The second of three climbs up the Muur was 30 km from the finish and we decided to attack from the peloton with our best riders, Jaton, Juul-Jensen and Koch. They managed to separate from the peloton and relaying at high speed they caught most of the breakaway, including De Sousa, though some riders were still further up the road.
Now we had four riders relaying hard, a minute ahead of the peloton and we pushed even harder up the final Muur ascent. We caught the last survivors of the breakaway, Offredo, De Troch and the promising young puncheur Masolini and still had just enough energy left for the uphill sprint in the town centre. Juul-Jensen had exhausted himself and finished 7th, behind those last three escapees, Jaton took the stage, Koch was right behind him, De Sousa was 3rd. What a great result!
On top of that, Sagan arrived with three other riders 1:22 behind, Miura was in the next group, a further 24 seconds back. Michel Koch thus wins the Eneco Tour by 15 seconds ahead of Miura, Sagan is 3rd, keeping Jaton off the podium by less than a second, De Sousa ends 5th. We did not expect that. Great performance by Michel Koch, he was our replacement for Romeu and like the Chilean last year he didn't just win Milano-Sanremo but also the Eneco Tour.
Merry Xmas to you all, or whatever rocks your boat. I hope you get to spend some quality time with people you love.
In the Hamburg Cyclassics we managed the same as last year, we pushed hard up the Waseberg, the peloton split into pieces, we attacked, overtook the early breakaway and took the top 8, De Vos winning ahead of Mayordomo and Bunce. We were followed by the three riders from the early breakaway who weren't caught by the peloton, either: Vermeulen, Ciolek and Fuchs. I was able to take this lovely screenshot of our riders in action.
A week later in the GP Quest we didn't attempt such a team attack. The small but steep climb shortly before the finish line wasn't enough to create any real gaps, though some of the pure sprinters suffered. Sagan won ahead of Gallopin and Vallee. The rest of the top 10: Colbrelli, Sustronck, Bunce, Elliot, Koch, Navardauskas and Mayordomo. So we were able to place three riders in the top 10, another good result.
Like the Tour de France, this year's Vuelta a España offers little fertile ground for pure climbers. Only 4 stages are mountainous, 5 are hilly, the rest are flat and include 90.5 km of individual time trials. That makes TdF winner Kwiatkowski the top favourite, his only concern might be tiredness, he has 62 racing days in his legs at the start of the Spanish Grand Tour. Like always, our riders also do the TdF/Vuelta double, with few mountains and lots of ITT Birtz will be our best bet, followed by Boothroyd, who's become nearly as good, while Mohoric and Schuermans lack the TTR skills.
The sprinters are set to shine in Spain, Ag2r and Quickstep both brought a duo of great sprinters: Fauconnier (SPR 84) and Coquard (83) will be up against Degenkolb (83) and Sinkeldam (84). TdF green jersey winner Demare (84) will be their main rival.
The prologue went to Movistar's Damian Lech (PRL 81), bronze medal winner in last year's WC ITT. He beat Van Garderen and Arabidurrutia, Boothroyd was 2 seconds faster than Kwiatek, Birtz 3 seconds slower.
The first mass sprint ended with a 1-2 victory for Ag2r, Fauconnier winning ahead of Coquard and Degenkolb. A day later it was the German who tasted victory, he beat Fauconnier and Demare.
Stage 4 concluded with an uphill finish to Alto del Naranco. Our riders lost 52 seconds on the stage winner, Romeu, 38 seconds to Kwiatek in 2nd place. It was the first win for our ex-rider Romeu since he joined Sky this season, he even slipped into the leader's jersey. Demare was victorious on stage 5, he beat the Quickstep duo Sinkeldam and Degenkolb.
The following stage was more difficult than it looked on paper, just a moderately sized hill which we had to cross twice in the finale. But Kwiatek set such a high pace uphill that our men were dropped and only with tremendous effort did we make it into the winning roup of 29 riders, the Polish superstar beat Ulissi and Betancur. I didn't name the Colombian as a pre-race favourite, he will surely do well, but a Vuelta victory seems out of reach with his TTR 63.
Degenkolb is the first sprinter to claim two stages, in Zamora he beat Ag2r's Fauconnier and Coquard. On day 8 we faced a test against the clock, 41.7 km in Salamanca. Jean-Claude Birtz (TTR 81) celebrates his first ITT victory, he was 2 seconds faster than Van Garderen and Lech, Boothroyd was 4th, just ahead of Kwiatek. Mohoric lost 1:26, Schuermans 3:39, Betancur 3:46.
Kwiatkowski has taken the lead by 22 seconds over Van Garderen, followed by Romeu (0:48), Birtz (0:51) and Boothroyd (0:51). Of the rest of the top 10 candidates Mohoric (2:46) is closest, everybody else is already at least 4 minutes behind.
Stage 9 was nearly flat, just two short and sharp hills in the finale. I wouldn't have bet any money on the breakaway, but Wallays survived by 12 seconds to take the stage ahead of a group of 7 riders which included Kwiatek and Betancur, but none of our riders, we finished in the peloton 40 seconds back. "We" means our 4 best men, the 5 others took a day off and were dead last on the day, up to 21 minutes behind, ready for breakaways in the second half of the Vuelta.
Three flat stages in a row followed. Sinkeldam claimed the first, Degenkolb the third, in between the early breakaway survived and Miura, runner-up in the Eneco Tour, takes home a big win, his first WT victory.
Finally, on the 13th stage, we reached the mountains, it was a long day in the saddle, all the way from Marbella to the Sierra Nevada, 238.6 km, featuring several small hills before the long climb up to the ski resort. A large escape group formed early in the day, we placed Elizondo (MON 77) in the group. The advantage grew up to 18 minutes but quickly evaporated on the final climb. Elizondo was the strongest of the breakaway riders and was able to win the stage for 8 Up, in the end just 44 seconds ahead of Betancur. Kwiatek was 1:19 behind, 29 seconds ahead of our four riders who arrived with Dombrowski. Van Garderen was 12th, 3:48 behind, the other top 10 candidates lost around 8 minutes.
Sinkeldam adds a 5th stage to Quickstep's tally in Murcia, beating Demare and Fauconnier. A day later the breakaway survived by over 5 minutes and Belkin's Jetse Bol wins his first WT stage. Stage 16 was a hilly circuit in Barcelona, once more the stage went to the breakaway, the peloton arrived 10:17 behind. Our man Nerz was unable to keep up with Barguil and Morton in the finale, the strong Frenchman (HIL 79 MON 79 AVG 78) took the win.
Just five stages to go, three mountain stages, a hilly stage and an ITT on the final day. Stage 17 ended on Pla de Beret. Kwiatkowski and Betancur attacked on the penultimate climb, the HC rated Aneto, but a group of climbers including our 4 men managed to catch them again before the top. We tried a surprise team attack on the sharp descent and only the man in red followed and was confident enough to relay along with our guys. The final climb was short and we kept our advantage over the others. Kwiatek won the stage, of course.
Betancur lost 1:30, Van Garderen 1:47, Dombrowski and Porte 2:27. Next up is the queen stage of the Vuelta from Salardu to Luz Ardiden, up and down all day with 3 cat 1 and 3 HC climbs. Next update will be in 2017!
Going into the queen stage, overall victory by Kwiatek seemed inevitable, Team 8 Up's best riders would compete with only Betancur, Van Garderen and possibly Dombrowski for the next GC positions, the rest cannot climb well enough.
We sent Parra into the breakaway, hoping he would win another KoM jersey. But as we slowly made our way up the first climb, a new idea formed: Let's make the race hard and see what happens. As we hit the foot of the first HC mountain, Schuermans went on the dot at 60, Birtz, Boothroyd and Mohoric a little more. The four riders separated and there was no reaction from anybody.
On top of the next mountain our advantage was 15 minutes. By then we'd caught the early breakaway and Parra pulled as long as he could before dropping off, the last rider to hang on was Bongiorno (MON 78).
With 70 km to go Kwiatkowski attacked alone. Soon he was 7 minutes ahead of the peloton, but still 9 minutes behind our riders. Betancur, Van Garderen and Domobrowski attacked 44 km from the finish line, far too late to change anything.
In the end Schuermans won ahead of Mohoric, Birtz was 1:08 behind, Boothroyd 2:29. Kwiatek arrived with a gap of 8:44, for Betancur it was 14:56, a little more for the other two. We'll place 4 riders in the top 5 at the end of the Vuelta, that much is certain, but we can't write off Kwiatkowski just yet.
Stage 19 was a hilly stage with a long ascent to the finish line. Nerz is our man for such a stage, he was joined by 12 other riders in the breakaway and persevered, winning ahead of Intxausti and Rosa. Kwiatek attacked with Betancur in the finale and won back 58 seconds against our riders.
Edmondson wins another stage for us a day later, he is first on the mighty Angliru. We did little to keep the escapees at bay, Edmondson beat Eijssen by 2:12, Rainsford was next. First man from the peloton as always is Kwiatkowski, though only 14 seconds faster than Schuermans, Betancur and Mohoric, with Birtz and Boothroyd a bit further back.
All would be settled on the final day, where another ITT, nearly identical to the other one, awaited, 41.6 km long. Birtz again won the stage, Boothroyd was 2nd, Van Garderen 3rd, Kwiatek 4th. That was enough to move up to 4th place, passing Schuermans. But the podium belongs to Team 8 Up. Birtz wins the Vuelta ahead of Boothroyd, Mohoric is 3rd. The sprinter's jersey actually goes to a sprinter, there were plenty of flat stages, just enough or Fauconnier to hold off Kwiatek by 8 points. We couldn't win the mountain's jersey, it went to Bongiorno. Birtz also takes home the white jersey and two TT stages, with Elizondo, Schuermans, Nerz and Edmondson also taking a stage each.
