After the peloton has reeled back a few attacks, Lutsenko accelerates, he is joined by Muhammet Atalay (Torku) and Jhonatan Restrepo Valencia (Katusha), after a short failed pursuit the peloton seems contend with the situation.
When the group passes over the first intermediate sprint in Oghuz, the distance is 4’08, a good situation for Lutsenko, being the strongest rider in the break, no matter which terrain.
It has started to rain, the peloton is led by riders from CCC, BMC and Stölting, but the pace is not hard, the distance is still growing.
Quite strange, the intermediate sprints are both placed on the peak near Oghuz. Lutsenko use the peak to accelerate away from the others.
After the descent with 36 km to the line, he has built a lead of 1’08 to Atalay and Valencia, 5’28” to the peloton. This could be successful.
When the peloton starts the last climb to Qabala, Lutsenko has 1’12 to the pursuit and 5’29 to the peloton.
Under the 5km banner Tiralongo accelerates away with Fuglsang on wheel.
Tiralongo is close to boiling over, he slows down while Fuglesang accelerate away.
Ben Hermans, Fabian Wegmann, Victor De La Parte and Tiago Machado starts a counter attack, race leader Darwin Atapuma haven’t got the legs to follow.
Alexey Lutsenko claims a solo victory in Qubala, with stunning 3'20” down to Muhammet Atalay.
Jakob Fuglsang 4th at 3’45, 41 seconds faster than Ben Hermans, rounding of top 5.
Evaluation:
Overall:
This was the 1st season win by the 23 years old Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko, and his first win since winning Tour of Almaty last year.
Even though Astana took most out of it, a stage that more or less suited many teams, all the strongest teams ending up with a riders in GC top 10.
Astana:
A very good day, not only a stage win, but also Jakob Fuglsang now a lot closer to a GC podium, without setting Tiralongo’s GC at risk.
Evaluation:
Overall:
This was the 1nd season win by the 23 years old Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko , and his first win since winning Tour of Almaty last year.
Even though Astana took most out of it, a stage that more or less suited many teams, all the strongest teams ending up with a riders in GC top 10.
Astana:
A very good day, not only a stage win, but also Jakob Fuglsang now a lot closer to a GC podium, without setting Tiralongo’s GC at risk.
Stage
1
Alexey Lutsenko
Astana Pro Team
4h01'03
2
Muhammet Atalay
Torku Seker Spor
+ 3'20
3
Jhonatan Restrepo Valencia
Team Katusha
s.t.
4
Jakob Fuglsang
Astana Pro Team
+ 3'45
5
Ben Hermans
BMC Racing Team
+ 4'26
6
Fabian Wegmann
Stölting Service Group
s.t.
7
Victor De La Parte Gonzalez
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
+ 4'38
8
Tiago Machado
Team Katusha
s.t.
9
Paolo Tiralongo
Astana Pro Team
s.t.
10
Sergey Firsanov
Gazprom - RusVelo
+ 5'07
Spoiler
26
Valerio Agnoli
Astana Pro Team
+05:21
36
Davide Malacarne
Astana Pro Team
+05:21
67
Dmitriy Gruzdev
Astana Pro Team
+11:04
GC
1
Victor De La Parte Gonzalez
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
12h17'57
2
John Darwin Atapuma Hurtado
BMC Racing Team
+ 19
3
Kristijan Đurasek
Lampre-Merida
+ 23
4
Sylvester Szmyd
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
+ 25
5
Paolo Tiralongo
Astana Pro Team
+ 34
6
Tiago Machado
Team Katusha
s.t.
7
Alexey Lutsenko
Astana Pro Team
+ 39
8
Jakob Fuglsang
Astana Pro Team
+ 42
9
Fabian Wegmann
Stölting Service Group
+ 1'42
10
Ben Hermans
BMC Racing Team
+ 1'48
Spoiler
36
Davide Malacarne
Astana Pro Team
+11:06
39
Valerio Agnoli
Astana Pro Team
+11:07
61
Dmitriy Gruzdev
Astana Pro Team
+18:28
Points
1
Alexey Lutsenko
Astana Pro Team
49
2
Fabian Wegmann
Stölting Service Group
43
3
Victor De La Parte Gonzalez
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
38
KoM
1
John Darwin Atapuma Hurtado
BMC Racing Team
10
2
Artem Nych
Gazprom - RusVelo
8
3
Sylvester Szmyd
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
7
Team : Astana Pro Team
Young : Alexey Lutsenko - Astana Pro Team
Edited by Tamijo on 24-04-2017 17:09
The forecast says cloudy, might be rain, but very little wind.
The morning breakaway is four riders, Svein Tuft (Orica), Cédric Pineau (FDJ), Tiziano Dall'Antonia (Androni) and Matteo Busato (Southeast).
It starts to rain hard after the first 50 km.
The peloton is moving slowly on a cold and wet stage, the breakaway built a lead of a little under 6 minutes,
87 km to go.
There is a very bad crash in the peloton, Aru , Cataldo and Nibali all hit the tarmac. A total of 118 riders are down or caught behind the chaos.
All Astana riders get back on the bikes, Sky’s Nicolas Roche is not looking good, he is helped into a team vehicle.
With this many rider down, the gap is closed quickly.
60 km to go.
The breakaway is down to 3’32”
Getting closer to the Berg de Dal, Astana is preparing for the climb.
The short climb is hard, the risk of the peloton breaking over on the narrow Dutch road is huge, with only 33 km to the line.
The fight for position is soon to come. Astana need Guardini to pass safely over.
The pace is extremely high over the climb.
The peloton break over, 141 riders are over a minute behind the bunch, including Cavendish, Bos, Rojas, Cunego.
In the breakaway Cédric Pineau and Tiziano Dall'Antonia is now alone in front, Tuft and Busato gave up. They have 2’12 with 26 km to the line.
Astana has 6 riders left, Guardini, Nibali, Aru, López, Scarponi and Cataldo.
The breakaway is over and it comes to a mass sprint finish.
The last 5 km of the stage is very technical with many sharp turns, not making it easy for the trains. It comes down to a man versus man long sprint.
Marcel Kittel wins in Nijmegen in front of Elia Viviani and Matteo Pelucchi.
Andrea Guardini 8th.
Evaluation:
Overall:
This was the 3rd season win from 27 years old German Marcel Kittel, after he won E3 Harelbeke and a stage in Tirreno – Adriatico.
Nicolas Roche got a fracture of the coronoid; he will not race for about a month.
Cavendish must be very disappointed, not making it to the sprint, but Dimension Data did ok with Kristian Sbaragli’s 6th. Same goes for Lampre-Merida, Sacha Modolo crashed never getting back, but Marko Kump got in top 10.
Astana:
Andrea Guardini in top 10 is fine. Would be nice with a podium or at least a top 5, but he will get more chances in this long race.
We get a large and quite strong breakaway, 9 riders the strongest climber Simone Petilli (Lampre), the best placed in GC Eduard Vorganov (Katusha) at 6’12.
The breakaway gets more and more distance, none of the teams seems willing to react, everyone expecting Astana and/or race leader CCC to take over .
With the distance of more than 6 minutes, Astana start leading with Alexey Lutsenko and Davide Malacarne, 88 km to the line.
On the climb to Bizlan CCC also starts to take part in the pursuit, the pace is much faster now, with 38 km to the line the distance is 3’23”.
On the climb to Muğanlı, the breakaway explodes to fregments, in front now only four riders, Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Vegard Stake Laengen (IAM), Marco Zamparella (Amore) and Jonas Tenbrock (Stölting)
In the peloton Jakob Fuglsang have stated that he got great legs, Astana decides to reduce their best placed rider Tiralongo to domestic.
Also Valerio Agnoli got diamonds today, he is pushing hard up front.
Vorganov passes the top alone, with 38” to Laengen and 4’23” to the peloton. There is just 22 km to the top of Priqulu, but very hard 22 km.
Starting the final climb to Priqulu there is 38 riders in the favorite group. Valerio Agnoli is still pushing very hard with Jakob Fuglsang on wheel.
Rider after rider is eliminated in the end only Atapuma (BMC) can hold wheel.
Agnoli is close to his limit, he signal to Fuglsang that he is now alone.
Fuglsang accelerates away from the group, Atapuma (BMC) have nothing to counter with.
With about 3.5 km to the top, Fuglsang passes Vorganov, and continues towards a solo victory.
Jakob Fuglsang wins at Pirqulu State Reserve with 1’52” to Eduard Vorganov.
John Darwin Atapuma 3rd in 2’07”
Evaluation:
Overall:
This was the 1st season win by 31 years old Danish Jakob Fuglsang, his first win since winning the general classification in Tour of Austria back in 2012.
Today’s big loser was CCC Sprandi Polkowice, not only losing the GC, but with neither Sylvester Szmyd nor De La Parte making it to top 10.
The positive surprise was Katusha, with Vorganov’s fine 2nd, they now got 3 riders in top 10.
Astana:
Today was a perfect stage from Fuglsang, taking a stage win and a clear GC lead.
Also Valerio Agnoli need a mention, a fantastic race from him, doing a lot to create this victory, burning everything for his Captain, and yet coming back to claim a fine 6th.
It is cloudy, cold and windy. Expected winds up to 30 km/h.
It is pouring down with rain on the riders, waiting at the start-line.
After the usual turmoil , Van Winden (LottoNL – Jumbo), Viola (Nippo) and Houle (Ag2r) form what is to become the breakaway of this stage.
Over the first 50 km the breakaway builds a lead of 6’15”
The terrible weather conditions result in constant crashes in the peloton, Astana’s Andrey Zeits have got the risky and unpleasant job of bringing forward supplies for his teammates, on the often narrow dutch roads.
The tail wind helps the breakaway, with about 100 km left they got almost 7 minutes.
Now Team Katusha starts to lead, obviously they are afraid the breakaway will steal the victory, might be a signal that Kristoff is having good legs.
80 km - 4’25
70 km - 3’52
60 km - 2’25
40 km - 2’48
30 km - 1’55
20 km - 1’06
On the last 10 km there have been a constant shouting over the radio’s, as the high pace has provided for same serious crashes, Astana rider got the information that teammate Capecchi crashed, and later that he had withdrawn.
With 13 km to the line the breakaway is under 20”, they will be caught very soon.
Astana got a fine train up, with no perfect lead out in the squad Tanel Kangert will lead for Guardini, not the fastest but with good legs today. With 5 km left they are in a good position.
With Fernando Gaviria leading for Marcel Kittel nobody can match Etixx - Quick Step’s setup, they a clearly in front when Gaviria opens with under 2 km to the line.
Marcel Kittel wins in Arnhem in front of Alexander Kristoff
Andrea Guardini with a god last 50 m beat Sacha Modolo in the line for the last podium.
Overall:
With two back to back stage wins in this Giro, this was the 4th season win from for Marcel Kittel.
As many riders today stage favorite André Greipel was involved in a crash, but made it to the line.
5 riders had to abandon, Eros Capecchi, Egan Bernal (Androni), Evgueni Petrov (Tinkoff) and Svein Tuft (Orica) with long term injuries. Albert Timmer will be ok after a few days rest.
There was no crash report about Mark Cavendish, but finishing outside top 30 it looks like he is in a miserable form.
Astana:
A good stage for Andrea Guardini and Astana, the target was to get a podium on the flat’s in the Giro and it was already achieved on the 3rd stage.
The negative was that the team lost Eros Capecchi, diagnosticated with a broken Knee Cap he will not race for at least a month.
4/5-8/5 2016 Tour d'Azerbaïdjan 2.1
6/5-28/5 2016 Giro d'Italia
