... That's about it, I think
He's already won:
- hilly classic
- time trial (not WC yet, though!)
- mass sprint in the Giro (yes, once last season )
- prologues
- cobbled classic (Wevelgem!)
Although come to think of it, Lombardia last season was a mountain profile and he won with a long range attack
2.6 Nationals and Team Successes
Once again, Andolini took a long, deserved rest after the Giro d'Italia. His next races were the two National Championships. In the Time Trial, he prolonged his title again, taking a third victory in three years, but this time only with four seconds over team mate Malori. The victory was a close one, but another year in the jersey nonetheless.
In the Road Race, it was a different story. With a flat profile, it was foolish of Cattelan to draw any other card than an in-form, ready for the Tour, Francesco Fontana. Andolini took an essential part in the lead-out and secured a first National Champion jersey for his friend and team mate Fontana, while finishing 18th himself.
Fontana would show his jersey in the Tour, winning the opening stage and taking yellow for one stage. He'd go on to win two more stages and finish 2nd in the Points Classification.
In that same Tour de France, Mollema finished 6th, after riding a consistent Tour, but without stage wins, unlike the previous year. It was still a great result, keeping Cattelan on top of the World Tour rankings, as well as keeping up with Team Sky in the CQ Ranking.
As for Il Ghiottone himself, he kept quiet for another few weeks. He won GP Matteotti in preparation for his return to World Tour racing: Eneco Tour 2018.
#BREAKING: Cattelan has confirmed that QuickStep Floors will be joining as co-sponsor due to recent sucess in classics
Great development on Antonio and on the story so far!
Some weird transfers there, Alaphillipe to Katusha and Tejay to Astana. PCM always give some funny ones. With Chaves, Nibali, TVG, and Aru, Astana are pretty stacked for climbing aren't they.
Great to see another points jersey for Antonio! Maybe he can set the record for most Giro points jerseys before he retires.
Tamijo wrote:
Another great Giro for Antonio and the team.
Yeah, a real surprising showing from Palacios. He's got these strange stats, like 84 MO but only 71 HILL. It appears the hilly stages didn't hurt him as much and he frolicked in the mountains so a 2nd place is amazing!
VoetsT wrote:
Very good NC's and Tour de France for the team
Fontana and Andolini with a jersey each, doesn't get much better
rogvi97 wrote:
#BREAKING: Cattelan has confirmed that QuickStep Floors will be joining as co-sponsor due to recent sucess in classics
Great development on Antonio and on the story so far!
Oh they wish Thanks!
Reveille wrote:
Some weird transfers there, Alaphillipe to Katusha and Tejay to Astana. PCM always give some funny ones. With Chaves, Nibali, TVG, and Aru, Astana are pretty stacked for climbing aren't they.
Great to see another points jersey for Antonio! Maybe he can set the record for most Giro points jerseys before he retires.
Yeah in earlier stories I used to check transfers at the end of each season and make them more realistic but I stopped caring so there are some pretty weird combinations around, but it hardly bothers me. Especially when there are some unrealistic combo's in real world as well
Halfway there for Giro record of Points Jerseys, so yeah, might make that a goal eventually!
---
Thanks everyone for following this! You know I'm always open to criticism, so don't hold back.
Also, this is another typical Ian Butler story and therefor untypical here with another top class world rider. Though I believe the build-up is the best I've ever done. I hope people can enjoy this sort of thing, if not just let me know
2.6 Eneco Tour
The Eneco Tour saw Andolini return to the WT scene. The first few days took some time getting used to the race rhythm, but the time trial was an easy prey for Andolini. Now he was on a roll, and he'd also win the final two stages, gaining himself the Overall Classification and the Points Classification
2.7 The Height of Patronage
The Vuelta 2018 was Andolini's height of his patronage. He'd always remain a patron, both in the team and in the peloton, but he'd turn into the real Il Ghiottone pretty soon.
Let's back up a bit. Cattelan Italia sent a god-squad to the Vuelta 2018. Andolini was team leader, Fontana was sprinter and Palacios, still only 22 years old, would race for the General Classification, after missing the win in the Giro and finishing 2nd.
Andolini won the prologue, but lost the Leader's Jersey the next day. He reclaimed it in the fourth stage, the team time trial when Cattelan finished 2nd.
But then his squad asked help, and help they received.
Andolini's main motivation in the Vuelta was winning a stage (check!) and getting ready for the World Championships. Fontana and Palacios had more at stake, more to gain from this Vuelta.
Il Ghiottone sacrificed his Vuelta and worked harder than three domestiques put together both for Fontana in the sprints and for Palacios in the hilly and mountain stages. With success, we might add! Fontana won four stages and the Points Classification, while Palacios won four stages himself and held his lead in the final time trial over Chris Froome, winning his first Grand Tour in amazing fashion, aged 22.
Andolini had worked his ass off and finished 2nd in the final time trial. Because he was always the last one to support Palacios, he also finished 21st in the GC.
So far, so good. But at the end of the Vuelta, Andolini made a remark that'd change the team dynamics forever:
This has been a wasted Vuelta. Okay, maybe I got a good training out of it, with my eye on the World Championships. One stage win? Should've been a lot more.
Andolini would explain himself better the following day, but the damage was done. Cattelan knew they could never send Palacios, Fontana and Andolini to the same Grand Tour again. And with Andolini the great hero of Italy - and arguably the best cyclist in the world - they'd have to give up GT wonder Palacios.
I went to Colombia to talk to Palacios in writing this book. This is what he said about the situation:
Leão Palacios: I had no idea. Antonio had helped me so well, I really owe that Vuelta victory to him. He was a good friend of mine, too. But don't forget Antonio has a big ego in his work. I know he never meant that my victory wasn't important or something,
but all he could see was that Froome had once again surpassed him on the CQ and World Ranking. Antonio was sensitive to such things, he wanted to be the best rider.
I don't blame him for anything that happened, although we had a falling out at the time. After our careers, we got along great again, though. I'm still thankful for his help in that Vuelta. You have to understand that Antonio was a real asshole -
purely professional then. [laughs] Why would he be happy with a Vuelta if he could've won at least three stages more? Because a team mate won and another team mate won the points jersey? Not good enough [laughs]. That's just Antonio.
Well... He still has a contract for next year so he's not gone immediately
Reveille wrote:
Palacios couldn't just do the Tour or whatever GT Antonio wasn't doing? Oh well, everything can't always go perfectly.
Indeed. It's an idea I also had but Palacios is obviously a big talent and there's just no way Antonio is letting someone else decide what GTs he'll be riding, so Palacios would be at the mercy of Antonio to pick up the pieces
2.8 No one beats Antonio Andolini
It's an understatement to call 2018 one of Andolini's finer years. His domination on the bike was only getting started, but his list of friends in and out the peloton was thinning pretty rapidly. His great thirst for honor and victories cost him a few friendships along the way.
After the Vuelta, Andolini decided to return once more to Varese. Tre Valli had been rescheduled to about a week before the World Championship Time Trial, which meant Andolini could go back to Varese with his Rainbow Jersey. It was his first race with the rainbow jersey and his last. (Between the Vuelta and Tre Valli, he also competed in and won GP Industria di Prato)
In Varese, he gave an open-hearted interview about his chances at the upcoming World Championships, his role at the team, his role in modern cycling, his view on the Italian press, the possibility of Olympic Track racing in 2020 and the strong performances from Chris Froome.
And then it was time for the 2018 World Championships. As always, Andolini skipped the Team Time Trial in order to be in contention for the Individual Time Trial and the Road Race.
There has always been a general feeling that Andolini was due a title in the individual time trial. One day it'd just have to be right and he'd get that deserved victory.
2018 seemed to be that year. His biggest competitor in form was the Australian Rohan Dennis.
At the first intermediate time, Dennis was 3 seconds slower than Andolini.
At the second intermediate time, Dennis was still 3 seconds slower than Andolini.
For a long time it was exciting following the close match-up between these two oiled machines. It wasn't until the final 7 km, which were a bit more up and down, that Dennis had to let Il Ghiottone go. Andolini stepped up the pace and finally won his first World Championships Time Trial with a dominating victory. Dennis had completely blown up on the final hill.
World Championship Time Trial 2018
1
Antonio Andolini
Cattelan Italia
1h04'39
2
Rohan Dennis
BMC Racing Team
+ 1'18
3
William Barta
Etixx - Quick-step
+ 2'01
4
Adriano Malori
Cattelan Italia
+ 2'05
5
Chris Froome
Team Sky
s.t.
6
Tejay Van Garderen
Astana Pro Team
+ 2'11
7
Stefan Küng
IAM Cycling
+ 2'42
8
Jack Bobridge
Team Sky
+ 2'50
9
Tony Martin
Etixx - Quick-step
+ 2'51
10
Lennard Kämna
MTN-Qhubeka
+ 2'53
And so Andolini was in a unique position to do what no man has done before: the World Championship Double.
Heaven be damned if anyone would stand in Il Ghiottone's way.
During the race, with about 30 km left to go, Moscon pulled the peloton so hard that he and Andolini got a small gap.
It was obvious Andolini was nervous. He demanded that Moscon kept going at 100%. For Andolini, it seemed like this was the only chance. Of course, this was madness. Although Wellens was the top favorite on his Belgian, hilly course, Andolini was not chanceless. But Il Ghiottone will always be Il Ghiottone, and Moscon was prohibited to slack the pace.
He kept up the effort for about 5 km, but then Moscon had to give his leader the bad news of not being able to keep it up.
Andolini went over Moscon and left him behind instantly. A 25 km solo looking him in the pace. Overconfident and stupid or heroic and brilliant?
The group of favorites wasn't working well together and the strongest riders went looking for the Italian solo. Tim Wellens was the only one to come back. Or should we say, almost came back. He came within 10 meters of Andolini...
At which Il Ghiottone increased the pace just lightly enough for Wellens to be unable to make contact. This mental and physical battle was kept up a kilometer, after which the crowd was stunned to see that Wellens parked. The war was over!
A unique and incredible achievement to win both World Championship races within a few days. There was no doubt now: this was the best rider in the world.
And yet Chris Froome still had a small lead in the World Tour Ranking. You can be sure Andolini would try to overtake the Brit with Il Lombardia and Paris - Tours still up the road.
World Championship Road Race 2018
1
Antonio Andolini
Cattelan Italia
6h23'29
2
Tim Wellens
Lotto Soudal
+ 2'13
3
Dylan Teuns
BMC Racing Team
+ 2'55
4
Julian Alaphilippe
Team Katusha
+ 3'07
5
Michal Kwiatkowski
Team Sky
s.t.
6
Gianni Moscon
Cattelan Italia
+ 4'47
7
Tiesj Benoot
Lotto Soudal
+ 5'50
8
Greg Van Avermaet
Orica-GreenEDGE
+ 6'01
9
Peter Sagan
MTN-Qhubeka
s.t.
10
Bauke Mollema
Cattelan Italia
+ 7'36
Either way, these World Championships are remarkable for two things:
- Il Ghiottone had dominated much of the 2018 season and continued this until the end by taking both WC titles. It was a demotivating thing for the competition to see him always 5% above their capacities and to be able to keep it up an entire season.
- His relationship with the press went under.
From the end of September 2018, Il Ghiottone started to actively avoid the press. The first few weeks, without any big consequences. But then some of the journalists started their crusade...
Although Antonio is starting to look like an arrogant bastard towards his team and the press right about now.. Curious to see if intellect comes with age.
)
