@sutty Really good for being his first race of the season
Tour of Oman
Stage 5
Interesting stage this one with those three short but hard climbs within last 35 kms. Diego Rosa will have to defend his lead to Alaphilippe, and Tejay might try to take advantage of the fight between those two. As we have already won two stages in the race, all our focus goes to Tejay and his GC battle.
Valerio joined the early breakaway with the intention that Tejay would have a team-mate in the final part
After the first, the bunch was splitted in several groups, with the main group being around 50 riders. Tejay still had Heinrich in there
Starting the final climb, the group still had around 40 riders, and Valerio had been caught and was now working for Tejay
And there it goes Alaphilippe! Rosa goes quickly on his wheel, and both are opening a gap
Then the French stopped, and it began a carrusel of attacks from both Quick-Step riders, Martin and Alaphilippe. Uphill, downhill, in the flat, they were trying desperately to break Rosa. Remember than Alaphilippe could win the stage and overtake Rosa for the lead thanks to bonus (he picked one bonus second on the top of last climb), although Enger is still on the group (what a race for the Norwegian).
In the final kms, Tejay decided to work for Valerio. A stage win was unlikely with Alaphilippe or Enger in the group, but as Valerio had picked 6 bonus seconds during the stage, he could finish in the top5 of the race
At the end there was no doubt about the stage winner and new race leader; Julian Alaphilippe
Valerio takes second place and overtakes Tejay for forth place, so we will have two riders in the top5 in GC.
@sutty A pleasant surprise to have Conti so high in GC
Vuelta a Andalucia
Stage 5
Two stages left in the race, but this one is the only one in where Mikel will need to defend his lead. That brutal finale might shake up GC and deny Mikel his second ever GC win
Nobody dangerous got in the breakaway, with all the riders more than 10 minutes away from Mikel. That meant that we didn’t have any pressure to pull from the bunch, so the gap grew to more than 12 minutes. With 25 kms to go, they still had over 9 minutes, so it was clear that they were going to fight for the win today, with Hugh Carthy and David Arroyo as the favourites. In the bunch, all were having an easy day, a good thing for Mikel
Wow, that was unexpected. Attack from Henao with 10 kms to go, when there are some kms before the foot of Allanadas.
He is caught quickly by Katusha domestiques, while we are having some troubles to rejoin the front of the group.
In the front, Hugh Carthy takes the win ahead of David Arroyo
Henao has seen our troubles and has attacked together with Gilbert from the base of Allanadas, and now has a gap which be enough to take the lead.
Mikel has tried to wait for the final km. Let’s see if he can make the comeback to keep the lead.
Henao arrives in eighth place, and he has a decent gap to Mikel’s group. And Mikel is not even seen in this picture
Mikel finishes in place 20, and we hope that is given the same time as Zakarin (10th).
We got confirmation, and Mikel’s time is 10 second more than Zakarin. Mikel has been given Gilbert’s time, who has finished 35 second later than Henao...
Final stage of Tour of Oman. The stage doesn’t really suit Marcel, with those little climbs in the final part but we’ll see if the stage is won from the bunch or a breakaway takes it.
A big group brokeaway, and despite several teams efforts, those riders would fight for the win today. Between them, youngster Mathieu van der Poel was the best, and with a great attack in the final little climb, he won the stage
The rest finished safely in the bunch, with Valerio winning the bunch sprint. Alaphilippe wins GC, Points and U25, and keeps proving that he is now a superstar, after also winning TDU a month ago. The French leads confortably both WT and CQ Rankings. Rosa and Barguil complete the podium, with Valerio and Tejay in the top5
Final stage in Andalucia, and after yesterday’s desastrous stage, the team is not in best morale for today. Mikel is just 6 seconds behind Henao, but the stage is flat, so chances to overcome the deficit are non-existent unless of a crash.
A funny fact is that the race has seen 5 different stage winners and 5 different race leaders in 5 stages so far.
For the stage we will try to win it with Phil or Magnus, the one who feels better today. At the end we changed our plans. We put both Vicente and Alexey in the 15-men breakaway.
Mid-stage, Mikel had a puncture but thanks to Phil, there was no damage done to him.
Despite Sky and Cofidis work in the bunch, the breakaway was going to fight for the win, as yesterday.
Alexey decided to sacrifice himself for Vicente, leading-out him in the final kms. That went perfectly, as Vicente started his sprint in the right distance, while the other riders were tired.
Great win for Vicente, who today had a bit a freedom, and he hasn’t missed the chance to win
Wait a moment, because it looks that GC might still be in contention.
It looks like Magnus had Mikel on his wheel, and there is a chance that jury consider that as a gap. We’ll see
Sadly, no gaps were considered at the finish, so Sergio Henao wins Vuelta a Andalucia ahead of Mikel Landa and Ilnur Zakarin. Mikel wins the Points jersey, Emanuel finishes fifth in GC as the best U25, and the team wins the Teams Standings
@daggers81 I think jury were the only people in the world who did not see a gap in there
Tour La Provence
Preview
A 3-day stage race in southern-east France awaits us. We don’t really know what to expect from this race, as the hardest stage is the first one, but it doesn’t look to be a stage that will produce big gaps. The other two are flatter and should end in a mass sprint.
The team comes here with a clear leader for GC, Lilian Calmejane, who aims to add more wins to his palmares. Also, Kristoffer Halvorsen is here to try to win by the first time with us. Vicente Garcia de Mateos will be here after winning yesterday the last stage in Andalucia. Our last three riders will be Tyler Farrar, Julen Amezqueta and Stefan Denifl
The main rivals should be rider like Alexis Vuillermoz, Davide Formolo, Cyril Gautier, Tom Slagter or Dylan Teuns. The sprinters field is really poor as the race concurs with Abu Dhabi Tour, where most/all top sprinters will be there
@sutty We can't be dissapointed with those results achieved in Oman and Andalucia, but giving that in both races we were on the race lead with our main riders...
Tour La Provence
Race
As we said in the preview, the first stage was the only that could make any differences in GC, and Lilian was willing to exploit it.
Even though he was our only men in the leading group from almost 30 km to the finish, he found the right place to attack and destroy BMC domestiques. Despite De Gendt work for Vanendert, Lilian would never be caught and took the win in Cassis.
Unluckily for us, no gaps were taken by the jury, so the GC win is far from being secured, with some possible stage winners in the sprints as Hardy and Dumoulin in the 10-second barrier.
Stage 2 saw the team make an incredible job in order to control the race for a sprint finish with Kristoffer. But the last km had several hairpins that mis-placed Kristoffer, and somehow Lilian was able to finish second, only losing in the photo-finish to Van Rensburg
The final stage has a difficult start, with several climbs in the first part of the stage, although later is flat and the stage should end in a mass sprint.
Rojas is only 8 second behind Lilian, although the Movistar rider would need to win the stage in order to take the GC of Lilian’s hands.
Julen was in the breakaway. That way, as Julen was only 2 minutes down in GC, we wouldn’t be forced to pull in the bunch.
The break was caught in the final 20 km, and then our sprint train came into action. Farrar was launching the sprint with Lilian and Kristoffer on his wheel, but Rojas is in the wheel of the Norwegian.
If Lilian finish in third place, he will win GC whether Rojas wins the stage or not, but other way is that Kristoffer wins the stage, and we can forget about Rojas.
Lilian leads-out Kristoffer, who goes for the win, and Rojas can’t avoid that.
Stage win for Kristoffer and GC for Lilian. What a day for us!!
Lilian, apart from GC, wins both Points and U25 classifications
Our time in Arabic lands this season is ending, but that doesn’t mean that we are here by obligation. We come here with the goal of a stage win and the Points jersey with Marcel Kittel and the U25 jersey with Egan Bernal or Guillaume Martin. To complete our squad, we have brought here Fabio Sabatini, Jelle Wallays, Victor Campenaerts and Raul Alarcon. As you can see, we don’t bring any rider specifically for GC.
The race consist of 4 stages, 3 of them pan-cake flat and a mountain finish in Jebel Hafeet in the third stage. This World Tour race will have here most of the top sprinters with Marcel, Greipel, Cavendish, Kristoff, Gaviria, Ewan, Groenewegen, Matthews, Colbrelli, Modolo, Bennett, Swift or Enger.
For the GC, several TdF contenders will be here, with the starlist led by 3 times TdF winner Chris Froome, current Giro d’Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali, Alberto Contador, Jakob Fuglsang and Steven Kruijswijk. Froome has a powerful team here, with Thomas, Poels and Kwiatkowski, so Sky will be expected to dominate the climb to Jebel Hafeet
With MG and ICL transfers coming up, and also having some exams next week, i have to say that for the next 2 weeks i will slow down the rhythm of the story, as i won't have lot of time to play PCM
So don't expect regular updates in the following days
Almost 200 km of racing today, but Marcel is confident to take his first WT win of the season.
Guillaume was our men working in the front all day, but that allowed us to catch a semi-dangerous breakaway of 7 riders. Our lead-out train worked perfectly, with Campenaerts leaving Wallays in the front after passing the 5-km banner
With lots of sprinters in Marcel’s wheel, Fabio’s lead-out had to be perfect to allow Marcel a little advantage in the sprint
A shame that after all our work, at the end it was Andre Greipel the one winning today, ahead of Marcel, who despite a great final metres, wasn’t able to overtake his fellow countrymen
Kristoff was third, with Cavendish, Bennett, Ewan, Groenewegen, Enger, Matthews and Colbrelli completing the top10 today.
Another flat stage in Abu Dhabi, and again Marcel is the big favourite. Yesterday he came in second place, and doesn’t want to lose again today.
Today we have a new company, the wind. During all day, 40 km/h winds affected the race, doing that less than 100 riders were in the group who fought for the win. Between those who were caught in the crosswinds, Ewan, Kwiatkowski, Enger or Guardini
As yesterday, Fabio led-out Marcel in the perfect moment, but just in the moment whenMarcel was about to start sprinting, his foot went out of the pedal, losing all the acceleration and any chance to win the stage.
Sonny Colbrelli surprised race leader Andre Greipel to take his first ever WT win
Marcel finished in sixth place, behind Selig, Groenewegen and Matthews. Another missed chance
@ALL Welcome to one of the weirdest stage you'll ever see in PCM
Abu Dhabi Tour
Stage 3
The mountain stage of Abu Dhabi Tour is here. A final climb with 10 km around 8% will decide who wins the GC. Contador, Froome and Nibali should have an epic duel in this climb. We’ll try to fight for a top10 with Bernal or Alarcon, and also the U25 with Egan.
Marcel joined the breakaway in order to get those points from the intermediate sprints in the Points standings, which he took all 12 to take the jersey from Greipel’s hands.
Once the climb started, no team tried to do anything, they just stopped riding, so Egan attacked. He quickly reached Kittel’s group, so the German started to work for the teenager
We don’t why, but the bunch is still like lifeless, so Raul attacked also
Also, Jelle and Guillaume attacked in the last 3 km, thanks to bunch pasivity. This is beyond reality. Right now we have the whole top5 in the race.
Meanwhile, Egan Bernal must have become the youngest rider to win a WT stage in a lot of time
Finally, Raul finishes in second and Guillaume in third, just ahead of Nibali, who seems to have attacked in the final km. Jelle completes the top5 for a total domination
First of two consecutive one-day races in France, With little big riders in this races, except for Alejandro Valverde, who is here surprisingly, we’ll try to keep our good run in February.
We come here (and also for tomorrow’s race) with 7 riders; Alexis Gougeard, Lilian Calmejane, Stefan Denifl, Julen Amezqueta, Alexey Lutsenko, Phil Bauhaus and Vicente Garcia de Mateos
We decided to go with an agressive tactic. We keep attacking all day. First with Alexis, who was attacking for the first 100 km every 2 km as he wasn’t able to get away from the group. When we entered the final circuit, it was Stefan’s turn. In the penultimate lap, Julen and Lilian did a double attack in the hardest climb. When all three were caught, Lilian tried it until he was “dead”. With Phil in the reduced group (around 40 riders) we could go with the sprint option, but Alexey launched his attack, this time for the win, in the last flat part with 7 km to go.
Sadly, he was caught in the final straight, as Grega Bole emerged as the strongest today to win the race
Bakelants was second, and Alexey was able to iinish in third place, just ahead of Valverde
1
Grega Bole
Bahrain - Merida
4h32'12
2
Jan Bakelants
AG2R La Mondiale
s.t.
3
Alexey Lutsenko
Cepsa - Estrella Galicia
s.t.
4
Alejandro Valverde
Movistar Team
s.t.
5
Samuel Dumoulin
AG2R La Mondiale
s.t.
6
Maxime Vantomme
WB Veranclassic - Aqua Protect
s.t.
7
Imanol Erviti
Movistar Team
s.t.
8
Julien El Fares
Delko - Marseille Provence
s.t.
9
Kanstantsin Siutsou
Bahrain - Merida
s.t.
10
Cyril Gautier
AG2R La Mondiale
s.t.
Valence Drome Classic (1.1)
With the same squad as in Classic Sud Ardeche, the team will try to get another good result by the attacking way.
The high rhythm set by Movistar, Dimension Data or FDJ made impossible to attack from far out, but in the 10km mark, there was a little climb, in which Alexey attacked with Lilian on his wheel, breaking the bunch and forming a 15-rider group.
In the sprint, Thibaut Pinot was the surprise winner, ahead of Yoann Offredo and Alejandro Valverde
Both Lilian and Alexey were able to get a top10 finish today. Great weekend for the team in France despite no wins.
Last stage of Abu Dhabi Tour, and Egan Bernal is about to become the youngest ever rider to win a World Tour stage race (since 2005).
Another flat stage in which we’ll work for Marcel, who is still winless in the race.
Despite all the work that the team put into catching the breakaway, due to the race being held in Yas Marina F1 Circuit, turns were there all time, so it was hard to have a good rhythm. That meant that the breakaway was going to take the win today, with Iljo Keisse being the strongest of those riders
(Insert Keisse gana 4)
Marcel won the bunch sprint, and with that he won the Points Jersey.
Absolute domination of our team in this race, winning ALL the jerseys; GC, KoM and U25 for Bernal, Points for Kittel, and also Teams classification. Also Alarcon finishes second in GC, and Wallays forth
