Big news from Venezuela, as Rafa Valls has give us our first ever win in today's stage.



Valls attacked with 3 km to go and only 3 riders could follow him initially; Bardet, Diaz and Atapuma, the three riders that would finish right behind him. One by one he cracked his rivals until no one was left with him and it was time to celebrate.



In the process he has also taken both race lead and KoM lead, so a lot of points were won today.

The team came to Venezuela with an only goal; to win the race. And that's what Rafa Valls had done. First Goal achieved, and our only Win Goal

2 days ago Valls won S8 to give us our first ever win, and despite losing the lead the next day, he has won the race thanks to his awesome perfomance in the closing stage, being the only GC rider to follow the puncheurs move, finishing 3rd in the stage


Valls started the last stage only one second behind Gavin Mannion (Azteca), and has end up wininng the race by a 1-minute margin



He has also won the Points Jersey, thanks to his consistency during the race, and has only lost the KoM Jersey by 2 points to Manfredi (Reddit), and that means that he has scored 102 in this race, and together with Prado and Serrano points, a total of 116 points for Repsol in this race, way more than any other team.

Both Valls and the team are currently leading the "Provisional" CT Rankings after this race

@sutty Thanks!

@trek We can only hope that this was the first win of many to come this season

@viking Oh, finally i've found someone who bet on Valls...

@Tamijo Yeah, impossible to be better

@Croatia That's exactly why we are paying him the biggest wage in the division

jandal7 wrote:
Very well executed comeback from Valls to reclaim the GC, certainly the strongest in the race no doubt. Congrats on what I'm sure were the first of many wins from him for you guys

First C2HC race of the season, and is a flat classic, our biggest nightmare this season. We obviously don't have any expectations from the race, unless that wind plays a big part on it, and Morgan Kneisky can show his "rouler" skills. In a day of echelons he can perfectly do what William Connoly did last season, to beat the sprinter in a hard finale
We also have Marco Marcato, who should be able to give us minor points finishing in the top25.
The rest of the team are basically fillers, although Philippe Gilbert should be also in the right side of splits in the final part, with his good flat stat. Stefano Agostini, Cristian Rodriguez, Nidush Nirantha Fernando, Alejandro Valverde and Maximilian Beyer complete the team for this Australian race.

The real objetive is to not come home empty from this race. An almost impossible goal would be to score enough points to keep us in the lead of CT Ranking at the end of January

First time we'll race in Spanish roads this season, but we stand no chance as in Great Ocean Race, unless Morgan Kneisky can pull a magic move in the final kms to steal the win from the sprinter's hands.
This time we'll bring both our sprinters with Riccardo Stacchiotti joining Marco Marcato in the line-up. Both are more suited to this route than GOR, so we can expect at least one of them getting a top20 place.
And as in Australia, five more riders to fill the team, all of them young riders using this race to get some racing experience. Jaime Roson, Aidan van Niekerk, Maximilian Beyer, Cristian Rodriguez and Robert Power



Two races so far and our points haul in both races have been in between our "realistic" and "optimistic" outcomes predictions. Hopefully we can continue the good run in this couple of races, in our less-favored terrain

Amazing fifth place for Philippe Gilbert in the first C2HC race of the season. The Belgian attacked with 10 km left in the race from a very reduced bunch, and only a few riders were able to catch him in the very last km of the race.
Marco Haller was the winner for In-n-Out, but the points that Gilbert won plus Kneisky's decent result also - 13th in the line- will make the team to lead the CT Rankings at the end of January

1	Marco Haller	In-n-Out p/b Carrefour	4h23'10
2	Boy Van Poppel	Proximus Continental Team	s.t.
3	Andrew Tennant	cycleYorkshire	s.t.
4	Raúl Granjel Cabrera	Aeropostal Venezuela Ciclismo	s.t.
5	Philippe Gilbert	Repsol - Honda	s.t.
...
13	Morgan Kneisky	Repsol - Honda	s.t.

Slightly worse result in Barcelona for the team, but still an overachieved race. Morgan Kneisky attacked in the final kms as Gilbert did in GOR, but he run out of energy in the final km, and the French could only finish in 12th place, scoring 8 points for the team.
With Yoeri Havik (Kulczyk) taking the win in Barcelona, and Haller finishing only fourth, Rafa Valls will continue as CT Individual Ranking leader after this race

1	Yoeri Havik	Kulczyk - DMTEX	4h33'48
2	Mohamed Harrif Salleh	Sauber Petronas Racing	s.t.
3	Raúl Granjel Cabrera	Aeropostal Venezuela Ciclismo	s.t.
4	Marco Haller	In-n-Out p/b Carrefour	s.t.
5	Boy Van Poppel	Proximus Continental Team	s.t.
...
12	Morgan Kneisky	Repsol - Honda	s.t.

@knockout Yeah, a shame that neither of them could finish off their attacks, but still some great points in two races where we never expected it.
And yes, having the lead in both rankings is awesome. Hopefully i can keep the lead more time

@Abhishek Trentino is my next race, so keeping the lead after that race is reasonable, but from there i have 2 months of racing where i should drop some places with no Valls, and very few races in the calendar. From the next 15 races that CT team can (and will) ride, i'll only be in 6

@jandalNot that i want the stop it neither I had more hopes on Kneisky's attack than Gilbert's. Kneisky is much better than Gilbert for that type of attacks, but i think what made him crack was having to drop that VMP rider who stuck on his wheel. If he hadn't, he might have done like Gilbert, to not crack completely and get a top5 result behind the clear podium riders

It's time to announce who are the 8 riders that will race in Italy for the second stage race of the season for Repsol - Honda Team.



We have here our second Goal of the season, but this time is only a Top 10 Goal. As in every C2(HC) race this season, the team is led by Rafa Valls

Rafa will be asisted by the strongest possible team in the mountain that we can offer to him. He'll have as domestiques 3 76+ climbers, with Damiano Cunego, Rafael Serrano, Hideto Nakane

Then we have our core of young riders who can be useful in all terrains like Jaime Roson, Cristian Rodriguez, Robert Power and Aidan van Niekerk



Next thing in the preview is to publish how i rate the GC rider chances for this race. I've created a formula combining all the stat that will be needed to compete in this race and this has given me a "Race Strenght Coefficient"



This puts Valls as the third favourite, barely behind Suaza and Eastman, but way ahead of Penasa and Cataldo in the podium fight

With this, i can also give more precise my "Realistic" and "Optimistic" outcome for the races, in both result and points achieved