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Vuelta a Colombia Discussion
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 24-09-2018 13:46
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Discussion up a bit early to keep the kettle boiling, report will come after Le Samyn
 Vuelta a Colombia
6 stages – 961,6km
Welcome to the 10th edition of Vuelta a Colombia, the race was first on the MG calender in 2008, but with no race held in 2017. Since it was last on the calendar in 2016 it has been downgraded from PT level to a HC race.
About the route:
Since then there have also been small chances in the route, the old stage 6 replaces stage five and we got a new stage 6, making the race a bit longer and now finishing with a descent.
That said it is still a mountain race, calling upon the pure climber as no time trail skill will be used here. The sprinters might be here to look for a stage win, on one of the two flat stages, with the very best sprinters of the division likely not to be here.
The local Colombianos will for sure cheer for strong climbers  Rigoberto Úran,  Sergio Luis Henao Montoya and  Fabio Duarte, others may favor young sprinter  Fernando Gaviria.
Other riders sure to harvest cheers from the cycling loving Colombian fans are: Sarmiento,  Orozco, Avila.
Previous winners
As the race has been PT level in reason years the previous race winners are not here, the best placed from 2016 is  Keizer (8th in 2016) who also won stage 6.
Henao Montoya (10th in 2016), best placed from 2015 is  Denifl (8th in 2015)
Favorites:
 Pluchkin the climber to beat, he got it all should on paper be almost unbeatable also with good backup in Scarponi, Dzhus, Nitu
Next in line as a pure climber we got Denifl, a better climber than the once below, but a week acceleration could hurt him against other top riders. A fine backup in Jang and Chhetri
Then a group of three similar riders:
Henao Montoya, Úran and  Velits
Henao Montoya and Úran seems almost equal, while Velits may be hurt by weaker acceleration, all tree with fine team backup Mai, Martinez, Sarmiento and Gilanipoor
Three teams coming with slightly weaker leader but instead with two favorites.
The strongest combination maybe  Monsalve and Carthy with addition of another strong rider in Ranaweera, should make Ayubowan! a strong contender in the race.
Also Indosat Ooredoo – ANZ and Repsol – Netflix with respectively Keizer, Signorini Augustyn and  Kudus, Ndayisenga, Novak, both teams with very strong debt and options, able to set strong pace lines on the climbs, both strong contenders to have a great race.
Meiji - JR East with  Shikai, backed by strong riders Iino and Hiratsuka, also at this level although seems overall just slightly weaker as leader as well as team.
Also riders like  Roglič, Duarte,  Nazaret,  Ji, competent climbers all with good team to back them up.
Then we got leaders like
 Valls,  Garby,  De la Cruz,  Manfredi, Stetina, they are all competent climber and could aim for a top 10 result or higher, but the competition is hard and anyone of them on the podium would be a sentation. Even more so for Senni,  Maillet,  Poljanski
Podium Ambition and Carrefour – ESPN, may look to their top sprinters  Nelson and  Petit for points.
Netia – Vónin likely hope to get in those breakaways, maybe  Reckweg but that will be a tough challenge on these profiles.
List of race favorites
| Rider | M | Ac | Re | D | Rider | M | Ac | Re | D | | Pluchkin | 85 | 74 | 78 | 66 | Carthy | 79 | 69 | 75 | 65 | | Denifl | 84 | 65 | 71 | 64 | Signorini | 78 | 74 | 72 | 62 | | Henao Montoya | 82 | 73 | 79 | 62 | De la Cruz | 78 | 73 | 76 | 73 | | Úran | 82 | 71 | 81 | 62 | Manfredi | 78 | 73 | 73 | 73 | | Velits | 82 | 67 | 73 | 63 | Ndayisenga | 78 | 73 | 68 | 69 | | Monsalve | 81 | 73 | 80 | 65 | Stetina | 78 | 65 | 74 | 73 | | Keizer | 81 | 73 | 79 | 61 | Maillet | 77 | 77 | 76 | 65 | | Kudus | 81 | 70 | 77 | 67 | Gilanipoor | 77 | 73 | 71 | 73 | | Shikai | 81 | 66 | 76 | 69 | Senni | 77 | 72 | 79 | 73 | | Roglič | 80 | 74 | 76 | 71 | Poljanski | 77 | 71 | 70 | 66 | | Duarte | 80 | 73 | 76 | 61 | Scarponi | 77 | 70 | 72 | 83 | | Nazaret | 80 | 72 | 78 | 64 | Augustyn | 77 | 68 | 72 | 61 | | Ji | 80 | 65 | 69 | 69 | Iino | 77 | 67 | 72 | 65 | | Valls | 79 | 72 | 77 | 66 | Borisavljevic | 77 | 65 | 74 | 68 | | Garby | 79 | 70 | 76 | 63 | Novak | 77 | 65 | 73 | 61 |
The sprinter field not the strongest, already mentioned Nelson and Petit as favorites on the flat stages, Kulczyk – DMTEX mayby with the best setup in Lavoine and Bennett. Won’t go further into the sprinters and sprint setup just the list:
| Rider | Sp | Acc | F | Re | | Nelson | 81 | 81 | 72 | 64 | | Appollonio | 81 | 78 | 74 | 66 | | Petit | 80 | 78 | 76 | 72 | | Lavoine | 80 | 78 | 73 | 64 | | Granjel Cabrera | 80 | 77 | 75 | 71 | | Bouhanni | 80 | 77 | 74 | 69 | | Ulanowski | 80 | 77 | 73 | 66 | | Meyer | 80 | 76 | 72 | 65 | | Gaviria | 79 | 82 | 74 | 75 | | Lay | 79 | 81 | 73 | 66 | | Boivin | 79 | 80 | 74 | 70 | | Bennett | 79 | 79 | 71 | 68 | | Hayakawa | 79 | 79 | 73 | 68 | | Manarelli | 79 | 79 | 72 | 65 | | Krieger | 79 | 79 | 71 | 74 | | Van der Sande | 79 | 79 | 75 | 73 | | Willwohl | 79 | 78 | 73 | 67 | | Peeters | 79 | 77 | 72 | 68 |
Startlist:
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 24-09-2018 13:57
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Tour de France Champion
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Very strong startlist. I was kind of hoping East Java would split up the field, but with the amount of points being so vastly different, it looks like everyone decided to come here. The basically means Garby and his domestiques are effectively useless.
So then the main goal has to be for Appo. We've sent no one here to help him and he could very well abandon on the second stage onwards, so... I didn't really think this through. Oops. Maybe a breakaway win then! Would be nice.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 24-09-2018 14:06
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I was hoping for a good sprint result here, but it seems others also saw potential with 2 flat stages in a 6 day stage race. All of Senni's support is in Pais Vasco, so any points he might get will be seen as a nice bonus.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 24-09-2018 14:10
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Nazaret could have a good shot here! At least a Top 10 GC if not better.
Bouhanni also with a chance on the flat stages.
Hoping for a good performance here!
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| Aquarius97 |
Posted on 24-09-2018 14:18
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Kudus better get a big result here to avoid this race from being a big planning mistake. With only Berhane and Yates in East Java (+CT riders) it could have been an easy podium there, with a big chance of winning, and then use the remaining days to ride Tour of Japan instead (removing Nantahala from his calendar).
I guess i'd need a Top5 + U25 + stage placing to make it worthy.
Then Ndayisenga with hopefully a Top3 in U25 + Top25 in GC, with Novak and Serrano also in depth places
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| Selwink |
Posted on 24-09-2018 14:31
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Duarte in his home race here, but no very high expectations. Normally you'd say it means no disappointment, but nothing surprises me anymore.
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 24-09-2018 18:15
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Hopefully Shikai can pull something decent here. Iino also being in the favourites list has me a little hopeful that he too can get a Top 20/30 or be a great domestique for Shikai. It is quite a deep field though, so we will see.
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 24-09-2018 19:43
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Úran had to go to his home race, I couldn't have put him in East Java. Hoping on a better showing than Catalunya.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 24-09-2018 22:18
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That's a way better sprint field than I was hoping for! Hopefully Tosh can survive the mountains and go for a podium on stage 4 as I don't think he can on Stage 1 now 
First goal race of the season and just a top 10 so I'll be super dissapointed if we fail Hopefully Velits can climb well enough to a top 5 but I'm well aware he's likely to be beat on a course like this by Monsalve, Kudus, Keizer and more who are below his MON stat. So a top 5 would make me happy. Would also like to see Gilanipoor in the points, but priority numero uno is to help the leader of course.
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 25-09-2018 03:26
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He-who-must-not-be-named make his return! It’s gonna be a fun fight for second place then 
Strong startlist, but it does make me realise with the exception of Pluchkin the GC field in PCT isn’t nearly as strong as it has been the last few seasons. Uran and Pluch should do well, with Velits, Henao, Denifl, Kudus, Keizer and Monsalve fighting for the other spots. This race is a bit of a gamble for Keizer with no way to exploit his TT-prowess, so would be overjoyed with a top-5.
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| Kentaurus |
Posted on 25-09-2018 05:58
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Strong Start-list was expected, and thus no Eastman here. Any points is good points.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 25-09-2018 06:54
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Henao had to be here, but sadly Pantano could not as he's away on leadership duty in East Java. Hopefully the other domestiques can help our leader get a Top 5 placing, which is what we're aiming for. One of the few races this early season where we have a genuine race favourite, and it's Henao once again. Hope his upward trajectory from ToME to Catalunya continues here.
Thanks for the preview
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| Scorchio |
Posted on 25-09-2018 13:32
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Home race for WCC, but just not possible to get Berhane and JAC here due to race days (so both at East Java, Berhane defending his title). Expected a strong start-list here, but perhaps even more folks here than expected versus East Java imo. So Ji steps out from Berhane's shadow for the first time this season and our hopes rest with him. Top 10 likely stretching it, but just outside, somewhere around 12th is what we are hoping for him. May be a race where WCC make BotD appearances (?), as been limited thus far this season. Doubt Lay will make it as far as the 2nd sprint stage, so he only gets one chance to throw his hat in the sprint ring.
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| trekbmc |
Posted on 25-09-2018 13:41
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I'm just going to go right out and say thank you for making an effort to mention our terrible team here, Tamijo. It's not my fault we have to race in mountains!
I do find it hilarious though that Reckweg ended up as leader, I dream of Cherkasov coming 4th in the KOM standings though.
Pluchkin is surely going to win, Velits is going to come 2nd though, or Henao. And please, please, please let Ulanowski win stage 1! <3
"What done is, is one." - Benji Naesen
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 25-09-2018 15:12
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trekbmc wrote:
I do find it hilarious though that Reckweg ended up as leader, I dream of Cherkasov coming 4th in the KOM standings though.
Picked on him 'cos his your best Fighter, on paper most likely to try something. Winning the KoM  - was more thinking of some stage breakaway lucky points on the flat actually
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 25-09-2018 16:18
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Can't complain about finishing second place, but darnit! Nice report Tami
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 25-09-2018 16:19
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That was a mess, Ricki should be doing better.
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 25-09-2018 17:04
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Very nice to finish 3rd. I will take that on the flat stages here all day.
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| Selwink |
Posted on 25-09-2018 17:13
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Good, no time lost.
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| maxime86 |
Posted on 25-09-2018 17:37
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extremely happy to get a win here with Petit. We came here with just the hope of copping some results in the flat stages and we're already successful in that sense! |
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![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
