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Paris - Nice Discussion
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 06-12-2019 23:11
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The race to the sun is back on hilly ground this year. There's four hill stages in their own right, two sprint stages that both have some uphill in the final kilometre, and even some bits of climbing to do in the two short time trials.
As ever, there's the clash with the Classique du Grand-Duché, and of the the ten 83+ hill riders around, half are here, and half are there.
And surely we are going to see a new winner to this race. Yuri Trofimov is a double winner, but that was many seasons ago now; the bi-annual defending champion Lutsenko is not here, nor is 2015 champ EBH.
| MO | Hill | TT | SP |  Ponzi | 73 | 84 | 68 | 76 |  De Bie | 71 | 83 | 72 | 72 |  Bobridge | 69 | 83 | 77 | 69 |  Bakelants | 74 | 83 | 66 | 72 |  Mohoric | 71 | 83 | 64 | 67 |  McCarthy | 67 | 81 | 58 | 65 |  Koretzky | 71 | 81 | 63 | 71 |  Boswell | 71 | 80 | 67 | 65 |  Ulissi | 66 | 80 | 62 | 74 |  Buchmann | 76 | 80 | 67 | 65 |  Gautier | 68 | 80 | 64 | 68 |  Yates | 70 | 79 | 68 | 75 |  Van Stayen | 64 | 79 | 60 | 84 |  Sicard | 82 | 78 | 76 | 64 |
Ponzi will start as favourite, looking to show he can win in France as well as Italy. We'd expect to see De Bie, Bobridge, Bakelants and Mohoric in the Top 5 too, based on their stats, and looking to challenge for that victory. Bobridge will look to make the most of the time trials, with De Bie also reasonable in that domain.
McCarthy, Koretzky Boswell, Ulissi, Buchmann and Gautier are the remaining 80+ riders in the race and all will hope for some good results, and behind them there's the strong acceleration of Yates, the sprinting strength of Van Stayen and the wildcard factor in Sicard. If Mountain stat at all comes into play, he could be dangerous.
| Hill | SP | ACC | | Van Stayen | 79 | 84 | 78 | | Howard | 68 | 82 | 79 | | Zabel | 69 | 81 | 79 | | Vesely | 68 | 81 | 80 |  Van Heerden | 67 | 81 | 72 | | Goss | 66 | 81 | 77 |  Keukeleire | 70 | 80 | 79 | | Manninen | 66 | 80 | 80 | | Petit | 65 | 80 | 78 | | Guardini | 64 | 80 | 82 |  Bouhanni | 63 | 80 | 77 | | Meyer | 62 | 80 | 76 |  Bertilsson | 69 | 79 | 77 | | Kemboi | 63 | 79 | 80 |
Van Stayen's aim for this race has got to be to have the race lead by Stage 3, and look to use that to his advantage as the hills kick in. Howard, Zabel and Vesely are likely to be his closest competitors on those two flat stages.
| Hill | TT | PL | | Leung | 64 | 78 | 82 | | Vlatos | 66 | 81 | 81 | | Kittel | 64 | 81 | 81 | | Dennis | 75 | 78 | 81 | | Andersen | 64 | 70 | 81 | | Kemboi | 63 | 63 | 81 | | Howson | 65 | 80 | 80 | | Paillot | 71 | 80 | 80 | | Yatsevich | 68 | 80 | 80 |  Sütterlin | 65 | 80 | 80 | | Stoltz | 68 | 66 | 80 | | Viviani | 66 | 79 | 79 | | Hepburn | 66 | 79 | 79 | | Hamza | 63 | 76 | 79 | | Vorobev | 65 | 79 | 78 |
Leung won the opener last year and will go for the repeat this year, but there's a lot of competition here for these two opportunities - the race clearly proving more attractive to the time trial and prologue specialists, rather than Tirreno.
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| sgdanny |
Posted on 06-12-2019 23:37
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Classics Specialist
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Favorite in a PT race? Na I don't buy it for a second. We'll find a way of screwing up. Not that worried about the TTs, I'm more scared of daily form giving one of those riders an advantage
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 07-12-2019 07:49
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Grand Tour Champion
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Time to have a little fun in Pro Tour again. Hopefully Yates and Zabel can play spoiler and steal some points away from the top flight teams. 
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 07-12-2019 07:52
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Directeur Sportif
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Key race for us. Dennis for the prologue, Howard for the sprints, Bobridge for the other stages and GC. We surely have some pressure to deliver.
Not sure about the new mo/hill matrix and Bobridge though. We will see.
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| SotD |
Posted on 07-12-2019 10:01
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World Champion
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One of the races where we potentially could do well, and potentially do nothing notable... Koretzky have the firepower and aggressiveness to play a key part in the selections, but will he try? On paper he's among the worst TT riders so in that logical sense he would/should need to try something.
If we are lucky then Vlatos could take the early lead, and maybe keep the jersery for a day or two, which was the reason for us bringing him here and Coquard to Tirreno where the sprints seemed more "flat".
Petit on his own, but I suspect the uphill finish will make it too difficult to actually get a result.
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| knockout |
Posted on 07-12-2019 12:03
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Grand Tour Champion
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That sprinter startlist is basically better than the best case scenario 
Absolutely dig it and suddenly im glad that i brought Stoltz as additional support here despite the much stronger prlogue startlist.
Looking at how many puncheurs skip this for Grand Duche i probably should have taken some additional hill support as i pretty much went all out for the flat stages. Becis - Dzamastagic as the intended leadout plus Stoltz, Riesebeek, Neilands and Nooytens as flat powerhouses. Only Bekmanis is a pure hilly helper although especially Riesebeek and Becis can survive some hills too.
Really excited for this race
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-12-2019 12:58
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World Champion
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This could've been decent for Arndt, if I had accepted the 90+ seconds lost in the TTs, but I couldn't fit in the race days considering he has to lead most hilly classics for us this season, and I hope he'll do well in Grand-Duche together with former winner Demare anyway.
Therefore, this is purely a development squad here in our least prioritized race of the clash.
Besides expecting many breakaway appearances, at most we can hope for a lucky daily form in the prologue for Sütterlin, some decent signs of things to come for Ganna in the TTs, and maybe Cavagna survives stage 4 and somehow gets into the mix in the sprint.
Most importantly though, this is the first career race for Valentin Madouas, and it's even a home race! (well he's from Brest but IT COUNTS!)
It would be nice to see him try his luck somewhere, but I just hope he enjoys the team atmosphere and starts gaining racing experience towards his final form, when he will probably enjoy this kind of route very much.
Also: van Stayen is a coward!
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-11-2024 18:20
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| knockout |
Posted on 07-12-2019 17:46
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Grand Tour Champion
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Clearly Demare is the one trying to avoid Van Stayen by going to a GT 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-12-2019 19:27
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knockout wrote:
Clearly Demare is the one trying to avoid Van Stayen by going to a GT
Inside sources report that van Stayen realized he could never win six stages in any single GT and gave up on even just trying!
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| knockout |
Posted on 07-12-2019 19:44
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Grand Tour Champion
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cio93 wrote:
knockout wrote:
Clearly Demare is the one trying to avoid Van Stayen by going to a GT
Inside sources report that van Stayen realized he could never win six stages in any single GT and gave up on even just trying!
The inside scource gave false information & dealt with corrupt manager cio. He must be brought forward to testify. Written answers not acceptable! Where is the inside scource? Does he even exist? Where is the informant? Con!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| tastasol |
Posted on 07-12-2019 22:08
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Classics Specialist
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Hopefully a good prologue from Kragh Andersen, and then it will be all about breakaways...
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 07-12-2019 22:11
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Directeur Sportif
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Seems like I should've brought Kump here.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 07-12-2019 23:04
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Directeur Sportif
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Had hoped for a better result from Dennis. Bobridge not far off, but not special neither. Well, many days to come, where we should be amongst the contenders for line honours!
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| CrueTrue |
Posted on 07-12-2019 23:06
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Tour de France Champion
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I'm hoping that Sicard can somehow compete with the classics specialists here. Should be a fun race. |
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 07-12-2019 23:28
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Team Leader
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Congrats to Heine.
Very small margins but a win is a win.
stage error noted to need a fix
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-12-2019 23:32
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World Champion
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SUCCESS!! 
We got the lucky dice roll this time around, third for Sütterlin makes up for a lot of bad luck for him last season.
And more than just that, Filippo Ganna with his first noteworthy prologue performance in our jersey snags a couple of ranking points for second in the U25 already! Plus absolute youngster Florian Stork in a strong 25th.
We already exceeded the points scoring I expected from the entire race, besides the points for finishing. 
knockout wrote:
cio93 wrote:
knockout wrote:
Clearly Demare is the one trying to avoid Van Stayen by going to a GT
Inside sources report that van Stayen realized he could never win six stages in any single GT and gave up on even just trying!
The inside scource gave false information & dealt with corrupt manager cio. He must be brought forward to testify. Written answers not acceptable! Where is the inside scource? Does he even exist? Where is the informant? Con!
IT WAS A PERFECT CALL!
I AM JIM JORDAN AND MY QUALIFICATION IS I CAN SHOUT VERY LOUDLY!
MOO!
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| knockout |
Posted on 07-12-2019 23:47
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Grand Tour Champion
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4th by Stoltz is a very solid start and I happily take that in such a lottery!
Not too happy about MVS finishing 175th of 177 but i guess that is just him being an Evonik leader
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Heine |
Posted on 08-12-2019 07:31
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Hamza!
Now that was unexpected, he has now done more than I expected for him for the entire year!
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| ember |
Posted on 08-12-2019 08:24
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Team Leader
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Admittedly we've got a team here I can't expect much from. Though, it's a chance for Oss to shine on the easier hilly stages. It will be very interesting to see how he does, as he'll have plenty of similar chances later on in the season.
Congratulations on the prologue win, Heine! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 08-12-2019 09:10
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Surprising win. Nice one Hamza :-)
Vlatos unfortunately with a no show, but it’s the first TT of the season we don’t win so I guess that’s OK :-D
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