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Tour of Lithuania Discussion
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 15-03-2023 02:21
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 3264
Joined: 02-11-2010
PCM$: 300.00
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 Tour of Lithuania
2022 marks the 10th edition of the Tour of Lithuania (although the first 7 editions were run in Beijing the records have been combined). This edition marks some important changes – the race moves up to PTHC, moves down to 4 stages (from 5) and move in to actual terrain in Lithuania.
As a result of the last change the race changes from a competition for the punchy and hybrid riders to one that will likely go to a punchy rider backed by a strong team time trial outfit. The race takes place mainly in and around Lithuania’s two largest cities, Vilnius and Kaunas.
It starts with a 177k flat circuit around Kaunas that will challenge the sprinters with a number of sharp climbs and a nasty ramp to the finish. It should end in a sprint but look for it to be a messy one. Stage 2 is a more traditional flat stage, 138ks that take the riders from Kaunas to Vilnius.
With the appetizers out of the way the race will be decided in Vilnius. First a 14k flat team time trial and then a classic-like stage that starts outside Vilnius in the town of Nemecine, makes a flat run into Vilinius, and then tackles multiple laps in the streets of Vilnius each of which includes 3 punchy climbs. At 236k it will test the endurance and climbing skills of the riders.
Despite the big change in the parcours it is still a race that would appeal to the likes of defending champion and 3-time winner Tomohiro Kinoshita. And while Kinoshita is not back to defend his title it has attracted some of the best puncheurs in the peloton.
But no amount of brilliance on Stage 4 will win the race if a rider isn’t in a strong position after the TTT on Stage 3. So first we will look at the TTT teams.
| Rdr Ct | Top 4 | Top 6 | All | | EA Vesuvio | 8 | 78.7 | 78.0 | 76.3 | | King Power | 8 | 77.7 | 76.3 | 75.5 | | Cedevita | 7 | 77.0 | 75.0 | 73.7 | | ELCO - ABEA | 8 | 78.0 | 75.2 | 73.1 | | Duolingo | 8 | 76.7 | 74.2 | 72.0 | | Los Pollos Hermanos | 8 | 79.7 | 74.2 | 71.1 | | Assa Abloy | 8 | 75.7 | 73.3 | 71.0 | | Xero Racing | 8 | 75.3 | 72.2 | 71.0 | | Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam | 8 | 76.3 | 73.7 | 70.9 | | Evonik - ELKO | 8 | 72.7 | 71.0 | 70.5 | | ISA - Hexacta | 8 | 75.3 | 73.0 | 70.5 | | Zwift Pro Cycling | 8 | 74.7 | 71.7 | 69.3 | | Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska | 8 | 75.3 | 71.5 | 69.1 | | Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team | 8 | 77.0 | 71.8 | 69.0 | | Kraftwerk Man Machine | 8 | 73.0 | 71.2 | 68.8 | | Volcanica - Fox | 8 | 72.3 | 70.5 | 68.4 | | Moser - Sygic | 8 | 74.0 | 70.3 | 68.1 | | Red Bull Zalgiris | 8 | 71.3 | 69.2 | 66.1 | | MOL Cycling Team | 8 | 70.7 | 68.3 | 66.0 | | cycleYorkshire | 8 | 68.3 | 66.3 | 64.8 | | Aegon - Peroni | 8 | 69.0 | 66.0 | 64.6 | | HelloFresh - Lampre | 8 | 68.7 | 67.0 | 64.0 | | Project: Africa | 8 | 66.7 | 65.7 | 63.8 | | Strava | 7 | 65.7 | 63.2 | 62.0 |
EA Vesuvio brings the top team overall, they are 2nd best when looking at the top 3 but best in both the other metrics. King Power is second best overall and bring a uniformly strong squad. PCT outfit Cedevita are a surprise third, but only bring 7 riders. ELCO boasts a very strong top 3 but the tail of their roster brings them down. Duolingo, as always, are strong across the board. Los Pollos have the strongest top 3 but the last two riders on their team are very poor TT riders.
After those 6 there is a gap to the rest particularly in terms of the quality at the top of the roster. Assa Abloy is probably the best of the rest but a step down from the top 6. Lierse and Gjensdge bring a fairly strong top 3 but only average depth. Evonik, Xero and ISA- Hexacata are the only others that are over 70 across all 3 measures.
Once the time trialing is over the race will be decided on Stage 4. The table below represents the top puncheurs:
| Nat. | Name | FL | HI | RS | SP | AC |  |  De Bie | 73 | 84 | 77 | 76 | 75 |  |  Lopez | 70 | 84 | 76 | 74 | 78 |  |  Sagan | 72 | 83 | 78 | 74 | 76 |  |  Bobridge | 72 | 82 | 73 | 73 | 79 |  |  Gidich | 72 | 82 | 78 | 77 | 75 |  |  Kelderman | 70 | 82 | 80 | 75 | 72 |  |  Koretzky | 73 | 81 | 77 | 70 | 79 |  |  Vakoc | 71 | 81 | 75 | 71 | 74 |  |  Kwiatkowski | 72 | 81 | 74 | 76 | 75 |  | Ponzi | 72 | 80 | 71 | 66 | 74 |  |  Eiking | 71 | 80 | 78 | 74 | 76 |  |  Prevar | 72 | 80 | 77 | 70 | 73 |
De Bie, Lopez, and Sagan are a step above the rest in terms of hills and stamina combination. Lopez is the best climber but that may not matter much here. All of them have strong stamina and finishing.
But interestingly none of them come from a top TT team (ironically Evonik is the best of the three) so they will be under pressure to create time gaps because the next four all come from strong TTT outfits. Bobridge is good on the hills but his secondaries are weaker. Kelderman has great stamina but will struggle if the race is decided up the final climb due to his weaker acceleration. Koretzky is a little weaker in the hills and has lower resistance than any of the other top favorites. Gidich has the most complete skill set of the four and also has the best TTT team behind. He likely starts the race as the favorite for the overall given this combination.
The rest of the list, Vakoc, Kwiatkowski, Ponzi, Eiking, and Prevar should be in the mix on Stage 4 but it seems unlikely they have the ability win the race overall given they are generally weaker puncheurs and they will all face deficits from the TTT on Stage 3. Although that will certainly give them motivation to animate the race.
EA Vesuvio have followed a different strategy to the rest of the teams. They are led by  Van der Lijke, betting that Stage 4 will be decided in a small group sprint and that it won’t be tough enough for the elite puncheurs to create time gaps. While the other top TTT team, Cedevita, are led by  Gaudu, he is not nearly as strong as the other leaders but if he can hang around and minimize his time gap on Stage 4 he might achieve a strong GC finish.
While Stages 3 and 4 will undoubtedly decide the GC the first two stages are for the sprinters.
| Nat. | Name | FL | HI | RS | SP | AC | | Ewan | 75 | 71 | 71 | 83 | 81 | | Van der Lijke | 73 | 76 | 71 | 82 | 79 | | Groenewegen | 73 | 67 | 71 | 82 | 81 | | Lo Cicero | 70 | 62 | 60 | 82 | 75 | | Enger | 73 | 69 | 73 | 81 | 78 |  |  Zabel | 74 | 69 | 70 | 81 | 79 |  | Farantakis | 74 | 65 | 72 | 80 | 80 | | Appollonio | 73 | 65 | 64 | 80 | 76 | |  Bouhanni | 74 | 63 | 69 | 80 | 77 |  |  Houle | 78 | 75 | 71 | 79 | 78 |  |  Kump | 72 | 75 | 70 | 79 | 77 |  | Riabushenko | 76 | 68 | 74 | 79 | 77 |  |  Rowe | 78 | 66 | 70 | 79 | 80 |  |  Hayakawa | 73 | 65 | 68 | 79 | 79 |  |  Afewerki | 73 | 64 | 70 | 79 | 80 |
With 2 sprint stages out of four and a likely Green Jersey on offer the race has attracted a fairly strong sprint field. Van der Lijke is joined by PT A-list sprinters Ewan, and Groenewegen. The latter two are probably better all-round sprinters but Van der Lijke’s ability on the hills might given him an edge on Stage 1.
Ewan brings Santos as a lead out and Groenewegen has Einhorn and De Kleijn while Van der Lijke flies solo.
The field gets a little weaker after those 3 sprinters. Lo Cicero, Enger, and Zabel all lack a little acceleration while Farantakis is a more balanced sprinter but not in the class of the top 3. Kump and Houle are not as strong in terms of sprinting but are good on the hills and will target Stage 1 and look to hang around should Stage 4 prove non-selective.
Finally, Red Bull Zalgiris deserve a shout out for bringing the race’s only two Lithuanians Januskevicius (who is from Kaunas) and Lasinis.
Startlist
Edited by AbhishekLFC on 15-03-2023 09:46
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 15-03-2023 03:08
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World Champion
Posts: 11395
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Hopefully Houle can do well actually being our leader here after bringing Habtemichael with him to South Africa failed (even though he'd always been fine with a puncheur co-leader there). Thanks for the preview UU!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| redordead |
Posted on 15-03-2023 07:08
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4881
Joined: 18-10-2017
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Copy paste lineup from South Africa. I might have screwed myself by having just 7 riders in the TTT. Then again this one is much shorter so maybe it works out ok. But given the fact it's shorter the gaps should be small. More importance is on the hilly stage then and while it looks suited to Gaudu's stats it's hard to imagine he can stick to the favourites as a 78 HI rider.
No big expectations for this race. Thanks for the preview Ulrich 
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-11-2024 16:50
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| SotD |
Posted on 15-03-2023 07:38
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Slovenia and Lithuania are two PTHC races we can't really decide whether to like or not. Obviously the two flat stages see a lot of sprinters, so Farantakis doesn't get to be a top favorite. Only 1 flat stage would probably have given him the edge, as he's also here to aid the team in the TTT.
Normally I would say Koretzky is our go-to-guy in stage races with a hilly stage, but the TTT can destroy him. So I kinda hope we go a little easy and end up 5-10th and keep Koretzky, but if not - let's go all in to see if we can get the win. I didn't quite expect us to be this strong tbh. Next season we should be even better.
Like always Ioannidis and Kiriakidis are here in order to hopefully get depth points. If the TTT is solid they should have a good shot at doing so. Ioannidis unfortunately has been really poor at keeping up in the hills. Maybe it's more the HI stat that needs to be trained for him rather than the TT next season
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| hillis91 |
Posted on 15-03-2023 07:45
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Team Leader
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Just hoping for something here.
Good luck everybody and a great preview
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 15-03-2023 09:22
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Directeur Sportif
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Is this Evoniks GOAT TTT line-up? You hate to see it. Quite happy not to be here, though King Power may be scoring big time again and closing in on us. Will ve very interesting!
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| knockout |
Posted on 15-03-2023 10:03
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Croatia14 wrote:
Is this Evoniks GOAT TTT line-up? You hate to see it. Quite happy not to be here, though King Power may be scoring big time again and closing in on us. Will ve very interesting!
It's at least up there. No rider below 69, we went all out to give Lopez at least somewhat of a support crew for the TTT which also added to the ridiculously underpowered TDF TTT lineup we had. Only TTT we tried this season.
We could have done with better hills support for him but he needs to be aggressive anyway and i prefered to have Blums ride a GT as a leader instead of having him in several races like this...
Certainly a bit of a gamble to let Lopez ride here without having a superb ttt team but this is the season to try out some things and have some fun.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 15-03-2023 10:21
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Team Leader
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Having our TTT core back in France we just couldn't send our locomotives here. Nevertheless having some depth in that department still gives us a fighting chance. The thing I'm most worried about really is Bobridge's ability to go with the best in the final stage. He's been ratger solid in one day events but hasn't really given us reasons to be optimistic in stage races. Anything can happen I guess.
Thanks for the comprehensive preview, Ulrich.
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 15-03-2023 11:34
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Obviously our TTT core is going to limit any shot of a GC result for us here but our riders have the opportunity to challenge for sprints and BOTDs that could lead to some upside scoring like we've been used to in the earlier parts of the season!
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 15-03-2023 12:08
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World Champion
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Coming up next on "Races that will hurt our PPRD and cost us promotion"
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 15-03-2023 13:34
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16429
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I'm in the unfortunate position of just rooting against all PCT teams at this point.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 16-03-2023 23:16
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World Champion
Posts: 11395
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Gotta be doing better on that kind of finish Houle - Ewan is hard to beat even uphill (and lucky to beat van der Lijke I guess) but need to be on the podium for the bonuses.
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
5x x5
2x x2
2x x2 |
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| quadsas |
Posted on 17-03-2023 00:15
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2518
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I expect 1 point, thanks bub
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| redordead |
Posted on 17-03-2023 06:50
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4881
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Stage 1 certainly proved harder than many expected. We dropped our better HI riders minus Gaudu which probably curtails the chances for some depth scoring.
On the other hand some bigger names lost time so maybe that works in Gaudu's favor in the end. We'll just have to wait and see.
Congrats to ISA - Hexacta
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| hillis91 |
Posted on 17-03-2023 07:11
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Arh... Really? Eiking getting lost in the split?
Our good luck continues...
Glad to see Enger at least in the Top 3.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 17-03-2023 07:49
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Glad to see Bobridge attentive to the sprint and snatching a top10. Ewan with an unexpected uphill victory, congrats to ISA!
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 17-03-2023 07:58
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Silly time loss narrowly avoided, but it looks like De Plus is back to his bad positioning.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| knockout |
Posted on 17-03-2023 08:12
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Grand Tour Champion
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I'm glad for every rider that was caught behind the split. With just one proper hilly stage in the race, a ton of riders that should not be able to keep up with someone like Lopez, could always have a huge day and stay in touch when the pace doesnt get too hard and the game randomly decides to not award time gaps as we have seen way too often in the past.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 17-03-2023 08:41
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That was unexpected from Zabel!
I was concerned about a zero pointer so a second place is a most welcome result especially from 4th favourite and with an uphill finish.
Good to see loan ins Chaiyasombat & Vernon contributing to the leadout.
Congrats to ISA and thanks for the preview and report Ulrich.
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| Bikex |
Posted on 17-03-2023 12:22
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Interesting that Gidich is seen as the overall favorite for the race. Preseason this was the race I considered his chances of victory the highest. Hence, this race is my win goal. For this I also sacrificed my TT squad at le tour. If my team performs in the TTT it could mean a lot of points, as I'm also hoping for some depth scoring with many of my TTers being decent climbers as well. The first stage already went well with all 8 of my riders safely within the first group. |
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