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Vuelta a Colombia Discussion
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| Heine |
Posted on 18-11-2025 06:02
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Joined: 08-04-2007
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Welcome to the mountains of Colombia for the 18th edition of Vuelta a Colombia. Do you love being short of breath, feeling like your legs will explode and just in general love pain? This is the race for you! 4 mountain stages and 2 sprint stages with 3 mountain top finishes awaits our riders. And if my count is correct about 17th mountains to climb (but who would trust my counting?). We start of with a 171 km long sprint stage before we get an easy mountain stage with 5 mountains on stage 2. Why do I call it easy? We finish with a downhill! Thats what we call easy in Colombia! Stage 4 will be a another sprint stage while stage 3, 5 and 6 will be stages where my 8 year old daughter would sing her favorite song from Kpop Demon Hunters (All parents with girls around the same age can feel my pain) "We're going up, up, up". This is climbing galore!
Looking at the race history over 17 former editions show that this has always been a great race! It's a trip down memory lane (Check the race profile thread oldies!) with winners like Oscar Pereiro, Jose Serpa, Jurgen van den Broeck and Damiano Cunego winning during the first seasons! Andrei Amador (both with UBS), Pluchkin and lately Lecuisinier has won it twice.
Previous winners:
Spoiler
| Year | Winner | | 2024 | Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (Evonik - ELKO) | | 2023 | Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (Evonik - ELKO) | | 2022 | Tim Wellens (Aegon - Peroni) | | 2021 | Merhawi Kudus (Moser - Sygic) | | 2020 | Rein Taaramäe (Aker - MOT) | | 2019 | Aleksandr Pluchkin (Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff) | | 2018 | Aleksandr Pluchkin (Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff) | | 2017 | Andrei Amador (Team UBS) | | 2016 | Angel Madrazo (Gazelle) | | 2015 | Simon Spilak (Festina-Canal+) | | 2014 | Jose Alarcon (Simply Red Bull) | | 2013 | Andrei Amador (UBS - BMC) | | 2012 | Damiano Cunego (Café de Colombia) | | 2011 | Jurgen van den Broeck (SL Benfica) | | 2010 | Walter Pedraza (Sony Ericsson) | | 2009 | Jose Serpa (American Suzuki) | | 2008 | Oscar Pereiro (Une Orbitel) |
2024 results:
Spoiler
| 1 | Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier | Evonik - ELKO | 24h42'18 | | 2 | Taylor Phinney | Fastned | + 3'12 | | 3 | Joseph Dombrowski | Gazelle | + 3'15 | | 4 | Pierre Latour | Polar | + 3'52 | | 5 | Mark Padun | Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska | + 4'31 | | 6 | Daan Olivier | Sony - Force India | + 5'22 | | 7 | Andres Camilo Ardila | MOL Cycling Team | + 6'09 | | 8 | Hugh Carthy | Carlsberg - Danske Bank | + 6'23 | | 9 | Clement Champoussin | Rabobank | + 8'11 | | 10 | Adam Yates | McCormick Pro Cycling | + 8'41 |
S1: Roman Lutsyshyn (Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska) S2: Kevin Rivera (Manada Coyote) S3: Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (Evonik - ELKO) S4: Danny Van Poppel (Rabobank) S5: Clement Champoussin (Rabobank) S6: Andres Camilo Ardila (MOL Cycling Team) Pts: Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (Evonik - ELKO) KoM: Muhammad Imam Arifin (Indosat Ooredoo) Yth: Andres Camilo Ardila (MOL Cycling Team)
Lets start with the boring part, as we have 2 sprint stages. Naturally not the strongest sprinting field we will see this season and I can imagine some of the sprinters swearing when they saw their name here in the race planning. The 2 strongest looking at pure sprinting stat is  Kragh Andersen and  Walls. Both are strong sprinters but have some clear weaknesses.  Willwohl,  Banaszek,  Riabushenko,  Scott,  Wouters,  Bauhaus and even young  Stalberg are other sprinters who might see this as their big chanse to get a stage win this season. However, my biggest favorite among the sprinters here is one that could have a bit more juice in his legs, specially on stage 4 after the climbing stages, from Cedevita,  Ackermann.
Finished with the starter we get to the main course, climbers! There is one guy we just can't look past, back to get his third in a row, Lecuisinier. Evonik has not had the best start of the season, and he's here to turn it around! With Eenkhoorn and Arndt he got a great support team as well.
Behind Lecuisinier there is a tighter field with  Almeida, Morton and Sivakov as perhaps the strongest compatitors with strong energy stats and great climbing. If Lecuisinier have a bad day they could steal this.
Other strong climbers include  Padun (for Trans Looney Tunes who has had a good start to the season and might continue that here, hopeing to be top 5 again like last year),  Dombrowski (for Gazelle who has not had a great start to the season, and should want to start scoring good points and he was 3rd last year),  Eastman,  Godoy and Johannessen,  Elosegui. All strong climbers thought not the very best here.
Sosa and  Higuita are the big Colombian hopes here. Both good climbers with good energy stats who here at home turf should know the course and the climbs. Will be very interesting to see what they can do. Why not mention the climber Pira? Oh, I did right now. He is a good climber, but his support stats and the fact that he is here to support Johannessen makes me believe he wont get a good result.
Startlist
Report by Imladrik
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| redordead |
Posted on 18-11-2025 06:36
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Team Leader
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Should be close to a zero point race with Ackermann and Schlegel as our 'leaders'.
Thanks for the preview.
"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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| knockout |
Posted on 18-11-2025 07:08
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8234
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Boom or bust race. Everything less than the gc victory would feel like a big loss.
Aside from that, im really curious about stage 2. If the break can be controlled, Adria and Arndt have to be considered one of the two strongest contenders for the stage win. Even Bauhaus could add additional stage points with some luck on the sprint stages
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Heine |
Posted on 18-11-2025 07:14
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4461
Joined: 08-04-2007
PCM$: 200.00
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I have to agree with you here knockout. For Lecusinier only GC victory should be seen as acceptable. He is by far the strongest rider present, even thought it will be fun to see what a trained Almeida can do it should be what he can do compared to Morton/Sivakov/Padun/Dombrowski
Personally I find it interesting to see what Padun can do, he got weaker energy stats than a lot of the competitors, will that affect his level here? I looked at a rider like Carapaz before the season and he was underwhelming against CT level climbers, and that should mean Padun struggles in this field. At the same time Trans Looney Tunes has had a good start of the season, so they might be hitting on something I can't see. I kinda root for that as it is against the "meta" now if he does well, and that is fun!
Also Elosegui who is a bit weaker climber, but with awesome energy stats, can he overperform his 80 mon?
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 18-11-2025 07:35
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Team Leader
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I could really do with a big performance from Shikai here. We need to show our credentials to be a team that can compete at the top of the PCT and this is a chance for us to do just that.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 18-11-2025 08:50
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 12680
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No Haig here, so Leemreize gets the chance to lead, but the field is stacked and even a Top 15 will be tough! I think we should have some riders who are primed for breakaway action, even the afore-mentioned Leemreize depending on how the race turns out. Definitely hoping one of Roson/Hayter/Ulys makes it a point to chase the KOM here. Also hoping Kulikovskiy can get back some of his sprinting legs from last season in this reduced sprint field.
Thanks for the preview Heine 
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| Laurens147 |
Posted on 18-11-2025 09:27
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Sprinter
Posts: 1523
Joined: 26-04-2020
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Thanks Heine for the preview!
Mostly here for some depth points from our GC guys and Wouters.
MG - Lotto - Caloi
[MG] New Manager of the Year - PCM.daily Awards 2022
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| Heine |
Posted on 18-11-2025 10:03
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4461
Joined: 08-04-2007
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AbhishekLFC wrote:
No Haig here, so Leemreize gets the chance to lead, but the field is stacked and even a Top 15 will be tough!
Considering your top 20 from MvD that meens Leemreize wins this?
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 18-11-2025 11:50
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Sprinter
Posts: 1981
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Looking forward to this one very much. I'm hoping Godoy can make top 5 but probably top 10 is most realistic. PHL should have it. Thanks for the preview Heine!
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 05-12-2025 11:00
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 18-11-2025 12:01
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Sprinter
Posts: 1804
Joined: 07-07-2013
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Seeingthe startlist I'm just glad we ended in Portugal and not here
Let's hope for a thrilling race. PHL will have to win it so we all don't feel stupid for calling Evonik the undisputed favourite for the PT title ...
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| Caspi |
Posted on 18-11-2025 20:08
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Domestique
Posts: 705
Joined: 22-09-2022
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Heine wrote:
I looked at a rider like Carapaz before the season and he was underwhelming against CT level climbers
Now he's mad. Should be enough motivation for a top 10.
Thanks for the preview
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 19-11-2025 02:14
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Directeur Sportif
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Sosa needs to avenge the disaster in Eritrea if we are going to have any faith in him going forward. I think a top 10 is a reasonable goal, Ivan. Don't screw it up.
Figured the sprint field wouldn't be too strong here and that 2 PTHC stages were worth a shot with Riabushenko, He is even has a leadout should that be required.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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| tastasol |
Posted on 19-11-2025 07:33
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3030
Joined: 11-09-2010
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Deserved that we don't have a mention here. It certainly was this race I picked this band for. Hopefully we can show ourselves in the breaks and try to get something done.
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| Booker |
Posted on 19-11-2025 08:14
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Protected Rider
Posts: 1032
Joined: 03-07-2013
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Thanks for the preview Heine!
Cmon Willwohl and Faglum Karlsson, show what you’re made of, let’s sneak some points against these PT bastards, with their expensive MT leaders and well-rounded team compositions…
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| knockout |
Posted on 19-11-2025 09:52
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8234
Joined: 21-12-2010
PCM$: 500.00
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Great sprint by Bauhaus. Love it 
Now im super curious about the next stage. Would be huge to control the stage and not allow a breakaway
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 19-11-2025 12:20
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 12680
Joined: 27-07-2015
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Heine wrote:
AbhishekLFC wrote:
No Haig here, so Leemreize gets the chance to lead, but the field is stacked and even a Top 15 will be tough!
Considering your top 20 from MvD that meens Leemreize wins this?
Can you keep predicting more things like this? 
I really did think PN was a flukish race for MVD but apparently not! No way Leemreize is getting close to that kind of a result.
Well, Kuli did find his sprinting legs again! Best possible start to this race.
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| Caspi |
Posted on 19-11-2025 13:47
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Domestique
Posts: 705
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AbhishekLFC wrote:
Well, Kuli did find his sprinting legs again! Best possible start to this race.
Congrats. Well done with the leadout riders in mind.
Good result by Hamza. Would have been nice with a podium (and not too unlikely as Bauhaus was 3rd), but looking at the full list of sprinters we can't be unhappy
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 20-11-2025 03:20
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Tour de France Champion
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Skjelmose using his energy to lead out Kragh, who slips off the wheel and ends up 14th. Oh yeah, we're right back to it...
Gonna be tough to watch Skjelmose drop off the first split tomorrow and end up losing white to someone with 75 mtn who the game just gave better placing. But I'm prepared.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 20-11-2025 10:12
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2793
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We need points Dombrowski. Points.
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| knockout |
Posted on 20-11-2025 13:19
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8234
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Hell yeah! Finally something worked out as planned
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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Vuelta a Colombia 
