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Tour of Southland Discussion
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| roturn |
Posted on 17-12-2014 16:45
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It`s the 3rd MG edition of the Tour of Southland in New Zealand after after a year in the CT won by Thiago Nardin, it`s back in the PCT, where Froome already won the first edition in 2012.
Different to the last two editions though, where we saw a mix of flat stages, a short TTT and 2 short hill finishes, we have quite a different route. First it`s cut to 6 stages only, then a short TTT and a ITT but the most important is that next to the usual Bluff Hill we have a really tough mountain top finish this year on Coronet Peak.
This obviously makes the race favourites rather different to last two editions with the climbers having their race this year and so we have a lot of top climbers:
| Mountain | Hill |  Abal | 81 | 70 |  Kiserlovski | 80 | 75 |  Duarte | 80 | 68 |  Pedraza | 79 | 72 |  Samwel | 79 | 70 |  Berhane | 78 | 75 |  Marzano | 78 | 73 |  Ji | 78 | 75 | | Vasquez | 77 | 64 |  Topchanyuk | 77 | 73 | | Plaza | 77 | 72 |  Raisin | 76 | 67 |  Nieve | 76 | 73 | | Torres | 76 | 62 |  Bennett | 76 | 74 | | Ortega | 76 | 65 | | Briceno | 76 | 70 | | Lloret | 76 | 73 |
In especially CSC with Abal and Plaza have a strong duo here, while Kiserlovski also has nice support. So those two might be top favourites with the next being pretty close together.
It will be very interesting to see how much influence the Bluff Hill stage has as some of the climbers don`t feel very comfortable on the smaller climbs.
A special mention to George Bennet. The Oz rider is the home lands best GC hope and one of the best Kiwi cyclists anyway. The other three Kiwis as also the NZ home team Fletcher might hope for decent stage results or breakaway appearances.
For that stage though we have a few more specialists, who are going to try to grab a stage win there:
| Mountain | Hill | | Zaini | 66 | 79 |  Hategeka | 72 | 77 |  Lloyd | 73 | 76 | | Jiao | 72 | 76 | | Konovalovas | 68 | 76 |  Simon | 64 | 76 |
With only two sprint stages left, it`s obviously not as much a sprinter race as before. But still a lot of sprinters found their way to New Zealand:
| Flat | Sprint | Acceleration | | Lo Cicero | 72 | 84 | 78 | | Corioni | 74 | 80 | 76 | | Vanoverschelde | 72 | 80 | 75 |  Meyer | 72 | 80 | 76 |  Castañeda | 71 | 80 | 79 | | Bennett | 71 | 79 | 79 |  Awang | 64 | 79 | 83 | | Drujon | 73 | 78 | 78 |  Park | 70 | 78 | 77 | | Rizza | 71 | 78 | 73 | | Abdallah | 68 | 78 | 76 | | Brea | 71 | 78 | 76 | | Modolo | 72 | 77 | 77 |  Vasylyuk | 72 | 77 | 76 | | Giacoppo | 70 | 77 | 75 | | Cucinotta | 73 | 77 | 76 | | Nielsen | 68 | 77 | 78 | | Chicchi | 71 | 77 | 76 |
No question that Meiji with Lo Cicero are top favourites for both sprint stages. With Meyer and Awang also two CT sprinters are in the mix of the top spots here.
And with a time trial for the individuals and the team also some strong time trialists are at the start. Here just a very few:
| Ford | 63 | 81 | | Olman | 68 | 79 | | Tennant | 77 | 78 |  Johansson | 70 | 77 | | Plaza | 71 | 77 | | Ma | 76 | 77 | | Zmorka | 70 | 77 | | Abal | 68 | 77 |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 17-12-2014 16:52
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Has probably been asked before, but i forgot about it: the icons on the profiles are quite confusing. Which of the timetrials is the TTT now? Wasn't the prologue meant to be the ITT this year?
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| roturn |
Posted on 17-12-2014 16:53
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The symbols in the profiles are correct.
First a short ITT prologue. Then a TTT on the 4th day.
Only the stage names seem to be old ones.
Edited by roturn on 17-12-2014 16:54
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| Alakagom |
Posted on 17-12-2014 16:54
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Should be nice tour this. I fancy Abal and strong CSC team to finally grab their first overall win this time round. Cheering on Pedraza hopefully Mobil with some luck as well.
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| fjhoekie |
Posted on 17-12-2014 16:55
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Will be interesting to see how well Topchanyuk can do here without Efimkin to help him out.
Vanoverschelde should not even be mentioned in a preview anymore...
EDIT: Aidan, where is Maksimov?  Would've loved to see him here again...
Edited by fjhoekie on 17-12-2014 16:58
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 17-12-2014 16:56
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I think my best hope is that Chavanne can show some of his potential in the opening Prologue, that or we feature in the break a lot. Awang struggles enough against the CT sprinters so I doubt he'll do anything on the flat stages here against the PCT's best.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 17-12-2014 17:00
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roturn wrote:
The symbols in the profiles are correct.
First a short ITT prologue. Then a TTT on the 4th day.
Yes, that's what i thought, too 
Then i do have some goals here:
1) Winning the prologue
2) Either Bennett or Jiao doing well on Bluff Hill to have a nice GC-place prior to Coronet Peak
3) Racing a good TTT, even though i can't really give a prediction there
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| Miguel98 |
Posted on 17-12-2014 17:00
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Brought two pure climbers here, looking for a top 10. But I'll bet both of them will loose 20 minutes on the hilly stage, and be nowhere in the mountain stage. |
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 17-12-2014 17:07
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It doesn't get much better than this. Abal is in the perfect position to get our first overall victory. I want to believe he can do it but I have this weird feeling something will go wrong. I'm think the leadership roles between Plaza and Abal this time.
For some reason Plaza usually has a better ITT and he will probably out perform Abal on Bluff Hill. Which will mess the game up for our team going into Stage 5.
Perfect scenario is Abal gets yellow on Day 1 and doesn't look back. 
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 17-12-2014 17:10
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Hopefully will be a good race for Jaguar. Should do fairly well in the TTT to set up Berhane for a strong GC result
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 14:58
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 17-12-2014 18:18
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Something tells me that my Stobart guys are going to get well and truly hammered here, ahh well |
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| jaxika |
Posted on 17-12-2014 18:33
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I think this will be again a race to forget |
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| aidanvn13 |
Posted on 17-12-2014 18:44
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Don't really have anything to achieve here. Maybe Hategeka will do something on the hilly finish, but they're really hard to predict. I just hope we'll see a better AI than in the US.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 17-12-2014 18:51
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Fond memories of this one. Can't defend the title though; it's a completely different race this time.
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| FroomeDog99 |
Posted on 17-12-2014 19:03
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Took a gamble sending Samwel here, hopefully he won't lose too much time in the TT's and get a good GC on stage five. |
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 17-12-2014 19:35
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Hopefully I win every single stage apart from the TT's and a Top 10. Thats the goal here 
Knowing PCM, the hill stage will probably go to a breakaway or no one will attack and Zaini wont do anything.
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 18-12-2014 06:32
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Pretty much a race planner filler for us, with TT focus for our lineup + Vasylyuk. Top5 in ITT and TTT should be doable and these are the goals. Or maybe ww can finally join some lucky break here, or hang on the big peloton on "mountain" stage.
Popkov can do well in GC (maybe top15) with less selective hardest stage.
Nice preview Roturn, but i miss the TTT one.
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| Stevenag |
Posted on 18-12-2014 08:09
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Why did I let Marzano do this, while Pozzovivo is doing Tour de Stupid?
I should be sacked from my job.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 18-12-2014 14:42
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Ford came...
Ford saw...
Ford won 
Feel a bit sorry for Olman, who always comes short on his teammate on such stages... In other news, i would actually prefer losing yellow tomorrow. Don't really trust the AI when Ford would enter Bluff Hill as the man in yellow
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| fjhoekie |
Posted on 18-12-2014 14:46
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Disappointed Konovalovas couldn't get a top 20 here, especially when Ulanowski did in the USAPCC...
Topchanyuk losing time was predicted.
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