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Baltic Chain Tour Discussion
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| The Rider |
Posted on 16-01-2015 16:43
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A very short, cobbled, prologue followed by four flat stages forms this edition of the Baltic Chain Tour. Two continental teams and seventeen pro continental teams make the startlist in a race which is expected to go to a sprinter.
Prologue favourites:
Will the prologue go to a prologue specialist, a cobbled specialist or a combination of both?
| Prologue | Cobble |  Aberasturi | 75 | 57 |  Coquard | 75 | 56 | | -- | |  Gyurov | 73 | 70 | | Offredo | 73 | 71 | | | -- | | Steurs | 62 | 79 |  Gaudin | 67 | 77 | | Langeveld | 68 | 76 |
GC Favourites:
Some of the top sprinters in the division don't make this race, however, we still see a vast array of quality sprinters make the startlist. With 20 bonus seconds on offer for a stage win, a sprinter may take the leader's jersey as early as stage 2. Similar to races such as The Tour of Taihu Lake it is expected a sprinter will take the GC here.
| Sprint | Acceleration | | Vantomme | 82 | 78 |  Van Staeyen | 81 | 77 |  Maksimov | 81 | 84 | | Holloway | 80 | 82 | | Corioni | 80 | 76 |  Cabrera | 80 | 77 |  Greipel | 80 | 78 |  Haussler | 80 | 76 |  Kupfernagel | 80 | 80 |  Drapac | 80 | 79 | | Lay | 79 | 81 |
Aside from those mentioned, we might see the likes of Vaitkus,  Kreder  Hoffman,  Ventoso and  Gatto animate the race towards the finish on stages 2-5.
Some highlights from the 2013 edition:
GC winner, Avelino, narrowly beating Manarelli to the win on stage 2.
Napolitano, not present this time around, winning stage 4
Vantomme winning the final stage. Will he have as much success here this time around?
Startlist:
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 16-01-2015 16:47
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Tour de France Champion
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Again i will just be happy to score one-point, please
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| jph27 |
Posted on 16-01-2015 16:49
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Knew I should have sent Mazur for the prologue. Still, fancy Nugara to do reasonably well in it - say Top 15 - and hopefully some riders in breaks to avoid the inevitable Haussler fail. |
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| fjhoekie |
Posted on 16-01-2015 16:56
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3 Chances here with Konovalovas, Vaitkus and Greipel... One of them should make the top 5 to be honest...
Manager of Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska in the PCM.Daily Man-Game |
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| aidanvn13 |
Posted on 16-01-2015 17:18
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Okay, well Maksimov has some brilliant opportunities here. I want to see him win this race or at least top 3.  (very optimistic, I know)
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| Alakagom |
Posted on 16-01-2015 18:04
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Stage win and top 3 goals but with Vantomme you never know 
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 16-01-2015 21:40
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Mainly here for the experience but a day or two in the brak would be nice...
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| fintas |
Posted on 17-01-2015 13:11
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Some top 10 of stages it's all i want
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| jph27 |
Posted on 17-01-2015 16:42
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Turgot and Boroš Top 5, Haussler the best 80+ sprinter. It's a great start  |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 02:37
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| Kami |
Posted on 17-01-2015 16:43
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I'm not sure what to expect from this race. Aberasturi is pretty outmatched, so perhaps a few top 10s & someone joining in the breaks.
Kruopis did nice in the prologue with a surprise top 10. Aberasturi & Offredo didn't end to far away, so that's good aswell.
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| fjhoekie |
Posted on 17-01-2015 16:46
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Vaitkus strong, Greipel strong, Konovalovas stong.
And Ansons... WTF?  He's supposed to be my most useless rider, guess being the Latvian TT champion motivated him quite a bit...
Manager of Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska in the PCM.Daily Man-Game |
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| Alakagom |
Posted on 17-01-2015 16:46
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That's a pretty nice win, dominant by Steurs. But of course Heineken shadow us anyway so no big gain
Vantomme in good position for upcoming four stages. Should be a cracker.
Our first ever TT win. Feels nice, we might wait for a long time for another one of these
Edited by Alakagom on 17-01-2015 16:49
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 17-01-2015 16:49
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17th is surprisingly good by Lovassy
Had hoped he could use his cobble stats to something here.
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 17-01-2015 19:26
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Missed opportunity, should have brought Altur. 
Rojas did well, hopefully he stays near the front each stage and brings in a decent point haul at the end of the tour.
Can't wait for the Ventoso Vs. Maksimov showdowns.
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 18-01-2015 00:03
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Was really hoping Gyurov would crack the Top10 and score some points. As it is our best chance of points in this race has passed by and knowing how we usually do in these races another zero point race looks almost inevitable.
I'm desparately trying to keep up the positivity for B3B but we are having too many results like this where we are missing points but relatively small margins. We've surprised a few times in sprint stage races and boy could we use another surprise right now to slow out slide towards the bottom.
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| aidanvn13 |
Posted on 18-01-2015 09:10
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Now that we've got that out of the way, we can look forward to stage 2. Maksimov's prologue puts him on +19 from the leader - within striking distance if he wins
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| SotD |
Posted on 18-01-2015 10:42
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Wow, what a strange strange stage 
Interesting to see Bryan Coquard as one of the favorites. Can't wait to get him back, although his prologue stat isn't high enough to pose any threat in the PT.
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| fjhoekie |
Posted on 18-01-2015 15:43
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What the fuck was my team thinking!?
Greipel getting a second is great, but why on earth would Ansons and Konovalovas give up their possible top 20 GC places to help Vaitkus when also other favourites are down? They could've helped Greipel and maintain their positions...
Manager of Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska in the PCM.Daily Man-Game |
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| jph27 |
Posted on 18-01-2015 15:45
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And back to reality. Turgot and Boroš dropped - no idea why Boroš went in the break and Turgot shouldn't be losing time there unless he got caught behind the crash? Then we only have one rider in the front group, who manages to get boxed in from a fantastic position |
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 18-01-2015 15:46
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POINTS!!! Not many but still it's POINTS!!!! I should be annoyed Gyurov crashed out of a Top10 placing but we got POINTS!!!
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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)
