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Criterium du Dauphiné Liberé Discussion
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 27-08-2015 23:07
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 Critérium du Dauphiné Libérè
You know that time of the year when Summer shows up and your favourite French stage race appears on the calendar?! Well it’s here. The Dauphiné has finally arrived in town and is ready to deliver some amazing racing in Man-Game’s top division.
This year’s edition will provide us a phenomenal range of profiles. Every type of rider will have their say on the race which gives place for a very unpredictable event. Sprinters will be given the spotlight in the first couple of stages, while time-trialists and GC candidates will be put to test on the race against the clock, first on a collective basis (stage 3) and later on an individual effort (stage 6). Our 4th day on the road should work as a transitional day before we hit the mountains. And boy are there mountains on offer this year. Stage 5 gives us a feast of 6 climbs, with 4 of them being HC, and one of those coinciding with the finish, while stage 7 takes us to the mighty Mont Ventoux! And like that wasn’t scary enough, our last day on the road, will start in a nice quiet little settlement named DIE, which will give way to a total of eight climbs before we wrap this up
So now that you know how merciless this race will be to your poor riders, let’s have a quick look at the list of previous winners of this classical Man-Game event.
Previous winners
| 2007 | | Thomas Dekker (Credit Agricole) | | 2008 | | David Moncoutie (France Televisions) | | 2009 | | John Gadret (Crédit Lyonnais) | | 2010 | | John Gadret (Crédit Lyonnais) | | 2011 |  | Simon Spilak (Warner Brothers - Carrefour) | | 2012 | | Simon Spilak (Warner Brothers) | | 2013 |  | Taylor Phinney (Wikipedia) | | 2014 |  | Rein Taaramäe (Bouygues Telecom) |
As you can see this race historically favours two sorts of riders: French riders and Riders whose name is Simon Spilak. The Slovene has not only won this event twice in a row in 2011 and 2012, but he also never finished any lower than 2nd ever since!!
However, since his manager decided to take him to a more neutral place, there’s less worrying to do for the rest of the DSs… or is it?
GC Candidates
| Name | Mo | Hi | TT |  Andy Schleck | 85 | 75 | 74 |  Rein Taaramäe | 83 | 78 | 80 |  Robert Gesink | 82 | 81 | 80 |  Timofey Kritskiy | 82 | 75 | 80 |  Romain Sicard | 82 | 78 | 76 |  Rigoberto Úran | 82 | 74 | 78 |  Vincenzo Nibali | 82 | 77 | 77 |  Martijn Keizer | 81 | 71 | 81 |  Rasmus Guldhammer | 81 | 77 | 71 |  Domenico Pozzovivo | 80 | 76 | 72 |  Vadim Ratiy | 80 | 70 | 74 | | Jaime Suaza | 80 | 65 | 73 |  Nico Keinath | 79 | 76 | 75 |  Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier | 79 | 73 | 75 |  Bernhard Kohl | 79 | 73 | 69 |
Rein Taaramäe, as defending champion, should have priority on favourite status, and given is stability as an all-rounder everything should be set for him to be right within the mix for overall victory. Less well-balanced is Andy Schleck, but the Luxembourgian has proved before that his lack of TT skills can be overcome by his climbing superiority. Timofey Kritskiy and Robert Gesink are others who make the difference with their high quality in every terrain, with the latter probably looking to make use of his extraordinary ability as a puncheur! There are a number of other good bets for a top5 but I’ll just highlight the frenchies, since they usually fare well here: Romain Sicard and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier. Just as a reference we have Aegon as a wildcard here with their improved version of Martijn Keizer who should be eager to upset his PT adversaries.
Puncheurs
| Name | Hill | | Nicolas Roche | 80 |  Tommy Zaini | 80 | | Jelle Vanendert | 78 |  Sean De Bie | 78 |  Damiano Caruso | 78 |  Anthony Roux | 78 |
On paper, Gesink is the best puncheur in the race, but any of the listed riders look strong enough for at least a stage win on stage 4 or 8
Sprinters
| Name | Sp | Ac | | Erik Mohs | 83 | 82 | | Daniele Bennati | 81 | 73 | | Peter Kennaugh | 81 | 81 |  Heinrich Haussler | 80 | 76 |  Dan Holloway | 80 | 82 | | Dylan Groenewegen | 80 | 79 | | Danilo Kupfernagel | 80 | 80 | | Sondre Holst Enger | 79 | 76 | | Davide Appollonio | 79 | 76 | | Luke Rowe | 79 | 80 | | Adrien Petit | 79 | 78 | | Sonny Colbrelli | 79 | 75 |  Tom Van Asbroeck | 78 | 76 | | Benoît Sinner | 78 | 73 |
Pokerstars brings the heavy cavalry for the first 2 stages, while Meiji and Orange have very suitable candidates, in case the famous train fails to deliver. The wildcard teams will also show their arguments, but as said, on paper it’s difficult to see past the Pokersprinters
TTT
| Team | | Score | Best TTists | | Oz Cycling Project | 617 | Durbridge (81) | | Swisscom - UBS | 606 | Dillier (79) |  | Metinvest-Dacia | 605 | Ignatiev, Zmorka (80) | | Project 1t4i | 601 | Gesink (80) | | Tinkoff Bank - Tinkoff Insurance | 599 | Kritskiy (80) | | Vesuvio - Accumalux | 595 | Kittel (81) | | Bacardi Limited | 592 | Yatsevich (80) | | Pendleton's | 582 | Dees, Downey (77) | | Festina-Canal+ | 580 | Vlatos (79) |  | VolksWagen - Andritz | 578 | Brandle (79) | | Pokerstars.com | 575 | Izagirre (77) | | Bouygues Telecom | 573 | Taramaae (80) | | Orange - KLM | 573 | Viennet (80) | | Aegon - Lavazza | 569 | Keizer (81) | | Meiji - JR East | 554 | Kwok (77) | | Aker - MOT | 550 | Laengen (76) | | Movistar - US Postal | 546 | Fraile (77) |  | Becherovka - Petrof | 540 | Sergent (80) | | Karcher-Adira | 535 | Fiedler (83) | | Red Bull - Huawei | 528 | Holloway (71) | | Venchi | 527 | Howson (78) | | Ayubowan! | 524 | Bouet (76) | | Good Energy | 496 | Rabottini (65) | | Quickstep | 398 | De Gendt (76) |
Despite the monstrosity of the mountainous stages in this race, the TTs are bound to have a tremendous impact on the GC. Oz Cycling looks like the favourite to beat for the TTT, as we’re used to. For the ITT, however, Fiedler from the wildcarded Karcher, is the one everyone will be looking at. But there are a lot of GC battles hidden within these lists.
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 28-08-2015 00:08
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Well gotta hope for stuff on the flat stages I guess.
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 28-08-2015 06:35
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Thanks for the great preview Gusta!
We are coming here with our TTT heavy lineup so well known from the Giro, headlined by Ignatiev, who will be looking to place himself in top5 of GC prior to mountain stage and maybe podium the TT at stage 6 if he will have some energy left. It would be cool to beat Oz in TTT once more, but we cannot rely on that.
Schleck, Rein and Gesink looks like the podium here, good luck to all!
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| roturn |
Posted on 28-08-2015 06:48
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A top10 and hopefully a stage win would be cool. The last stage and the TTT will hurt my team. But should be a fun race.
Schleck to win it I guess. |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 28-08-2015 07:09
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There's only one thing I'm asking for. One thing! Not much more, just one thing. Win this goddamn TTT!
On paper, a good chance for a solid Top-10 for Pozzovivo. Which we really need after this fail in the TdS!
Thanks for the nice preview.
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| jph27 |
Posted on 28-08-2015 10:50
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Basically here for the breaks, and hopefully a GC top 25 from Elissonde. Would also be nice to see Petit fighting for a top 10 in the sprints. Fantastic preview Gustav  |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 14:40
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 28-08-2015 11:07
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Hard to say how much the hills or time trials might disadvantage Schleck, but there is a lot of potential for gain in the mountains - will need him to hit out and go it alone to really get the gaps though.
Makes a nice change to focus on the Dauphine rather than Suisse though. Dauphine always tended to be the ITT race which hardly suited the Schlecks, but this year the ITTs were more balanced across Dauphine and Suisse. Looking at the race archive, 3rd in 2010 with Intxausti is my best effort. Also - those French GC wins came with ridiculously small margins. Moncoutie by 3 seconds. Gadret by 12 seconds one year, 7 seconds the next.
I guess the TTT score is from the TT stats of all 8 riders - it'd be interesting to see it with just the best 5.
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| fintas |
Posted on 28-08-2015 13:04
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I have no hope for the GC, the main objective is the xp for the young riders.
I still have hope that the duo Haussler / Kupfernagel can shine in the sprint stages. And of course I hope to see Fiedler win the ITT
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 28-08-2015 14:29
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Very nice preview Gustav. This one looks like it's Schleck's race to lose as it looks like his competition in the mountains is not very impressive. I really, really need Nibali to do something special here, but he'll probably finish 10th-15th.
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| sgdanny |
Posted on 28-08-2015 14:44
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Got Poljanski here in his biggest race of the season, will probably end in not doing anything, but just a little mention would make me happy
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| Kami |
Posted on 28-08-2015 15:01
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I've got a decent team here for the TTT. Not for the win, but it should keep Uran within range for a spot between 5 & 10. Hopefully he won't lose extreme amounts of time on the hilly stage.
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| ember |
Posted on 28-08-2015 15:25
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Any race with a TTT shouldn't be a great race for us, at least not on paper. Hopefully Guldhammer can use his abilities on the hilly stage to make up for some of the time lost in the TTT. If not, it will be difficult to break into the top 10. Fingers crossed a huge time loss in the TTT means he'll be aggressive on stage 4!
Would also be cool to see Holst Enger mix it in the sprint for minor top 10 placings. Being one of many 79 sprinters should at least give him the chance to sprint on one of the two first days.
Thanks for the preview, Gustavovskiy, definitely looking forward to the reports.
Schleck must be the favourite here with no other 85/84 climber present, and he also got good TTers in the team to give him a solid start. |
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| SotD |
Posted on 28-08-2015 15:44
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I hope that Lecuisinier can somehow fight for a top 10 here in his home country after a decent, but boring, performance in the Vuelta. I have no excpectations from this race really, but top 3 in the U25 Got to be possible.
Andy could level the ground in the top battle before Becherovka will take the lead agter the Tour again.
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| CrueTrue |
Posted on 28-08-2015 16:17
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Not really sure why I opted for sending Sicard here and Dekker to Suisse. With the TT's it'd have made more sense the other way around, but I'm sure I had a good reason when planning 
Anyway - Sicard for the GC, Kennaugh for the sprints. Let's go. |
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 28-08-2015 16:34
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Ok Kritskiy time to forget about the Vuelta, you got an awesome squad around you, let's get this thing started!
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| wackojackohighcliffe |
Posted on 28-08-2015 17:13
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More unlikely breakaway wins please
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| SotD |
Posted on 28-08-2015 17:22
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CrueTrue wrote:
Not really sure why I opted for sending Sicard here and Dekker to Suisse. With the TT's it'd have made more sense the other way around, but I'm sure I had a good reason when planning
Anyway - Sicard for the GC, Kennaugh for the sprints. Let's go.
My guess is that you believe(d) that Sicard would be better in his home country, getting a slight national bonus 
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| Heine |
Posted on 28-08-2015 17:52
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Preidler leader here, not enough race days for the others. Might do better than Denifl has done this year, should be willing to go on the offensive though
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| Alakagom |
Posted on 28-08-2015 23:43
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Only points I expect is riders finishing the race, we should theoretically go into breaks but who knows. Andy should be the man to beat and actually race like 85 MO unlike one other 85MO guy  but I think Taaramäe will surprise again.
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| Smowz |
Posted on 29-08-2015 09:52
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Well our team is pretty much all in for the first two stages. Mohs starts as favourite for the sprints bu behind him it is a bit of a pick 'em and Holloway seems fairly consistent.
Beyond that we have a few low grade hilly guys would have decent hopes of sneaking in a break on one or two days.
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