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SAA Tour d'Afrique Discussion
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 21-11-2017 12:45
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Directeur Sportif
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 SAA Tour d'Afrique
The sprinters' stage race in Africa goes into it's second edition and we obviously will see a few of the world's fastest sprinters attending here. With four flat stages and no real difficulties, we can entirely focus on those guys.
The defending race winner - Ben Swift - is at the start again and let's have a look at who's going to challenge him this year. 23 teams made their way to Africa and so we have a pretty packed startlist. Only a few of those riders will be a factor in the sprints, so there's also those teams hoping to join breakaways for bonifications or some less strong sprinters to maybe upset the top guys.
The Startlist
The Favorites | FL | SP | AC | | | FL | SP | AC |  Swift | 74 | 84 | 82 | |  Zabel | 74 | 81 | 79 | | Degenkolb | 76 | 84 | 81 | |  Maksimov | 72 | 81 | 84 |  Lo Cicero | 72 | 84 | 78 | |  Roelandts | 75 | 81 | 80 |  Van Stayen | 76 | 83 | 78 | |  Petit | 76 | 80 | 78 |  Ahlstrand | 74 | 83 | 82 | |  Bouhanni | 74 | 80 | 77 |  Van Heerden | 73 | 82 | 73 | |  Moser | 72 | 80 | 79 |  Coquard | 73 | 82 | 83 | |  Holloway | 78 | 80 | 82 |  Kennaugh | 77 | 82 | 81 | |  Stauff | 74 | 80 | 81 |  Guarnieri | 76 | 82 | 81 | |  Bertilsson | 73 | 79 | 77 | | Appollonio | 74 | 81 | 78 | |  Scully | 74 | 79 | 80 |
There's no doubt about Swifty's ambitiouns: repeating the overall win here and (at least) his one stage-win he had last season. The competition is fierce though, as also last year's runner-up (with two stage-wins) John Degenkolb comes back to contest for the yellow shirt again.
Lo Cicero as the next top favorite. Surely the biggest threat from PCT teams here. Van Stayen, Ahlstrand, Coquard, Guarnieri.. the list of big sprinters continues. Guarnieri (5th last year), Van Stayen (7th) and also Holloway (9th) had solid showings a year ago, but especially Van Stayen will hope for more this time.
Obviously a special race for Van Heerden and his African team. Given the heavy competition, his acceleration is a concern though. Anyway, the crowd will be proud and loud, if Eritel somehow manages to be a factor in the bunch sprints here.
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 21-11-2017 12:53
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World Champion
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A bit disappointing Pelucchi can't even make the preview, I guess our best hope lies in a breakaway here.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 21-11-2017 13:19
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Team Leader
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Lo Cicero higher on the favourite list than I had expected. Hopefully he'll be able to live up to it.
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| matt17br |
Posted on 21-11-2017 13:42
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We're here for the band, and I literally have no expectations whatsoever.
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| Selwink |
Posted on 21-11-2017 13:59
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Grand Tour Champion
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Holloway is our leader here obviously. Will be very interesting to see what he can do. Top-10 would be nice, but more would be great (and I don't think impossible actually).
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| knockout |
Posted on 21-11-2017 14:22
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Grand Tour Champion
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Right after his big win in Italy it's time to continue for MVS. I'm expecting a top 5 here.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| beagle |
Posted on 21-11-2017 14:43
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Will Degenkolb finally perform according to his stats here? Obviously, with very tough field here, it won´t be an easy task to shine, but I can´t be happy with less than overall podium and stage win(s) 
Manager of Polar in Man-Game
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 21-11-2017 14:47
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matt17br wrote:
We're here for the band, and I literally have no expectations whatsoever.
We'll join in on watching. I didn't even realise we were registered for the race.
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| SotD |
Posted on 21-11-2017 14:55
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Hmm a bit (a lot) worse competition than I had hoped for here. Coquard need to be lucky to perform well, and seeing our leadout opportunities, I doubt it will happen.
The goal must be a top 10, but I think it will be hard to achieve.
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| viking90 |
Posted on 21-11-2017 17:20
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Ultimate a podium in GC and constantly in Top 10 on all stages.
But that will be very hard.
Top 5 in GC is more true story and atleast one failure with no show in the sprint from Ahlstrand. |
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| knockout |
Posted on 21-11-2017 17:25
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Grand Tour Champion
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SotD wrote:
Hmm a bit (a lot) worse competition than I had hoped for here. Coquard need to be lucky to perform well, and seeing our leadout opportunities, I doubt it will happen.
The goal must be a top 10, but I think it will be hard to achieve.
I'm curious who you didn't expect here as this is pretty much exactly what I expected here. Only the likes of Lo Cicero, Van Heerden or Kennaugh could have been in Gabon instead.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 23-11-2024 01:15
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| SotD |
Posted on 21-11-2017 18:46
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I guess I just anticipated that a fem teams would gamble for the PT races rather than this. Van Stayen for example.
But I always expectes a strong peloton. Only the fact that there is less points on offer made me think that some gambled for secondary sprinters... not that Inwould have done so myself.
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 21-11-2017 19:35
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Unleash the Russian Rocket! Please... 
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| knockout |
Posted on 21-11-2017 20:52
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Grand Tour Champion
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SotD wrote:
I guess I just anticipated that a fem teams would gamble for the PT races rather than this. Van Stayen for example.
But I always expectes a strong peloton. Only the fact that there is less points on offer made me think that some gambled for secondary sprinters... not that Inwould have done so myself.
No way I'm letting a four day stage race with an almost guaranteed top ten (baring crashes) GC out. i would rather delete Qatar from the schedule than a race without the epilog and with slightly weaker peleton giving Van Stayen a higher chance to be treated as a top rider. Actually considered that but unfortunately decided against it.
Fighting here against top sprinters to get a top 5-10 GC with outside chances for a stage win offers a much better scource of points than trying to avoid the top riders to fight for 1-2 stage wins in another stage race without chances for a GC
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| SotD |
Posted on 22-11-2017 05:06
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Yeah I doesn't disagree with any of that! But it's not all managers plan like that :-)
I thought that maybe a few top sprinters would not go due to a limited amount of RDs, wanting to ride a GT or something like that. But I definately get why people wanted to be here, as you say: it should give a decent PPrD for the top 10-15 sprinters.
I hope we will go for that very cheap KOM Jersey :-)
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| roturn |
Posted on 22-11-2017 06:11
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Seeing Swift`s performance so far this season, I come here to win the GC and defend the title.
He has full support of sprint train and flat engines and hence should hopefully be placed very good on all 4 stages (different to Qatar when it was 3/5 stages only).
Anything less than podium though would be hugely disappointing anyway. |
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| Selwink |
Posted on 22-11-2017 19:06
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If this goes on we'll definitely relegate
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 22-11-2017 19:09
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Always nice for the regular reminders of Van Heerden's contrasting skillset 
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| cio93 |
Posted on 22-11-2017 19:12
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A sprint race we're not taking part in...a sign of the times. Not really surprising though considering Ciolek didn't take a single bonus second here last season. 
Deserved breather stage for a monument winner
I quite liked that sprint, not just in the context of our rival teams' performances in our absence. Too bad Petit was slightly boxed in, he seemed to be going extremely well.
Congrats to Iberia, continue taking maximum points please!
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| knockout |
Posted on 22-11-2017 19:26
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Grand Tour Champion
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Yeah...
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