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Strada Appia Antica Discussion
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 10-12-2021 07:36
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Strada Appia Antica
The history
Welcome to Italy for one of the most epic races of the year, the Strada Appia Antica! Let me start by congratulating the race organisation with their 10th anniversary! This race has been a part of the calendar non-stop since 2012, when cyclocross rider Bart Wellens won the first edition. After that, we had one year when Fabian Cancellara won, but then we had five (5!!!) consecutive wins from Sam Bewley. The last two editions went to Lukasz Wisniowski and Danny Summerhill though. The startlist will be revealed later on in this preview, but I can already confirm all 3 of them are back this year!
The route
Just to make it clear, we’re riding on the ancient Via Appia. This is a road build in 312 BC, that’s before Davide Rebellin was born! It goes from Roma to Brundisium, but we’re only going to ride a small part of it. We will pass the area where Spartacus (the real one, not the cyclist who won this race in 2013) was defeated by the armies of the Republic and 6.000 slaves were crucified along the Via Appia, from Rome to Capua.
The final of the race has two long cobbled section that should decide the winner, but a very hilly section before that will definitely eliminate some great cobblers already. No, we won’t crucify them, after all it’s 2021 and some people will get offended by it, but they will suffer behind the peloton before they even hit their beloved cobblestones.
The startlist
Let’s go alphabetically by team for this one. Aegon bring a freshly maxed out Nathan Van Hooydonck to Italy. He definitely will be a top 10 contender.
Amaysim brings the first favourite with Danny Summerhill, last year’s winner. He should be good to win again, although I’m adding major question marks to his support. They’ll handle the cobbles well, but a good pace on the hills and they’ll be gone before they can do anything useful. Next is Carlsberg with Matteo Trentin as another favourite here. He should be able to survive both the hills and the cobbles, after which his fantastic sprint could seal the deal. EA is here as well, but their team is as bad as their FIFA 20 game was. Eurosport brings Adam Blythe, but I don’t see him survive the hills.
Evonik has Jan Polanc, who is pretty much made for this race. He has come very close to the podium in the past, could this be his year? Farfetch doesn’t bring a clear favourite and has to hope for some minor scoring. The same can be said for Festina, who are probably even a bit worse. Gazelle bring Mike Teunissen, who could aim for a top 10. Generali brings a very strong team but without a top finisher, they’ll need to think of a good tactical plan.
Grieg is here with probably my personal favourite for the win, Lukasz Wisniowski. He’ll have no problem on the hills and has everything to finish it after that. He also has the best support by far, and I’ll actually name Mads Pedersen as top domestique here. Floris Gerts should get Husky far as well, his top hill stat could give him an advantage over the others. ISA is another team that makes me sad. Isostar has David Per, should get an easy top 10 as well. King Power’s Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz can get far, but his horrible sprint will make it very hard to win.
The Champ is here! Newly promoted Mapei have the man, the myth, the legend, Sam Bewley! Even at age 34 he’s a big favourite here. He can’t take the obstacles as well as he used to, but you still can’t take him to the line. Next is Edward Theuns, he started his career at LPU and he learned how to cobble there. He should give MOL another top 10. Moser tries for the minor point scoring, but it could go bad for them really fast. Puma makes me even more sad.
Next up is Tinkoff with a dual leadership for Florian Senechal and Arman Kamyshev. Both will struggle on the first part but could shine on the second. Neither of them will win but if they play it right, there could be a lot of points coming their way. Xero is doomed. Finally Zwift will probably need to find their points on a different terrain.
Appetiser presented by Pizza Ullo, main course will be served by Los Pollos Hermanos! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 10-12-2021 09:16
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World Champion
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Boooh Cobbles! 
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 10-12-2021 10:08
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Directeur Sportif
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Riding against Polanc feels bad  but having Per feels great 
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| tastasol |
Posted on 10-12-2021 10:12
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Classics Specialist
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Always a bit of a tricky race with all the hills coming before the cobbles. Brought a bit more of some decent hilly riders here due to that.
Huski and Carlsberg both have teams that can go very well on the hilly stuff, as well as being good on the cobbles. So we have to try to keep close to them and then try to attack the cobbles.
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| roturn |
Posted on 10-12-2021 10:43
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First test for Hooydonck. Really need him to score consistently In the top10 range on the cobbles. The team itself really improved to support him with 4 potential top30-50 riders as well. Van Der Hoorn already got some top20-30 last year and should be of great support alongside Vermeersch.
This likely not the best profile for us but the combination should be okay. |
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| knockout |
Posted on 10-12-2021 11:42
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Grand Tour Champion
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Blythe vs Polanc vs Per.
Let's go!
Very important race for us. Don't really like the profile but its perfect for Polanc. In theory.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 25-11-2024 16:39
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 10-12-2021 14:12
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PT wildcard but a warmup race for Trnetin. Time to get some confidence, rhythm, and hopefully winning legs under him before the days where points are on the table.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 10-12-2021 16:22
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Gerts finished second here last year, so it will be hard to top that. It will be interesting how Benoot will do here as well.
Hoping for a hard race in the first part of the race when we go over the hills to get our rivals as tired as possible before the cobbles 
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 10-12-2021 22:04
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Doubt Teunissen will survive these hills, but brought him just in case. If he doesn't we have a decent plan B with Malecki and Potts. They can't win of course, but maybe they can score.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 10-12-2021 23:43
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Hey now, don't disrespect 16th place from last year, Remi Cavagna! 
Honestly, I'd be thrilled with anything close to that.
Remi still loves the concept here with downhill cobbles having relatively less influence on the race than the flat and hilly bits, and Meiler got another level since last year.
But the Frenchman can't always perform like this, and 4.xx still isn't enough to make much of an impact.
I'd definitely love a breakaway appearance and some points above the minimum for attending, but this is going to be a momentum breaker after T-A, Hallstatt and MSR no matter what.
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 11-12-2021 00:59
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We would like to request extra points to Zwift riders who manage to stay on their bike all race because we aren't getting a lot of points otherwise. 
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| tastasol |
Posted on 11-12-2021 11:57
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A win again for Wisniowski! That's great to see. He's really back to his best after a the rainbow curse last year and almost up at 500 points already for the season.
Entertaining race, and exciting to see us trying to attack the race with Omarsson in the TV break and Pedersen trying his chances early. He ended paying a bit for that in the end, but very happy to to get him in the top 10. Looking forward to the monuments now!
Thanks for the report, Nemolito!
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| cio93 |
Posted on 11-12-2021 12:30
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Brilliant racing! Congrats tastasol, that was fun to watch.
Evonik start making up for a slow first couple of months, and MOL continue to score surprisingly well. Congrats to these two teams too.
Too bad Steimle didn't make the break, but it didn't matter in the end anyway with how early it got caught.
Cavagna returned to the front group once, but sadly didn't quite have the same legs as last season to stick around for any extended period of time.
Ultimately, two Top 40 results is fine and gives us 10 points above minimum, which is what our lineup is realistically worth at the moment.
Thank you for reporting, Nemolito!
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 11-12-2021 13:04
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Well that was disappointing. Hopefully Gerts just had a day off and this won't be the norm in the cobbles this year.
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-12-2021 13:43
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Karatzios is really playing these cobbles poorly. He should be able to fight for top 25, but attack himself out of contention every time.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 11-12-2021 14:29
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Fun race! Lots of back and forth and everyone just guessing when the right time to move would be. Makes sense with the profile I think.
Trentin was in the right place, but just not strong enough today. Mountains might have drained him even with his good hill. Would have loved a top 10, but alas, it's a wildcard race. Not going to worry myself about it.
Congrats to Grieg! Glad Resell is part of another win!
Thanks for the report!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 11-12-2021 15:14
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World Champion
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Always good to see the top favourite win!
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| roturn |
Posted on 11-12-2021 15:35
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Nice winner and good to see Polanc or Per as well active and rather successful just like Theuns on best suited race. Per might have attached too early at first but showed team strength afterwards.
Von Hooydonck really a few spots over expectations, even winning the sprint of the first real group is great to see. Hopefully he can show such performance more often as it's much needed.
Depth was okay. Vermersch really solid, the other two a bit below their skill but as a team a very good result.
Thanks for the report, really nice to follow. |
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| knockout |
Posted on 11-12-2021 15:38
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
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Finally a glimpse of hope for the season. The existance of this race was a big factor in why i thought that Polanc could be closer to a Blythe replacement than one might think and he delivered big in what was almost a must-do-well race for Evonik after the early season disappointments.
Neilands and Hofstetter with a huge race too. Especially from Neilands this comes surprising since he is more the Roubaix kind of cobbler...
Thanks cio and thanks for another great report!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Bikex |
Posted on 11-12-2021 15:49
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Nice to see Ferreira try something, hope he will do so as well in races where the profile suits him better. Other than that again not really a race I can be content with.
Thanks for the report and congrats tastasol! |
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