"Wow, Cadel is just that good" says Trent Lowe following the Australian ITT Championships. With a knock down performance Cadel showed today why he is the best time trialist in Australia. Our guys did all they could and came out with some respectable finishes against the countries best riders. Chris was just over 2 minutes back of the phenom and Trent and Cam were only about a minute behind him. The guys will take a couple days to recover and get back on the bike for the road race championship in three days. Look out for Trent to leave his mark on Australia.
Chris Sutton in the gate ready to start his day
Cameron Meyer giving it all he has on the downhill
Pretty quiet early on today. In the picture above is Columbia - High Road's Adam Hansen being dropped after only 5km. A group of about 10 tried to get away about 20km into the race. They were quickly swallowed back up. Richard England (Amore & Vita - McDonald's) and Peter Latham (Bissell Pro Cycling) made a futile attempt to get away 15km later but they never got more than 30 seconds away and were caught rather quickly.
60km into the race Cadel Evans (Silence - Lotto), Matthew Lloyd (Silence - Lotto), and Simon Gerrens (Cervelo Test Team) made a move that caught us off guard and we could never recover. 7 more riders are dropped and with 40km to go the break is up 4'10".
Stuart O'Grady (Saxo Bank) and Rory Sutherland (OUCH p/b Maxxis) start to chase the leaders. Again, we are caught sitting back and Lowe is unable to join these two in their chase and has to begin chasing on his own. Sutherland gets popped, but O'Grady is able to catch the leaders with 18km to go. The break is not going to be caught by the pack. Trent has since broken off from the pack and is in no man's land between the leaders and the group. Just hope he holds on long enough.
In the sprint amongst the leaders Stuart O'Grady edges Cadel Evans preventing the sweep. Gerrans finishes a solid third.
Trent finishes ahead of the pack in 6th place. Impressive finish for the young rider that should boost his confidence for the season to come.
"We all know that wasn't the real footage of the Worlds anyway. That was just the staged footage to perpetuate the coverup that it was actually Vinokourov that won the race."
Julian Dean, Chris Sutton, Timmy Duggan, Christian Meier, Ryder Hesjedal, Trent Lowe, Cameron Meyer
Sergio De Lis (Euskaltel - Euskadi) wasted no time getting things started. He attacked 3km into the race. 11 other riders followed him including our own Cameron Meyer.
Cameron made the break and worked hard to help it get to a 2 minute lead with 35km remaining. At this point he sent word to the team car that he was gassed and had no more to keep the break moving.
Not wanting to have no representation in the break, we sent Ryder up to try and bridge the gap. 2 other riders came with him, Guennadi Mikhailov (Katusha) and Pedro Horillo (Rabobank). Pedro ended up falling and breaking his arm in the final 10km. Get well soon Pedro.
With 25km to go the chase group had caught the break and the peleton was not far behind.
Lars Boom (Rabobank) makes an attemt to get away in the final 12km but he is unable to fight the hard charging pack.
As the peleton turns for home, Julian has Chris' wheel and they have set themselves up nicely for the sprint.
Gorik Gardeyn (Silence - Lotto) gets the win over a hard charging Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia - High Road). Matthew Hayman (Rabobank) gets third.
Julian and Chris round out the top 5 in a gutsy performance.
Good day of racing by our guys. I was a little surprised to see the team set up the sprint so well this early in the year. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come. The first stage of the Tour Down Under has some rolling hills throughout the first two thirds of the stage that flatten into a nice run into town for a mass sprint. Hopefully the guys learned something today and can get onto the podium in a couple days. For now, it's time to rest and recover. By the way, Cameron is fine, he just felt a little sick after working so hard for the break. He will be back to himself in no time.
STAGE RESULTS
1 Gorik Gardeyn Silence - Lotto 1h05'12
2 Edvald Boasson Hagen Team Columbia - High Road s.t.
3 Matthew Hayman Rabobank s.t. 4 Julian Dean Garmin - Slipstream s.t.
5 Christopher Sutton Garmin - Slipstream s.t.
6 Matthew Goss Team Saxo Bank s.t.
7 Marcel Sieberg Team Columbia - High Road s.t.
8 Domenik Klemme Team Saxo Bank s.t.
9 Iván DomÃnguez Fuji - Servetto s.t.
10 Aitor Galdos Euskaltel - Euskadi s.t. 72 Timothy Duggan Garmin - Slipstream s.t.
74 Christian Meier Garmin - Slipstream s.t.
115 Ryder Hesjedal Garmin - Slipstream s.t.
119 Trent Lowe Garmin - Slipstream s.t.
122 Cameron Meyer Garmin - Slipstream + 3'08
Next up...Tour Down Under Stage 1
Edited by acornwell on 02-04-2009 09:03
TOUR DOWN UNDER - STAGE 1
Julian Dean, Timmy Duggan, Ryder Hesjedal, Trent Lowe, Christian Meier, Cameron Meyer, Christopher Sutton
The weather is clear as the peleton waits with great anticipation for the first race of the Pro Tour season.
Not much time to settle in as Lasse Bochman (Saxo Bank) and Valeri Dimitriev (Astana) attack shortly after the start. Must have been something in the water because 14 other riders join in the break attempt. The first break get 30" early but never can get away from a hard chasing peleton. They are caught after about 10km.
The next attack comes and we decide to get Trent Lowe in it. Trent and 14 other riders work hard and increase the gap to 1'30" after 20km and the peleton lays off and stores up for a long day.
With Lowe leading the way, the break builds its lead over the next 50km to as much as 3'45". With 14 riders in the group, Lowe is able to store up alot of energy and is starting to think about a stage win.
60km to go and Ricardo Serrano (Fuji - Servetto) and Jakob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank) go on the attack to bring in the leaders. 25km later and Fuglsang was caught and 12km after that Serrano was swallowed as well.
With only 19km remaining Trent felt that the time had come to make his move and try to win the stage. He got the green light from the team car and attacked what was left of the breakaway. Tristan Valentin (Cofidis) and Arnaud Coyot (Caisse d'Epargne) came with him. Coyot didn't have the legs and quickly fell back into the arms of the peleton.
With 5km remaining Coyot and Lowe were still ahead of the charging pack. Things were getting pretty intense in the peleton as Julian was trying to set up for a sprint if Lowe could not hang on.
A valient effort by both riders, but Trent is finally caught with only 1km to the finish. Julian had worked himself into a decent position to grab Fabian Cancellara's (Saxo Bank) wheel.
Stuart O'Grady (Saxo Bank) gets another victory. He looks good in his National Champ jersey doesn't he? Julian muscled his way into third behind Cancellara. Trent was able to hang onto a 15th place finish.
Again, we were close but just couldn't get the win. We are on the podium though. Julian sprinted strong at the finish and Trent showed great heart and determination with his ride today. He also won max mountain points so he will be wearing the climbers jersey. We are going to rest up tonight, talk a little strategy and get out there tomorrow and do our best to keep Julian up near the top of the GC. And if the situation allows we would like to keep the KOM jersey too!
Bear with me everyone who is folowing this story. It is not dead. I unfortunately had an issue with my install of PCM and had to reinstall. When I uninstalled it gave me a reactivation code, but upon installing it is telling me I have activated too many times with my serial number.
I have sent an email to support asking for a new serial number to get the game running again. As soon as I get it the story will resume.
acornwell wrote:
Bear with me everyone who is folowing this story. It is not dead. I unfortunately had an issue with my install of PCM and had to reinstall. When I uninstalled it gave me a reactivation code, but upon installing it is telling me I have activated too many times with my serial number.
I have sent an email to support asking for a new serial number to get the game running again. As soon as I get it the story will resume.
I've had that recently, they reset the activations for you, usually takes about a day, the first email they send u is a standard issue one so you have to reply to that
When 5 more riders tried to join the breakaway Saxo Bank would have no more. Cameron was able to get a little distance on the leaders before the peloton brought them back in which gave him a 15km solo ride in front by 40". Buffaz decided to bridge the gap and noone joined him. When he reached Meyer the lead was up to 1'13".
Just after the group of ten got away an attack came from Fabian Cancellara. He rode hard for a few kilometers but then dropped back into the peloton and nothing really came of his effort. I am not sure if he was bored or just wanted to see what his fitness was like at this point in the race.
Saxo Bank kept the pace through most of the stage today. They never let the break get too far ahead. All an attempt to protect O'Grady and Cancellara's spot in the GC.
This is the group Saxo Bank is chasing. The gaps have remained steady for the last 20km or so. The gap from the leaders to the peloton is now about 3'25".
With 75km remaing the peloton has brought back in the third group and now has their sights set on Efimov. He is now about 45" ahead of the peloton and the leaders have about 2'10" on the main pack.
Working all by himself it didn't take long for Efimov to finally fall into the arms of the pack. With 50km remaining the leaders now have a dwindling 1'33" gap to the chasers.
At 23km remaining the pack has almost caught the leaders. Gaudin and Meyer feel as though they have a little left and make one last effort to stay away from the group.
Meyer was brought back in with 22km remaining. Good ride today by Cameron. He won an intermediate sprint and a KOM sprint. This means we will still be wearing the KOM jersey tomorrow.
And as we have seen so many times before, the pack has timed the catch to perfection and with 16km to go all leaders have been caught. Unfortunately for Garmin-Slipstream the hills in the latter parts of the stage have hurt Julian Dean too much to be able to compete in the sprint.
This is probably the toughest stage to grind out in this years Tour Down Under. There was alot of work to be done to stay in the race. We really didn't use our team effectively to be sure Julian, Ryder or even Trent had enough energy at the end. We are going to chalk this one up to learning experience and hopefully will be better next time out. In the grand scheme of things we are still sitting with 2 riders in the top 20 and 3 riders within 17 seconds of the leader. Also, we are wearing the KOM jersey. Tomorrow's stage is a rolling stage with a good chance for Julian to grab a sprint at the end. Also, the end of the next stage will mark the halfway point of the tour.
That´s easy to see with that time gap from your riders,hard stage,but as you say,there is J.Dean with 15sec. delay,and 2 more with 17sec.,your team still has big chances to win the race.Good luck.
TOUR DOWN UNDER - STAGE 3 Julian Dean, Timmy Duggan, Ryder Hesjedal, Trent Lowe, Christian Meier, Cameron Meyer, Christopher Sutton
Today's strategy is to let the break go and work on recovering from yesterdays effort. As we near the final climb if Ryder or Trent are feeling good they will attack and go for the stage win and if not Julian will go for the sprint.
The first attack came at the start of the first climb about 7km into the stage. 10 riders tried to create a break but we caught by the time everyone had reached the bottom of the hill.
The second attack came as the terrain flattened out before the KOM climb. This time 11 riders were involved and quickly got away by about 45".
4 riders try to bridge the gap as this break looks like it's going to stick. 2 of these riders would make it up to the leaders and the other two would not have the legs and fall back into the pack.
Voss takes the first intermediate sprint followed by Aramendia and Gudsell.
The second sprint goes to Voss again. This time he is trailed by Arieta and Aramendia.
With 28km to go the pack has caught the leaders. As the pack approached the leaders Sokolov and Zagorodny made an attempt to stay out. We decided to send Lowe with them to try and take the mountain sprint a few kilometers up the road.
Trent was unable to stay away from the pack before the KOM points but did have some legs to make an attempt to grab the KOM in front of the peloton.
Iñigo Landaluze (Euskaltel - Euskadi) attacked before the KOM and took it easily. Lowe was just edged for the remaining point by Voss.
As they cross the line Edvald Boasson Hagen shows his power as he is able to surge by Dumoulin to take the stage win. Fischer just held off Stuart O'Grady (Team Saxo Bank) for third.
A poor sprint setup cost us a better placing today. Julian Dean was feeling very good coming into the finish but a slip of the wheel cost him a good spot on the lead out. He was able to recover for a respectable 7th place finish ahead of names like Cancellara and Cavendish. We will be looking for a better effort tomorrow as sprint points are avalaible at the finish.
All told it was a good ride for the team today. We were able to recover some lost energy from yesterday and protect our GC contenders well. As was said earlier Julian was feeling very good and a small technical mistake may have cost him a podium spot. We will regroup again and start pedalling tomorrow in what will be a fairly flat stage with no real climbs at all.
TOUR DOWN UNDER - STAGE 4/6 Julian Dean, Timmy Duggan, Ryder Hesjedal, Trent Lowe, Christian Meier, Cameron Meyer, Christopher Sutton
The tactics for today is to protect Julian and Ryder for the GC and Trent for the KOM. There are two KOM points available today and Trent has a 1 point lead. With the last final climbs tomorrow, we can wait until then to solidify our spot.
The first attack came 5km into the race from Javier AramendÃa (Euskaltel - Euskadi) who was joined by 6 other iders initially. 9 riders try to bridge the gap with 8 of them making it to the leaders.
With 108 kilometers remaining the pack is back together again.
Another attack is staged by Massimilliano Mori (Lampre - N.G.C) with 105 kilometers to go. 10 more riders try to join the break with 8 of them making it successfuly.
By the time Gene Bates (Drapac Porsche Cycling) wins the second sprint of the day, the leaders have a gap of 2'41". The gap never got above 3' the whole race.
Inevitably the group caught the leaders and the sprint was set up. Julian was not feeling well so he missed out on even participating in the sprint.
Gert Steegmans (Team Katusha) wins the stage with Allan Davis (Quick·Step) second and Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia - High Road) third.
Somewhat disappointing that we were unable to perform today. Ryder and Trent both fell out of GC contention. This will allow Trent to focus solely on KOM jersey tomorrow. Ryder will now be responsible for making sure Julian makes it to the finish tomorrow to be in good position for the final flat stage.
