More great reporting on stages 5 and 6, and more great Nutresa exploits being reported on .
A shame to lose the jerseys on stage 5, but Beltran certainly went down swinging by taking his challenge to the opposition; no shame in losing out to the divisions individual star of the season and rankings leader Rodrigues (congrats .... again!). Ochoa Qu doing his normal quiet and efficient rider to place well on GC.
Stage 6 had it all from the Nutresa soap opera - Valencia in a (near) successful BoTD all day (again; special talent!), Beltran again fighting tooth and nail to defend his GC position and Ochoa Quintero having a mid-stage nap under a tree at the bottom of the key mountain while the opposition all rode away, then single-handedly jumping from group to group, even gaining 1'30 back on the top riders fighting out the GC up front, what was he doing! .
2nd and 6th overall, placings in KoM and points competition, point scoring places on every stage, young jersey and cherry on top of team victory (Valencia's ride proving the crucial part of the jigsaw to secure this). We'll happily take that haul back to base; got to bask in these good moments as think PCT will be a rude awakening in 2015. Now over to the puncheurs (including Beltran) to conclude our CT season in Switzerland. Think an update on the CT standings for the top 3 teams all heading into this last 1-day race would make exciting reading given the results from Utah; going down to the wire I reckon! ... or without one we can instead practise biting our finger-nails Edited by Scorchio on 04-03-2015 00:43
Eventually a good ending of what has been a disappointing race. Few breaks joined, which is unusual. Just a shame Firsanov couldn't win that final stage.
And before I forget, thanks for the great reports as usual tsmoha
Edited by Selwink on 04-03-2015 09:14
our last race done and dusted, a 3td and 4th place on stages is ok, certainly more than i had hoped for. Now i hope the off season will come around soon.
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
Top job tsmoha. Arroyo redeemed himself slightly on the final stage there, but congratulations must go to Siam Cement and Rodrigues. Pretty good race for Nutresa as well.
We really needed a better result from that if we wanted to keep up our chances of finishing in the top 10, hopefully we can still fight TTT for 11th when we go home for the final classic of the season, then we'll find out if we were lucky enough to promote or not.
Wow, Arroyo actaully managed to follow Rodrigues for once!
But actually quite happy with that stage as it means we will have 4/5 and a rather close miss? (4th on a win goal)
Rodrigues is just amazing, top class all season bar one weak race, that's just incredible. And congrats to Bonsucro for CT-title, no way we can overhaul them in the last race. If anyone else could take the victory then's its Nutresa. They're closing in every minute, not that's such a big deal for me now if I end 2nd or 3rd really.
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