Wow, crazy strong stage by Madrazo, and also some huge gaps. Congratulations on the overall win, CT! Air France are flying high in the rankings this season, and they must be looking for the podium, and who knows, maybe even more if Sicard can deliver in the Tour.
Thank you a lot for the reports, Tamijo, keeping the season running at a steady pace
Galta can't have been on the greatest of days in that TT, here I was pre-stage thinking he could be able to overtake Talansky and Smith, only to get crushed by both
Another surprisingly strong dauphine/suisse clash ends. Of course i hoped for at least two MVS stage wins when sending him here but the dominance and team performances were outstanding. Probably my highlight of the year once the season will be all done and dusted.
A really interesting and at times exciting PT wildcard outing for ISA - Hexacta at the Dauphine-Libere. Biggest surprise was the showing of David Boily;
(i) 'sprinting' (68 sprint!) to a podium place on stage 2 - even getting a lead-out from Sepulveda (not sure why the roles weren't reversed, might have been better in the circumstannces). [As an aside, Following the reent sprint discussion, Dza-magic demonstrating the characterstics of a strong lead-out candidate.]
(ii) A stand-out performance on stage 5 to finish with the likes of Madrazo and Hirt on a tough mountain stage. If I follow the race coverage correctly he seems to have utilised his renowned downhill skills to leap-frog over a few groups on the road in the run-in which made a massive difference to his race overall.
(iii) A more solid final TT than I had expected to secure 15th overall on GC.
OK, not challenging for overall victory, but a nice week of racing from him.
On the negative side of the surprise formula, Berhane was a bit underwhelmning. 16th in GC isn't terrible, but I thought he'd likely be a few places further up.
In the TTT 14th was about par, and to an extent was pleased that the time gap wasn't excessive to the victors given that we knew pre-race that this was quite a weakness with the squad representing here.
The heavy presence of the likes of Koshevoy and Ji in breaks after the opening 3 stages was very pleasing and helped secure decent GC results, all of which combined with Boily and Berhane delivered the overall team prize - a very nice final reward considering the big-guns that we were facing.
Thanks for the reports Tamijo, in-depth detail of major race events enabled the following of key individual riders progress. Similarly the in-depth TTT write-up was highly appreciated
Spoiler
cio93 wrote:
This entire race was a joke from Herklotz and he can fuck right off with expecting to earn more money next season.
Yeah, this Herklotz kid is obviously way over-hyped; only delivers in GT's - what's that all about? I understand your massive frustration and need to get rid of him immediately. Given he is such a waste of space, I offer the contents of my pockets to buy his contract out for next season; $2.43, 2 hankies (1 used) and quite a bit of lint .
Okay, the team doctors clearly did their job here in France Sicard's excellent sprinting, the team doing a podium in a TTT (has never happened before, I think), two stage wins, dominant in the GC... just excellent, perfect performance.
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Sicard's excellent sprinting, the team doing a podium in a TTT (has never happened before, I think), two stage wins, dominant in the GC... just excellent, perfect performance.
