Before the race i gladly suscribed to the 4th place, but losing the podium like this its a bit sad. Still, a good race and result for us, Galta raced very well in the puncheur stages too, and despite the finish he was working well (maybe too much) in the last stage too. Inkelaar doing good lieutenant job and gaining youth points after the hilly droppings its a joy too.
Congrats Croatia and thanks for the reports, Roturn!
Like expected the last two stages destroyed Lutsenko's GC.
It's not the end of the world because in terms of his planning this was race was only chosen as a filler because the other options were even worse.
But still he could've done so much more in the hills.
Congrats Croatia, good to see Mr. America go big again. And congrats too fintas, that’s an awesome 1-2 right there! Almost worth the training money for that result alone. A shame to see Madrazo putting in that performance though.
Rohendi losing 11 GC places into 25th is pretty terrible. He gave it a crack with Kolar in the break and with a little more luck he could have pulled something off, so can’t be too disappointed. No idea why he decided to try for KOM points on the last stage though
Another nothing race for us, thankfully one we expected. Thanks for the reports roturn!
We had hopes for more here, that is for sure. After all it turned out to be close to a no show from Mohoric, which is a big disappointment. And not getting lucky with Kragh in the prologue, nor Amezawa from breakaways/GC, makes it a poor race for us. Hopefully we can turn it around quickly.
Congratulations on the overtall win, Croatia! All in all, a solid race for Phinney, eventhough it wasn’t quite as dominating as I suspect you hoped for pre-race. Still racking up big points, though
Congrats to Croatia on the win and fintas for the 1-2 on the final stage. I am pretty happy taking 3rd here, though the AI has been pretty disappointing with these large bunches finishing together on the hilly/mountain stages. I think the sooner we can get away from this PCM version the better.
Nonetheless, a very fun race to follow from start to finish. Thank you roturn!
That stage was about as great of a performance from our team as we could have hoped for, and for a split second when Guldhammer clawed his way back, it seemed like the top 5 goal was in our grasp. But Binance had other ideas, and Aular had to be the one to jump clear and push Guldhammer down to 6th. Outside of our goal range. We fought so hard though and can't be ashamed of the result.
Setting the goal aside though, this was a phenomenal race for us. Guldhammer in 6th is above expectation in its own right. Every rider above him deserves to be, and in fact several riders below do as well. The fact that we finished above Madrazo is pretty ridiculous, but of course I'll take it. Guldhammer was clearly weaker than the guys around him all race, and yet he fought anf fought and grinded his way back into the fold at the last moment several time, often thanks to a slowing pace at the front. Can't discount the help our team did too, saving his entire race back at the beginning by pacing him back on the hills. It was a 6th place that every contributed to.
And we nab nice additional points from our depth scoring. I stacked our roster here, not just to aid in the top 5 fight, but because I've learned that PTHC is the place to do stuff like that in terms of points value from lower positions. Aside from Aranburu, it worked. Gregaard really looked strong on this last stage in his first maxed mountain race, which was awesome to see. He moves into the top 15 and takes a nice chunk of points. Eg tried something big and couldn't handle it, so he dropped, but 26th is still a solid result. Then Olesen and Aranburu also in the top 50 to pick up some scraps. And altogether, it gives us the teams classification win too! Hard to believe in a PTHC field that we could pull that off.
The lack of any stage points throughout keep this from being a truly massive haul, but it still goes a really long way towards keeping us in the hunt. I viewed Guldhammer as a huge question mark this season after decline, and while he certainly didn't look his best, he did more than I could have asked for in the end.
Thank you for all the amazing reports roturn! This last one was truly spectacular. Awesome day of racing too, though the regrouping at the end may have made it somewhat anti-climactic to others (not me of course, since my GC hinged on it).
Congrats to Croatia on the expect win!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Winning both the prologue with Foliforov and stage 4 with Banaszek makes this a very good race for us. Skujins almost made it three but was unfortunately beaten by Phinney during the hilly stage 5, congrats to Isostar and thanks for the reports roturn!
We fought so hard though and can't be ashamed of the result.
