Rasmussen Reports: The race starts in Ronse, an area which shows remains of farming settlements dating back to late stone age. The development og the town itself began in the 7th century with the construction of a church and monastery. Today Ronse is a municipality of about 26.000.
It is just 9°C, a bit cloudy and a very hard wind of more than 60 km/h
Station Ronse, 1861
Nokere Koerse is a semi classic single day race, first held in 1944, most often won by Belgian riders, recently Keukeleire 2010, Steegmans 2011, and last year’s winner Maarten Wynants.
This is the first cobbled test of the season, and our cobble riders are excited to see what they can do, even though it is not an important race for us.
The race passes over Nokereberg several times, a cobbled climb of 400m with an average gradient of 6%. We are amongst the favorites for a top 5 result.
Roster
Anders Bjerregård
Anton Grøn
Jens Juul
Lasse Christiansen
Mads Würtz Schmidt
Mike Teunissen
Philip Nielsen
Yves Lampaert
An unimportant break is in front most of the day, and the pace is not too fast for the first 140 km. But when the pace gets high we are having trouble hanging on to the front, and when we set up a sprint train near the end all our favorites seems cold. We are near the front when the sprint starts, but with no legs left to finish the race. Our best was Mike Teunissen (13)
Rasmussen: A very disappointing stage, no one in top 10 in a situation where we are considered podium candidates.
Media Coverage: 1 – 2 for Lotto Belisol in Nokere Koerse
After many riders failed their attempts to attack over the last 30-40 km, it ended in a mass sprint on the last cobbles section, where Maxime Vantomme from Lotto Belisol, won the stage in front of teammate Gianni Meersman. This is Maxime Vantomme’s first win since a stage in Tour of Qinghai Lake in july last year.
Tamijo wrote:
Editorial Note:
I am changing over to a new concept, with focus on the CW riders in the first walk-trough, and on the overall race in the Media section. Please let me know if you think this change works for the reader or not.
I will start the change from my next post.
If it does not work for the reader I happy to change it back.
After a while testing the above changes - its turns out not to work as well as i had expected. From here i will more or less return to my original stage "walktrough" and the "media section" will be mostly a little about the stage/race winner(s).
Edited by Tamijo on 15-06-2016 13:53
sutty68: Yes you are right, is a fine result.
Just had a feeling of "Bad Gaming" considering Mads Würtz was a top favourite and I burned him up rather early.
The race starts and finishes in Handzame, just a small village in West-Flanders, Belgium. First mentioned around 1085. It is rather cold today, cloudy with just 9°C, but not much wind.
Sint-Hadrianuskerk (1614) reconstructed after severe damage in WW1.
The name of the race is Handzame Classic, but it is not that Classic after all, first held in 2002. Another small race that is not very important for us, but we would always like a good result.
Würtz Schmidt is our race leader, without any very strong sprinter on the team today we will try to join a breakaway with Teunissen or Lampaert. If it comes to a mass sprint Philip Nielsen will be our hope.
Roster: Yves Lampaert - Mike Teunissen - Philip Nielsen - Mads Würtz Schmidt - Lasse Christiansen - Jens Juul - Anton Grøn - Anders Bjerregård
The Race
A morning breakaway of 8 riders take off, we are too far back on the start line to join it.
After about 45 km Yves Lampaert gets away from the peloton starting a long solo pursuit, he has to close a gab of about 5 minutes.
The pace is not very high, neither in the peloton nor in the breakaway, after only 33 km Lampaert has closed the cap and joins the front group. The breakaway has 4’24 to the peloton at this point.
Slowly the peloton increases the pace, and so does the breakaway, Lampaert is good on the flat with fine legs today, he takes a fair share to keep the break alive. Passing under the 10 km sign the break has 1’19, at this point the peloton is reduces by a group of 34 riders who has already lost 3’31.
With 4 km to the line, it seems clear that the race will be decided between the breakaway riders. Sander Cordeel (Accent Jobs) makes his move; none of the others can or will respond.
Cordeel’s attack was well timed, he just makes it to the line first, winning the race in front of Maarten Neyens (Team 3M), Yves Lampaert finish right outside a podium.
Yves Lampaert on the last km
Rasmussen: Perfect job, Lampaert timed his race well, and got a great result in a race where our options were few.
Winner Profile:
This is the first win for the 28 years Belgian rider Sander Cordeel since winning the 2011 GP Impanis-Van Petegem, After his pro tour contract with Lotto Belisol ended in 2013, he has been without contract in the 2014 and 2015 seasons. This is a fantastic comeback for Sander Cordeel after joining Accent Jobs – Wanty for this season.
Race result:
1
Sander Cordeel
Accent Jobs - Wanty
4h08'45
2
Maarten Neyens
Team 3M
s.t.
3
Quentin Bertholet
Wallonie - Bruxelles
s.t.
4
Yves Lampaert
Christina Watches - Onfone
s.t.
5
Thomas Damuseau
Team Argos - Shimano
s.t.
6
Claudio Francia
Katusha Team
s.t.
7
Dion Beukeboom
Rabobank Development Team
s.t.
8
Joel Zangerle
Coca Cola
s.t.
9
Adam Blythe
Vodafone
s.t.
10
Nikolas Maes
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team
s.t.
11
Paul Martens
Team Argos - Shimano
s.t.
12
Gianni Meersman
Lotto Belisol
s.t.
13
Sven Vandousselaere
Mobistar
s.t.
14
Reinier Honig
Cyclingteam De Rijke - Shanks
s.t.
15
Alexey Tsatevitch
Team Differdange - Losch
s.t.
16
Roy Jans
Accent Jobs - Wanty
s.t.
17
Laszló Bodrogi
FDJ.fr
s.t.
18
Bob Jungels
Coca Cola
s.t.
19
Koen De Kort
Belkin Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
20
Jasper Stuyven
GUNK
s.t.
Team: Team Argos - Shimano
Edited by Tamijo on 17-06-2016 07:17
The race is held in Loire Atlantique department on the west coast of France, starting and finishing in La Haye-Fouassière over 11 hilly laps on a closed circuit.
La Haye-Fouassière is a small town about 15 km southeast of Nantes with a population of about 4500. The town is known to have existed since the 1400’s.
The weather is very bad, hard rain and just 8°C, but at least there is not much wind. It is going to be a long hard day.
Château Rochefort 1700’s.
A final less important race before many important spring classics start, yet another so called “Classic” not that classic after all, first edition was 2000. We have not got the best squad here, Mike is our leader, with Yves and Mads as outsiders. We would like one of them to get in a break, as we don’t think we have many other options.
Roster:
Anders Bjerregård - Anton Grøn - Jens Juul - Lasse Christiansen
Mads Würtz Schmidt - Mike Teunissen - Philip Nielsen - Yves Lampaert
The Race
After a period of turmoil, we get Würtz Schmidt in a breakaway, the strongest and also the most active rider in the group is Valentin Iglinskiy from Sojasun, taking a lot of turns in front.
The pace is pretty high after the first 70-80 km, down in the peloton we have a hard time getting water forward to our leaders, Anton Grøn, Lasse Christiansen and Anders Bjerregård, fails to do so as the peloton is breaking over several times, they all runs dry and loses lots of time today.
Anders Bjerregård fight to get supplies, but fails.
Eventually we decide that we have to send Teunissen back, as it seems that Lampaert has the best legs, and the new youngster Jens Juul is doing a perfect job of protecting him. Teunissen solves the problem, but shortly after he crashes and is out of contest for good.
Up front Van Trijp and Wilches have lost contact and is eaten by the peloton. While race favorite Sergio Pardilla from Caja Rural is attacking, trying to catch the 5 rider in front. Approaching the 10 km sign the breakaway has 50” to Pardilla, 1’16 to the peloton. Valentin Iglinskiy attacks, Dylan Teuns and Geoffroy Lequatre counters, Würtz Schmidt haven’t got the power.
Valentin Iglinskiy is the strongest today, he wins with 19 sec. to Geoffroy Lequatre from Team Europcar, Mads Würtz Schmidt gets 4th. Yves Lampaert just makes it to a top 10.
Rasmussen: Very good attempt from Mads today, another good result in a race we could not expect to get anything from.
TV Highlight
With 3 riders already over the line,
Mads Würtz Schmidt fight to get in top 5:
Winner Profile
This is the first win from the 31 years old Kazakh rider Valentin Iglinskiy since a stage in the 2014 Volta a Portugal, at the time riding for AG2R, Iglinskiy joined Sojasun from the start of this season.
Milan – San Remo, “La Classicissima di primavera” or just “The Spring classic”, as we say in Denmark “A Loved Child Has Many Names”.France rider Lucien Georges Mazan also called Lucien Petit-Breton won the first edition back in 1907. Last year it was won by Cavendish.
The Weather is fine sunny with 20 °C and a fresh breeze
Lucien Petit-Breton
The longest one-day race in modern cycling and one of the monuments, everyone on the team very excited to be here in Milano for our first time in this classic race. The long race demands a lot of strength, but is often won in a mass sprint finish, although the last part is hilly and might as well suit a puncher attack.
The race is very important for us, management wants a top 10 result, I am not sure about that, but I am sure we will do our best. We have our hopes at Sonder for a sprint finish or Tony for an attack over the last hilly section. We got a strong team here with many good options.
Roster:
The Race
We get Stefan in morning breakaway of ten riders, they work together well and get about 9 minutes.
The peloton starts the hunt about mid stage and the gap is steadily shrinking, at 45 km left it is down to 2’50, then Langeveld attacks.
Langeveld does not make it. The break is down to just 1’30 with a little more than 30 km left, Now Tony Gallopin attacks.
Tony can’t get away and the breakaway is now also over, with 12 km to go another attack, this time is it Vanmarcke.
Again the peloton is just too fast and Vanmarcke gets caught, then from the top of the last downhill Zdeněk Štybar attacks, the peloton is marked by a hard stage and can’t catch up, Štybar just makes it to the line, in front of Peter Sagan.
Christina: Even though it is not what management demanded, I am satisfied with the result.
The stage was very hard we did our best and got 2 riders in top 20.
TV Highlight: Stybar attacks on the downhill
Winner Profile
This was the first win for 30 years old Czech ITT champion Zdeněk Štybar from team Argos Shimano since winning Brabantse Pijl last year.
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya is one of the oldest stages races that still exists, dating back to 1911. Often won by famous Grand Tour specialists, Merckx, Indurain, Beloki, Valverde, last year the race was won by Roman Kreuziger from Saxo.
The race starts with a 22.1 km TTT in Salou, something we expect to be a major difficulty for us. Besides the TTT, it seems sure that the GC will be found at stage 4 on the uphill finish to Vallnord ski resort, the only uphill finish in the race.
Our team consists of Kenny as leader, Sondre as top sprinter, Rasmus Quaade is here to get the team through the TTT with as little time lost as possible.
Even though many of the riders have no or little race rhythm they are in fine form, we consider this to be a strong squad, but the TTT might prevent us from getting a good result.
Roster
Sonder Holst Enger - Kenny Elissonde - Morten Høberg - Davide Malacarne - Stefan Schumacher - Lars Ytting Bak - Lasse Bøchman - Rasmus Quaade.
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya is not a management focus race, but every world tour race is very important. As mentioned we a worried about the TTT, so we have set our goal at individual stage top 10 results or better, and try to get the KOM.
Salou is a coastal town and tourism destination about 100 km south of Barcelona. According to tradition the town and natural harbor was founded by Greeks around 600 B.C., later also an important harbor under roman rule as well as during the middle ages.
The weather is not great, only 14°C and very cloudy with a gentle breeze.
La Torre Vieja de Salou 1530
The Race
We started out OK and got a good rhythm on the team, but as so often before we ended up with breaking up the line with just two riders in front, having to wait for the others to catch up. We had a horribly result losing + 1'29 only in front of Argos – Shimano.
Today route starts and finish in Cambrils, less than 10 km from the start of yesterday’s ITT. Cambrils is a town of about 30.000 people, the area have been setteled since the stone age, but it was under Roman rule that the town began to develop and archeological sites are found in the area.
The weather is fine, 17°C just I little clouded and no wind.
Serra de Llaberia Mountains
From Cambrils the route mover over some semi hard climbs in Serra de Llaberia mountains. We expect it to be very hard for the pure sprinters, and foresee a breakaway or puncher victory.
Our aim is to get somebody in a breakaway fighting for KoM points and a possible breakaway win. In the peloton we will protect Kenny and Sonder.
The Race:
The first to get away is Miguel Mínguez from Caja Rural, Davide Malacarne is ready, just waiting for the climb to get a bit harder, then he attacks.
Malacarne gets up to Mínguez fast, and later they are joined by two riders from Androni Giocattoli, Stefano Pirazzi and Patrick Facchini. Miguel Mínguez do not seem to like the fact that there are two from the same team, he has stopped to take his turns.
Malacarne and Pirazzi are the strongest on the climbs, they share the KoM points, but it ends with Pirazzi taking just one more point that Malacarne.
In this case Malacrane wins:
The break ends on the final descent and Kenny Ellisonde takes the opportunity to drift away when the peloton slows down.
The attempt was not wholehearted and the peloton catch up, coming up from behind Sondre Holst Enger craps the wheel of Kenny just in time for the sprint.
TV Highlight : The sprint.
Sondre Holst Enger wins the stage in Cambrils, in front of Caleb Ewan, Moreno Moser takes the last podium.
Christina: Perfect stage, just what we all needed after yesterday’s failure. We are off course still way back in the GC, but now we already has a great result in Catalunya
Winner Profile:
This was the first win of Sondre Holst Enger since winning two stages in Tour of Qinghai Lake last july. Sonder joined Christina Watches in 2014 only 20 years old and he has developed into the teams strongest sprinter, slowly becoming recognized as a world class sprinter, only second to the very best. Sonder has some “Sagan” like features making him a little extra strong on the harder stages.
Nokere Koerse (Cat.1.1)
Classic Loire Atlantique (Cat.1.1)
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (WT)
