Thanks guys. Great to hear that you enjoy the reports.
I think the results will get better soon as well.
30/03/2012
La Pomme squad:
After a few days off, we're back in business for another flattish one day race. New riders are taking over from those we've seen racing lately though, with Siskevicius now taking place as captain for the team.
Together with Perichon, he's building up for targeted races in April, which begins tomorrow. Young talent Paillot also features for the first time this season, and will be an important domestique in the upcoming two months.
Our chances here are relatively small, once again due to weak form. We'll try to make the best out of it though, and certainly not gamble everything on a sprint. A late attack would probably yield better chances.
Startlist:
Daryl Impey is probably the most notable rider on the list. Helped out by a team built for leadouts, the South African has a good opportunity to really shine. Surely a very tough man to beat.
Greg Henderson and Yukiya Arashiro are also good candidates, since the route isn't completely flat. And who knows what Carlos Betancur and the other puncheurs can do on the small climbs?
The race
At the start of the second-to-last lap on the race circuit, Perichon attempts to jump clear! Julian Dean and Mickael Buffaz catches on immediately.
For some reason the latter two sit up after a few hundred meters, leaving Perichon all by himself in between the peloton and the early breakaway trio; Ian Boswell, Alexander Efimkin and Massimo Codol.
Just moments later, Marcel Sieberg is off in pursuit after the breakees. Stuart O'Grady and Nico Sijmens tag on.
Jérémy Roy, Tom Stamsnijder and Julien Fouchard also jumps across, forming a leading group of ten. The main field follows at just under a minute with a little more than one lap to go.
On the short, steep little climb at the start of the final circuit, it's more or less back together. Some of the leaders continue to push on, but a tired Perichon gives up together with a couple of his companions.
The reduced leading group kicks off the sprint for the line a few seconds ahead of the main field, but still far from out of reach. Siskevicius battles several other sprinters to find himself on Impey's wheel.
The escapees are eaten up when the sprinters launch into the lead in the final kilometer or so. Siskevicius is unable to match Impey's acceleration and thus loses a few metres. Obviously no top result today.
In the final metres Jure Kocjan shoots clear in the middle of the road to win clearly! Stéphane Poulhies also finishes with high speed to claim second, just edging out Davy Commeyne.
A little bit behind, Siskevicius just misses out on a top 10 spot. Still a much better result than I expected, and a good start to his season. Will be interesting to see how he'll do when the form improves a bit during the next few weeks.
Alejandro Valverde made sure to continue his excellent season at Paris-Nice, by winning the Col d'Éze time trial and the overall classification. No doubt that the Spaniard was the strongest rider there, as GC runner-up Jelle Vanendert was more than a minute and a half behind.
In the other WT stage race; Tirreno, Fabian Cancellara pulled off a real surprise. After some strong opening stages, he showed impressive climbing capacity and stayed in the leader's jersey on the hard mountain stage to Prati di Tivo.
Edvald Boasson Hagen was just nine seconds back on GC in the end, with number three; Dario Cataldo, a crazy 7'40 down. The overall top 10 also included some other surprises such as Xavier Florencio, Simon Clarke and Tomasz Marczynski.
El Imbatido continues his strong season in France.
Mark Cavendish then wrapped up his second MSR title a week later, in one of the easier editions ever. The whole peloton arrived in San Remo together, so it was a pure battle between the sprinters on the Lungomare.
In the other two WT classics, Tom Boonen strengthened his position as king of the cobbles by winning both E3 Prijs and Gent-Wevelgem. Alessandro Ballan and Juan Antonio Flecha both got beaten by the Belgian in two respective one-against-one sprint finishes. Cancellara was nowhere on both occasions.
Tornado Tom sweeps up both the prestigious cobbled classics.
Boonen's campaign on the cobbles, second place in San Remo and four stage wins in Paris-Nice capapults him up into a pretty hefty lead. Cancellara is following closest, even though he wasn't on top in the classics.
The two classics mens' respective teams, OmegaPharma-Quickstep and Radioshack, are also the top two teams in the WorldTour at the moment, with Rabobank still going strong as well, after a strong Tour Down Under.
WorldTour - Individual:
1
Tom Boonen
OmegaPharma - Quickstep
324
2
Fabian Cancellara
Radioshack - Nissan
222
3
Luis León Sánchez
Rabobank Cycling Team
182
4
Jelle Vanendert
Lotto-Belisol Team
166
5
Daniel Moreno
Katusha Team
153
6
Giovanni Visconti
Movistar Team
129
7
André Greipel
Lotto-Belisol Team
112
8
Alejandro Valverde
Movistar Team
109
9
Mark Cavendish
Sky Procycling
108
10
Peter Sagan
Liquigas - Cannondale
102
WorldTour - Team:
1
OmegaPharma - Quickstep
440
2
Radioshack - Nissan
431
3
Rabobank Cycling Team
428
4
Sky Procycling
366
5
Katusha Team
339
Everyone's favourite African team, MTN, tops the individual Continental Tour with two of their riders; Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg and Arran Brown, who've both got several victories this season. Koretzky has faded down to a seveth place. Still higher than I expected.
MTN are also the best team so far, even though they're not even PCT. Europcar aren't very far behind however, and will most likely go past soon. We're down in ninth, still as one of the best CT teams. Looking solid so far.
Continental Tour - Individual:
1
Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg
MTN - Qhubeka
325
2
Arran Brown
MTN - Qhubeka
224
3
Tom Veelers
Team Argos - Shimano
220
4
Sergey Chernetskiy
Itera - Katusha
208
5
Sébastien Chavanel
Team Europcar
196
6
Steven Tronet
Auber 93 - BigMat
172
7
Clément Koretzky
La Pomme Marseille
171
8
Kenneth Vanbilsen
An Post - Sean Kelly Team
144
9
Boy Van Poppel
UnitedHealtcare Pro Cycling Team
141
10
Gediminas Bagdonas
An Post - Sean Kelly Team
132
Continental Tour - Team:
1
MTN - Qhubeka
569
2
Team Europcar
522
3
Team Argos - Shimano
464
4
Team Type 1 - Sanofi
424
5
Itera - Katusha
394
...
9
La Pomme Marseille
222
Boonen has built up a huge lead in the CQ table as well, after all the early success. Cancellara is again following behind in second, whilst Valverde is tied with Tour of Oman winner Matthew Goss in third.
Same things can be said about the whole OPQS team. They're already over 700 points ahead of Orica-GreenEDGE and Radioshack. It's not really a surprise though, since the team is basically built for classics.
CQ ranking - Individual:
1
Tom Boonen
OmegaPharma - Quickstep
1533
2
Fabian Cancellara
Radioshack - Nissan
948
3
Matthew Goss
Orica - GreenEDGE
815
3
Alejandro Valverde
Movistar Team
815
5
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky Procycling
753
6
Luis León Sánchez
Rabobank Cycling Team
743
7
Jelle Vanendert
Lotto-Belisol Team
687
8
Daniel Moreno
Katusha Team
679
9
Peter Sagan
Liquigas - Cannondale
592
10
Giovanni Visconti
Movistar Team
590
CQ ranking - Team:
1
OmegaPharma - Quickstep
3276
2
Orica - GreenEDGE
2524
3
Radioshack - Nissan
2493
4
Sky Procycling
2472
5
Movistar Team
2282
...
28
La Pomme Marseille
369
Lastly, the victory ranking. To no one's surprise, we've again got Boonen at the top of the table. Van Rensburg also has an impressive eight triumphs, although of lower category. Valverde isn't far off either.
OPQS' total amoung lands on 20, a crazy number after just three months. 55% of them comes from a certain Belgian! Orica-GreenEDGE and MTN are both also above 15, whilst we're still happy with the one Koretzky has.
Siskevicius may still not be in top form, but he'll be our leader nevertheless. Perichon will also most likely try something similar to what the attack in Vitré, although it'll be harder to break free on this pan flat course.
Startlist:
It'll be very hard to reach any top result for us, since the field is really strong. Tom Veelers once again shoulders a lot of pressure, as he's probably the fastest sprinter here.
Among many others, I'm also warning for Daryl Impey, Boy Van Poppel and Steven Tronet. All three have been very good this year, outgunning several of the other sprinters on today's startlist.
The race
Already early in the race it becomes obvious that the sprinter teams have no intention of letting attackers spoil their chances. Landbouwkrediet, AG2R, Argos, LeoTrek and GreenEDGE are just a few of the teams in charge.
The chase obviously intensifies as the finish line comes into reach, still with many teams interested. Siskevicius meanwhile takes place behind Lloyd Mondory and the AG2R train.
To our frustration, Laurent Pichon and Davy Commeyne apparently have the same idea and somehow manages to knock Siskevicius off the AG2R train, forcing him to relocate two wheels further back.
It all turns into a complete chaos when the rather large breakaway is caught six kilometres out. Most of the train get disorganized and many sprinters lose positions. Perichon profits from this to go for a small dig.
Unfortunately he soon has to sit up, as the high speed all day has tired him too much. A couple of wheels back, Siskevicius finds himself on the perfect wheel, just behind pre-race favourite Veelers.
As it turns out, it really is the perfect wheel. The Dutchman panics after getting stuck a little behind the front and goes for a very long one with over two kilometres remaining. Normally it would've been the perfect leadout, but Siskevicius is not capable of matching the acceleration.
Veelers maintains his few metres of advantage as the final kilometer arrives, but Siskevicius starts to fade more and more, allowing the rest of the sprinters to blow past him like nothing.
No one is able to strike back at the amazing Veelers tho! It's hardly arguable that he was the strongest on the day. Mondory narrowly tops an impressive Fabio Felline for second place a few metres back.
Siskevicius really blew up his tank when trying to follow Veelers, and fades so badly in the end that he even misses the Top 30. Oh well. The form is getting better and better with every day, so it's still no disaster.
Thanks for the comments. The form will surely get better now with a short stage race coming up, and then Tour de Bretagne later this month.
03/04/2012 - 06/04/2012
La Pomme squad:
Two new chances for Siskevicius to show that he is capable of doing well in the mass sprints. Paillot will then probably be our main guy for the time trial, whilst Perichon will tackle the hard final stage and also see if he can finish near the top of the GC.
Startlist:
I'm not completely sure if the time trial or the hilly final stage will be the most decisive one, so it'll be interesting to see whether a puncheur will be able to break away into Pré-en-Pail or if the time trial winner will manage to hang on. The sprinters shouldn't be completely discounted either.
Either way, Jonathan Tiernan-Locke will be difficult to beat, as long as he's in form. He has been quite weak in the first few months though, so nothing's certain. Elia Favilli and Sandy Casar are probably the closest rivals the Briton has, but they're both normally quite a bit weaker.
I'm also warning for the punchy sprinters like Nacer Bouhanni, Francisco Ventoso and Stéphane Poulhiès. It's far from decided that they'll get dropped on the final stage. The GC battle could very well come down to bonification seconds from the earlier flat stages.
Paillot is active early in the stage and manages to throw himself over the top of the day's first climb in second place, behind Yann Huguet.
A primary breakaway hasn't been formed yet however, as Cofidis seem to chase everything. New moves go clear all the time, but a strong Paillot snatches a few more points on the second climb of the day by taking third.
It takes half the stage, but at last, the breakaway is established. Paillot makes the cut, accompanied by Johan Mombaerts, Sébastien Hinault, Rémi Cusin and Loic Desriac.
Paillot times his move to perfection, and wins the sprint to the top of the last climb, thus donning the KoM jersey! At least a little bit of success after some difficult few weeks for the team.
Back in the main field, UnitedHealthcare and Endura Racing share the pacemaking. With around thirty kilometres remaining, they have the break in control, with a gap of approximately 1'45.
After realizing that his companions are giving up, Paillot attacks for himself ten ks later. Suddenly the other four spring to life and start chasing for grim death. You just have to love the gameplay sometimes.
Not that it really matters. Just a couple of minutes later, they all get gobbled up by the furious peloton. KoM jersey secured at least!
Battle of the French strikes in a little bit later, with Europcar, FDJ and Cofidis all setting up trains for the respective main sprinter. Siskevicius is far, far back, because the "follow wheel" button decided not to work today, turning it into an impossible task to catch a train.
After a million clicks, it finally starts working again. Siskevicius makes his way up the field and jumps into Marcel Kittel's slipstream. The French armada trio are still leading, with Europcar having the edge.
Angelo Tulik kicks off for Sébastien Chavanel with a kilometer and a half or so left. Just behind them, French champion Bouhanni desperately tries to take Arnaud Demare back up. The Cofidis train meanwhile seems to have broken up from disorganization.
In the final few hundred metres, it's a very close battle! Boy Van Poppel and Adrien Petit jumps up from behind with very high speed, challenging Chavanel and Demare.
With an amazing pounce, Petit takes it on the line! Demare takes second, turning this into a reverse of last year's U23 WC. Chavanel rounds off the all-French podium, ahead of a fading Van Poppel.
Siskevicius again disappointed. This time I really think that it was the game's fault though, since he had to waste a lot of energy to move back into position after being unable to follow the other sprinters earlier.
Jure Kocjan
Stéphane Poulhiès
Davy Commeyne
Daryl Impey
Scott Thwaites
Marc De Maar
Ramunas Navardauskas
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Thomas Löfkvist
Alejandro Valverde
Alessandro Bertolini
Fabian Cancellara
Michael Reihs
André Greipel
Peter Sagan
Radioshack - Nissan
Katusha Team
Matthew Goss
