60 riders on the starting line. 6 teams with 9 riders and 6 riders with no teammates here – among the last some of the biggest favorites such as Breschel, Fuglsang, Bak and Rasmussen.
We should expect Saxo Bank to dominate the race, but we will do our best to cheat the big favorites. We should aim for a top 5 today.
Early in the race a big break of 11 riders form. Saxo seems fairly content as they keep the lead between one and two minutes. As the break slowly builds a bigger lead a perfect situation for Falcon – Norheim establishes. In front a lot of good riders work hard, while Jesper Mørkøv just sits there, as the break seems doomed and that he won’t stand a chance against most of his breakaway companions. In the peloton Saxo work hard to catch up with the break and only Klostergaard and Kenneth Hansen can find the resources to keep the peloton behind.
Results: 1. Kasper Klostergaard, Saxo Bank - Tinkoff Bank
2. Kenneth Hansen, Christina Watches - Onfone
3. Matti Breschel, Rabobank Cycling Team 6. Jesper Mørkøv, Falcon - Norheim
7. Kasper Jebjerg, Falcon - Norheim
28 cyclists are here. 26 of them hoping to find some miraculous way to beat Boasson-Hagen.
Øster Hus, Falcon – Norheim and Joker unite in a break hoping to force the favorites to work from the start, that way making them tired enough to be beatable in the end. With 100 km to go the trio has a lead of more than 14 minutes and Boasson-Hagen, himself has been forced in front of the peloton along with Hushovd. The union of the small teams may be the recipe to beat the best.
With 60 km to go it appears that David will beat Goliath, and at the 40 km mark the peloton seems to abandon the chase. Either Geir Berg, E. Jarlseth or J. Ziesler will be the new Norwegian champion. Jarlseth makes the race in front hard and both Berg and Ziesler look tired but hang on and the group enter the last three km together. Ziesler opens the sprint, Berg and Jarlseth are in his wheel. Berg tries to use a short downhill section to get extra speed in his sprint and takes the lead.
Jarlseth does his best, but cannot accelerate fast enough back on the flat to close the gap. Behind the winners Hushovd and Boasson-Hagen show that they would have been superior had they not let the trio get so big a lead.
Results: 1. Geir Berg, Falcon - Norheim
2. Eirik Jarlseth, Joker Merida
3. Johan Ziesler, Team Øster Hus - Ridley
Unfortunately the Swedish time-trial championships were cancelled due to some technical problem. The Finnish cycling federation have decidede to hand out the championship to the best ranked Finnish rider at the end of the season.
Time to show out new championship jerseys to the world. It started out very quiet, but when a 3-man break formed the new Swedish Champion Christofer Stevenson found his way in there. Stevenson didn’t have the legs today and lost contact with the two others. In the peloton Katusha pushes up the speed, but not quite enough to catch Serge Pauwels…
Results:
1. Serge Pauwels, Omega Pharma - Quickstep
2. Ivan Rovny, RusVelo
3. Pavel Brutt, Katusha 27. Philip Lindau, Falcon – Norheim
This month all focus was on the national championships and we achieved much more than we could have hoped with two road race victories. We had hoped to be able to dominate the Swedish race, but had never expected to be able to get a Norwegian championship. Truly a wonderful month, that demonstrates our status as a big Nordic team. The wins have expanded our lead in the continental ranking.
Rider of the month: Cadel Evans. Cadel dominated Tour de Suisse with three stage wins and a GC victory after 7 days in the lead.
Next month on Falcon - Norheim:
July will have focus on winning a stage in Tour de Wallonie to please our sponsors. Other than that we will chase breakaways, but we will not use energy trying to get secondary results. Win or nothing. We hope to see good results from Landbouwkredit, Cofidis and Saur – Sojasun so that these teams can pass us on the ranking and postpone our promotion for at least one season.
Transfer rumours:
Several Nordic riders have extended their contracts and nine riders of interest remain on the market. Fortunately Falcon – Norheim has exactly a maximum of nine available slots on the 2013-team.
The riders on the market are: Lars Ytting Bak, Lasse Bøchman, Jesper Hansen, Christopher Juul-Jensen and Thomas Nybo Riis Thor Hushovd, Sondre Sörtveit, Svein Erik Vold Tobias Ludvigsson
Edited by Atlantius on 23-10-2012 08:28
On a press-conference earlier today Falcon - Norheim presented three new riders for the next seasons. A young talent, a solid rider in his prime with unreleased potential and a superstar.
Since all three riders are great additions to the team, we will announce the names one at a time. Starting with the least famous of the three.
A rider for the future
Spoiler
Thomas Nybo Riis
Thomas is one of the rising stars in Danish cycling. Not only because he is the son of Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, but also because it only took him one year to work his way through four cycling divisions in Denmark and get a contract with Continental team Blue Water Cycling.
Since he is yet only 19 years old, he hasn't got any professional victories yet, but many expect him to become at least as good as his father.
We don't expect Thomas to get any big results the first couple of years, but he should be a decent helper for the climbs and in due time we will see him achieve great things for himself
The Lieutenant
Spoiler
Lasse Bøchman
Lasse is a well known rider in Denmark. The last eight years he have spent most of the time on Glud & Marstrand - LRØ, but have also spent two years under the wings of Bjarne Riis on Team CSC/Saxo Bank.
He is a decent rider for the smaller Stageraces with varied terrain and as 29 years old he has both experience and potential for further development.
Lasse is two-times winner of French 2.2 race Flèche du Sud in 2010 and 2011. In the current season his best result is 2nd at Grand Prix de la Marsaillaise.
Lasse will be one of the teams captains next year, and we are very happy that he want to spend his best cycling years in this team
The Superstar
Spoiler
[center]Thor Hushovd
This rider hardly needs any presentation. With stage wins in all three GT's and several smaller World Tour stage races, 10 stages and two green jerseys in Tour de France he has proved a very resiliant rider.
A World Championship, several Norwegian Championships, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and several podiums in races like Paris - Roubaix and Milano - San Remo he has proved himself capable of winning the oneday races as well.
Even the TT is a discipline he can excel at with several national championships, a Paris-Nice prologue and other good results.
We are EXTREMELY proud that Thor has decided to join our team. Only problem is that he insist that next year is the year he wins the Paris-Roubaix - therefore he won't join us unless we get promoted to the World Tour. It wasn't exactly our plan quite yet and it'll be a tough season if we succeed, but we never even considered not signing Thor given the opportunity. Today our project has entered e new era!
With the demands Hushovd made in his signing, we will now again see Falcon – Norheim as we know them – chasing every single chance the race has to offer.
Haavardsholm and Lindau got in the big break of the day, but a lot of teams showed interest in bringing everything together again. They took no chances, and in the end they got what they came for: A bunch sprint.
Results:
1. Roberto Ferrari, Androni Giacottoli - Venezuela
2. Alessandro Bazzana, Team Type 1 - Sanofi
3. Davide Cimolai, Lampre - ISD 21. Magnus Bäckstedt, Falcon – NorheimEdited by Atlantius on 23-10-2012 14:50
The sponsors want a stage win in Wallonie so we will see the team chasing every opportunity, that arises.
Stage 1
A hilly stage, which might very well be decisive for the GC. Ricky Jørgensen got in the large break of the day – a break that would end up lasting all the way to the finish line. Realizing he was one of the slowest finishers in the group he tried attacking a bit further out, but didn’t manage to get a decisive lead and didn’t stand a chance in the sprint.
Stage 2
Categorized as a flat stage, but it is still so hilly, that the sprinters shouldn’t feel too sure of themselves.
It took a few tries for a breakaway to get a decent lead. First Søren Nissen got away, but the group was never allowed real lead. Later Daniel Krutzfeldt was out showing the jersey and ended up fighting for the win. And he did a very good job, though the last few hundred meters were too steep for him to match Peter Kennaugh.
Stage results:
1. Peter Kennaugh, Sky
2. Marek Rutkiewicz, CCC Polsat – Polkowice
3. Daniel Kreutzfeldt, Falcon – Norheim
Stage 3
While Andy Schleck rode the Champs Elysses in yellow the Falcons had yet another day chasing a stage win in Belgium. Today might prove to be tougher for the breakaway as Team Sky is now defending the lead.
Everything started out the same way as the last two days. A small break gets a 2-3 minute lead, and more riders join them making it quite a big break. Today 11 riders, among those Ole Haavardsholm.
20 km to go and the break has a lead of two minutes. This could be a close one. Sadly Haavardsholm isn’t to fond of the flat, so when the break ups the speed Ole lose contact. In the end the peloton merges with the break, but Vanmarcke just manage to grab the win.
Stage results:
1. Sep Vanmarcke, Garmin - Sharp
2. Preben Van Hecke, Topsport Vlaanderen - Mercator
3. Justin Jules, Veranda Rideau – Super U 25. Philip Lindau, Falcon – Norheim
Stage 4
The flattest stage so far. Should be a certain victory for the sprinters. Kreutzfeldt got in the first break of the day, practically dooming it, but Daniel got the first bonus sprint gaining 6 seconds in the GC and another 6 seconds in the second sprint of the day. Now Kennaugh only leads by 10 seconds! For the rest of the day Sky neutralized every single break with a Falcon rider in it, but in the end they allowed two rides to take the stage for themselves as a huge crash in the peloton slows things quite a bit.
Stage results:
1. James Vanlandschoot, Accent Jobs – Willems Veranda’s
2. Matthew Brammeier, Omega Pharma - Quickstep
3. Robert Hunter, Garmin - Sharp 22. Søren Nissen, Falcon – Norheim
Points Jersey: Daniel Kreutzfeldt
Stage 5
Should be a day for the breaks, but we will see Falcon – Norheim go for the three intermediate sprints trying to win Kreutzfeldt the jersey and hopefully those 10 seconds he is behind in the GC.
Apparently Sky have forgotten about the bonus second allowing Kreutzfeldt to pick up the first 6 second without any competition. Unfortunately lots of breakaway attempts took care of the last two sprints. Those breakaways should prove to be real dreambreakers as Dries Devenyns used them as a launch for a majestic solo ride winning him both the stage and the GC, thus banishing Kreutzfeldt to a GC 3rd.
Danmarksmesterskabet 
Norsk Mesterskap 
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Columbia
Czech Republic
Estonia
France
Germany
Great Britain
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
Ukraine
USA
Philip Lindau, Falcon – Norheim
Cadel Evans. Cadel dominated Tour de Suisse with three stage wins and a GC victory after 7 days in the lead.
Finland, 295 pts 
Marek Rutkiewicz, CCC Polsat – Polkowice
Robert Hunter, Garmin - Sharp
