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The Oz Cycling Project #PCT14
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 01-10-2014 21:01
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Directeur Sportif
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@Alakagom: Thanks, mate! Yeah, Visconti definitely proves his allround skills very well this year and I'm glad I finally went for this tactics to play him (and Del Nero) in those cobbles this season.
@Manx: You're welcome  Is that Kate Dennings on your avatar, btw?
Chanceless in Taiwan - Visconti in Dunkerque
We continue the review of Oz's so far missing races with the two stage-races, which the team did participate at in early April and early May. Two races with two completely different results for our squad(s).
The Tour de Taiwan kicked off promising with both Pengda Jiao and William Ford grabbing two 2nd places on the second and third day. Especially Jiao raised our hopes of achieving a nice GC-result here, but all our puncheurs were chanceless in the crucial tough stages on the further days. Our best rider in GC would be Jiao as 25th, so a rather disappointing outcome eventually.
The recently finished 5 Jours de Dunkerque went far better for Oz though: and yes, cobbles! The hilly fourth stage with tricky cobbled sectors saw an aggressive Giovanni Visconti attacking the remaining group of favorites launching a late move, trying to bridge the gap to solo-leading Azzeddine Lagab (Jaguar). Our Italian veteran (who already did great in our latest cobbled classics) couldn't go for the win, but secured a great 3rd place on both the stage and the final GC! Jesus Del Nero added a decent 12th place overall. A great result for Oz in this HC-race!
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 19:12
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 01-10-2014 21:03
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Tour de France Champion
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Yes it is Kat, i've moved onwards for the Autumn time.
Great result for your team in Dunkerque, Visconti really impressing and surprising me this season. Hopefully things keep going well for Oz and you might be able to afford Ewan 
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 01-10-2014 21:09
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 11819
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TheManxMissile wrote:
Yes it is Kat, i've moved onwards for the Autumn time.
Great result for your team in Dunkerque, Visconti really impressing and surprising me this season. Hopefully things keep going well for Oz and you might be able to afford Ewan
Good taste, good taste
Thanks. Yes, great result indeed and Visconti is our biggest scorer at the moment. Definitely better use of his race days than last year. Ewan though... Time will tell 
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 02-10-2014 21:02
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 11819
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One obvious plan - one questionable plan
The Oz Cycling achieved it's first sponsor goal by taking out the timetrial event in Luxembourg: the Duo Differdange, in which Michael Rogers and Michael Ford had to defend their victory from last year, saw our Aussies holding off a dangerous duo from our friends Metinvest (with superstar Ignatiev and always-wanna-be-an-Ozzie Haijun Ma): 12" advantage on those two and 17" on La Vie Claire's duo for the win!
Yap, we still love timetrials... and we used to fall in love with cobbles, too..
But it must have been a moment of shock, when our teammanager realized, that the Avila Classic in Spain actually featured cobbles as well. No Visconti, no Del Nero at the start. Instead of those: Matthew Goss and a bunch of non-cobblers! A breakaway would eventually take out this classic, but unfortunatelly no Ozzie involved. Gossy? Finished as our best almost four minutes later as 46th.
#Results Duo Differdange
| 1 |  Michael Rogers | Oz Cycling Project | 1h04'56 | | 2 | Michael Ford | Oz Cycling Project | s.t. | | 3 |  Mikhail Ignatiev | Metinvest-Emirates | + 12 | | 4 |  Haijun Ma | Metinvest-Emirates | s.t. | | 5 |  Kai Reus | La Vie Claire | + 17 | | 6 |  Piotr Mazur | La Vie Claire | s.t. |
#Results Avila Classic
| 1 | Kenny Van Hummel | BelarusBank Pro Cycling | 6h04'53 | | 2 | Arjen De Baat | Team Hornbach | + 15 | | 3 |  Robert Bush | AMEXpc | + 26 | | ... | | 46 | Matthew Goss | Oz Cycling Project | + 3'49 |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 05-10-2014 21:12
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Directeur Sportif
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Two sprinters' classics - Goss misses the podium
To complete our latest updates of Oz's races in the past two months, we take a look at the simultanously held sprinters' classics in late April.
Anthony Giacoppo once again couldn't join the mix for a Top-15 result when he just sprinted for a 25th place in Melakas Governor's Cup. Our premium sprint domestique, who opened our season with an impressive leadout for Goss at the Down Under Classic, has yet to prove he's worth a shot on his own.
Matthew Goss was one of the top-favorites for the Race Horizon Park classic. Unfortunatelly, he didn't have the best legs on that day and had to settle for an okay, but not too impressive 5th place.
#Results Race Horizon Park
| 1 |  Michael Van Stayen | Venchi - Ferranti | 4h43'56 | | 2 |  Nolan Hoffman | Metinvest-Emirates | s.t. | | 3 |  Enrico Gasparotto | Team Kenya Airways | s.t. | | 4 | Danilo Napolitano | Meiji - Cannondale | s.t. | | 5 | Matthew Goss | Oz Cycling Project | s.t. |
#Results Melaka Governor's Cup
| 1 |  Gerald Ciolek | Team Puma - SAP | 4h23'31 | | 2 | Roman Maksimov | Project: Africa | s.t. | | 3 | Dan Holloway | Heineken-Cal Giant | s.t. | | ... | | 25 | Anthony Giacoppo | Oz Cycling Project | s.t. |
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 06-10-2014 06:58
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World Champion
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Big congrats to our aussie friends at Oz for winning the Duo Differdange, i was expecting that we will finish 2nd behind you and it happened. Enjoy your last year as the winner of this race. 
And i see what you did there with Ma.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 06-10-2014 10:35
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Directeur Sportif
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Avin Wargunnson wrote:
Enjoy your last year as the winner of this race.
Challenge accepted
Thanks, mate. Hope your season will soon turn into a better one. And about Ma: it's been a while since my last joke about him joining Oz, so i once again couldn't resist
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 06-10-2014 12:21
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2907
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Everyone know he's joining Compal at the end of the season |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 06-10-2014 22:13
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Directeur Sportif
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@Bjartne: Well, that's most probably another option
Stage-win and Top-15 for Bobridge in California
The first of three ProTour-trips for Oz Cycling became a quite succesfull experience for our boys! The challenging Tour of California, featuring seven stages including a hilly timetrial and a mountain-stage to Mt Diablo, didn't go like expected though.
Thanks to a couple of hilly and flat stages, we had hoped for both Jack Bobridge and especially Matthew Goss to show something. But Bobo actually lost some time on the opening hilly parcours and Gossy (as well as most other top-sprinters) never found his way into the race, failing to score any single Top-10 in a festival of breakaways in the flat stages.
But it was such a stage (the fifth to be precisive), where Jack Bobridge made it into the break of the day, dropping his former breakaway companions a few kilometres to the line and fighting his way to a great stage-win for our team! Our captain would also do well in the TT (like Koren, both Top-10) and survive the summit finish to end up 15th in GC. A nice trip for our team. Thanks for the chance to take part.
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| roturn |
Posted on 06-10-2014 22:16
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It was a nice PT experience for your team there.
Surely could have gone better with Goss obviously. But being 15th with a non climber and stage win is pretty good.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 09-10-2014 21:03
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Directeur Sportif
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@roturn: 100% agree. Bobridge made up for Gossy's (and all sprinters' failure... seems to be our team's tactics at the moment
Bennett does what Gossy misses - victory in Berlin!
Let's keep it short: the HC-classic Berlin ProRace, made for sprinters, didn't exactly went as expected.. but this time, Oz Cycling did benefit from a rather chaotic race.
Matthew Goss was our expected scorer in this race packed with elite sprinters. We knew it would be hard to score a win, but everything seemed possible.. everything? Well, the final result... we didn't see coming:
Our young gun George Bennett was part of an early breakaway and thanks to rainy conditions and a not too well working peloton, his late attack, when he soloed away from his former breakaway companions (see picture below), would eventually bring him and our team the win we had hoped for.. in a whole different way!
This "shame from Berlin" (for almost every cycling fan and manager) also saw Jesus Del Nero grabbing a 6th place from a late attack on the bunch, while Matthew Goss added a 13th place. A huge result in a race, that most managers will never forget (even though they would love to do so).
#Results Berlin ProRace
| 1 |  George Bennett | Oz Cycling Project | 4h06'39 | | 2 |  Tomas Vaitkus | Privatbank - Nemiroff | + 48 | | 3 |  Vadim Guliev | BelarusBank Pro Cycling | s.t. | | ... | | 6 |  Jesus Del Nero | Oz Cycling Project | s.t. | | ... | | 13 | Matthew Goss | Oz Cycling Project | s.t. |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 19-10-2014 20:40
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Directeur Sportif
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Saved the best to the last - Gossy 6th in Taihu
Our team headed for two quite important and promising races late in May, with the Tour of Taihu offering the division's best sprinters a chance to grab either stage-wins and fight for a great GC-result. It's was therefore no surprise to see a startlist packed with the very best sprinters in both PCT and CT.
Of course we had hopes for Matthew Goss to go for a Top-5 in GC plus adding a stage-win. Things didn't went too well though, as Goss was one of the most consistent sprinters in Taihu (finishing inside the Top-5 in all of the first five stages), but missing any bonus seconds! He dropped down onto 16th place in GC prior to the final day..
..where he eventually would score his first bonus seconds: thanks to a nice leadout by Wes Sulzberger and Anthony Giacoppo (our first train in the whole race), Matthew Goss sprinted to a dominating stage-win to jump onto 6th in GC plus finishing second in the points competition. Six Top-5's ain't too bad, but his stage-win would save this race from being a disaster.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 20-10-2014 13:16
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Directeur Sportif
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Second goal achieved - Bobridge wins in Czech Republic
He did it: our captain Jack Bobridge delivered big time in one of Oz's most important races this year. The Tour of Czech Republic was an obvious choice for a win-goal prior to the season and we're glad that our team did well to avoid any trouble.
Bobo kicked the race off with a 2nd place in a tricky flat stage, followed by another 2nd in the crucial hilly stage, where he established a decent gap on the remaining GC-contenders (with our former rider Matthew Lloyd winning through a breakaway). Scoring another podium in the following ITT, which was won by our specialist Michael Ford (third stage-win this year), Bobridge pretty much dominated the race where it counted.
Kristjan Koren did also well in the TT to add a decent 11th in GC and also Mark O'Brien deserves a mention by finishing this HC-race as 24th.. a stage-win, three jerseys (yellow, white, green), best team and a few podiums in stages... except of Michael Rogers yet again failing in this race, this was huge for Oz Cycling!
Edited by tsmoha on 20-10-2014 13:32
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 20-10-2014 13:35
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World Champion
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Congrats for the great Bobo win and Gossy doing good in Taihu. With these two races, you scored more points than we have during half of the season.
This can be crucial for possible Oz promotion push.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 20-10-2014 14:09
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Directeur Sportif
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Thanks, Avin. Always nice to see you stopping by.. This mid-season was always ging to be the key with Eneco and of course our beloved TT-classics yet to follow on this great results we recently had.
So i guess you will soon have some good results as well! Looking forward to those TTs. Metinvest will stay in PCT, i think and hope so
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 27-10-2014 20:06
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Directeur Sportif
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Still going strong - Goss podiums Eneco Tour
Only two races for Oz Cycling this month and the first was just finished a few hours ago: the HC-stage race Eneco Tour, featuring four flat stages, was yet another chance for Matthew Goss to compete against some of the very best in sprinters in the Continental Tour.
Opposing to the Tour of Taihu, Goss did not wait until the final stage to score bonus seconds, but kicked this more important race off with a great stage-win! Adding a nice 3rd on next day (holding the yellow), we had some minor hopes to finish this 4-days-event with an overall win.
Unfortunatelly, Goss had to settle for two 5th places on the final two days (completing a streak of 10 consecutive Top-5-sprints in Taihu und Eneco!) and lost his yellow to Maxime Vantomme and dropped onto 3rd in GC on final day, too. He did also miss the points competition quite close.. anyway, another bunch of good sprints and definitely a nice podium in this prestigious race!
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| jt1109 |
Posted on 28-10-2014 08:56
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Classics Specialist
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Goss has been very consistent over the two sprinters tour and it must give you great confidence going into the other big sprinter tour's during the season. |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 28-10-2014 17:53
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 11819
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jt1109 wrote:
Goss has been very consistent over the two sprinters tour and it must give you great confidence going into the other big sprinter tour's during the season.
To be honest, i'm not quite sure which race will be his next big target, but yes: if he keeps his current shape, he should be a threat anyway. Of course no big surprise and i did spent quite somey money on him, too
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| cio93 |
Posted on 28-10-2014 18:31
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World Champion
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Guess who's going up...
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 28-10-2014 18:35
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 11819
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cio93 wrote:
Guess who's going up...
Quickstep?
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Carlos Betancourt
Chris Froome
Cyril Gautier
Azzeddine Lagab
Marc De Maar
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
Peter Velits
Dan Craven
