So Thys was marked in the cobbled races, which seemed a bit harsh: Yes, he brings COB 79 to the table, but not much else (FLA 70 STA 72). That would make the top 10 in Paris-Roubaix the sponsor is asking for tough to achieve, there'd be no chance for Bugge or Valgren to step in. Thys therefore received protection from all his team mates, but that didn't last very long.
It was a fairly quiet race, with 40 km to go a top group of 22 riders formed, dominated by Quick-Step. Thys, already alone, kept in the middle of the group and was happy to see a crash just behind him which reduced the group to just 14 riders. Is there a chance for a top 10 result? Trek's Stybar attacked and oddly enough, Quick-Step did little to pursue him, Stybar won the race by over a minute. As we headed towards the velodrome the E2 had been reduced by one rider. Thys found the rear wheel of none other than Peter Sagan. But sadly, Thys has no sprinting abilities and following Sagan wasn't the best choice on the day, either. Sagan finished 7th and Thys was 12th, only ahead of Breschel. Close, but no cigar.
Top 10: Stybar, Van Avermaet, Degenkolb, Boom, Kristoff, Terpstra, Sagan, Thomas, Demare, Roelandts
We couldn't have asked for a better race development, Thys finishing just one minute behind the winner is reason enough the celebrate if you look at the huge gaps in the other cobbled races. Still, it wasn't enough for the top 10, we have to strike lucky and find a better rider.
In between the two monuments we rode the Basque Tour. Kudus caught a cold, so we'd have to tackle the goal race without our captain.
The first stage can be a good chance for a breakaway, we placed Koloda in the group of 14 that took off, they put up a big fight but were caught after about 50 km, just before we reached the first real climb. Zilioli was furthest up in the peloton at that point and attacked. Nobody followed and so he'd be the lone escapee for the rest of the stage, a monumental task in strong winds above 70 kmph. With 20 km and two cat. 4 hills to go he still had an advantage of 3 minutes and we were really hoping he'd win the stage and complete the goal, but it wasn't to be. The favourites launched their attacks and caught Zilioli on the last small climb, Rui Costa won the stage ahead of Quintana, Zilioli was 19th.
And that was the clostest we got to winning a stage and also the best result for Aviva on any stage, so that's another blank in the results column. Davis was in the escape group on stage 3, Zilioli had another go on stage 4. He collected enough points to secure the mountains classification, sadly not a notable result for the sponsor. Koloda was in the breakaway on stage 5, with Nibali in the group he couldn't have won, but all breakaways were caught in this race anyway. Quintana laid the groundwork for his overall victory on stage 4, where he won over a minute ahead of the rest in a star-studded field of riders.
Top 10: Quintana, Porte, Spilak, Rui Costa, Kwiatkowski, Froome, Dan Martin, Rolland, Mollema, Geniez
Yeah, It's very disappointing when you are caught up at the finish line Just today, my cyclist, Nelson Vitorino (I'm playing now for Portuguese team Tavira in PCM 2011 ) was caught 300 meters before the finish line at Volta ao Algarve first stage
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, M. Lammertink, Schössler, Ivan Singh, Thys, Valgren, Wojtastik
The Brabantse Pjil was a minor objective. As always, we tried to get into the breakaway, a few attempts failed, but Wojtasik got away with two other riders, they were later joined by three more. The outside chance of making it to the end was foiled when Sagan and Boom attacked.
No team felt like putting up much of a fight and we let our men relay at the front of the group. When Sagan and Boom joined the breakaway riders Wojtasik was smart enough to hang onto them and the trio left the rest of the escapees behind. But Matthew Goss had snuck away from the peloton and Wojtasik stood no chance in the uphill sprint for 3rd. Turgot was 5th, the rest of the top 10 was made up of Aviva riders thanks to the passivity of our opponents. Overkill.
Top 10: Sagan, Boom, Goss, Wojtasik, Turgot, De Vreese, Valgren, de Jong, Thys, Schössler
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, Sebastian Henao, Vladimir Koloda, M. Lammertink, Ivan Singh, Tewelde, Wojtasik
Yet another top 10 goal. We don't have anybody who can realistically achieve this now that Hoem and Silva are gone. So we continued with the tactic we've been running on the cobblestones. Keep our men at the front of the peloton, wait out the attacks from the top riders and then work as a group to catch and overtake stragglers. Sadly, it just wasn't to be, we caught Ulissi, Bakelandts and Polanc, but exactly 10 good riders, all team captains, remained out of reach. Our riders only arrived 38 seconds behind the lower ranks of the top 10 and they all had unspent energy reserves, so possibly we could have achieved more. Maurits Lammertink was 11th, seven of our riders made the top 20, so a very good team result, but yet another goal failed.
Top 10: Rui Costa, Slagter, Gilbert, Dan Martin, Kwiatkowski, Porte, Toralf Mendez, Uran, Jelle Vanendert, Bardet
Rui Costa won 90 seconds ahead of the next trio. He's certainly a stronger rider here than in real life, now 2nd by AVG only behind Quintana, 3rd in the individual WT rankings in 2015, 2nd in 2016 and 2017. MON 80, HIL 80, TTR 76, ACC 83, STA 85, REC 79, great both in one-day and stage races. Noteable results include winning the Tour de Suisse, Paris-Nice twice, Pais Vasco, Oman, California and San Sebastian, now Amstel Gold and this week he'll also add the Fleche Wallone.
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, Fiedler, Sebastian Henao, Vladimir Koloda, M. Lammertink, Ivan Singh, Wojtasik
Fiedler replaced the injured Tewelde for the Fleche Wallone. It seemed a straightforward variant where we should be able to make it into the final ascent of the Mur from the front and hope that our men won't be outsprinted by too many riders. But PCM surprised us.
The attacks came thick and fast with over 30 km to go and despite our best efforts none of our riders could catch the baker's dozen ahead on the road. We were stuck in a group of over 40 riders, other teams worked, too, but the gap didn't drop below a minute. Our best performer was Laurens De Vreese as 17th, he lost the uphill sprint for 14th against Barguil, Mollema and Vuillermoz. Rui Costa won the race 8 seconds ahead of Dan Martin and Kwiatkowski.
Top 10: Rui Costa, Dan Martin, Kwiatkowski, Porte, Gilbert, Rolland, Slagter, Jelle Vanendert, Bardet, Kreuziger
Race squad: Damuseau, De Vreese, Grmay, Seb. Henao, Inacio, M. Lammertink, Ivan Singh, Waeytens
We changed tactics for LBL, declared De Vreese and Lammertink as the clear captains the others had to support. Those others included a few riders from the summer stage racing team, not in form, but we thought riding a monument. would make them happy.
Another tactical change was that we let De Vreese follow an attack by the top favourite Gilbert, hoping he could become part of a group of top riders which wouldn't be caught. But that didn't work out, after a few kilometres the peloton swallowed them again. So Lammertink was our last hope. Gilbert attacked again with three riders in tow, Lammertink tried to stay with the new group but faltered in the end. 10 is the magic number and once again all Lammertink could manage was to finish 11th, 31 seconds behind Barguil. Gilbert won his third LBL.
Top 10: Gilbert, Betancur, Dan Martin, Kwiatkowski, Slagter, Bardet, Porte, Ulissi, Rolland, Barguil
Oh well, no WT points in the Ardennes Week, 11th twice. We just need a little more quality to be competitive here. With Singh we already have one rider who has the potential, who should be able to break into the top 10 next season if he progresses well. Hopefully we can sign one or two more guys of hs calibre.
@tomcat: Not bad, but we got into the top 10 in all three races last season, so it is a bit disappointing to take a step back. We are missing Hoem, of course, with the elf-imposed wage limit we can't hold onto any good rider.
Racing is certainly easier a level below the WT. We fulfilled the goal on stage 1, winning the team time trial. We hadn't planned for that, but we were 8 seconds faster than Team Sky. We didn't take it easy after that. Formolo was our man in the breakaway on stage 2, he took off alone on the final climb and held off Betancur by 35 seconds to win the stage.
On stage 3 Davis finished only behind Cort Nielsen, on stage 4 Figares was 2nd behind Possoni, while on stage 5 Betancur overtook the breakaway well before the finish line, Kudus was 4th that day. Betancur didn't just win the race very comfortably – 8'52'' ahead of Majka! - he also walked away with the KOM jersey, equal on points with Figares.
Top 10: Betancur, Majka, Herklotz, Stetina, Kangert, Simon Yates, Rosa, Acevedo, Kulpaka, Minguez
Aviva was only 15th in the team time trial, which kicked off the Tour de Romandie. Stage 2 was hilly, but not overly so, three small climbs in the first half of the stage and then one more in the finale. Inacio escaped with Bongiorno, Rubiano, Preidler, Mohoric and Houle, but they were caught by the reduced peloton of 60 riders and Rui Costa won ahead of Barguil and Matthews.
Zilioli was set for another lone breakaway on the tougher stage 3. He was in good form, our best bet for a stage win in this race, and he was already 6 minutes behind in the GC and so not much of a threat. He was 5 minutes ahead when a worst case scenario hit: Uran attacked from the peloton and was allowed to jump away. Now either the peloton would catch the duo or Uran drop Zilioli – in fact, both happened. At least we had the mountain jersey. Zilioli tried to secure it on the penultimate stage, flat for a long time and then two huge climbs. The breakaway was caught in the middle of the first mountain, Zilioli hung on, led the group towards the summit, but the favourites decided to attack at that point. Zilioli was 4th at the summit, the jersey seemed safe. But sadly Quintana won the stage and the MTT on the final day where he collected 12 more points and beat Zilioli by 2 points. So even winning KOM jerseys seems to have become more difficult.
Yet another race from which we walk away empty handed. And we'd really hoped this season would be different. Valgren picked up 10 points in Gent-Wevelgem, that increased Aviva's total in the WT rankings from the 201 after the TDU to 211 ahead of the Giro. The 5 victories so far are: Tim De Jong winning stage 5 Down Under, Wojtasik winning stage 1 and overall in the Tour du Haut Var-Matin plus the TTT and Formolo in the first two stages of the Giro del Trentino.
I can't quite hide my disappointment, I really thought the team had progressed and the results would show this. But we haven't been able to replace Hoem and Rafael Silva, we still aren't competitive on cobblestones and the stage races in March and April remain too tough for us. We need to do well with new signings and then there's one last card to play this winter which might help. But back to the here and now, next up is a pretty crazy Giro.
Once more, though not an official goal, our priority is the mountain jersey. That would raise the reputation of a rider and it's something the sponsor is still loudly complaining about. As for the GC, Kreuziger (MON 83) is the clear favourite, defending champion Porte decided to skip this race, he went on to win the Bayern Rundfahrt instead.
Like the Romandie the Giro 2018 started with a team time trial. Astana held off Movistar by 8 seconds, Manuel Belletti is the first wearer of the pink jersey. The Kasach team doesn't have great GC ambitions this year, the captain is Jur Kulpaka (MON 77 TTR 79). He's still only 24 years old and will win the U25 classification by over an hour.
Even just spending a day in the mountain jersey is a notable result and we fulfilled that first sub-goal on the flat stage 2. Delfi Grande crossed all three of the smallish hilltops first in a spirited fight against Dal Canto. We have no GC hopes so we already let all riders drop back by 6 to 12 minutes. Grande attacked again on the hilly stage 5 to extend his lead in the KOM classification. The breakaway couldn't keep the peloton at bay, the second half of the race was mostly flat, it was always unlikely. Grande now has 82 mountain points, Koretzky is second with 31 points.
The following day was one of those crazy romps that make PCM such a joy. It's the first mountain stage, not too tough, categories 3, 2, 2, 1 and 2 and then downhill to the finish line. Of our two MON 75 riders, already over 30 minutes behind in the GC, Figares was closer to the front and he created the breakaway. He was upset to see Nerz (MON 78) join, a superior climber and only 2 minutes behind in the GC. A little later Fuglsang also joined the group of 10 riders which boiled down to six on the first cat 2 climbs. Before the top of the third climb Rigoberto Uran Uran (again) decided to attack from the peloton and that led to three of the favourites, Kreuziger (MON 83), Mollema (80) and Talansky (79) leaving behind everybody else.
The gap to the front group was already 12 minutes at that point, but the four favourites were going to catch Figares and the other escapees eventually. Three riders in the group were totally unwilling to cooperate with Fuglsang, and Brambilla didn't do much, so Figares was mostly passive, too. On the final climb the big names caught us and Fuglsang should now start working for his captain Mollema. Instead, he decided to attack again. Figares joins in, he can barely follow Fuglsang, but the duo gains 90 seconds on the rest who were all watching each other. Sadly, Fuglsang had the reserves for another attack and he left Figares behind. Kreuziger then caught our man, Figares was able to stay behind him on the descent and finish third on the day.
After the first bloodbath Mollema took pink, a fraction of a second ahead of Kreuziger, Fuglsang was 3rd, followed by Talansky and Uran. Sky's captain Majka lost nearly 8 minutes, Movistar's captain Pinot and Quick-Step's Adam Yates more than 15 minutes. We lost Valgren, he finished the stage but was diagnosed with a broken rib afterwards.
Sebastian Henao's chance came on stage 9, the second of four hilly stages in this Giro. It wasn't an ideal terrain for him, with the toughest hill 50 km out and a straightforward finale. He looked comfortable enough against Gorka Izagirre and Bennett, but then the late attacks came, Mollema in pink went first, unchallenged, to win the stage and gain time against his fiercest rvials. Ulissi and Adam Yates also overtook Henao, who was 4th, just ahead of the other favourites.
The first tough mountain stage already decided the GC. Kudus was up against Hansen (MON 77) in the breakaway, but was allowed to take all the mountain points and moved to the top of the ranking with 110 points. The peloton, partly thanks to our ex-rider Golem, didn't give us much room and Mollema caught us in the descent towards the final climb, Kudus rode the rest of the stage with minimal effort. Nobody challenged Mollema, Kreuziger gave him 3'30'' on the stage and Talansky, 2nd in the GC, was 14 minutes behind. He still only dropped to 4th despite the huge gap, behind Mollema, Kreuziger and Mollema's team mate Fuglsang. Uran and Majka lost nearly 10 minutes, Adam Yates more than 11... strange how these things play out at times.
With those huge gaps breakaways were very likely to succeed from now on, but strong riders might join the fun. Figares got his second chance a day later, the biggest threat in the breakaway was Tim Wellens. The peloton sped up halfway through the short stage and reduced the lead to 3 minutes but then eased off, letting the escapees win. Figares had to settle for second place behind Wellens, but took the lead in the mountain classification, which has been in our hands sind stage 2.
On a nominally flat stage but with steep hills in the finale it was Waeytens' turn. This time it was soon clear the breakaway would make it, but the competition was too tough, Serry jumped away and claimed the stage, Waeytens was 3rd behind Geschke. Then Formolo got his chance on a short stage with one long final climb. But he could only manage 5th behind Gorka Izagirre, Hansen, Dyachenko and Armee.
The good news came on stage 14, accompanied by some bad news. A flat stage without any classified climbs but enough bumps in the finale to be interesting. It seemed unlikely Inacio, one of our weakest riders, would stand a chance against his 7 competitors, but they were attacking each other all day long while Inacio saved up his enery for the finale and won the stage! Sadly, we failed to realise just how long the leash was the peloton had given the breakaway, anybody who wasn't in the peloton or the next group would miss the time limit. That was the end for Waeytens, Formolo and, crucially perhaps, Kudus.
Next up was the monster stage 15 on which two of our riders ran out of energy completely. The first was Figares, who added plenty of points to his blue jersey, but Landa and De Gendt set an uncomfortably high tempo throughout the stage. Landa won the stage by over 6 minutes, Mollema was 2nd, increasing his GC lead even further. Figares trundled over the line as 10th, 10'26'' behind. Inacio also ran out of energy and was the last rider to finish inside the time limit as 141st. Figares at this point had a good but not certain lead in the KOM rankings, 234 points, ahead of Landa (140) and De Gendt (135) with two more high scoring stages to go.
A short hilly stage which started with a long irregular climb seemed perfect for our nominally best rider, Sebastian Henao. But it was a frustrating experience, Henao couldn't even keep up with the others, Kangert, Wellens, Polanc, Brambilla, Duarte and Kadri on the first climb, Nordhaug brought him back but the group never slowed down and Henao finished 8th, 5 minutes behind Kangert – who is certainly a stronger rider, but Henao's HIL is actually better, so we aren't quite sure why he performed so poorly. Inacio was once again the last rider to make the tight time limit on the short stage, the peloton was down to 134 riders.
Stage 17 consisted of just three big climbs, and Zilioli was finally let off the leash in his home race. But he stood no chance in a group of strong climbers including Aru (MON 79), who was eventually beaten by Intxausti. None of the biggest threats for Figares' jersey were in the group, so things were still looking good on that front.
Mollema then won the MTT, putting yet more time between himself and who should have been the best climber in the race, Kreuziger, who was only 12th, losing another minute. Then came the final mountain stage, Figares probably didn't need to do anything to defend the jersey but of course he attacked. Strong winds, insane speed, Figares was nearly dropped on an early descent and the first climb, but he led the group across the peak, another attack and it would have been game over early on. But it didn't matter anyway, this time the peloton was chasing hard and the stage went to Adam Yates.
On stage 20 the breakaway worked well. Sadly, the second half was mostly flat and once more strong winds were blowing. The last chance to drop the opponents might have been a small incline 15 km out, but that was followed by 10 km headwind. Grande, who was in the breakaway, can't sprint and he doesn't even have any acceleration. So all he could do was lead the group into the final kilometre and the best sprinter, Koretzky, had no trouble winning the stage, Grande was 5th.
Jur Kulpaka, won the final ITT. His first victory ever, discounting the TTT, a great result for the young man. It also moved him up to 9th in the final GC. He might just win a Grand Tour at some point if he keeps improving. Mollema wins both the Giro and the points classification by impressive margins, as well as three stages. In the GC Kreuziger ends exactly 10 minutes behind, Majka takes the final podium spot, over 19 minutes behind Mollema.
Top 10: Mollema, Kreuziger, Majka, Uran, Adam Yates, Talansky, Fuglsang, Nerz, Kulpaka, Ulissi
Figares achieves our personal goal of winning the blue jersey, ahead of Landa and Grande. The only stage win came from the unlikeliest of riders, Inacio (AVG 70), who managed to beat riders like Michel Koch (HIL 80), Nordhaug, Degand and Ludvigsson on stage 14. Figares added two podium finishes, Waeytens another one.
That took our sponsor confidence above average, after it had bottomed out in March. Figares has made it to international reputation after the Giro, but he is topped by Delfi Grande and his continental reputation, just spending a few days in the blue jersey seems to be just as good as winning it in the end. Or maybe he's damn attractive.
It turns out that I was too careless in my season planning, I had a bunch of riders whom I kept for the second half of the season - the summer team, as I like to call it - but started their training too late. They were in terrible form for the California Tour and wouldn't be able to get us the stage the sponsor wanted, so Noah Davis had to miss the Giro for the one mountain stage in California. That's the reason I said earlier it was partly my fault that Davis didn't collect any WT points. Now the pressure was on him to win us a stage in California, and there was only one stage he could win, if he didn't, it would have been very poor planning.
Not that we didn't try to relieve the pressure by winning with a different rider. Schössler got damn close on stage 4, but he was caught by the sprinters inside the final kilometre.
So it was down to Davis and Mount Diablo on stage 7. It was a nice group, 9 men strong, nobody challenging for the GC. The advantage at the foot of the final climb was 3'30'' and was helped by the fact that Gilbert (MON 75) was the race leader and so BMC couldn't set too high a pace. By the time Belkin's Olivier and Boswell attacked Davis still had 90 seconds in hand, he finally dropped Verona and got us the 3-star sponsor goal, also winning the final mountain classification. We're glad that worked out.
Bonus news: One of our best riders, Toms Skujins, broke his hip back in February and missed most of the season so far. But he's back, and back with a shout, he won the GP Plumelec.
June 2018: A look at the current standings after the Giro. Porte (426) is leading the individual WT rankings ahead of Sagan (397) and Rui Costa (364). Mollema (278) jumped 14 places up into 7th with his Giro win. Aviva's best rider is Ivan Singh, 38th with 61 points. But that's all from the great TDU, in the team rankings we are stuck at 211 points, still just 10 more than at the end of January. 14 riders have scored WT points so far, but only the top 5 count towards the team rankings, that's why we aren't seeing any progress currently. That should change now, tradionally we score most of our points in the second half of the season.
BMC (1042) is leading Sky (895) and Quickstep (751). Garmin has been unable to score a single WT point thus far, Caja Rural (34) occupies the second relegation spot, but is only 2 points behind IAM (36). Sagan already racked up 18 victories so far, Nizzolo and Quintana follow with 11 each.
June 2018: Criterium du Dauphine
*** goal: Stage Win
The last race for our spring team before the riders take a long break. Desperate enough for a good result we sent Waeytens into the breakaway on the flat opening stage. He beat his rivals on the two classified climbs to take the first mountain jersey, but the stage ended in a mass sprint won by Ewan.
Stage 2 was hilly with a downhill finish and we have two good descenders here, Schössler and Grande. The German made the breakaway, but the group was too large and was caught after a long chase, with only 50 of 140 km to go. So Grande joined the next group to get away, led by an ageing and fading Valverde. The old champion couldn't hold on in the end, but Hardy attacked over the last hill and all Grande and Pirazzi could do was catch him again. But Hardy was the best sprinter of the trio, Grande had to settle for second place.
The next stage was nearly a carbon copy, both in profile and how it developed. First Schössler initiated a 5-men breakaway, but when the group was 90 seconds ahead the peloton started the chase and eventually, only two riders survived, Ignatiev and Mühlberger. So Grande slips away to join them. They create a good gap, and with 3 minutes ahead and 30 km and the final hill to go, things were looking good.
Ignatiev attacked at the foot of the climb and got a gap as the acceleration challenged Grande (60, though with "unlimited" potential) took time to get into higher gear. But he caught Ignatiev, created a slight gap at the top of the climb and with his superior descending skill he easily won the stage, another 3 star goal ticked off, Ignatiev is consoled with the race lead.
Castroviejo won the ITT ahead of Tony Martin and Cancellara. Stage 5 finished on the Mont Ventoux, Noah Davis had made the breakaway which had an advantage of 5 minutes going into the big final climb. With Trofimov he had one opponent he couldn't beat, eventually both were caught by the favorites and Trofimov was 4th, Davis 6th, just missing out on a WT point. Kreuziger won the stage, moved into the lead and went on to win the Dauphine after failing to win the Giro.
The 6th stage from Nyons to Digne-les-Baines featured a steep cat. 2 in the finale. Sebastian Henao was going to be our escape artist, but he was too far back in the peloton, Arashiro attacked as soon as the race started. So Kudus made the group, but Konovalovas, Arashiro and Lutsenko were three tough opponents. Eventually Konovalovas proved too strong, winning by nearly a minute. Kudus was runner-up, just ahead of Sagan, who had overtaken the rest of the breakaway.
Then came the queen stage and we put our hopes on Giro hero Figares. But the group was simply too strong, Poels won the stage ahead of Kennaugh and our ex-rider Kirchmair. The breakaway was allowed a lot of leeway, Davis attacked from the peloton on the HC climb in the middle of the stage to maybe improve his 19th position. A bit odd, considering we made him lose 6 minutes on the opening stage. He was overtaken only by Kreuziger, Barguil and Dan Martin – but after the stage he was 19th, just like before. He made time on a lot of riders, but all escapees bar Figares moved past him in the GC.
Delfi Grande was the man for the final hilly stage, though flat for the last 10 km. He still had an outside chance to win the points classification, though no intermediate sprints were placed. Had the finish line been 10 km earlier, Grande would have won, but Kadri overtook him and he lost out to Salerno, too. Since Kreuziger and Dan Martin scored a few points, Grande ends 3rd in the points classification. But it was a fine race from him, fulfilling the sponsor goal of a stage win.
Top 10: Kreuziger, Barguil, Dan Martin, Uran, Poels, Van Garderen, Wellens, Fröhlinger, Kennaugh, Seeldraeyers
The spring stage racing squad goes into a long break after the Dauphine. It wasn't terribly successful, winning a stage each in the Giro (Inacio), the Dauphine (Grande), in California (Davis) and Trentino (Formolo), where it also won the team time trial. Now it's time for the summer team and the first test is the Tour de Suisse.
The prologue went to Howson, stage 2 was a typical PCM nuisance. A first mountain stage, totally flat until the final climb to Alp Rionda. The favourites had attacked and nobody wanted to lead the grupetto with all our men, heart rate below 130, so I set Köszegi to pull the group with 48 effort 7 km from the top. It took him 5 km to pass the one guy blocking him on the narrow road. We lost 25 minutes, but fortunately, that was still inside the time limit.
Stage 3 to Zermatt featured several big climbs. Köszegi won the KOM fight, collecting 3 more points than neo-pro Valerien Blanco. But the favourites decided the stage, Quintana beat Porte and Froome, just like he did a day earlier.
The next day Damuseau got his chance, at first the breakaway consisted only of him and Bilbao, but Roux, Barta and Frapporti joined them later. But the stage was too easy, Ciolek won the sprint from the reduced bunch. Skujins had to attempt breakaways on the two consecutive flat stages, but it was never to be, with Kittel winning both.
Maybe we should have saved Skujins for the uphill finale on stage 7. Instead, it was Manaia's turn. He comes with MON 74 HIL 74 and has a better fitness level than Skujins, which should make him as good a choice for the stage. He started way back in the peloton and had to catch up to a group of 4 riders. It included Egoitz Garcia, who on paper was the clear favourite among the quintett. The peloton would not give the group much room, 5 minutes at the most, below 3 minutes with 40 km to go.
But Manaia set a high pace up a cat 2 climb which increased the advantage back to 4'30'' and we reached the final climb with 3 minutes to spare. It wasn't the steepest of climbs, Maniana attacked on one of the steeper sections and it was enough to get a gap the others couldn't close anymore. Kwiatkowski attacked from the bunch which prompted a chase by race leader Quintana, joined by Betancur. But the finish line was drawing closer and closer and Manaia took the stage with 42 seconds to spare and fulfilled this 4-star objective. It's his third season with Aviva, his first win, though he also captured the mountain jersey in the Pais Vasco last year.
For the last big stage we had to decide between Grmay and Köszegi. The latter could defend the mountain jersey he's been wearing since stage 3, but Grmay is our best climber and thus would have the best chance of winning the stage. We went with Grmay, thinking he might also win the jersey if he collects all the points.
The peloton had no objection to the breakaway winning the stage. Edet (MON 76) was the toughest opponent on paper, but already the first climb showed he wasn't in top form. He attacked at the foot of the long and irregular final climb and gained a minute, Grmay waited until the steeper last 10 km to increase effort and tempo. He caught and then left behind Edet and won the stage by 1'32'', Jungels was 3rd. Quintana dropped Porte and Froome and cemented his GC lead. 51 mountain points for Grmay, that was the lead and that was another mountain classification for an Aviva rider.
The final stage was a very long and irregular MTT, won by Kwiatkowski ahead of Froome and Quintana. But the Colombian had a solid lead and his overall victory was never in doubt. Froomedog moved past Porte into 2nd, Kwiatkowski overtook Betancur to finish 5th.
Top 10: Quintana, Froome, Porte, Rui Costa, Kwiatkowski, Betancur, Rolland, Ion Izagirre, Jungels, Dennis
What a start for the summer team, two stages and the mountain jersey. That give us a lot of confidence for the Tour de France. The sponsor's happiness has finally climbed above average, though only barely.
Despite the confidence moving above average before the transfer window opened, the sponsor is considering lowering our monthly budget slightly from 260k to 255k. Of course, we don't care much, with our wage ceiling we'll need 135k at most. 5,000 Euros per month is the new limit for next year.
14 contracts are running out. We'd love to extend several of them, but all the AVG 73 riders (De Vreese, Lammertink, Thys, Skujins and Figares) demand too much, between 10k and 12k. Even the AVG 72 riders want more than that, spelling doom for Valgren and Damuseau. We offered them all the 5k we can pay, but they all refused. In the end we could only get Köszegi to sign on the dotted line, he still has room to improve.
There was an internal debate whether we shouldn't hold onto Bugge, who proved to be good enough to reach the finale in Flanders and yet is so unimposing with his AVG 70 that he's unmarked and allowed late attacks. But with neo-pro Mads Veiby there is another Norwegian on the market who has a nearly identical skillset and at the age of 22 should still be able to improve. (And boy, will we love Veiby, he'll prove to be a fantastic signing and will win a race we never thought we could win.)
The first two signings are Alexandr Polyakov and Tjeu Heubach. Polyakov is a direct replacement for Thys, only really targeting one WT race all season with his COB 80 and little else. Heubach offers COB 74 FLA 73, he might be more likely to succeed with a late attack in case Polyakov is marked.
Later we swept up a quartett of young sprinters. I don't enjoy playing stages which end in a mass sprint as much, but we currently have too many climbers and punchers to make use of them all so it makes sense to diversify. I'll play a few of these stages, but most results will probably be simulated. Two of them will never be good enough to claim wins on WT level, the third only barely, maxing out at SPR 79 ACC 80 but his other stats remain weak. But a young Canadian, Theo Biello, has the right stuff – and he's on a three-year contract. He'll start with SPR 73, though, so patience is required.
Next up is the Tour de France, I think that'll be my longest report yet. In other news, we won three NCs: Portugal (Inacio), Spain (Grande) and Germany (Schössler).
Race squad: Damuseau, De Vos, De Vreese, Fiedler, Foetz, Grmay, Kuznetsov, Manaia, McLean
PCMCE predicts Quintana (Quick-Step) to win the Tour ahead of Kreuziger (Orica), Froome (Astana), Porte (Sky) and Kwiatkowski (Giant). Outsiders are Porte's team mates Barguil and Van Garderen as well as Rui Costa (Lotto) and Uran (Belkin). Some of these riders would pretty much be out of contention after the first week. Kwiatkowski is the defending champion and was able to beat the clear favourite Quintana last year.
He started where he left off, in yellow, by winning the prologue in Bruges ahead of Castraviejo and Dumoulin. Stage 2 contained a couple of small cobbled hills and two more short but sharp cat. 4s, one very close to the finish on this nominally flat stage. Kuznetsov and the cobblestone specialist Breschel formed the breakaway. With maximum effort Kuznetsov just won the first cobbled but steep climb and he also took the second. He stood no chance on the other cobbled climb but as long as neither makes it to the last climb, our man will wear the first polkadot jersey.
So Kuznetsov simply refused to cooperate with 50 km to go, he'd rather the duo was caught by the peloton than go head-to-head against Breschel. Plus we felt De Vreese had an outside chance to win the stage with that short climb ahead. The duo was caught and then Terpstra jumped away with Stybar and Kristoff in tow. De Vreese was just about able to keep up, thanks to a strong headwind. Terpstra would be too weak on the final climb, but Stybar proved his superiority and left De Vreese in the dust, Kristoff also squeezed past. Stybar won the stage ahead of Kristoff, while De Vreese was swallowed by the peloton. Kwiatek remained in yellow, but Kuznetsov also made a podium appearance, donning the first polkadot jersey. It's a + noteworthy result, so nicely done.
But the real cobblestone test came on stage 3, with lots of sectors crammed into the last third of the stage. If we had a rider for the GC we'd be very worried about this stage, as it was, it was an easy ride, eventually all our riders found each other and finished in a group 15 minutes behind.
Vanmarcke and Cancellara seemed to have made the winning move, but Sagan had a host of BMC team mates in support, they caught the duo and then Sagan jumped away to win the stage by 34 seconds and moved into yellow. Of the GC candidates Kwiatkowski and Betancur were the best, 6 minutes behind. Froome, Quintana and Dan Martin finished together 35 seconds later. Kreuziger was in the next group, Pinot and Barguil were about 2 minutes behind Froome. Porte, nominally Sky's captain, was the biggest loser, over 12 minutes behind Sagan and nearly 6 behind Froome and Quintana.
You would have thought that the following hilly stage would be the first real chance for the breakaway to succeed, while the GC candidates recover from the previous day. Instead, it became another fully fledged GC fight. Kuznetsov animanted two riders to join him in the escape group, though both were stronger than he liked, El Fares and Le Bon. The latter also was only 3 minutes down in the GC, but he rides for BMC and the race leader, so maybe that wouldn't be a problem. Kuznetsov didn't fight for the first cat. 4, since a cat. 3 came 8km later and he won there to defend his jersey.
But at the same time, the peloton exploded. We didn't see who caused this, but Kwiatek, Sagan and Quintana were suddenly in a group of 9 riders, Froome and Kreuziger were chasing on their own while Betancur relied on team mates to bring him back. Porte was also in the mix after losing so much time the previous day. They all came back together but more attacks followed. In the end, Kwiatkowski won the stage in the uphill sprint ahead of Dan Martin and Sagan. Quintana, Betancur, Pinot and Costa were awarded the same time as Sagan, 20 seconds behind Kwiatek. Froome lost a few seconds, Kreuziger 2 minutes.
Kwiatek now leads Betancur by nearly a minute with Quintana, Rui Costa, Froome and Dan Martin close behind. Sky's co-captains Van Garderen and Barguil are another 3 minutes down, together with Kreuziger, while Sky's leader Porte is trailing by 7'20''.
Sagan beat Kittel on stage 5 and is already in good position to win the green jersey once again. Next up a stage from Nancy to Haut-Koenigsbourg, with the finish line atop a 7 km hill, the rest of the stage is mostly flat. Fiedler was our choice for the breakaway, sadly, he was joined by two very strong riders, Ignatiev and Jungels. All three were far back in the GC and were given some breathing room, but after an acceleration by the peloton the gap was only 3 minutes with 40 km to go. But the breakaway put up a real fight and went into the final climb with 2 minutes to spare.
Ignatiev was the first to attack, but it wasn't as scorching as we feared and Fiedler was able to keep up with Jungels (HIL 80) as they caught the Russian. Who would have thought, Fiedler was still far from exhausted and still had a real chance. Though now the favourites were also getting aggressive, with 3 km to go nothing was clear. But that changed soon, Fiedler dared a short attack and created some distance to Jungels, Ignatiev looked even worse! And Fiedler wins the stage! He beat Jungels, Dan Martin took the last bonus seconds, passing Ignatiev and gaining time on the rest of the favourites. Kwiatkowski, Betancur and Rui Costa were next, Froome and Quintana lost a minute to Dan Martin and half that to the others.
A day after Fiedler's victory we arrived at the first mountain stage. Had it been a quiet race so far, with small time gaps, I wouldn't have bet any money on the breakaway. But the first few days were pretty crazy, so Grmay might not only be fighting for the polkadot jersey, but a stage victory, too. The stage featured several large climbs and a mountaintop finish, a climb of 8 km to Le Gaschney.
Grmay started at the back of the peloton, but thankfully, only a duo of riders escaped, Geschke and Coppel. Our best climber was able to launch his attack with the duo two minutes ahead and nobody followed him. Coppel has MON 77, like Grmay, but he didn't seem to be in top form. His attacks for the mountain points were unconvincing, Grmay usually overtook him without trouble and claimed top points every time and at the end of the day took the jersey from his team mate Kuznetsov.
The gap grew to a comfortable 12 minutes, though Sagan's BMC set a high pace up the biggest climb, with two more mountains to go, enough to reduce the peloton to just 18 riders. Quintana attacked near the top and that started a big fight between the favourites, who were closing the gap to the remaining duo Coppel and Grmay at an alarming rate. Quintana spent time out in the wind, a group of 8 was chasing him, Betancur had to work to get back and pulled more riders along. Rui Costa tried his luck, so did Dan Martin. Thankfully, there were some lulls and victory for the breakaway became more likely again.
And then Coppel cracked on the final climb and Grmay wins the stage, second in a row for Aviva. Yes! Coppel ends 33 seconds behind, third is Kwiatkowski, 1'19'' behind Grmay. He had done very little, let others do the work, and then sped away. Quintana was about 40 seconds behind, but the rest lost over 3 minutes. Sagan, who'd even taken turns up the penultimate climb, was 14th on the day and still wears the yellow jersey, now just 18 seconds ahead of Kwiatek, Quintana is 2'39'' behind, only Betancur, Martin and Rui Costa remain within 5 minutes. Van Garderen is best of the Sky trio in 10th position. So Quintana is on the back foot once again, the situation looks even worse for the other pre-race favourites.
Sagan then wins his third stage, ahead of Degenkolb and Bouhanni, Kittel a disappointing 9th. We had marked the next day for Foetz (MON 75 DHI 77), if he doesn't get dropped on the final climb the steep 12 km descent to Annemasse could give him an edge. However, Velits (MON 77) also joined the group. This time BMC did no more than strictly necessary, the breakaway riders reached the final climb with 19 minutes to spare and even Schär (MON 69) was still in the mix. Sadly, Velits was in top form and rode away, Foetz had to settle for second place, ahead of the white jersey, 23-year old neo-pro Albiol. Quintana and Froome proved that they are the best climbers, but they only gained seconds on Kwiatkowski, who slipped back into yellow and can increase his lead with the long ITT tomorrow.
The ITT goes to Cancellara, who even at the age of 37 still boasts TTR 81, FLA 84 and COB 81. He beat Castroviejo and Dumoulin. Quintana was a good 15th and lost only 29 seconds against Kwiatkowski, the gap is now 2'19''. Sagan is still 3rd, followed by Froome and Rui Costa, while Betancur and Dan Martin lost a lot of time.
After a stage for Matthews ahead of Kittel and Sagan we faced a very flat and long stage with only a small cat. 4 just before the finish line and that was enough for a hilly classification. It meant that even though the escape group was well within reach with 50 km to go, the sprinter teams didn't help, the gap grew again and the group would make it. We had sent Fiedler into the breakaway and he was antagonisingly close to winning a second stage. Again, Ignatiev was one of his opponents, so were Terpstra, Serry, Kadri, El Fares as well as Uran, the pre-race outside favourite who was in terrible form. Fiedler was lucky that others reacted to late attacks and pulled him along and then he took the lead as the short climb started. He attacked 500 metres from the top, got a small gap, only 2 km to go... but then he was outsprinted by Terpstra, Serry and Kadri. Nothing happened in the GC.
So now awaiting Roubaix.
Just today, my cyclist, Nelson Vitorino (I'm playing now for Portuguese team Tavira in PCM 2011 
) was caught 300 meters before the finish line at Volta ao Algarve first stage 
