The stage is classified as hilly, but there is not a lot of climbing to be done, the stage is for almost the whole stage is flat except the last two steep hills, we don’t really expect anybody to launch successful attack on the first hill, so it should end with the small peloton sprinting for the win.
The Italian town of Campione d'Italia on Lake Lugano is the stunning setting for the grand depart and we certainly enjoy the views so far. We hope the result will be as good as the view as well.
The day is marked by the breakaway of three riders, none of them yet made any big impact on the cycling world, but this day may be a great day to start it.
When Francesco Failli (ISD) attacked, we consulted the directors and decided to let him go, but if he made it to the break and the gap was big enough we would start chasing the breakaway.
Surprisingly with 75km to go another favourite attacks, this time it is Dan Martin (Garmin), while Failli made it to the break with ease, they started to increase the advantage to over 4 minutes, we didn’t like both facts and decided to chase after Martin and the break.
The Sky in action, 60km to go and Dan Martin had to give up and stood no chance against high temp of Sky, in the background you can already see the break, with now only 2 minutes, we want to catch the break before the hills begin to rest our riders.
And the break is caught, we have done the job and we can ease off and let other control the pace, 40km to go and the small hills are about to begin.
As suspected nobody tried to attack on the first hill, and additionally AG2R has been doing extreme tempo letting nobody come even close to the front, 7km to go.
4.5km to go and Karpets attacks with a strong acceleration, is this the winning move ?
We had only seconds to decide whether to decide to do something and knowing that Lofkvist sprinting ablities aren’t great we decided to attack and after heroic attack joins Karpets but his totally exhausted. They have already advantage of 31 seconds, with 3km to go will they make it ?
And they certainly can, Karpets wins the ‘inauguration’ of the first classics of the season, though we get second with Lofkvist, we are really happy as it is his debut for Sky this year and already he achieved great result. Urán came 8th in the mass sprint, I expected slightly better, but he falled back slightly after the downhill. Michele Scarponi wins the mass sprint and comes 3rd.
Results
Sorry, forgot to export the results.
As I already said, the 2nd is a great result for us, Lofkvist came here to improve his fitness and he did more than was expected of him. Now he will be our captain for the GP di Lugano on the next day. Urán 8th also didn’t disappoint and we hope he can do better and take the first stage win for Sky in March. Now the next race is in Belgium and one of the most important classics for us, the Omloop as we are on pressure to defend Flecha’s amazing victory last season.
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (previously known as Omloop Het Volk) is a Flanders Classics single day cycle race held in the Belgian province of East Flanders. It uses some parts of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen and is a preperation race for the big cobbled classics. It is characterised by strong winds, cold weather and short but steep cobbled climbs.
The 2011 Omloop Route
In 2008 the race finished in Ghent with 11 climbs and 16 km of cobbles in 199 km The start is outside Ghent's Museum of Contemporary Art. The Molenberg is the final climb 39 km from the finish and this short climb which averages almost 10% in gradient can be the launching point for a winning break. The race finishes in the centre of Ghent.
Result in 2010
1 Juan Antonio Flecha Sky Professional Cycling Team
2 Heinrich Haussler Cervelo Test Team
3 Tyler Farrar Garmin – Transitions
4 Luca Paolini Acqua & Sapone
5 Marcel Sieberg Team HTC – Columbia
6 Edvald Boasson Hagen Sky Professional Cycling Team
7 Niko Eeckhout An Post – Sean Kelly
8 Bernhard Eisel Team HTC – Columbia
9 Tom Veelers Skil – Shimano
10 Filippo Pozzato Team Katusha
Last year J.A.Flecha brought his first Sky victory ever, and it marks the only cobble classic Sky has won last year. This season pressure is on us to repeat the success, Flecha is definitely up for it, taking 3rd overall and a stage win at the Tour of Oman. As well this season we bring more great back-up for Flecha with Jeremy Hunt joining our ranks, we have a strong helper for Flecha on the cobbles.
Sky Team 2011
Juan Antonio Flecha Jeremy Hunt Kurt-Asle Arvesen Geraint Thomas Edvald Boasson Hagen Matthew Hayman Ian Standard Christopher Sutton
We will start of the classic season with our best team on the cobbles, par Wiggins who won't race a lot, doing tow GT's this year. Except of Flecha, other riders have a so-so fitness and all will help Flecha win the classic, we will try to help Hagen get trough the cobbles as well, as the chance is the classic might end up in the mass sprint.
Sky Management expects victory and for that we need Flecha at it’s best and definitely he needs to attack, he showed in Oman that he can win sprints, but he doesn’t really stands a big chance against Boonen or Hushovd in sprinting. That means at least at one point we need to attack, Sky scanned the whole route and found one point where attack looks good and might surprise other opponents, but you will see that in the race.
Biggest surprise is that Vacansoleil won`t participate. A big shock given that the team has two Belgians in their team able to win this race, Stijn Devolder and Bjorn Leukemans. Devolder already looked quite strong taking 5th overall in Tour of Qatar and looked like a rider in form, so not able to participate in this race must be a tad disappointing.
Even though Vacansoleil missed out, their management was be frustrated with the fact that Euskatel and Movistar are participating the race, with no one able to win it, even the world-wide cycling press picked up on that one, and challenged the ‘choosing teams system’ and many people voiced their opinions to reform it, or simply cyanide should do better at scripting the game
Now we come to the favourites and Cancellara must be the top one on the paper, winning last year Ronde and Paris-Roubaix he showed he is the best cobble rider in the world, but this year it’s gonna be different, the change is approaching and we think Flecha ... Juan Antonio Flechawill be able to challenge him at every cobble race, and beat him.
As I already said Cancellara big favourite, already impressed at Volta ao Algarve, winning tow stages, taking 2nd overall and the points jersey, but in our mind someone else is even bigger favourite, and that is Flecha.
Bonnen, Hushovd and Haussler are good bets with their great sprint ability, Phillipe Gilbert after last majestic season hopefully kicks his season off here, after disappointing Mallorca.
There are many favourites I must omit due to the writing reasons, but I think you can see the basic idea of who is good enough for the win, also to point out, the favourite table doesn’t show the all best cobble riders but riders able to win with good sprinting abilities as well, as in Pro Cycling Manager 9 times out of 10, this stage ends with sprint for the win.
I need some feedback please Do you prefer to have long-ish previews, like this one to read, or you just prefer to see the starlist, favourite and then the race ?
Edited by Alakagom on 24-02-2011 22:13
I like it this way. Maybe a little bit shorter. The commentary of the favourites can be shortened as you already listed them with the stars. Also you could half the text to your team and the startlist.
But this is always hard to say as it is different from race to race.
Alakagom wrote:
I need some feedback please Do you prefer to have long-ish previews, like this one to read, or you just prefer to see the starlist, favourite and then the race ?
Im not gonna lie, but I usually just skim through previews and stuff, but the boldingand highlighting of words made it easier and nicer. Plus the layout is good here, and many people probably enjoy the read. And imo you can never have too much detail so write it the way you want it, but more detail will always be better/nicer imo.
Its good for me..maybe just a little smaller..i have the feeling you repeat yourself sometimes but with time you will find the best way to do it..but great to read..
As you can see, they typical weather we could expect, wet, cold and very windy. That doesn’t stop us leading the race for the few kilometres though the town of Gent.
At the 193km mark, Bookwalter attacks, this attack springs a lot of more attacks, so we will definitely see a breakaway today.
9 riders with the usual attack in the morning. Doi (Shimano), Mínguez (Euskatel), Nillson (Differdrange), C.Meyer (Garmin), Benedetti (NetApp) Machado (Shack), Westmattelmann (Indeland), Pardilla (Movistar), Zaug (Leopard).
At the 125km mark to the finish, the breakaway hits the cobbles with the lead of five minutes. We have done some work in the peloton, but seeing that the break won’t stand much of a chance, we concentrate on protecting Flecha from any unlucky accidents.
At the 95km, the peloton starts to split, and the best teams are starting pushing the pace, the break holds five minutes they gained.
The split has happened, and some big names missed out, Boom, Langeveld, hincapie and Quiznation are the biggest names not to make it. From out team only Sutton and Appollonio didn’t make it
The peloton in the distance must be getting worried, the pace came down, and with 50km to go, break holds 5’34” advantage, will they cause the upset ?
Unfortunately Boasson Hagen couldn’t ride at the temp of the small peloton and, he isn’t yet expert cobbler and this experience definitely will help him get better on the cobbles.
20km to go and the leading group had caught the battling t breakaway, now the time has come, and from this point onwards, we must be very cautious when moves from the big names will come. The group has 37 riders, and most of favourites are in it, if we don’t do something it looks unlikely Flecha will win this year.
Cancellara attacks on the 10km banner, we are very torn now, if we don’t attack we will preserve lot of precious energy, but the Spartacus is the most dangerous rider here, and if he gets some seconds on us, we definitely won’t catch him later on. At the end we decided not to attack, and wait slightly longer to attack.
And that turned out to be right decision, the group caught Cancellara very fast, and everybody prepares for the mass sprint, with amazing lead-out from hunt on the 5km mark Flecha is at the notch of the pack.
4.5km and we decided to attack, for seconds Flecha was doing nothing but he got away, we knew he didn’t have much chance in sprint so we were very willing to give it a try. From this all excitement I forgot to take the screen.
With 3km to go, you can see the position Flecha has 12 seconds gap, Bennati is the best positioned sprinter, with right timing he might catch Flecha, but will he ?
Flecha at the flame rouge, 1km to go, the fans go mad, Flecha doesn’t have any gap now, (according to the PCM), but Flecha is probably the best fighter rider in the peloton and with last gaps of energy he accelerates even harder.
And yess, Juan Antonio Flecha completes the course first, defending his title from last year and bringing Sky first cobble classic victory of the season. The whole team has done an amazing amount of work for Flecha, without the team Flecha wouldn’t achieve this success, great effort. Both riders from Leopard complete the podium, Bennati taking second and Weylandt third. Four of our riders came in the 37 rider’s strong group
Thanks all Hopefully Flecha can follow up from this to win even more classics
@purepasd I find on cobble races, if you have a good flat rider, like Flecha you have a good chance of winning with this method, so far this worked for me only on mass sprint cobble races, but I might try it on a flat stage. And thanks
Tomorrow race results from the lastest races we didn't take part in and K-B-K, which we hope again to win.
Edited by Alakagom on 25-02-2011 22:54
The 5 men breakaway won the first stage, Freire won the sprint from the peloton 31”seconds behind them.
2. Stage:
1. Sérgio Paulinho (Shack) 4h57’13”
2. Pablo Lastras (Movistar) +14”
3. Maxime Monfort (Leopard) +14”
4. John Gafret (AG2R) +50”
5. Fabian Cancellara (Leopard) +1’06”
Second stage is the first one of three harder stages, Sérgio Paulinho won it comfortably and looks like rider in form. Many favourites lost a lot of time today, the biggest looser today is Frank Schleck lost 10 minutes.
3. Stage:
1. John Gadret (AG2R) 4h49’49”
2. Fredrik Kessiakoff (Astana) +0”
3. Sérgio Paulinho (Shack) +10”
4. Yaroslav Popovych (Shack) +10”
5. Christian Vande Velde (Garmin) +10"
Gadret takes victory for AG2R, but he should loose time on time-trial so isn’t a threat to Paulinho, second group of favoutries came +33 seconds down, while Fabian lost only minute on a classified mountain stage, looks good for him if he does well in time-trial.
4. Stage:
1. Fabian Cancellara (Leopard) 3h58’20”
2. Fabian Wegmann (Leopard) +0”
3. Maxime Monfort (Leopard) +0”
4. Fredrik Kessiakoff (Astana) +0”
5. Linus Gerdemann (Leopard) +43"
Two words – Leopard domination. Gadret came minute down, and many favourites come in small groups after Gerdemann. Looks good for Mofort before the time-trial and takes the overall.
The sprint ended with the whole peloton coming together, so tomorrow will be the deciding day. Samuel Dumoulin continues his fine form from Etoile de Bességes and has a good chance of overall victory tomorrow.
2. Stage:
1. David Moncoutié (Cofidis) 4h43’46”
2. Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) +0”
3. Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ) +0”
4. Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) +27”
5. Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ) +27"
Well the time gaps were’t huge, but enough to make Moncoutié the winner of the stage and the overall winner of Tour de Haut Var.
Overall Classification
1. David Moncoutié (Cofidis) 8h24’27”
2. Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) +8”
3. Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) +11”
4. Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ) +12”
5. Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ) +27”
Mouncotié wins the overall, while Cofidis take plaudits for the team classification and point jersey by Samuel Dumoulin. With great results this month Cofidis lead Conti ranking by a quite a lot now. Coppel was best U25 rider and De Neef have to be very happy with the KOM jersey.
S:Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) M:Steven De Neef (Vlaanderen) U25:Jerome Coppel (Saur) T:Cofids, le crédit en ligne
Trofeo Laigueglia (20.02)
1. Kamil Zielinski (CCC) 4h31’20”
2. Reto Hollenstein (Vorarlberg) +0”
3. Salvtore Commesso (Meridiana) +0”
4. Leonardo Bertagnolli (Lampre) +27”
5. Daniele Callegarin (Team Type 1) +51"
Team: Team Garmin-Cervélo
A very surpsing winner of this edition, surely the broke away at some point and the peloton had neglected them and gave no chance to win, but they did it, and Zielinski was the best sprinter in the group. Garmin was placed 6th with Kreder and 10th with Ryder and 12th with Zabriskie and won the award comfortably.
Thanks Gonna post later today results of Vuelta a Andalucia and Giro di Sardegna, and then we can porgress to KBK and Lugano.
Edited by Alakagom on 26-02-2011 21:07
Do you prefer to have long-ish previews, like this one to read, or you just prefer to see the starlist, favourite and then the race ?
