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Team Festina - Corona
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 25-11-2024 21:53
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Bot Agent
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Joined: 23.11.09
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| Maximka |
Posted on 04-04-2010 18:07
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Sprinter
Posts: 1902
Joined: 22-10-2007
PCM$: 200.00
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Surgery? I hope it's nothing serious?
Ok, i will upload it tomorrow
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| SotD |
Posted on 04-04-2010 20:16
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World Champion
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Nah it was my back which has been aching ever since I was 18 (I'm 24 now), so it was about time something was done. I haven't been able to do anything the past 3months, so hopefully the surgery will help me getting back to normal life, driving the car, getting to work (Got a new job in real estate just now :-) ) and ultimately playing soccer again, which will probably be difficult, but I dream of playing next season anyways...
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| SotD |
Posted on 04-04-2010 20:40
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World Champion
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Nicely one OlegTinkov. Thanks a lot :-)
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| SotD |
Posted on 07-04-2010 16:58
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Tour of Qatar:
The first Pro Tour race of the season isn't far away, and the team have ben training heavily to start the season in manor. The team is looking for nothing less than a GC win in the race. Whether it is realistic or not time will tell. The following riders have been selected for pre-race training in the grasp of the best possible result:
Sam Bewley - One of the best sprinters in the PT, and a decent TT'er and a very strong rider.
Tim Dees - Strong dutch timetriallist that has shown immense progress during the off season.
Blaise Sonnery - French sprinter that is capable of riding in all terrains. We look forward to see him in action.
Vladimir Bileka - The strongest lead-out sprinter in the squad. Also a very strong timetriallist.
Anthony Lavoine - Perhaps the best french sprinter in recent years. Has developped into a class rider.
Mathieu Bernaudeau - Talented rider that possesses the potential to be very dangerous in Timetrials and sprints.
Kristof Goddaert - Already last season he was among our best Timetriallists. He should be this season aswell.
Patrick Gretsch - A sublime Timetrial talent, which we hope has developped into the rider we wanted.
Roman Maksimov - Young russian sprinter who is also very capable in the Timetrials.
Michael Vingerling - Dutch sprinting talent. We assume this could be one of our main train-riders this year.
Lucas Schädlich - Our best timetriallist. He will almost certainly ride this race for us.
Ramunas Navardauskas - The lithaunian timetriallist has spent the offseason by training in the flats. Very usefull.
Eight of the mentioned riders will be selected for our team in the season-debut of the 2011 Pro Tour. We have been looking into the other PT teams and feel that the following teams could pose a serious threat, why we have to chose the team just right:
Jack Wolfskin
La Gazzetta dello Sport
Lipton Ice Tea
Philips - TDC
Sony Ericsson
Team B&O
Warner Brothers
Wikipedia
Those teams are a threat given that they provide their very best teams, but most of them are likely to save stars for other races later on in the season.
Edited by SotD on 07-04-2010 16:59
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 17:08
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World Champion
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Final team for the first race announced:
The riders of Festina - Corona have been battleing internally to get into the first race of the year, the Tour of Qatar. As it turned out the following riders were presented:
141 Sam Bewley
142 Lucas Schädlich
143 Roman Maksimov
144 Vladimir Bileka
145 Mathieu Bernaudeau
146 Ramunas Navardauskas
147 Patrik Gretsch
148 Kristof Goddaert
The team will focus on the TTT with the TT average of 74,5. Hopefully that will be enough to get the team within the top 3, giving Sam Bewley a great placing for the first sprinting stage. If all goes according to plan the helpers in the flat are Ramunas Navardauskas, Patrick Gretsch and Kristof Goddaert. The train will be formed by Lucas Schädlich followed by Mathieu Bernaudeau, then Vladimir Bileka before Roman Maksimov will do his best to take Sam Bewley all the way to the front.
We hope that the tactics can be followed.
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 17:27
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
Joined: 29-11-2006
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Tirreno-Adriatico:
Last season we had an amazing Tirreno-Adriatico. Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez won the overall race, he came in 2nd in the sprint competition with Thor Hushovd after him in 3rd. A massive point harvest, that we hope to re-achieve. We have accepted that there are no sprinters in our team that can actually beat the likes of Bennati, who could easily arrive here, but last seasons winner, Samuel Sánchez is here!
1 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez
2 Diego Ulissi
3 Anthony Lavoine
4 Stefan Denifl
5 Steve Morabito
6 Lucas Schädlich
7 Jurgen van Goolen
8 Michael Vingerling
We have decided to go all in for this hilly race. Whether Samuel Sánchez or Diego Ulissi is the ultimate captain is yet to be decided, but both have been given the chance to prove themselves. For the sprints Schädlich will lead out Vingerling, that will ultimately try to place Anthony Lavoine within a reasonable chance to go for a stagewin or atleast a decent placement. The race also opens for debut of loanie Stefan Denifl, who we hope can help our leaders get a strong result.
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 17:31
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Paris-Nice:
Mauricio Ardila and Iban Mayo combined gave a good result in this race last year. 6th from the Colombian was about as good as we could hope for. This years edition will look something like this:
51 Maurico Ardila
52 Tim Dees
53 Blaise Sonnery
54 Francis Mourey
55 Wen Hao Li
56 Thomas Vedel Kvist
57 Vladimir Bileka
58 Mathieu Bernaudeau
Mauricio Ardila is more alone than last year hence the dream of him getting a top 6 is not very good. We do hope that Blaise Sonnery is strong enough to get a good sprint result though as we have sent a strong line of helpers to position him right. Vladimir Bileka, Mathieu Bernaudeau, Thomas Vedel Kvist and Wen Hao Li are all fairly strong. Francis Mourey have been brought here to try to attack.
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 19:01
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Team Festina - Corona announces GT plans:
Earlier the PR manager announced a Tour de France team, however plans have changed slightly and instead of putting miscredit towards the team or the teams fans the manager, Andreas Jøhnke has decided for the GT's to be early announced.
The Giro d'Italia had our main focus last year with team leader Alberto Contador. We made a huge mistake as we had no real chance to battle the best Italian riders. This year we have decided to go for a little less strenght in the GC, but instead go for 2 strong leaders, some good stageresult and through that gain as many points as last year, atleast.
91 Mauricio Ardila
92 Carlos Castaño
93 Diego Ulissi
94 Blaise Sonnery
95 Anthony Lavoine
96 Roman Maksimov
97 Stefan Denifl
98 Vladimir Bileka
99 Jurgen van Goolen
Vuelta a España is the biggest race of the year for us. We really need to do well here in order to achieve our goals. Last season we believed that Castaño would be strong enough to make something similar to a top 5, but we was proven wrong. This season we are taking no risks and therefore we are sending the strongest rider in our team, Alberto Contador. We are no satisfied by anything short of a GT win!
81 Alberto Contador
82 Angel Madrazo
83 Tim Dees
84 Steve Morabito
85 Blaise Sonnery
86 Anthony Lavoine
87 Roman Maksimov
88 Michael Vingerling
89 Stefan Denifl
Tour de France is the race everyone wants to win. For us it is no different. We aim to do the very best we can here, but we are also realistic. After stage 15 last year Alberto Contador was 4th, and everything looked set for a safe top 5, but then it all went downhill. Stage 15 made Alberto go down one place, but dissaster struck the day after. In the effort to gain the lost time Contador lost several other minutes going down to 10th overall. No immidiate salvation was made, but a couple of positions were rescued. 8th was the result, but we were not happy. This year we hope to take on the strengths from the early stages and make them go throughout the race. Top 5 is the goal. Alberto Contador must do that, and with the help of Mauricio Ardila and Angel Madrazo there are no excuses not to.
71 Alberto Contador
72 Mauricio Ardila
73 Angel Madrazo
74 Blaise Sonnery
75 Anthony Lavoine
76 Lucas Schädlich
77 Francis Mourey
78 Mathieu Bernaudeau
79 Thomas Vedel Kvist
Edited by SotD on 11-04-2010 19:02
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| Crommy |
Posted on 11-04-2010 19:54
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World Champion
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Contador can't have many races after these 2 GC's, can he?
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 20:54
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World Champion
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He has 11 left after the 2 GT's... I have been looking into the opportunity of only letting him do the Vuelta and then having 33 instead to do Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, Tour of Romandie, Dauphine Libere and Tour of Germany. I think he would do well in all those races, but would he score more than he could potentially do in the Tour? I don't know... And I have to remember that Castaño and Ardila can also do potentially well in those races, so I think that I will be better of with him doing 2 GTs...
EDIT:
Also due to the goals I have that I will need top 10 in all 3 GT's... Contador should do that in the Vuelta and the Tour, while Ardila and Castaño can hopefully get 9th or 10th in the Giro :-)
Edited by SotD on 11-04-2010 20:55
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:06
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Team Manager
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And of course, its impossible to do Vuelta + the 33 race days of the others, since that costs 1 more than the amount of days Contador has.
Youll need a bit of luck to Top 10 in the Giro with Castano I reckon, since he only managed 9th in the Vuelta, with national bonus, and the Italians are notoriously difficult to beat in the Giro. Depends on the field of course, but it will be tough. (And I'd be surprised if Ardila can improve much on 15th last year).
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:12
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
Joined: 29-11-2006
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Yeah I know it will be tough. That was why I targeted a better GT rider through the off season. In the end it was impossible, so I had to do whatever best to reach the goals. I know I could easily reach it by putting Contador in he Giro and the Tour and then Castaño and Ardila in the Vuelta, but I reckon I will get much more points the other way around, and if I only get 3/5 goals then be it...
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:19
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Team Manager
Posts: 33046
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Wait a minute - you dont have a Win Goal?
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:28
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
Joined: 29-11-2006
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Hmm it seems I don't :-/
How about changing the Milano-San Remo from top 3 to win? I know it's highly unlikely that I will win the race, but it's better than making all sorts of changes or what?
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:30
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
Joined: 29-11-2006
PCM$: 2980.00
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Hmm... I will definitely miss that goal. I'm thinking about making it Win the Vuelta, but then I could end up missing 4/5 goals...
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:30
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Team Manager
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SotD wrote:
Hmm it seems I don't :-/
How about changing the Milano-San Remo from top 3 to win? I know it's highly unlikely that I will win the race, but it's better than making all sorts of changes or what?
Im discussing it with Crue now, because youre not the only team without an outright, win a race goal, as was required. Most do, some have managed to slip in without me noticing.
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| SotD |
Posted on 11-04-2010 21:32
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Okay... I'm sorry for yet again not reading the rules well enough, I had seen it as it was only the CT teams that had a win race clause...
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| SotD |
Posted on 10-05-2010 14:18
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
Joined: 29-11-2006
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Dissapointing start of the season
We had dreams of taking top 2 in the TTT, but only came 4th, from there we worked our way up to 9th in the GC with a run of decent sprinting, but eventhough we were on the right position, the gap was closed every single time we had a great chance to put 3 riders in top 10.
On the final stage we lost contact, hence losing everything we had fought for. It's a forgotten race soon. Bad result in the overall, eventhough Patrick Gretsch already showed that he deserves his salary.
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| SotD |
Posted on 03-06-2010 20:03
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Another bad stagerace:
Tirreno-Adriatico was a huge succes last year, winning it with Samuel Sánchez. This year our team was much stronger in the essence, but Sammy was unlucky, and not strong enough. Diego Ulissi did well, but the TT costed him dearly as we knew it would.
The bright part of the race was set by Anthony Lavoine, who sprinted to 3rd in stage 3. Also Diego Ulissi made a good showing here getting 6th. On the following stage Ulissi was the fastest of the 2nd group, getting him a 6th place while he repeated that place in the final stage.
The overall classification was nothing spectacular by any means. Luckily our main competitors for the top 5 didn't do all to well either, and with 16th, 19th. 23th and 30th we do get a base of points.
Hopefully the GC will look better in the following races.
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| SotD |
Posted on 05-06-2010 17:02
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Horrible Paris-Nice
Almost as poor as the Tirreno, the same happened in Paris-Nice. Mauricio Ardila showed his strenght here last season, but 13th overall is no way near good enough.
On the 7th stage Ardila contributed to the teams pointsharvest by winning a stage, but we cannot be happy with the overall result of the race.
Hopefully Catalunya will be better.
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