Porte and Haussler, will be the top favourites to tak the road race, but Gerans shape is now not too bad.
First race of the season about to begin, 46 riders will battle it out, to at the end of the day wear the coveted green-gold Australian Champion jersey.
First attack from Cantwell , suprisignly nobody followed, the maximum gap he created was 2'11".
He was caught very fast, as Garmin was doing very fast pace, looks like the whole team is working for Haussler.
There were serval attacks, but none succeed as Sky and Garmin were contrloling the peleton. the pattern remained untill the last two laps when we felt its the time for Gerrans to go.
Gerrans paced away from the peleton, and only Haussler could follow, the last hill was almost upn us and the pair had 20' advanatage.
At 7.4 km to go, Gerrans attacked to get rid of the stuborn Haussler, now it was clear that it was between two of them , the pack splited and the second group including Evans was minute behidn.
But even all of those attacks didn't help, and Haussler was still hanging on.
The sprint started and it was clear, that after his brave racing, Haussler was too tired to sprint, and Gerrans took the Title of Aussie Champion and first victory for Sky's new manager !
Second group came almost 1'30" down, Evans won the sprint, suprisingly after his time-trial success, Porte couldn't repeat his success.
1
Simon Gerrans
Sky ProCycling
5h11'59
2
Heinrich Haussler
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
3
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
+ 1'28
4
Baden Cooke
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
5
Matthew Lloyd
Omega Pharma - Lotto
s.t.
6
Richie Porte
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
7
Allan Davis
Pro Team Astana
+ 2'07
8
Stuart O'Grady
Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project
s.t.
9
Jack Bobridge
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
10
Mark Renshaw
HTC - Highroad
s.t.
Team Reaction:
What a great race for us, we controlled the peleton almost the whole race, Rogers setted up Gerrans for the win and Gerrans has done the job majesticly. It's great Gerrans will wear the coveted jersey the whole season, hopefully it will bring him some luck and victorires. Next for the Sky, is the Tour Down Under, where we are sending quite a strong team with Gerrans in a leading role.
Sorry for the replay buttons, next races won't have them.Edited by Alakagom on 24-01-2011 18:18
Sure, next race ( TdU stage 1 will have those in ), but all screens after that wont have anything
Thanks
P.S. Next race, will have smaller pictures, and images will be in jpeg. Hopefully the laod times will improve a lot.
Edited by Alakagom on 24-01-2011 18:34
Sorry for lack of updates, at last I am done with my English, so hopefully loads of updates will follow, tomorrow TdU preview first stages.
Edited by Alakagom on 28-01-2011 17:15
And our season kicks off in sunny Australia, it's the first important race for us, and we will try to do as best as possible. In 2008 the Tour Down Under became the first UCI ProTour event outside Europe, and the following year it became the inaugural event of the UCI World Ranking calendar. Race preety much made for sprinters, only stage 5 can bring some suprises, punchears like Freire have a chane here, but this early it a question of fitness, and we have a quite of luck with one of your leaders
Our leader will be Edvald Boasson Hagen, due to his quite high fitness at the star of new season, one of his goals is Milan-Sanremo so he will race in quite a lot of races before this monument. Gerrans will be our co-leader, and will try to win the KOM jersey. Downing will be our lead-out sprinter for Hagen and we hope to get some good results with him either. The rest of riders are helpers for our three main guys, and will work to bring any dangerous breaks back to peleton.
There are lots of great riders in the Oz land this year. Most dangerous rider must be hills expert Frank Schleck, but we can’t forget names like Roman Kreuziger, Chris Horner and probably most serious GC contender Oscar Freire, who if has decent fitness will take bonus points at the sprints.
There are many rivals for Hagen in sprints as well, many of top sprinters in the world are here, Rainbow Jersey is here, along Gerald Ciolek, Alan Davis, Gert Steegmans, José Joaquín Rojas, Luca Paolini and earlier mentioned Oscar Freire.
Stage 1 takes the riders from Clare to Tanunda on a fairly flat stage. But with a Menglers Hill Road" 27km from the finish, only riders with good fitness will be able to fight out for victory.
Team objectives :
-Take the first intermediate sprint
-Take the king of Mountain Jersey
-Top 3 with Hagen
At last 2011 Cycling season kicks off.
At 126km the break formed, none of the riders were very dangerous, but we controlled the peloton to catch them, to give Hagen opportunity to win the intermediate sprint.
Break was caught very fast, and now our plan was control the peloton till the intermediate sprint.
Hagen wins the Intermediate Sprint in front of Gert and Davis. Hagen has to thank Robert Hunter for a perfect lead-out.
Surprisingly no breaks went afterwards, the pace was not too fast, but none of teams had the courage. As this time we did not want Hagen to sprint to preserve energy for the Menglers Hill and the finish sprint, but we also did not want to give our rivals full points, Nordhaug attacked
And he has done it, he takes full points, second again Gert, and Davis third.
Katusha must be felling good about Paolini chances today, and controls the peleton.
As we start climbing Menglers hill, our three most important riders are in front .
To take full points, we attacked with Gerrans and it paid off, he showed today his Aussie National Jersey and tomorrow will wear the KOM jersey instead.
The last two and half kilometres begins and we have perfect lead-out be Downing, adding to Hagen perfect daily form, our chances of winning are quite good.
And yes, he takes it with ease, he even created small gap to peloton, but it was not to be counted, he showed today that his fitness is best from all the sprinters and we should expect some great things in this Tour. Even Downing takes fifth, completing our perfect stage for us.
Results
1
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky ProCycling
3h18'44
2
Allan Davis
Pro Team Astana
s.t.
3
Gert Steegmans
Quick·Step Cycling Team
s.t.
4
Samuel Dumoulin
Cofidis, le crédit en ligne
s.t.
5
Russell Downing
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
6
Damien Monier
Cofidis, le crédit en ligne
s.t.
7
Kevin Van Impe
Quick·Step Cycling Team
s.t.
8
Daniele Pietropolli
Lampre - ISD
s.t.
9
Simon Clarke
Pro Team Astana
s.t.
10
Juan José Haedo
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
11
Jonathan Bellis
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
12
Roger Hammond
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
13
Francesco Chicchi
Quick·Step Cycling Team
s.t.
14
Simon Gerrans
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
15
Thor Hushovd
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
This is the last stage with the replay, so next pictures will be without the circles, and then pictures will be much better.Edited by Alakagom on 28-01-2011 18:45
@baia We will see what will happen, if we domintate next two stages, I will change to extreme, for the end of Tour down Under, I think we have good results just because of the form, maybe will change it to extreme pernament if we dominated in March/April.
@Roturn Boasson Hagen with the fitness he has, should win it, hopefully Gerrans will do as well, I think Downing can suprise us though.
Edited by Alakagom on 29-01-2011 12:52
Stage 2 goes from Gawler to Hahndorf and is another flat stage. Much easier than yesterday stage, will favour true sprinters. Boasson is not the best sprinter in the field, but he seems to have best shape out of all sprinters, Gert Steegmans and Alan Davis looks to have average shape and probably they will prove the biggest challenge to us today. Breakaway is possible, but we want to win and four of our riders, will control the pace whole race with a medium pace so that breakaway never really gets a chance.
Team objectives:
- Take the first intermediate sprint
- Control the peloton
- Stage win with Hagen
Start in Gawler. After yesterday stage, we expect stage win.
After yesterday stage, our team controls the peloton for the first kilometres, and makes sure there is no breakaway, till the intermediate sprint.
And he takes it with ease. Suprisngly, Sébestien Rosseler takes second (Shack) and Luca Mazzanti (ISD) third.
Today breakaway includes Marko Kump (Geox), Jens Keukeleire (Cofidis), Nikolas Maes (Quick-Step), Sébastien Minard (AG2R), Sébastien Rosseler (Shack), John Degenkolb (HTC), Valentin Iglinskiy (Astana), García Acosta (Movistar) and Javier Aramendia ( Euskatel).
The group is joined few kilometres later by Daniel Oss and Alan Marangoni (Liquigas) being the most notable riders. The breakaway is quite big, and if not taken care of, could succeed.
Sky controlled the peloton, from the word ‘go’ to the end, the pace was not very high but we always had the breakaway under control.
The Mountain pints were won by Jens Keukeleire, Alan Maragoni comes second, and Sébastien Rosseler comes third. There was no fighting between the break for the points, very disappointing for the spectators, but Sky must be quite happy nobody dangerous for us in this classification got any points.
For last, spectators can see some fighting, and the intermediate sprint is won by Sébastien minard, who was fastest out of the break, the gap is around 45’ now, so the break will be caught soon, with 25km to go.
The break was caught at the 10km mark, and lead-outs began to form. My two main riders for this stage, were at the front.
With 3.5km to go, you can see the position of the sprinters, Alan Davis lead-out men has done a great job for him, and is at the front of the pack, Russell Downing now, starts to increase his tempo, to get us into better position.
The sprint begins, and Downing has done a magnificent job, to lead-out Hagen for prime position to take the stage win, the pre-favourites Gerald Ciolek, Thor Hushvod and Rojas are nowhere to be seen. But probably the biggest favourite Oscar Freire can only hold with trouble a wheel of tom Leezer. Steegmans and Hunter came out of black and with high speed, they have chance to overtake Hagen.
But they all had no chance. Hagen celebrates his second win in row in 2011. He has to thank Downing for amazing last gap lead-out by him. Hagen shape is quite obviously best from all the sprinters, with a shape of 68 points already, but the question is there anybody that can take his lead away at the hilly stages ? Gert Steegmans and Robert Hunter complete the podium places.
Results
1
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky ProCycling
3h14'11
2
Gert Steegmans
Quick·Step Cycling Team
s.t.
3
Robert Hunter
Team RadioShack
s.t.
4
Allan Davis
Pro Team Astana
s.t.
5
Gorik Gardeyn
Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
6
Marcel Sieberg
Omega Pharma - Lotto
s.t.
7
Lloyd Mondory
AG2R La Mondiale
s.t.
8
Tiziano Dall'Antonia
Liquigas - Cannondale
s.t.
9
Francesco Chicchi
Quick·Step Cycling Team
s.t.
10
Juan José Haedo
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
11
Russell Downing
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
12
Murilo Fischer
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
13
Danilo Hondo
Lampre - ISD
s.t.
14
Roger Hammond
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
15
Luca Paolini
Katusha Team
s.t.
I already played stage 3, but next three stages I am gonna play on extreme for challenge, it must be boring to see so many wins now for me, but I can't help it, sorry for Hagen fitness Edited by Alakagom on 29-01-2011 19:32
