Cofidis, Le Crédit en Ligne is a French professional road bicycle racing team sponsored by a money-lending company, Cofidis. After it was part of the UCI ProTour for the ProTour's first five seasons, from 2010 on the team competes as a UCI Professional Continental team.
Goals
Top 10Paris-Nice Top 10 Paris-Roubaix Top 5 Route Adélie de Vitré Top 5GP Quest France-Plouay Win 5 Jours de Dunkerque Wear the leader's jersey Tour de France
This year Cofidis wants to achieve promotion to Pro Tour, to do this we need to set our goals high. And we definitely did that this year. Let’s start with the easy ones, Top 5 in Route Adélie de Vitré and Win in 5 Jours de Dunkerque is very achievable. And we hope we can make our sponsors happy with completing them.
Top 10 in Paris-Nice with Taaramae should be achievable, but unfortunately this year edition contains longish time trial and no real mountain stages, where Taaramae exceeds, but we still hope we can achieve it. Top 5 in GP Quest with rider like Duque or Dumoulin should be achievable, but still it is PT race, so we expect strong competition.
Now we come to the almost unachievable ones, Top 10 in P-R? Our best riders Ista has 74 on cobbles, he will need to be in best form of his life to achieve this. And last but not least, the most prestigious one, wear leader’s jersey in TDF, first stage start with uphill sprint so it could advantage to us, then TT, which doesn’t. But all goals are tough but achievable.
Key Races
Le Tour de France Paris-Roubaix 5 Jours de Dunkerque Tro-Bro Léon
Three most important races for our sponsors, plus odd one, we will try to win two of them and do as well in the other two, which should be obvious to spot.
Cofidis, Le Crédit en Ligne Team
The GC Contenders
Rein Taaramae is the leader in our team, his capabilities in mountains, hills, and time trial make him future GT‘s star. We hope here, at Cofidis he will progress to be cycling star. His 2011 plans are very ambitious, his main goals will be Top 10 in Paris-Nice and Top15 in Tour de France.
David Moncoutié is our best climber in the team. He is one of the best climbers in thw worlds, proving that by winning Mountain Jersey in Vuelta three times in a row. This year he will try to win it once again, but different type of jersey, a polka one in Le Tour. We hope through the season his recovery will improve as well. He will try do to good in one-week races with no time-trial.
Sprinters
Leonardo Duque is as good sprinter as Dumoulin, but even better in hills, he will be our captain in hopefully one of the big Ardennes Classics as well as in other hilly stages. Depending how he will develop through season, he will help out Samu in his goals.
Samuel Dumoulin is the best sprinter in our team, and one the finest in the France. His goals will be tough ones, Top 5 in GP Quest-Plouay, a stage win in Le Tour and if we lucke enough, a wearer of leader’s jersey in Le Tour. He will be also our leader in sprinters hilly stages.
Jens Keukeleire is the one of our biggest talents in our team. He is a very good sprinter at this age and has a lot of talent to develop even more. He will get his chances in this season throughout and he won’t pick any particular time, he will rather be available throughout with good from.
Cobblers
Kevyn Ista is a great all rounder in classics, with good hill, cobbling and sprint skills, he is fits as our leader perfectly for 5 Jours de Dunkerque. Though this goal won’t be his biggest, achieving Top 10 on Roubaix would be a career changing performace, it’s gonna be hard, but Ista is confident and focused on his goals this season.
Pucheurs
Julien El Fares is a talent cycler, he should in few years be at a very good level and competing against big guns. He still needs to develop and train hard, but he is getting better, and better. His role will be mainly wins in breaks, but winning few Mountains Jersey should be his goal as well.
Important Helpers
Nicolas Vogondy, a French time-trial champion. His time-trail abilities make him good rider in one week stages, and his mountain skills make him important helper for Taaramae in Le Tour. He will be given opportunity in smaleer races, but his main task is to help our leaders.
Damien Monier is a good all-rounder, he will help us a lot in Le Tour TT and as helper to both of our GC contenders.
Full 2011 Cofidis, Le Crédit en Ligne
Our new 2011 shirt, great for the eye, and great for making screens too So far we have one national jersey won by Nicoolas in French Time-Trial, and Aleksejs Saramotins Latvin one. We hope to add to that French Roaad Champion this season, and maybe few lucky ones as well Edited by Alakagom on 25-03-2011 20:17
The 2011 Australian National Time Trial Championship is set in Learmonth, a small town located to the north of Melbourne, Victoria.
Seen as a relatively flat course, it will be the rider with the best early season fitness who will take home the Green and Gold Hooped Jersey.
Results
1. Cadel Evans BMC Racing Team 42'42"
2. Micheal Rogers Sky ProCycling +5"
3. Richie Porte Saxo Bank SunGard +26"
4. Heinrich Haussler Team Garmin - Cervélo +29"
5. Adam Hansen Omega Pharma-Lotto +37"
Australian National RR Championships
The 2011 Australian National Road Race Championship is set around the town of Buninyong, located north of Melbourne, Victoria.
Taking in the same course as the 2010 Championships, the undulating route will favour a climber or a hill specialist. And just like with the Time Trial 4 days early, it may come down to who is the fittest at this early stage of the season.
And our season kicks off in sunny Australia, it's one of few Pro Tour races we will race, so we will do as well 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 chance here, but this early it a question of fitness.
Cofidis Tour Down Under Squad
61. Leonardo Duque 62. Jean-Eudes Demaret 63. Julien El Fares 64. Kalle Kriit 65. Luis Ánge Maté 66. Aleksejs Saramotins 67. Nico Sijmens
Cofidis squad head into the race with one aim, to protect and achieve the best overall position with Leonardo Duque. Duque will be our main sprinter, his fitness (54) is not best, but not the worst. We don't have a lead-out sprinter, so he will try to find best 'looking' wheel as it goes.
Julien El Fares will be our co-leader and maybe go in the breaks for King of the Mountains points. Rest of the team is aimed to protect them both as much as possible.
This year's peleton will be one of the biggest in terms of names at the Tour Down Under. Heinrich Haussler might be the best mix and could dominate the race with a good form. But there are lot of good sprinters that can survive Willunga too.
With Breschel, Rojas, Paolini and Cavendish the sprints can turn into intresting battle of nerves. Evrybody will have thir eye on young Rabobank sensation Matthews.
There are also few climbers specialists that will defintely try attack on Willugna, Gesink and Cancellara might be the ones to watch most carefully, with their teams brining strong suport for them.
Santos Tour Down Under Stage 1
Mawson Lakes-Angaston
Stage 1 of the Santos Tour Down Under takes from Mawson Lakes to Angaston over a course which should not offer any difficulty to the riders.
The stage is not really hard, and it will show the real contenders for the sprint and overall classification. The smaller teams will try to win the first mountain point and ride in prestiguos 'hill' jersey tomorrow.
Favourites: Mark Cavendish, Heinrich Haussler, Matti Breschel
The season kicks off here, in Australia.
Cofidis leads the pack in the first kilometres, showing their new bikes, jersey and metaphorically the change in management. Our team will do anything to protect Duque today from any crashes and we will try to stay up-front a lot of time.
The first breakaway of the day formed after the mountain sprint that was won by Lars Boom. They had a gap of one minute so we decide to take action.
And that is by showing off our Latvian Champion, Aleksejs Saramotins. We will try to join the break and take some points on intermediate sprints, and more beneficially to us the bonus seconds. We think Saramotins is capable off staying with pack on Willunga, if that happened every second helps him being in better position overall and making sponsor happy.
We join the large break at the 95km mark. The breakaway includes, Beyer (BMC), Rollin (FDJ), Lemoine (Saur), Houanard (AG2R), Westra (Vacansoleil), Kireyev (Astana), Guarnieri (Liquigas), Van Impe (Quickstep), Konovalovas (Movistar), Appollonio (Sky), Boom (Rabobank), Sieberg (Omega) and our rider.
The task is complete and we win the intermediate sprint taking those nice bonus seconds.
The break at 12km has 46” seconds, the pace is huge and our riders are starting to feel the effects already, everybody is helping out Duque to stay in good position for the sprint.
We are very, very lucky so far, our riders were not capable of leading out Duque, we felt Sutton was in good position so we followed him, a stroke of luck. The Omega rider up front with his new specialized bike doesn’t stand a chance.
It’s gonna be close, out of nowhere Cavendish is coming… fast. Goddaert too is lokking well.
The Manx missile takes it, but still what a success in Down Under so far for us. We were very lucky with following the best wheel possible today but still Duque showed great sprint skills. His formed improved a lot from this great result, and he weil lbegin stage two with 58 fitness. We can’t wait for tomorrow
Gesink rules the world of velo wrote:
Great 2nd in your first race, looks promising
P.S. You got the Omega colours spot on in the Team results
Thanks, I've tried
@roturn
Thanks, I guess it was more "right wheel at the right time ala PCM", but still i was real happy with that, didn't expect at all, with the fitness. Hope we will show same on stage 2 and let the critics know it wasnt just luck
Since I have been away the last days I just caught up here. Sorry about your Sky story, but this is a very nice team choice. I hope this one will continue for a long time, with many victories. The start is very good.
FreitasPCM wrote:
Good stage. Cavendish seems to be thinner in this story.
Thanks, he definitely looks like it We'll see how fat he will be on today's stage
Pellizotti2 wrote:
Since I have been away the last days I just caught up here. Sorry about your Sky story, but this is a very nice team choice. I hope this one will continue for a long time, with many victories. The start is very good.
Thanks, I hope so too
Stage 2 and 3 coming up later today.
Edited by Alakagom on 15-03-2011 13:28
Santos Tour Down Undder Stage 2
Tailum Bend-Mannum
Stage 2 of the Tour Down Under is a 145km stage from Tailum Bend to Mannum. There is a small amount of climbing. However, with a finish on a flat run-in, and also a fast downhill decent, this will look to be a sprinter's stage yet again.
Mark Cavendish took the victory in Stage 1 wil he be able to win again today ?
Favourites: Mark Cavendish, Heinrich Haussler, Matti Breschel My secret Tip:Christopher Sutton was 4th yesterday, if he is as strong as yesterday he might have a chance today with flatter sprint which suitrs him better.
Depart in Tailum Bend.
Mark Cavendish in his Ochre jersey. Will he keep it today?
Van Impe was active on yesterday’s stage and looks full of energy today as well.First rider to break away.
Our plan is to win the Mountain point with El Fares, and as he is our co-leader we send Demaret with him to protect him. It’s risky, but we hope it will pay off.
After few minutes of chasing, we caught the break. It includes Kristoff (BMC), Van Impe (Quickstep), Tosatto (Saxobank), Porsev (Katusha) and out two riders. Few riders broke away in attempt to join us.
As Demaret had awful daily from we let him go back to peloton and brought the Estonian Champion to help El Fares.
Stannard joined the break and attacked, we didn’t want anybody to go so we controlled the break from this time.
And the efforts had paid off, El Fares wins the point…just. Tosatto attacked to break, not for the points, but lucky for us El Fares by few millimetres wins all the points.
Tosatto attack failed, but Kristoff’s didn’t, with 20km to go he has 1’32” gap, he rode very well today, but he will be caught.
6.5km to go and Omega working up the front. Duque with 0 daily form is looking good, now the hard decision, whether to follow Cavendish wheel or risk it and follow Sutton again.
3.2km to go and we decided to follow Sutton wheels, doesn’t look like that in the picture though. Cavendish looking suspiciously quite so far.
And the risk had paid off, Sutton acceleration was just amazing, Duque won’t even have a chance to compete against him, we are just very lucky to caught his wheel again. It’s gonna be close for the win with Sutton and Stauff.
And Chris Sutton takes it. Very close, but Sutton at the end deserved it with, great ride yesterday and today. He becomes the new leader of Tour Down under while Cavendish finished outside Top 10. As predicted bad day for him We were just piped by Wagner for the podium but 4th is another good result, and if we continue like it we have a good chance for a very good place overall.
That is always the most dificult decision,wich wheel to follow...sometimes(or many times)we pick the wrong wheel...so good decision..and very good result...GC it´s looking good..
So far we have one national jersey won by Nicoolas in French Time-Trial, and Aleksejs Saramotins Latvin one. We hope to add to that French Roaad Champion this season, and maybe few lucky ones as well 
GL
