Bradley is out undisputed captain on the road. The best British Climber in generation. No surprise this year, his focus is on the Le Tour, we know the competition is tough, but anyway our goal is to have Bradley on the podium in Paris. Our main goal this season.
He'll also race Paris-Nice in peak condition and will be essential domestique in our cobbled team. After the Tour, World ITT is the last goal of the season.
Juan Antonio 'Arrow' Flecha
Flecha is our leader in the Cobbled Races. His experience makes him an excellent road captain too, though not getting any younger this season may be his last as a captain for Paris-Roubaix in our team, and we hope we can give him that with strong team support. His experience guarantees him also the place in our Tour.
Eddy the Boss
The Most Talented Rider in the Peleton ? Well, I guess so. He is a great all-rounder, for all terrains and weather and we hope he can show that this season. He's main goal is to get as many wins in Tour de France as possible, and win the Point's Jersey.
His other target is Milano-SanRemo and other classics, he will target good GC in one of hillier one-week stages too.
Ben Swifty
Another great British talent in our team. As his surname hints - he is fast. His goal is to be faster than one know Mark. We are sure he will, with the right development in year or two there will be new number one in business. Mark, keep you eyes open, new boy is entering the scene !
Thomas the Tank Engine
Geraint is antohter great all rouder, already at such young age he showed his talents on the cobbles and has potential to become even better. He is one of the best lead outs on the bussiness. We'll be an essential rider in every race he races for us.
Rigoberto Urán Urán
Another talent in our team. He will be joint leader in our campaign in Ardeens and will lead out team in the Vuelta. He'll lead our team also in the Spanish one-week stages in the World Tour.
Michael 'Dodger' Rogers
Michael was new signing at the start of the season, and a very valuable. His experience will be of great help for our young guns. He will target Tour to try and help Bradley the best he can and try to get some wins in one-week stage races.
Appo-Jet
Only 21 and already that fast.... no wonder about his nickname then. For this season he signed with us, there will be no pressure on him this year. He will be given the opportunity to ride Giro this year as our main sprinter and develop from that experience.
Here you can see our 5 goals given to us. They are not necessarily the most important goals of the season, but the sponsor wants them done good. All of the are quite easy actaully, given Ronde being the hardest one, but still with right tactics everthing is possible.
Top 5 Paris-Nice
Top 5 Tirreno-Adriatico
Top 5 Milano-Sanremo
Win Gent - Wevegelem
Win Ronde van Vlaanderen
Here you can see our goals for this season. Some of them are way beyond our reach like being on podium in Giro, where our squad won't be that strong. But given my goal would be to reach most of the goals - for the challenge.
Sky is happy with the way the team is run and will give the next assesment in March, after the first races of pro cycling begin.
For the new 2011 season we are staying with the same sponosr as last year - Pinarello. Given the quality of the product and the design, we simply state this bike as the best you could possibly ride. Hoping for 2011 to be the least with amount of punctures - certainly for us ;)
Jersey
With the success of the last season, the managment decided to keep the jersey adding only minimal changes. We hope the fans like the jersey as we did designing and producing it.
There will be two riders wearing Nationals Jerseys in the team Sky squad.
Christian Knees and Geraint Thomas at the Team Sky presenatation in London
We will use this special jersey at certain events like Tour de France and Tour of Britain to raise awareness of the amount of trees being cut in Amazon, mostly illegally.
The campaign aims to help save one billion trees in the heart of the Amazon. This equates to roughly three million hectares of rainforest ultimately on course for deforestation - an area around the size of Belgium.
Starting the season our team met in Europe to train and prepare as a team. In series of videos we will show you various things about life of the cyclists, let's begin untypically with nutrition on the road.
New Coaches Appointed
Four new coaches were appointed to our staff over the winter :
We hope with their help our riders will develop, train and race every race better.
Australian Championships - Road Championships 2011
The new season in cycling means one thing for many - Australia. And first on the list are the Australian Championships. This year wee bit diffrently, we start off with the Road Race first before heading to Time Trial Championships.
The course didn't change much from last year edition. The course is too hilly for pure sprinters but, not tough enough for real climbers. And I think we have the man exactly for the job of taking this title here, though we will face some tough competition.
Having four men in the squad helps. Our plan is simple, we don't have hilly sprinter in our team so we will have to do the pace whole race to tire out the peleton. On the final two laps, Michael should bring up Gerrans up front and dot all the way up and then atack on the flatter section. Daily form on the day will count a lot, especially in this race.
Favourites
*** Evans
** Haussler, Gerrans
* Goss, Matthews, Davis
Let's play first race in PCM in a long time Hope I didn't forget how to play and stay tuned !
Edited by Alakagom on 18-08-2011 20:57
It's a quick start to the first pro race of the season. The field counts only 40 riders, so the tactics will be key in winning today.
And first off is Aussie Veteran, Robie McEwen. After the fail of Pegasus he took the last gasp opprtunity to ride for Shack for his last season.
Seeing the gap rising we decide to take control of the peleton. Even with slow pace we are controlling the peleton very easily. The gap is slowly going down.
And that was how the race has been raced. Attack - Catch - Attack - Catch....Here we see one many of unsucccesful Cameron's Meyer attacks during the course of the race.
60km for the finish, dangreous two man escape has been created. Matthews and Davis joined forces together. That wasn't the best situatation for us as nobody in the peleton wanted to chase, even Garmin, and Sutton and Hayman were beggining to tire out on the climbs.
On the penultimate last lap Gerrans with help of Rogers managed to break away, Evans and Haussler joined with an attack. We could see the break but with 8km remaining and 40 seconds gap, it would be close run thing.
5km left... Evans and Haussler didn't do anything, and just stayed on the wheel. To win Gerrans had to attack and so he did. But the duo ahead was looking really well now.
The sprint began and yes, it was all too late. It was now between Davis and Matthews. Matthews positioning was brilliant, and he forced Davis to start the sprint early.
And Matthews takes well deserved win. Matthews takes first win for Rabobank this season and will wear the green and yellow stripes jersey. One of the youngest riders to ever win the title. And the first win of many.
Result
1
MichaelMatthews
Rabobank Cycling Team
5h07'57
2
Allan Davis
Pro Team Astana
s.t.
3
Simon Gerrans
Sky ProCycling
+ 29
4
Heinrich Haussler
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
5
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
6
Baden Cooke
Saxo Bank SunGard
+ 1'41
7
Richie Porte
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
8
Hilton Clarke
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling
+ 2'25
9
Matthew Goss
HTC - Highroad
s.t.
10
Mark Renshaw
HTC - Highroad
s.t.
Spoiler
11
Adam Hansen
Omega Pharma - Lotto
s.t.
12
Robbie McEwen
Team RadioShack
s.t.
13
Cameron Meyer
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
14
Wesley Sulzberger
FDJ
s.t.
15
Jonathan Clarke
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling
s.t.
16
Karl Menzies
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling
s.t.
17
Matthew Wilson
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
18
Rohan Dennis
Rabobank Continental Team
s.t.
19
Leigh Howard
HTC - Highroad
s.t.
20
Rory Sutherland
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling
s.t.
21
Jack Anderson
Endura Racing
s.t.
22
Simon Clarke
Pro Team Astana
s.t.
23
Travis Meyer
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
24
David Kemp
Veranda's Willems - Accent
s.t.
25
Benjamin King
Team Type 1
s.t.
26
Stuart O'Grady
Leopard Trek
s.t.
27
Jack Bobridge
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
28
Cameron Wurf
Liquigas - Cannondale
s.t.
29
Mitchell Docker
Skil - Shimano
s.t.
30
Fabio Calabria
Team Type 1
s.t.
31
William Clarke
Leopard Trek
s.t.
32
Graeme Brown
Rabobank Cycling Team
s.t.
33
Joshua Prete
PSK Whirlpool - Author
s.t.
34
Brett Lancaster
Team Garmin - Cervélo
s.t.
35
Luke Roberts
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
36
Michael Rogers
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
37
Christopher Sutton
Sky ProCycling
+ 2'57
38
David Tanner
Saxo Bank SunGard
s.t.
39
Matthew Hayman
Sky ProCycling
+ 3'24
40
Timothy Roe
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
Sky After-Race Meeting
We are happy with the result. Our form wasn't brilliant here and to get podium on the first race in the season is a good start. Though we weren't happy with how the peleton has ridden today, leaving us to do all the work. With little help from Garmin we surely have caught the break but as once Jonathan Vaughters said : ' Better Sprint for 2nd than rather do the whole work'. Well said, well said *sarcasm intended*.
Edited by Alakagom on 19-08-2011 15:40
Really nice report. Especially the screenshots looks very good.
Also a good result with Gerrans. Reeling back the breakaways isn't always easy in that race, so it's not a bad race for Sky just because you didn't win.
