Also, when did you win Aus RR? There was no report for it... :S
Yes, its in the top of the page in the same post as the Garmin/Austrlian Champion jersey. There is a small report without photo's because I had problems with the internet and couldnt upload the photos
Stage three is flat again with a small hill sprint for 16 points as usual.
Stage favourites are ofcourse top sprinters:
*** Greipel, Cavendish, Rojas
** Haussler, Petacchi, Davis
* Breschel, Bozic, Haedo
The stage starts with a breakaway that contains T. Meyer again trying to secure his KOM jersey.
They're later joined by Cooke and Trussov
With 1 KM to go, Travis goes onto the attack and secures the KOM price
And a few KM later, he does the same at the Points sprints and takes some bonus seconds
And the second sprint, he isn't that succesful and only manages to come in 3rd after Haddou and Cooke
And the boys of Rabobank start to chase the BOTD
But Hayman and Krivtstov still try to attack and manage to get to the breakaway
And when Rabobank closes the gap, Hayman attacks again
I said to Cameron, Travis and Jack that they should try to close the gap, and they did a good job by closing the 1 minute gap in 1 KM
And again today, everyone is still fresh and the whole team can help me try to win the stage
And when Jack and Cameron were to tired to keep on fighting in the front, I told them to get in my wheel to stop riders trying to stick into my wheel.
Brett and Matt made a big gap and Julian brought me still fresh to the last 200m and then I opened my sprint, first following Cav for 30m and then going full gas to the finish
And I almost couldn't believe it but I took my 3rd stage in a row ! WOW
With 10 more bonus seconds, I'm now having an advantage of 30 seconds to Gutierrez. Hopefully enough for upcoming stages
The points classification has changed today
I am still first with 30 points, Travis is second with 20 points and Cavendish/Iglinsky are both third with 12 points
With 52 points advantage to Hayman, Travis is now sure of the KOM Jersey, cheers for him
In the youth classification, Sagan is still first but Travis is now at 32 seconds
Tommorow is a hard stage with twice the climbing of Old Willunga Hill and a long downhill going to the finish plus a uphill sprint again will cause a lot riders to have a hard day
see you tommorow!
Stage 4 is a flat/hilly stage. First you ride a long and flat stage and then you reach Old Willunga hill, a tough and punchy hill with and is 3 k's long.
Today will be the last day that someone can threaten the GC.
Favourites conclude
The day starts with an early attack of Travis
They get caught shortly after that and so a new breakaway creates and with 14 men, it's a big break away
And that's probably why they get caught aswel
After that Castroviejo attacks and is later joined by Tossato, Trussov and Hayman
With 60 km to go, my team starts chasing the BOTD
On the 2nd time passage of the hill, I look behind and see no favourites and decided to attack
I reached the BOTD fairly quick and took over control, however the guys in the BOTD just followed me and didnt take over the lead position
That's why I attacked once more and got a big gap
Vaitkus, Gutierrez and Tossato came close but didn't close the gap and I took another victory!
The stage starts with Travis trying to break away again
He gets caught again but tries again!
They catch him again but Travis isn't tired and tries again
Unfortunately he gets caught AGAIN!
Now the guys who chased him try to break away. But we chased them aswel like they did to Travis
There is only one train in the sprint and that is ours, everyone is on my wheel
Then a very big crash happens with alot of riders in it.
And number 7 in the GC Saramontis is in it !
I went quite early and I paid the prize, Cavendish passes me on the line, if the finish was 1 meter earlier I would have won
What a fantastic Tour Down Under, with 4 stages and 2 times 2nd, I'm very happy!
Peter Sagan takes the youth Classification and Vacansoleil was the best team in this years Tour down Under
The sponsor gave me an extra reward of 1000 euro's and an extra bike, they were really happy with this result! My next race is the Tour of Qatar were I want to win a stage aswel. My season has had the best start you can imagine and I will hopefully perform on this level in the RvV and P-R too!
The teams next race is Tour of Wellington which will take place in New Zealand
Quick tip, change your pics from png to jpeg as the page takes ages to load
How can i do this?
Tommorow there will be a report of the tour of Wellington, but I'm having a test week next week so this week I have to study hard meaning almost no reports in the upcoming 2 weeks
Quick tip, change your pics from png to jpeg as the page takes ages to load
How can i do this?
Tommorow there will be a report of the tour of Wellington, but I'm having a test week next week so this week I have to study hard meaning almost no reports in the upcoming 2 weeks
Well the only opponents in the sprints were like 75, 74, 73 and even in the last stage when Farrar fell and closed a gap of 2.30 minutes alone vs a whole peleton trying to close the gap to the BOTD and in the sprint being tired meaning he should be the winner of two stages atleast
The tour of Qatar is my second stage race of the season and a win should be possible.
The first stage is a (very) short prologue of 2 km, I start the day as last and i'm a top favourite so best of luck
Nothing really special in the first part of the race, only Wilson has riden a good Prologue so far
Here are some of the sprinters that will make me this ToQ hard
Lacombe
Kittel
Galimzyanov
GutÃerrez
And here I am myself, I felt very good and rode a superb time beating the field with 2 seconds, which is good !
Another win for my palmares!
Stage two:
Stage two is a tougher race then yesterday
The day starts boring but after 20 kilometers, the first attacks start
My team starts to chase the BOTD after 60 km when the gap is still 8 minutes.
Then the peleton splits in two by high speed and hard wind
Also number 2 Shutherland drops
The sprint was chaotic with me stuck behind some rider of Skil dropping of Kittel, probably on purpose.
Ventoso takes the stage, I ended 5th finally
I hope tommorrow will be a better stage. See you then
