One place shy of Top 5. That's a bummer, but at least Brändle finished 10th, which is a small consolation prize and we've won a third TTT in this configuration. But did I sacrificed my depth elsewhere to create this TTT Megazord.
Oh well, congrats to Jura. Their promotion to PCT is pretty much in the bag. And thanks to redordead for the reports
Hum. Seems like we were not far from a very good result, but in the end it's a tad disappointing. Not far from a top 10, not far from the KoM jersey, etc.
But second place in mountain and teams is nice and sure unexpected. And all in all, a decent race by Itturia who's not responsible for the poor TTT set up.
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
We brought the GC win home, I guess that's what counts most here. Although I admit that I'm a bit jealous about that Kuss move (kudos on that one by the way); I'd have loved to see something similar from my riders - which of course can't be expected when we have to defend the GC lead. I was hoping we might demolish the pack and gain some spots - which didn't happen, as it pretty much never does. It's still somewhat disappointing that Mäder once again missed out on the white jersey, and this time not even against a similarly strong rider. Masnada on the other hand just made a fool of himself, no clue how he can finish so far down. One lesson learnt from this and other C2 races is to not bring more than one strong mountain dom; bringing all of Stüssi, Mäder and Masnada was almost never worth it (we only won the team standings in Vancouver so far). I guess that's nitpicking, but you always have to see where you can improve
But well, we won the race, we're tied for the points jersey, we got 2nd and 1st on the first two stages - and we reached our first sponsor goal of the year, after narrowly failing two. And we scored about 20 points more than McCormick I guess
Thanks for the reports, red, and congrats to Warbasse and Aru on the GC podium!
Edited by Fabianski on 12-04-2023 19:50
Nice ride by Sunderland and Plapp on this stage. Overall we were pretty present here. In the GC we hadnt hopes anyway so I am glad about the stage result.
Congrats to Juro and all the other with satisfying results and thanks for the reporting!
I can't comprehend Schlegel's performances. He ought have been a favourite for victory here, especially after the solid performance in the TTT. Instead he completely disappears; a repeat of his Tachira performance. Finishing in 28th, more than four minutes down, on stage two is simply unacceptable; especially given he's dropping significant time on worse riders who have been undertaking domestique duties all day. Then he leads the favourites over the line the next day, by which point he needed to attack if he was going to rescue anything from this race.
I don't understand. Is there some issue in his stat matrix? Is the relative weakness of his domestiques that impactful? Is it just pure poor luck? Frankly, awful.
Congratulations to Fabianski for the victory, well deserved given Stussi is the strongest rider and Jura brought the strongest team. Big thanks to redordead for the reporting!
Well we tried but it didn't come to anything. At least we got some points out of the breakaway rides by Henttala and Barta so this wasn't a zero pointer.
Bit of a slip up from Talansky here but Brandt was fortunately able to step in to secure decent points. He didn't however manage to meet our top 5 goal.
While obviously we are having a great season we have only got 1 out of 3 goals so far.
Very important result to win KOM at home for the first time. Svab ride very well to get it. Also, the whole team finished at 8th in team standing. Great to celebrate with our local sponsor and fans for the fist time
