@Raziz and df_Trek: I've used that tactic successfully in previous careers, so it wasn't a complete surprise. Not terribly realistic, I know (though Movistar is known for such tactics IRL), but then I didn't think it very realistic that Kwiatek wins everything, either.
During the Vuelta our puncheurs travelled to Canada. They have all improved nicely this season and the competition seems to be getting thinner, there are few specialists for the hilly classics around. Only three riders have HIL 84+, Kwiatek, Betancur and Villella, but they are all in Spain.
So our men, with good levels of HIL, FLA and STA skills, are among the favourites. We did nothing fancy in either race in Canada, we stuck with the best and tried to conserve some energy for the final sprint. Victory in Quebec went to Romain Bardet, he already won in Montreal last year as well as the Tour Down Under. But local hero Dwayne De Vos was 2nd ahead of his team mate Gross, while only Quintana and Costa were able to beat the rest of our team.
Two days later we faced the tougher variant of the GP Montreal. Last year we mistimed the downhill sprint, this year we better prepared for the finale. Once more, Bardet took off first, Henao and Rui Costa countered, we were biding our time until the last crest to attack downhill and caught the rear wheels of the leaders. This time, the follow command worked well, we waited until the flamme rouge before hitting the sprint itself. It paid off beautifully, the whole podium was in our hands, Toms Skujins won ahead of Gross and De Vos.
The World Cup took place in Lisbon this year. I was put in charge of Luxembourg and nominated my man Birtz rather than the better Jungels for the time trial, the defending champion and was punished by the game for my decision. Clicking on 3D mode immediately went to the simulation and Birtz was missing from the results list. The ITT crown went to Luke Durbridge ahead of his compatriot Howson, Ludvigsson (TTR 77) took the bronze medal.
The circuit for the road race was basically flat this year, the small Alto do Moinho wouldn't be enough to cause any problems for the sprinters. The 3 breakaway riders didn't stand a chance against the big nations with their top sprinters: Italy has Favilli (SPR 85), France Demare (84), Columbia Yupanqui (83), Germany Degenkolb (83) and Australia Ewan (82). And they also had strong support our man Koch worked hard for Germany, Betancur did most of the work for Colombia, Ulissi for Italy.
They also immediately countered late attacks from Van Keirsbulck, 44 km out, and Sagan, 18 km from the finish line. Colbrelli was leading out Favilli in the finale, brought him to the front 3 km out and started his sprint. Degenkolb took Favilli's wheel, Demare was behind Coquard, Ewan latched onto Degenkolb, Kristoff and Belgium's Vallee also followed, the group created a small gap rounding the last corner and the race would be decided between these men.
Favilli was out in the wind with 1.5 km to go and Degenkolb had no trouble overtaking him. Demare also slipped past Favilli, but Degenkolb is the new World Champion, Demare takes silver, Favilli bronze. Ewan is 4th, Kristoff 5th. Our best rider is Koch as 19th.
If every race was as tough as Il Lombardia, Team 8 Up would still be waiting for a win. Our riders gave their best, but it wasn't enough to make the top 10. From a top group of about 25 riders Nairo Quintana attacked on the last climb and nobody could follow him. A chasing group of 6 riders formed, sadly, without anybody from our team. The group nearly caught Quintana, but he held onto his lead until the end.
Nearly all our riders were in the next group, 55 seconds down, barely hanging on and without any sprint energy left.
The World Tour season ended in China with the Tour of Beijing. We've been very successful here previously, probably because most riders are tired and out of form while our squad is still in peak condition. This year's course included the TTT and the tough mountain stage and we brought all our best stage racers and climbers, as well as Nerz for the hilly stage 4.
We won the TTT by 18 seconds against Orica, Sky was 3rd. On the following mountain stage Wynton Christie (MON 78) slipped into the breakaway, Sky was working unconvincingly at the front of the peloton and the gap kept growing.
So we felt obliged to close the gap, but not too hard, we were fine with Christie up ahead. But when we reached the fierce climb, we had to ride at high effort to contain the attacks. Betancur should have been the biggest threat, but he was nowhere to be seen. Instead Mollema (MON 82) pulled away at the top of the climb, he was nearly a minute ahead of our men and we worked hard to contain him.
Herrada (MON 77) was the other good climber in the breakaway and it was a tough fight between him and Christie. Christie won by 29 seconds, Mollema and Schuermans arrived 1:19 behind, they had overtaken Herrada, weho arrived just ahead of other men and Adam Yates. Christie now leads the race and Team 8 Up holds all top 8 spots except 3rd, taken by Herrada, Mollema is 9th, Kiserlovski 10th.
On the subsequent hilly stage we had hoped for another win for Nerz from the breakaway, but he was taken by surprise when Lutsenko and Harkonnen launched a late attack and by the time Nerz reacted, the stage was already lost. Lutsenko won by 54 seconds. Betancur and Mollema also launched a late attack from the peloton and were 4th and 5th on the day and gained 30 seconds on our riders, but that wasn't enough to change the top 10.
Wynton Christie was so close to his biggest career win, leading the race going into the final flat stage. Tragically, he crashed, broke a few ribs and had to abandon the race, instead, victory goes to Schuermans. Vallee beat Sagan and Favilli in the mass sprint.
For the summary of the 2020 season I once more start off with PCMCE's overview:
Kwiatkowski managed to win the Tour de France and would have also won the Vuelta had 8 Up not launched a deadly attack on the queen stage which was rewarded with the whole Vuelta podium. Both these Grand Tours were light on mountains and heavy on time trials. The points jerseys went to two great French sprinters, Demare and Fauconnier. The Giro was much harder in comparison and should have been won by Astana's Aru or at least his team mate Kelderman after Aru's bad day. But the Italian was not prepared to work for his team mate and Boswell snatched the victory from Astana's hands.
Quintana failed to win the TdF but took two of the five monuments, LBL and Il Lombardia, and also won the Romandie and Dauphine. With the victory in Lombardy he overtook Kwiatek in the WT individual rankings and won by just 2 points. Last year's winner Rui Costa had another strong season, in fact he collected 14 more points than last year, but it was only enough for the 3rd place. He won Tirreno-Adriatico and the Fleche Wallone.
Peter Sagan was 4th once more, just like last year. His most memorable victory was the Ronde van Vlaanderen, he also took E3 Harelbeke and the GP Quest. He was followed by the Basque Tour winner Bauke Mollema. The next four places all go to 8 Up: Birtz won the Vuelta and was on the podium in France, he is followed by our best puncheur and Sanremo champion Koch. Behind him is Schuermans, he won the Tours of Switzerland and Beijing. Dwayne De Vos in 9th place is a big surprise, he is one of our weaker one-day racers (AVG 76) but recorded many good results. The Canadian won the Tour of Poland and the Cyclassics, was on the podium in both home races, 5th in Sanremo and San Sebastian. The top 10 is rounded off with Catalunya winner Thibaut Pinot.
Team 8 Up has already made it to the top of the team rankings, something I personally value a lot. We beat Quickstep, while Orica and Astana are a good way behind. The team management of the Kasach team cannot be happy with their result, they won the team ranking last year and are by far the biggest spender among all teams with a monthly wage expenditure of over 1.3 million Euros. Former big spender Team Sky has been going downhill for years and had to reduce the wage budget accordingly, they dropped to 13th place this year, even behind Netapp. The German team solely relied on their big capture Van Garderen, who collected 311 of their 337 points. Two teams are clearly at the bottom of the pile and will be relegated, Trek (78) and MTN (29).
They will be replaced by Belkin and Vini Fantini, the latter collected most of its points with just two riders who came 1st and 2nd in the Continental rankings, Matthew Goss and 25 year old sprinter Nathan Bellardini. Belkin's success was due to a larger variety of cyclists, the young and strong sprinter Van Dinteren, the decent stage racer Hillary Van Ness (who is joining 8 Up next season), the old puncher Navardauskas and the fighter Poutsma. Poutsma looks mediocre on paper (AVG 70), but he was 20th in the Continental rankings riding for us in 2016 and this year he even finished 11th.
Well, not many more goals to aim for now that we won the team rankings. Obviously, we still want to win all Grand Tours and the top of the individual rankings and time will be on our side. For now there are a few top riders left who are just about unbeatable, Quintana, Kwiatek, Sagan. But once they start their decline there probably won't be any riders anymore who are that strong. Most of the men with the highest AVG ratings are already over 30 years old except for the TT specialists Durbridge and Jungels and the many top sprinters, of which the game keeps producing more and more.
curious to see how after some years top GC riders are weaker than today champions, young cyclist are growing up with no so high stats in every skill...or that's my impression
it looks like there are more champions growing in particular specs than others
Yeah, I've played several long careers and the quality of riders drops with time. The game needs to generate riders with the highest potential (8), which it doesn't do very often, and even then they'll never quite be Froomes or Sagans. I had it happen once in PCM 2009 (you can check the subforum, I wrote a bit about it), the game gave me Martinez Ruiz, MON 85, TTR 84, he was head and shoulder above the rest, I believe he won 12 TdFs. So that can happen, worse than all riders having lower skills, just one rider who's so good he'll always win.
Team 8 Up certainly isn't an underdog anymore. After all, we won the WT team ranking last year and now have the 3rd best squad by average rating, only behind Astana and Quickstep.
With Schuermans, Birtz, Boothroyd, Bernar and Mohoric we have 5 riders who can win stage races, each depending on the ratio between mountains and time trials. Our punchers probably aren't strong enough to win the hilly monuments, but especially Mayordomo, Koch and the new additions Swolfs and Wurzer are top 10, maybe podium material. Jaton is the clear captain for the northern classics after the massive improvement in his skills last season.
Sadly, altogether the new signings have little unused potential. All the new climbers have maxed out their MON stats and only have a point or two left in TTR. Similarly, the cobblestone riders Salthammer and Shirshov have already reached their limits and will struggle to record any good results. Dag Roar Tront is the bright spot, he could become a Paris-Roubaix winner, though his HIL stat will remain below 70, making it difficult to win the other northern classics. Jason Swolfs cannot improve his HIL 80, STA 81 any further, his FLA 73 will go up, which will make him a great allrounder in one-day races. The other new puncher, young Austrian Wurzer, has already surpassed Swolfs' hilly ability and can reach 82 or even 83.
Here are the remaining 14 riders in the world with an AVG 81+.
P.S.: I hope you appreciate the little extra effort I made with the first screenshot (picture-in-picture).
Thanks for noticing. I was very pleased with myself when I came up with that idea for a screenshot.
by the way I'll see great future for Jaton...maybe in all cobbled classics
He's certainly a great rider, but he does face stiff competition, not only from some of the old names like Vanmarcke and Sagan, but also Senechal and Sustronck, who have nearly identical skillsets.
As always, the season starts in Australia. Our climber Christie tried his luck in the Australian NC in the breakaway, it was looking promising for the trio with 80 km to go but then Orica set a brutal pace in the peloton. It didn't do them much good, Sky's Cameron Meyer won from a group that attacked 25 km out, Christie held on for a while and ended 8th.
The 2021 Tour Down Under featured a mountain stage, something I haven't experienced before. We brought climbers who usually wouldn't feature in the WT until June, Mohoric would be the captain supported by Olesen, Christie, Warbosse and Andrews as well as the two punchers Wurzer and Skujins.
The whole climb up Mount Kosciuszko on stage 3 was into a strong headwind and Astana got the better of us with their strong duo Boswell and Aru, the two best climbers in the team, only Orica's Pinot (all MON 84) held on. Aru did most of the work in the final kilometres, Boswell won the stage just ahead of Pinot, Aru was 23 seconds behind.
Mohoric and Olesen were happy enough that Villella was with them, working hard as the climb flattened out near the top, the 3 crossed the finish line 47 seconds behind Boswell. Warbosse, Andrews and Christie also managed to get clear of the peloton, finishing 7th to 9th, 2:47 behind. While Wurzer and Skujins were in the next group with men like our ex-riders Gross, Carter and Romeu.
Our guys were in 5th to 9th place in the GC after that stage and would be happy to keep these positions until the end, their HIL stats aren't great and Willunga Hill had to be tackled three times on stage 5.
Skujins was 23rd before the stage and we managed to sneak him into a breakaway of 7 riders. The peloton protested furiously at first, splitting into two groups with all our men in the 2nd group, but then it calmed down and gave the breakaway a long leash, Skujins was the virtual leader by over 3 minutes at one point.
Astana worked hard to close the gap, but not so much that the break would be caught. Skujins was clearly the best rider for the uphill finale and won the stage 39 seconds ahead of Gougeard. Villella proved that he is one of the best in the world in an uphill finish, he was 5th on the day and moved past Aru and Pinot into 2nd overall. Mohoric also gained time on Pinot, but not enough to improve his GC position. Skujins' advantage was great enough to climb into 7th position.
So our riders were to finish 5th to 10th, except for the fact that Andrews came dead last on the final short and flat stage, 2:25 behind, he dropped from 10th to 25th overall. All 4 flat stages were won by Fauconnier, who easily snatched the red points jersey. Skujins was first on Willunga Hill every time and wins the climber's jersey, Wurzer the white jersey, and Team 8 Up also wins the teams classification.
As always, 21 of our riders started their proper season preparation in February to be on form for Paris – Nice and Tirreno – Adriatico. While we sometimes see no mountains in the WT until April or even May, we already had our first mountain stage Down Under and the two concurrent stage races also feature mountains - and the tough competition.
Nairo Quintana registered for Paris - Nice, making him the automatic favourite, though he might have to watch Boswell. Only 4 km are against the clock this year, the prologue was won by Durbridge in his rainbow jersey, Quintana only lost 6 seconds, Boswell 13 seconds, both were faster than any of our riders despite their lack of TTR and PRL skills, which set the tone for the rest of the race.
The mass sprints were pretty much a French affair, Bouhanni won 3 out of 4 ahead of Fauconnier and Coquard, Coquard was able to beat his compatriot on stage 5. The finish a day later was on top of Mont Faron, 584 metres high, overlooking Toulouse. The breakaway didn't stand a chance, Quintana and Boswell attacked, the Colombian was able to beat the American by 33 seconds. Ion Izagirre followed 90 seconds behind, Rolland was another 15 seconds back, Bernar and our new rider Sprague lost 2:06 and 2:17, the other significantly more.
No chance again for the breakaway on the hilly stage to Cannes, either. Herrada was able to launch a late attack and win the stage by 10 seconds ahead of Ulissi, who was leading a group of 36 riders, including the whole top 10. The final stage started and ended in Nice but took us across three cat. 1 climbs. This time, the breakaway of 5 riders managed to survive and our Nick Wardle was able to taste victory.
Further back, only Kennaugh was able to follow Quintana and Boswell. Izagirre lost 48 seconds to the trio but held onto his podium spot, Bernar and Sprague were 18th and 19th on the day, a further 30 seconds behind. We have to be happy with 6th and 7th in the final GC.
Bouhanni wins the points jersey, Fumeaux is King of the Mountains. The Swiss climber is now 33 years old and has a very short palmares, his biggest coup thus far was a stage win and 3rd overall in the Tour of Utah last year. Despite many seasons in the World Tour, the last four with BMC, he only ever collected 6 WT points with one podium finish on stage 20 of the Giro back in 2015.
Jens Schuermans was our captain for Tirreno - Adriatico, he was tasked with a podium finish to please the sponsor. More than that would be difficult with both Kwiatkowski and Betancur in the race. The Colombian is the second best rider in the world by AVG rating, only behind Quintana. Last season he didn't perform as well as he could, 11th in the WT rankings, which he won back in 2015.
The race started with a spectacular MTT up Mount Vesuvius. The stage went to an Italian, Fabio Aru, who beat Schuermans and Kwiatek by 6 seconds, while Betancur lost 28 seconds.
Yet another great French sprinter, Demare, was the top favourite for the mass sprints (and Alaphilippe was also in the mix). To Demare's detriment the only two flat stages were both won from late attacks, by Offredo on stage 2 and Adam Yates on stage 6.
Stage 3 to L'Aquila featured a long-ish late climb followed by a descent and a final short ramp. We decided to attack as a team near the peak and were only followed by Moser and Betancur. The Colombian went on to win the stage by 19 seconds ahead of our men, with a large peloton arriving another 21 seconds behind.
The real mountain stage came a day later, featuring no less than 9 climbs and ending on Monte Rotondo. Parra was among the early escapees, tried to solo his way to victory but was caught eventually. Betancur was the strongest again, winning his second stage, just ahead of Kwiatek. Aru and Schuermans followed 24 seconds behind, the next group, including Parra, lost another 15 seconds. Mollema and Kelderman arrived 1:35 down, Van Ness was 11th with a gap of 1:55.
Our top puncher Koch lost over 20 minutes and was allowed into the breakaway on stage 5, riddled with small hills. Koch was able to collect 48 points, enough to eventually win the KoM jersey. However, he wasn't able to win the stage, disappointingly, he was runner-up behind TT specialist Jungels, who had surprised the other six escapees with a late attack.
The Race of the Two Seas ended with the usual short ITT in San Benedetto, though this time with a small hill in the middle of the course. Jungels won his 2nd stage, less than a second ahead of Kwiatek. Wurzer was our best rider as 4th, Van Ness was 9th. Betancur and Pinot lost 33 seconds, Schuermans 44.
Betancur thus wins Tirreno – Adriatico ahead of Kwiatkowski and Schuermans, making our sponsor happy. Our new stage racer Van Ness also did well and ended 8th. Betancur was awarded the points jersey, too. Gael Foure, now riding for Quickstep, was 19th overall and wins the white jersey.
On paper this year's Classicissima was one of the toughest yet, over 300 km long, with an additional tough hill in the finale. It is a race which Team 8 Up was able to win three years in a row with three different riders – but that streak ended this year and Kwiatkowski can claim he single-handedly stopped us from winning again.
It was a little baffling that Kwiatek sacrificed himself like that, chasing down Koch's attack and a little later also Swolfs' attempt. Had he joined one of the attacks he could have won the race, but he decided to work for his team mate Viviani, a good but not great sprinter (SPR 81 ACC 81). Maybe it was just a late revenge for 8 Up's men stealing the Vuelta from him last year.
It didn't do Orica much good, Viviani was no match against the best sprinters who finally got a chance to take this monument for the first time since 8 Up had joined the World Tour. Demare took the honours, beating Yupanqui by a bike length, Fauconnier completed the podium. Viviani came 7th and Mayordomo salvaged a top 10 result for our team.
The Volta a Catalunya turned into a Betancur show. It is a little unsatisfying that if Quintana, Kwiatek or Betancur turn up for a short stage race they are currently unstoppable. The organisers decided against flat stages this year, six were hilly and stage 3 was the queen stage with four high mountains including a finish in the ski resort Port Ainé.
The opening stage wasn't really that hilly and ended in a mass sprint, more or less, the sprinters were fairly exhausted after chasing down late attacks. But Rufat Suleimanov (SPR 81) was able to win his first WT stage ahead of Bouhanni. The next stage was similar and once more a large, strung out peloton arrived together, Ben Swift took the stage just ahead of Betancur and puncher Espin, it was Swift's first victory in two years.
Edmondson joined the early breakaway on the queen stage and dominated the group, but was caught well before the finish line, he ended 25th on the day, 8:50 behind the winner, Betancur, of course. The Colombian shook off everybody on the final climb and won by 53 seconds ahead of Pinot, Schuermans, Bernar and Boswell.
Stage 4 to Ascó saw the breakaway get tantalisingly close to winning the stage, but in the end they were overtaken and beaten by just one rider, the race leader. Young puncheur Masolini (AVG 75 at the age of 23) had to settle for 2nd place, our man Wardle was 3rd. Kennaugh and Majka were also able to gain back some time against other top 10 riders.
Wardle joined the breakaway again a day later and again the group came close to winning the stage and again they were caught and overtaken by just one rider, no points for guessing who. At least Bernar, Schuermans and Van Ness were at the tail end of the group, while Pinot lost over 2 minutes. Stage 6 had an easy finale and ended in a mass sprint won by Bouhanni.
8 riders were able to escape on the final day and this time the group wasn't caught and our Parra was able to win the stage ahead of Navardauskas and Courtin. The reduced peloton arrived 1:37 behind, with Betancur in the lead.
We certainly won't complain about the race, with Schuermans and Bernar completing the podium behind the dominant Betancur. The mountain jersey goes to our ex-rider Shishelov (Astana), who managed to slip into the early breakaway on 5 out of 7 days, that might be a record of sorts. The points jersey obviously went to Betancur, the aforementioned Masolini was the best U25 rider. 8 Up wins the team rankings by 23 seconds ahead of Astana.
Time to hit the cobblestones. In the GP Harelbeke our team set a high pace inside the last 80 km and was able to create a top group of just 15 riders. That group was split on the final and longest cobbled hill and only 5 riders had a chance of winning: Jaton, Juul-Jensen, Vanmarcke, Sustronck and Kristoff. 20 km from the finish line Vanmarcke launched the winning attack, even Jaton was unable to hold on. Jensen then did most of the work in our group, Kristoff easily won the sprint for 2nd place. Our other riders couldn't follow the late attacks from the 2nd group, but Mayordomo and Shirshov made it into the top 10.
Gent - Wevelgem was much trickier. Early in the race our captain Jaton crashed, he got back on the bike but was obviously in pain and we took him out of the race and into the team car, thankfully, it wasn't a lasting injury.
After the Kemmelberg the best riders found themselves in smaller groups with small time gaps. We allowed first Salthammer and later Juul-Jensen to attack, figuring it wouldn't cause an immediate response. While that was true, solo attacks by other riders soon followed. Juul-Jensen launched a second attack as a group of 6 riders was about to form and briefly it looked like the winning move. But it was once more Vanmarcke who took off, caught Jensen with 2 km to go and beat him in the sprint. Salthammer was able to stick to the wheels of Kristoff and Sustronck and added a good 6th place.
Vanmarcke is still at the top of his game at the age of 32. He defended his title in Gent - Wevelgem and bettered last year's 2nd place in the GP E3.
I won't start by mentioning who of the “Big 3” rode the Tour of the Basque Country, so you won't immediately know who won the race (and the points jersey). On the menu were six hilly stages, ending with the usual 20 km time trial. The first stage took place around Zierbena and we usually try to place a rider in the early breakaway on every stage, even though chances of success are minimal in an opening stage. But surprisingly enough, the breakaway managed to keep the peloton at bay by about a minute and our new rider Zamorski celebrated his first ever professional victory.
Stage 2 had a flat finale and went to Ulissi, with no time gaps among the first 78 riders. The following day Wardle was in the breakaway and nearly managed to win the stage. It went to his breakaway companion Wallays, the two men survived by a hair against Kwiatkowski (the cat's out of the bag), who was 3rd, just ahead of Rainsford, Ulissi, Mollema and Simon Yates. Everybody else lost at least 54 seconds.
The toughest stage ended on the small mountain of Arrate near Eibar. Kwiatek won the stage by 27 seconds ahead of Aru, Schuermans was 3rd, another 10 seconds behind, directly followed by Kennaugh and Ulissi. Wardle was in the breakaway again on stage 5, once more another escapee was better and won the stage, Cameron Meyer. Wardle arrived right behind Kwiatek and Ulissi, Schuermans led a large group over the finish line, 48 seconds behind race leader Kwiatkowski.
The Flowerman also won the ITT on the final day ahead of Rohan Dennis and Van Garderen. Ulissi rode a good trime trial and defended his 2nd place, while Mollema slipped past Schuermans and Aru and onto the podium.
The Tour of Flanders did not go according to our plans. Due to punctures, crashes and being trapped behind the wrong riders we totally lost control of the race and only Jaton and Juul-Jensen were still in the running as we entered the crucial phase of the race.
After several rounds of attacks the four very best, with little attack or sprint energy left, fought for the victory: Jaton, Vanmarcke, Sustronck and Senechal. Sustronck launched a last attack with 6 km to go, Jaton had just enough energy left to follow him - but not enough to outsprint him. Vanmarcke and Senechal were closing in again and we feared Jaton would drop to 4th, but they were exhausted as well and couldn't quite close the gap.
We were bound to do better in Paris - Roubaix, while only Jaton is outstanding on cobblestones our other specialists are still better than most of the competition, except for the usual suspects.
We made the race hard, as we like to do, sacrificing our punchers, but none of the other big names were caught off guard. All our 5 specialists were in a group of just 9 riders as we neared the velodrome. Sustronck attacked and Jaton decided not to follow but hoped that relaying together with his team mates we'd be able to catch him again. But he was gone and won by over 2 minutes.
Jaton had saved enough energy to attack once more and ended 2nd, Senechal and Yupanqui nearly caught him in the velodrome. Our other riders finished behind Vanmarcke, 6th down to 9th, a great result for the team, but a little sad that Jaton was unable to win any of the cobbled WT races.
Raziz wrote:
Well, Jaton was really unfortunate! 2nd in nearly every race.
He's still young and has many more chances to win those races - just one more season with us, though, we won't be able to meet his wage demands.
A week in the Ardennes
While Team 8 Up doesn't have a rider who is a favourite to win a hilly classic, we now have 6 men with HIL 80+, Mayordomo, Wurzer, Nikolaev, Skujins, Koch and Swolfs. They are all top 10 material if everything goes well. The riders I dubbed “The Big 3” all are better on hills but might not have the STA and FLA to challenge for victory, Quintana decided to skip the Ardennes Week entirely. The best specialists for this terrain are Simon Yates, Villella and Ulissi.
Our basic tactic was to try and stay with the best riders in the finale, if possible take the lead on the dot at 82 ahead of the final hill and hope for the best. In the Amstel Gold Race this worked beautifully. Only 17 riders were in the top group as we hit the final hill, 3 km out, with all our men at the front. Simon Yates was the top favourite at the start of the race and he proved the experts right by winning comfortably. But right behind him were 4 of our men and all 6 of our better puncheurs ended in the top 10.
The Fleche Wallone was labelled as mountainous in this year's variant. Nobody dared to attack in the final phase and 29 riders arrived in a big group at the foot of the Mur de Huy. Yates is the best cimber of the puncheurs and was able to win here as well, narrowly beating Bardet and Van Garderen. Barguil, Mollema and Adam Yates also made the top 10, proving that this final climb was more for the real climbers.
Simon Yates set his eyes on the Ardennes triple, but one man proved stronger in Liege – Bastogne – Liege: Kwiatkowski. 8 Up lost three riders when the speed really picked up with 50 km to go, De Vos, De Sousa and Nikolaev all lost well over 20 minutes. But the rest were in the top group of 15 riders in the finale and while they didn't stand a chance against Kwiatek and Yates, we placed 4 riders well inside the top 10.
At the end of April Team 8 Up holds the top position in the WT team rankings, quite comfortably even, ahead of Quickstep and Orica. However, we have recorded only 7 wins, Betancur alone has 13! Parra, Wardle, Zamorski and Skujins were only able to win single stages from breakaways in stage races, while Koch and Jaton won smaller simulated races (Paris-Camenbert, Dwars door Vlaanderen and De Brabantse Pijl).
As things are, we see little chance of winning anything major this season. Next up is the Tour de Romandie – with all the Big 3 taking part and battling for top honours.
