The career went abit weird. The Vuelta was too easy, I had the only tema that turned up with a GC rider. I presume this is a fault, so therefore I am going to re ride the Vuelta. The tour of Britain was the same so will redo that as well.
So I will summarise the end of the season, then will redo those two races.
01/08/14 – Murray signs for Optum.
01/08/14 – British Airways 5th on UCI worldtour rankings with 854 points. The Sprint team have 135+128+4+4= 271pts. Cobblestone team have 76+21+10+10= 117 pts. Grand tour team have 477+38+10= 525 pts. Thibaut Pinot top rider with 477 pts in 4th place.
05/08/14 – Taylor Phinney Injured at the RideLondon (Broken Hand)
11/08/14 – Peter Williams transfer to Madison Genesis.
18/08/14 – Andrew Tennant moves to Node 4 – Giodana.
25/09/14 – Daniel Lloyd leaves the team.
25/09/14 – Tejay van Guarderen wins the World TT Championships.
29/09/14 – Dan Martin wins the World Championships.
01/10/14 – British Airways 1st on UCI worldtour rankings with 1283 points. The Sprint team have 135+128+4+4= 271pts. Cobblestone team have 160+114+91+10= 375 pts. Grand tour team have 702+158+42= 902 pts. Thibaut Pinot top rider with 702 pts in 1st place.
11/10/14 – Stage 1 Tour of Beijing – Flat
Team:
Adam Blythe
Taylor Phinney
Thomas Murray
Sebastian Langeveld
Philip Lavery
Diego Ulissi
Charles Prenderghast
Jonathan Brownlee
All excellent.
Adam Blythe second to Tom Boonen.
Stage 2: Hills
All excellent
Visconti takes the stage and moves into Yellow.
Stage 3: Hills
All excellent
Albasini (OGE) takes the stage, Visconti stays in Yellow.
Stage 4: Flat
All excellent
Adam Blythe takes the stage, Visconti stays in Yellow.
Stage 5: Flat
Adam Blythe takes the stage, Visconti wins the race
17/10/14 – Final standings
British Airways 2nd on UCI worldtour rankings with 1323 points. The Sprint team have 135+128+4+4= 271pts. Cobblestone team have 200+128+95+10= 433 pts. Grand tour team have 702+158+42= 902 pts. Thibaut Pinot top rider with 702 pts in 1st place.
Promoted teams: IAM Cycling, Team Europecar
Relegated teams: FDJ, Argos-Shimano
Due to the great season, funding increased to 517,400 euros per month.
Breakaway: E Garcia (COF), A Geslin (FDJ), J Aramendia (CJR), A Palini (LAM).
Sky doing the majority of the work on the front.
12.8km to go, Valverde attacks, and is pulled back.
The lead out men keep the pace high, then Pinot sits behind Kennaugh as the Manxman lays down the pace. The specialists like Gilbert go for the Sprint, with 900m to go Pinot launches his sprint.
And to everyones surprise, he holds off Sergio Henao for the stage win.
Stage Winner: Thibaut Pinot (BAY)
Red Jersey: Fabian Cancellara (TFR)
Points Jersey: Phillipe Gilbert (BMC)
Mountain Jersey: Andrea Palini (LAM)
Young Riders Jersey: Michał Kwiatkowski (OPQ)
Team award: Omega-Pharma Quickstep
Stage 3: Flat 180.1km. Final hill 3rd cat 26km from the end, one for the pure sprinters.
All riders excellent.
BA Plan: Just to stay out of trouble, Keep Pinot and Kennaugh covered.
Fleeman covers Pete Kennaugh, Jungels covers Pinot, and because it might be a sprint stage I’ve got Ian Bibby covering Tony Gallopin. Estaban Chaves will be the water carrier. The other riders can have a quiet day, although we need to keep an eye on the wind as Sky found out during the tour.
Breakaway: C Barbero (EUK), J Le Bon (FDJ), S Bekaert (BUR)
Katusha, Lotto Belisol, Argos Shimano and Omega Pharma Quickstep control the breakaway.
Some crosswinds but no one pushed it hard enough for echelons to form.
Until 20 km to go when it starts to fracture. Pinot and Kennaugh finished in the first group of 81 riders as did all the main contenders.
Marcel Kittel takes the mass sprint from Kristoff, with Matt Goss finishing third.
Stage 6 Hilly 156.8km (13 km descent off final hill)
All riders still in excellent shape.
BA plan: I would expect Movistar to launch one of their riders on the descent (probably Valverde as he’s the better descender). If Sky keep the pace high to stop them, I can work with them. It not I’ll have to attack in order to not lose anytime, as Pinot will struggle to descend with the favourites. Could be an interesting stage.
It 34 degrees and 47kmh wind. Getting more interesting.
Chaves cover Pinot, Gallopin cover Kennaugh. Fleeman and Bibby doing water carrier duties today.
P Federigo (FDJ) and L P Nordhaug (BEL) in the breakaway.
56.7km to go, Quintana crashes. He quickly rejoins the peleton but how much will this have taken out of him.
Astana and Movistar marking out the pace at the 35km point.
Final climb: With 15km to go Henao jumps off the front.
With 5km to go, Gallopin and Chaves peal off, leaving Kennaugh covering Pinot.
Kennaugh and Pinot drive off the front to try and grab a few seconds.
Lars Nordhaug takes a fantastic solo win from the breakaway.
Pinot takes 16 seconds out the favourites. Sergio Henao moves up into Red.
BA plan: use the climbers to attack today. Be careful not to overcook all the riders as mountains tomorrow too, don’t attack from too far out like I did in the Giro. Try to break one (or both) of the Movistar riders so they can’t do a one two on us later in the race.
Chaves covers Pinot, Gallopin covers Kennaugh. Jungels is water carrier.
Breakaway: L P Nordhaug (BEL), D Villella (CAN)
Penultimate climb: Fleeman and Wilson hit the front.
With 1.4km of the penultimate climb to go, Valverde attacks, Henao follows him. Brought back by the end of the descent.
Wilson and Fleeman pour off at the top of the climb.
Final climb. Chaves and Gallopin hit the front.
Pinot and Froome work together to drop Quintana with 3.2km to go.
Pinot beats Froome in the sprint to take the stage and the red jersey.
Excellent: Pinot, Bibby, Brownlee, Kennaugh and Jungels.
Very Good: Gallopin, Wilson, Fleeman.
Good: Chaves.
BA plan: Rest day tomorrow. Use the 5 excellent riders to cover Pinot and Kennaugh. With the descent to the finish, screen any attacks from Froome or Quintana. Not too bothered on fighting for the jersey.
Jungels covers Pinot, Bibby covers Kennaugh. Brownlee is water carrier.
Breakaway: I Izaguire (MOV), C Riblon (ALM), J Atapuma (BMC), F Kessiakoff (AST), J Acevedo (GRS)
It’s raining too, which will make the final descent more treacherous.
Attack from Quintana on the climb, Kennaugh peels off leaving Pinot chasing on his own. Izaguire buries himself to help Quintana who has a minute lead going over the top. With Pinot hot on his heels. Pinot pushes on the descent but isn’t going to do anything stupid. Froome catches up with Pinot on the descent and beats him in the sprint for 2nd.
Quintana finishes taking 1 minute 30 seconds out of Froome and Pinot meaning he and Movistar will carry red into the rest day.
I really don't know why is this story so underrated and why no one comments as on many other stories, but you're doing a great job. Short reports, with a picture from time to time and what's most important is that it's your style. I like the team even more!
Great form by Thibaut. Podium looks like easily reachable once again, but win will be a big challenge with both Froome & Quintana there.
Edited by admirschleck on 01-07-2014 20:49
admirschleck wrote:
I really don't know why is this story so underrated and why no one comments as on many other stories, but you're doing a great job. Short reports, with a picture from time to time and what's most important is that it's your style. I like the team even more!
Great form by Thibaut. Podium looks like easily reachable once again, but win will be a big challenge with both Froome & Quintana there.
Thanks Admir. I'm just following the "Write for yourself" rule. Glad you enjoy it.
Excellent: Pinot, Kennaugh
Very Good: Gallopin, Jungels
Good: others.
BA plan: Recovery day. We’re not in red, so realistically want to have a rest. Need to stay fairly near the front just in case it’s steeper than it looks.
Kennaugh covers Pinot. Gallopin and Jungels will get the water.
Breakaway: D Devenyns (ARG), M Moser (CAN), A Jeannesson (FDJ)
Movistar finally take the front, they seem to expect British Airways to do it despite them having the leaders Jersey. But the breakaway have a 20 minute lead with 84km to go, so looks good for them.
Valverde goes with 30km to go, with a long range attack.
With 25km to Go, British Airways put the hammer down. Quintana stays with them, but no Froome. Quintan then attacks, Kennaugh and Pinot give their all to bring him back. Kennaugh drops back as he used too much energy bringing Quintana back.
Valverdes attack sticks, how much damage has he done. And how much time has Froome lost.
Fantastic stage win for Moser.
Pinot quite happy with the stage, a surpise, but he is a better time trialler then Quintana and Valverde. So happy to put the damage into Froome. But Movistar seem to be passing the red jersey around their team, will they have it at the end?
Kennaugh put a lot in today to work for Pinot, hurting his own chances. A far more interesting stage than I first thought. I think we've held on okay though.
