With a mix of rolling, flat and an ITT stage, this tour will be interesting to partake in. Any points gathered here will be great considering we are racing against Wiesenhof, CSC, Rabobank, Milram and Rebellin's Gerolsteiner.
We brought Belkov here for the ITT, we are hoping he can replicate a previous time trial by the team. Malacarne was brought along as back up for Belkov and for breaks. Gaudin is here for need of a strong man just to protect Belkov on the flat, as well as Tronet on the build up to sprints.
Stage One, one of the flat days. Long, but flat.
Today, Malacarne was on breakaway duty. With other strong teams in the race, we thought it was reasonable for the other teams to let him go, and they did surprisingly.
So we have a break forming, pre-intermediate sprint, of Malacarne and a few others.
With the one climbers sprint on the route, we decided to steal that jersey, and Malacarne also agreed, as he pocketed the extra euros!
The break carried on for the rest of the stage, until the gap came down, minutes just falling away as Rabobank tried to pull Malacarne back in. So he sat up, and let the rest of the break ride away. And surprise, surprise, the field sat up.
D'Hollander also thought it would be a good idea to attack from the break as Malacarne sat up, just delaying the inevitable.
Rebellin meanwhile had been sat the whole time studying Belkovs derrier... or watching his rival, whichever he was doing - we weren't sure...
Tronet was feeling pretty ok up at the front, and as Belkovs support dropped away, Gaudin left Tronet and went to cover Belkov. We wouldn't want him to lose any time.
Tronet found some strong wheels to sit on, and was just behind eventual winner Pollack.
He literally glued himself to 2nd places Baumann, and wouldn't let go, which dragged him to a solid 3rd place. We are happy with this after our previous disappointing races.
Team List:
Drujon
Levarlet
Brouzes
Morizot
Galland
Chainel
Mederel
Mespoulede
A flat course to start with, but with some lumpy bits at the end, anything could happen!
Well, with Brouzes and Morizot both here we had 2 choices for the breaks. Morizot covered the first few attacks, and with 27 teams in the race there were plenty of them! When he was caught, Brouzes went with the next break, which was to stick.
From the break of 10, Brouzes was one of the strongest there, and managed to win the first intermediate sprint.
In the next 2 sprints he placed twice in both.
Having done this, he earned himself a fair few bonus seconds, 14 to be exact, and a bit of extra money.
As the break approached the first climb of the day, the Milram rider was unlucky enough to get a puncture, and was soon caught by the bunch. Some strong attacks by eventual stage winner Masciarelli kept the pace high.
Somehow he managed to do another attack over the second climb, as the pack caught the rest of the break with 2km to the top of the climb. Two more strong riders went for it up the climb as well, and succeeded in getting a gap.
With the sprint only starting with 1.5km to go, we tried our hardest to get Levarlet just off the front, but it wasn't happening.
Tinkoff and Lampre scored most of the top places.
None of our riders were dropped for once! Amazing.
Three riders attack from the gun today, Malacarne being one of them. Importantly, Sorenson from CSC was also included, so CSC would be having an easy day as well.
Another three riders attacked 5km later and whilst they would reach the first three, two would later be dropped.
Malacarne took 2nd place over the only climb to further extend his mountains lead. We'll see how long he can keep the pressure up in attacking every day.
He also managed a 2nd place in the first sprint, not long after the climb. And two of the break after working so hard to get across in the first place, dropped off after the sprint.
It almost looked like the pack were scared of the break, as with Sorenson and Malacarne the break had some strong flat riders in it. And the break was being reeled in with 80km to go.
The break was caught with just 24km to go, Malacarne being the last to surrender this time.
And so another sprint finish it would be, with Tronet eventually looking good, being placed behind Pollack - Baumann duo, who took 1st and 2nd last stage.
But Milram had set it up wonderfully and after a lead out from over 10km out, Siedler took it by just keeping the pace just high enough to stave off the threat of Pollack.
Mountains: 1 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 9
2 Peter Möhlmann TEAM REGIOSTROM - SENGES 5
3 Sascha Damrow THÃœRINGER ENERGIE TEAM 4
4 Lars Wackernagel TEAM SPARKASSE 2
5 Nicki Sörensen TEAM CSC 1
Points:
1 Olaf Pollack TEAM WIESENHOF FELT 41
2 Sebastian Siedler TEAM MILRAM 39
3 Eric Baumann T-MOBILE TEAM 29 4 Steven Tronet AUBER 93 26
5 Assan Bazayev TEAM ASTANA 24 14 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 8Edited by rjc_43 on 11-04-2008 15:28
A later break went as well to increase the numbers to 18, but with the peloton just 40 seconds behind the front of the front group, the back of the group was about 5 seconds away. So it was caught easily, and Levarlet once again put in an attack on the final slopes, but again was twarted by Tinkoff who seem to be riding for the whole team, not one man.
Grivko was the only man to get away, using Levarlet as a spring board.
A major day with 5 BIG climbs in it, the course is still classed as hilly however, but will see many riders bonking.
As usual, Malacarne was quick to react to a break, and got in it with the ease of a man practiced in pain.
As if just getting in the break wasn't good enough, he managed to claim first over 4 of the climbs.
But as is the case in many stages, the peloton just wasn't letting the break go, and so on the final climb, with the pace slow, and the break falling apart, with Malacarne having to let go, the leader that Wiesenhof had dragged around also had to let go
After getting over the top, Wiesenhof would continue trying to drag Pollack along to the finish, but they didn't quite get it that he was blown.
With 3km to the top of the climb, Belkov decided he'd attack to mix it up and stir a reaction. Though no other rider went with him, he took the climb, and made the pace pick up considerably to cut the pack down in size.
Over the top, Belkov only managed to stay away with the 2 remaining breakaway riders for a few km's.
He managed to stick in with the group, and with the two tiny lumps before the finish, those riders who had done nothing attacked on them.
Glomser got free, and took the win.
Results:
1 Gerrit Glomser TEAM VORARLBERG - VOLKSBANK 4h49'57
2 Kenny De Ketele CHOCOLADE JACQUES - TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN s.t.
3 David Kopp GEROLSTEINER + 1'28
4 Davide Rebellin GEROLSTEINER s.t.
5 Matej Jurco TEAM MILRAM s.t.
6 Lars Ytting Bak TEAM CSC s.t.
7 Dimitry Kozontchuk RABOBANK s.t.
8 Erik Hoffmann TEAM 3C-GRUPPE LAMONTA s.t.
9 Elnathan Heizmann TEAM 3C-GRUPPE LAMONTA s.t.
10 Bert Grabsch T-MOBILE TEAM s.t. 27 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 s.t.
33 Yannick Martinez AUBER 93 + 2'45
69 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 + 13'41
80 Steven Tronet AUBER 93 + 15'33
83 Damien Gaudin AUBER 93 s.t.
100 Christophe Diguet AUBER 93 + 19'17
102 Renaud Pioline AUBER 93 s.t. 112 Thierry Jollet AUBER 93 + 34'05
Points:
1 Olaf Pollack TEAM WIESENHOF FELT 41
2 Sebastian Siedler TEAM MILRAM 39
3 David Kopp GEROLSTEINER 38
4 Gerrit Glomser TEAM VORARLBERG - VOLKSBANK 33
5 Kenny De Ketele CHOCOLADE JACQUES - TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN 32 7 Steven Tronet AUBER 93 26
Mountains: 1 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 55
2 Andrey Mizourov TEAM ASTANA 38
3 Sebastian Schwager TEAM MILRAM 38
4 Bram De Groot RABOBANK 28
5 Lucas Schädlich THÜRINGER ENERGIE TEAM 22 6 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 16
A flat 75km with a 5km kick in the tail should help see the GC sort out, and with another "mountain" stage tomorrow, who knows how Levarlet will fair.
Drujon meanwhile, not bothered with mountains, but points, goes in the break and takes 2 of the 3 sprints, and 2nd in the 3rd. If he had more than one bottle, the pack weren't chasing and he'd have soloed to victory.
But the pack started to ride faster than 36kmph and so Drujon succumbed to the might of the peloton. Levarlet was looking pretty comfortable.
A few favourites attacked on a little roll just before the main climb, but Levarlet wise to the now blatent effect of attacking too soon, waited a little longer.
When he went, he went with gusto and got into a good group of favourites. Whilst they couldn't close the gap to Petrov, they did manage to get a good gap on the field, and Levarlet took a good 6th place.
The last mountainous/hilly stage of the tour, and again the riders were undersupplied with bottles and so would mostly end up running out of energy.
A break of 13 went that Drujon was initially in, but dropped back as he wasn't working.
As the climb began for the peloton, the break still had a 4 minute advantage, but as the pressure was put down, the gap tumbled, and soon enough the peloton was the lead group.
Shortly after the climb hit the really steep bit, and the favourites attacked. Levarlet didn't have a full bar, and was a bit too far back so all he could manage was to move up near the front.
Petrov managed to get away again, with 6 others.
He wouldn't win this stage though, and lost the leadership overall as well.
Levarlet bonked in the final 600m, and went from 15th placed on the road down to around 30th. Sucks to be non computer.
Would Belkov be able to put some time on his rivals? That was our biggest question.
Again Malacarne went in the break. The only way he could lose his jersey would be if 2nd or 3rd placed riders went and took all three climbs. Seeing as neither of whom went with the break, the jersey was secured.
Schadlich left it a bit late to try and win the jersey considering he was so far behind, but still Malacarne was an evil man, and laughed as he beat him to each of the two climbs.
After 90km to go, it was clear the break would succeed, and without the cya-game ability to have more energy, Malacarne would not make it. Therefore he sat on, and some of the team started to relay at the start of the pack to make sure our 8th place wasn't threatened either.
However, Malacarne got stuck behind some of the crap riders and was dropped from the front group.
He tried to keep up, and keep his potential top 10 finish on the stage, but ran out of energy sprinting to try and keep away from the pack.
Siedler won for T-Mobile, and an attack from Belkov to get away from the pack didnt work as the riders in the pack started to work just to annoy us even more.
Just as Belkov was caught, Malacarne was as well.
500m more and another top 10 would have been good.
Results:
1 Thomas Ziegler T-MOBILE TEAM 4h21'30
2 Bastiaan Giling TEAM WIESENHOF FELT + 28
3 Elnathan Heizmann TEAM 3C-GRUPPE LAMONTA s.t.
4 Sebastian Schwager TEAM MILRAM + 1'21
5 Luke Roberts TEAM CSC s.t.
6 Lucas Schädlich THÜRINGER ENERGIE TEAM + 1'48
7 Yannick Maus TEAM REGIOSTROM - SENGES + 2'16
8 David Kopp GEROLSTEINER + 3'39
9 Gerrit Glomser TEAM VORARLBERG - VOLKSBANK s.t.
10 Robert Retschke TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t. 22 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 s.t.
25 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 s.t.
47 Steven Tronet AUBER 93 s.t.
68 Damien Gaudin AUBER 93 s.t.
108 Christophe Diguet AUBER 93 + 6'56
110 Yannick Martinez AUBER 93 s.t.
111 Thierry Jollet AUBER 93 + 11'26
112 Renaud Pioline AUBER 93 + 12'37
Mountains: 1 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 67
2 Sebastian Schwager TEAM MILRAM 40
3 Andrey Mizourov TEAM ASTANA 38
4 Bram De Groot RABOBANK 28
5 Lucas Schädlich THÜRINGER ENERGIE TEAM 26 6 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 16
Points:
1 Olaf Pollack TEAM WIESENHOF FELT 52
2 Thomas Ziegler T-MOBILE TEAM 51
3 David Kopp GEROLSTEINER 46 12 Steven Tronet AUBER 93 26
