Update on the National Championships with a focus on Movistar riders...
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
Spanish National Championships - Individual Time Trial
Movistar successfully defended the Spanish ITT title with Luis Leon Sanchez taking over the mantle from Benat Intxausti. As has become customary over the past few years, the top 10 was strewn with Movistar riders.
Spanish National Championships - Road Race
Incredibly, on a stage favouring punchers, Movistar lost their crown, that too to a sprinter. And to make matters worse, it was old-boy Rojas taking the title away. This was another sponsor objective where the team fell short this season!
Ukraine
ITT - Oleg Chuzhda 1st, Eduard Korniets 14th RR - Yuriy Agarkov 1st, Eduard Korniets 7th
Czech Republic
ITT - Zdenek Stybar 1st, Leopold Konig 5th, Roman Kreuziger 9th RR - Zdenek Stybar 1st, Leopold Konig 6th, Roman Kreuziger 8th
Portugal
ITT - Fabio Silvestre 1st, Isidro Pintassilgo 27th RR - Rui Costa 1st, Isidro Pintassilgo 25th
I'm gonna be adding a little more detailing to the race reports with an added Race Preview post preceding each WT stage race. Hopefully, that'll give a better idea about the stage profiles, and the locations through where the peloton will travel during the course of a stage race. Hope everyone likes this change
First up, TDF 2018 race preview coming in some time...
Edited by AbhishekLFC on 16-01-2016 08:53
Stage List
ITT - 2
Flat - 10
Hilly - 3
Mountain - 6 (3 MT)
Stage 1
A stage with a lot of undulations including a punchy uphill climb to finish makes for an uncharacteristic start to the Tour de France. Should make for an interesting first stage.
Stage 2
A small uphill at the finishing straight makes for another interesting finish in this stage. The sprinters should however get the win here.
Stage 3
The first stage which is a pure flat should make it another stage for the sprinters.
Stage 4
The first ITT comes at a rather unconventional stage 4 in this year's Tour. This will see the first indications of how the Tour will pan out. Not too long either, so it shouldn't give an advantage to any of the favourites.
Stage 5
Another flat stage should give the sprinters opportunity to express themselves again.
Stage 6
The first of the stages which throws up KOM points. The flat at the end should mean that the sprinters take this stage.
Stage 7
The first mountain stage of this year's Tour sees a chance for the favourites to gather momentum before the big mountains come around. A gentler finish might ensure smaller gaps among the leaders.
Stage 8
The hilly start to this stage will encourage attacks from riders with the hope of building up a big lead and holding on. The flat finish will give the sprinters a chance to take another win.
Stage 9
Two big climbs, with the descent at the end of the second one acting as the finish should see the favourites fight it out for the win here.
Stage 10
The first uphill finish will see the GC leaders have to keep pace with each other in order to ensure they keep pace. Should see the first big time gaps opening up.
Stage 11
Another stage with a big climb might see the leaders attack once again. A gentle finish might see the time gaps get neutralized.
Stage 12
A flat stage will act as a relief after back to back mountain stages. The sprinters should win this stage.
Stage 13
Another stage for the sprinters. The small undulations at the end of the stage might make things a little interesting.
Stage 14
A somewhat odd profile, similar to what a Mountain Time Trial course might look like! Very difficult to predict what might happen in this stage, but the punchers might have the upper hand.
Stage 15
Two climbs, with one leading to the finish in Italy, with a long flat in between. The flat should ensure the fight comes down to the climb to the finish.
Stage 16
The stage starts in Italy and will pass through two huge climbs before winding its way to the finish at the bottom of the latter. Sure to see the favourites vie for the advantage on this stage.
Stage 17
The legendary Alpe d'Huez awaits the riders at the end of this stage. The stage will see the riders ride over two big mountain passes en-route to the legendary finish. There will surely be a huge fight among the riders to etch their name into folklore as one to have won at the Alp d'Huez.
Stage 18
Another stage full of climbing, but with smaller climbs than the past couple stages. A high chance of an early breakaway staying ahead for the win as the riders recover from their ordeal on the previous two stages.
Stage 19
Another hilly start, followed by a flatter finish should give the sprinters something to cheer on this stage. The small hills in the final third of the race might encourage some late attacks, leading to upsets.
Stage 20
The second and perhaps decisive Time Trial comes on stage 20. Not ideal for the pure climbers, as they would still be recovering from the mountains, this stage can and potentially will decide the eventual winner of this year's Tour.
Stage 21
The ceremonial ride from Versailles to the Champs Elysses would see the leader ride to the finish in procession with his team-mates, barring some misfortune. The customary breakaways and eventual mad dash to the finish by the sprinters should once again characterise this stage.
Overall Assessment
This year's Tour will provide many opportunities to the punchers to take stage wins. The spread of race profiles will likely see the field end a lot closer than is generally the case. Very few mountain top finishes, in combination with some gentle finishes after big mountain passes will most likely see the leaders end up together on most stages. The sprinters should have ample opportunities to take stages.
Movistar Starting List
Nairo Quintana
Leopold Konig
Elia Viviani
Adriano Malori
Mikel Nieve
Sam Bennett
Rafael Valls
Pello Bilbao
Winner Anacona
The second Grand Tour of the year comes around quite fast after the conclusion of the Giro. Movistar were looking for a repeat of last year's Tour de France triumph to get over losing their crown in Italy. Nairo Quintana would lead the team again, with Leopold Konig and Mikel Nieve able domestiques. The competition would be fierce, with most of the big names turning up here. Chris Froome was aiming for 2 GT wins in a row. Wilco Kelderman comes here on the back of a superb outing in Switzerland. To add to this, the line up included riders of the calibre of Vicenzo Nibali, Fabio Aru, Dan Martin, Tejay van Garderen, Ilnur Zakarin, Rigoberto Uran, Rafal Majka and more! It would be a tough fight to the finish, given the nature of the stage proflies, with critiques predicting it to be a close affair. Let's get this show on the road.
Number of starters: 198 Number of finishers: 192
The following is a summary of important stages...
Part 1: Surviving the Shake-up
Stage 1 - Flat with undulating finish, including 4 minor intermediate climbs
An uncustomary start to the stage followed an uncustomary script with the early breakaway of four riders winning stage 1! Ian Stannard proved to be the strongest in the breakaway and took the win and the Yellow jersey. Behind him, there would be no time gaps among the leaders despite the uneven finishing straight. There was an overnight withdrawal of Dan Martin, complaining of back pains.
Stage winner - Ian Stannard from breakaway Other results - The peloton finished 1'56" behind
Stage 2 - Flat with 4 minor intermediate climbs
This flat stage, meant mainly for the sprinters saw Mark Cavendish take the win ahead of his rivals. However, the big story of the day was the time lost by Movistar riders Nairo Quintana and Leopold Konig as the pack split in high winds a little way before the finish. Having lost over 90 seconds, this might as well put them out of contention for the GC in stage 2 itself!
Stage winner - Mark Cavendish Movistar - Sam Bennett 9th, Nairo Quintana, Leopold Konig lost 1'32"
Stage 4 - Individual Time Trial - Flat - 29.6 km
Another surprise awaited at the end of this stage among the favourites. There was no surprise about the winner though as Tom Dumoulin continued his streak in time trials this season. Behind him, Chris Froome had a uncharachteristic showing with fellow rivals van Garderen, Uran and Nairo clocking better times. This race had surely gotten off to a strange start. Stannard barely managed to hold on to his yellow jersey.
Stage winner - Tom Dumoulin Movistar - Nairo Quintana 5th, losing 23" Other important results - Tejay van Garderen 3rd, losing 6", Rigoberto Uran 7th, losing 30", Chris Froome 8th, losing 36", Ilnur Zakarin 10th, losing 41"
The GC after stage 5 (Stayed the same as after the ITT)
Spoiler
Stage 7 - Hilly with 2 major and 3 minor intermediate climbs
Both Rui Costa and Mathias Frank fell with less than 5 km to go on the previous stage and lost almost 4 minutes to the peloton, putting them out of the running for the GC. On this stage, again, Vicenzo Nibali, Tom Dumoulin and Sam Bennett fell early on. Luckily, they were able to recover and oined the peloton to the finish. On top of the second last climb of the day, Rui Costa, Sergio Henao and Nairo attacked the pack, pulling away to build up a lead of over a minute on the other leaders' group. However the long, less inclined descent allowed the chase group to catch up to them. Coming down from the last climb of the day Julian Alaphilippe attacked and was not caught again. He held on for the win ahead of the hard charging Cavendish, who survived the mountains to take second place on the stage.
Stage winner - Julian Alaphilippe Movistar - Nairo Quintana took the lead in the KOM classification
Stage 9 - Mountain with downhill finish, including 2 major and 4 minor intermediate climbs
The early was caught pretty early, approaching the first of 2 big climbs of the day. Going up the climb, Nario and Konig set a high and did not allow any attacks to build up a lead. Eventually, they had to give up the pace-making as Froome with Majka in tow. Nairo followed them, as Konig sat in the chasing group. The attack did not survive and soon it was Froome attacking again with Nibali, Majka and Zakarin countering him up the next and final climb of the day. This too failed to bear fruit and it was the punchy sprinters who started setting the pace. Alaphilippe again, attacked late and this time held on from Sagan to take his second stage win in three stages. Stannard was dropped, and van Garderen took the yellow jersey. Once again, there were no time gaps among the leaders barring Stannard.
Stage winner - Julian Alaphilippe
The GC after stage 9...
Spoiler
To be continued...
Edited by AbhishekLFC on 18-01-2016 15:16
Stage 10 - Mountain with mountain top finish, including 1 maor and 2 minor intermediate cimbs
The first mountain top finish of this year's TDF comes right after the rest day. The leaders should have had enough time to recover from the efforts of the tough first week. The breakway could not make much of an impression as they were caught easily by the pace set the teams of the leaders. Going into the climb to the finish, the leaders were all together. Riding on a high level of effort, Zakarin, Betancur and Nairo, simply rode away from the pack and no one was able to keep pace. Betancur was dropped first halfway up the climb. Nairo then attacked with 4 km to go and took his first stage win at this year's TDF. He managed to pull back sufficient chunks of time on his rivals.
Stage winner - Nairo Quintana Movistar - Leopold Konig 4th, 1'28" behind Other important results - Ilnur Zakarin 2nd, 34" behind, Rigoberto Uran 3rd, Chris Froome 5th, 1'28" behind, Vicenzo Nibali 7th, Rafal Majka 9th, Carlos Betancur 10th, 2'35" behind
The GC after stage 10 wears a completely different look...
Spoiler
Stage 11 - Mountain with mountain top finish, including 1 major and 2 minor intermediate climbs
Another mountain stage. The early breakaway built up a good enough lead to stay ahead and not be caught be the breakaway. Anatoly Sosnitskiy proved the strongest among the break and took the stage win. Behind him, there was a lot attacks from the leaders. There was an attack which saw 6 leaders, including Froome, Uran and Zakarin, go away from the pack, only to be caught some time later. Towards the finish, again there was an attack from Zakarin, Uran, Betancur and Majka, who were not caught and managed to shave a few seconds off the others, leading to another shake-up of the leader-board.
Stage winner - Anatoly Sosnitskiy Movistar - Nairo Quintana 12th, 3'37" behind, Leopold Konig 13th, 3'58" behind Other important results - Ilnur Zakarin 6th, Rigoberto Uran 7th, Carlos Betancur 8th, Rafal Majka 9th, 3'14" behind, Chris Froome 10th, 3'37" behind
The GC after stage 11...
Spoiler
Stage 15 - Mountain with mountain top finish, including 1 major and 1 minor intermediate climbs
After three relatively flat stages, the peloton moved to this stage which had another mountain top finish. The breakaway was not effective and were caught on the second intermediate climb. On that same climb, Kelderman, Zakarin, Aru, Nairo and Konig attacked. They could not build up a lead and were caught doing downhill. On the climb to the finish, Rafal Majka attacked early and was not countered. Behind him, it was Nairo and Zakarin again who were doing the pace-making as the others were dropped one by one. Nairo eventually dropped Zakarin and led the charge towards Majka. But it was a little too late as the latter took the win with Nairo settling for second place, gaining some more time on his rivals.
Stage winner - Rafal Majka Movistar - Nairo Quintana 2nd, 22" Other important results - Ilnur Zakarin 3rd, Carlos Betancur 4th, both 41" behind, Rigoberto Uran 5th, 1'10" behind, Chris Froome 6th, 1'18" behind, Tejay van Garderen 7th, Wilco Kelderman 8th, 1'48" behind
The GC after stage 15...
Spoiler
Stage 16 - Mountain with downhill finish, including 2 major intermediate climbs
Two huge climbs were waiting for the riders on this stage. As it would turn out, it was wasn't the leaders who traversed them first, with the morning breakaway building up an unassailable lead. Ratson Saffrd won, more or less confirming his win in the Young Riders' classification. Behind him, on the final descent to the line, Leopold Konig, in a good position to take a high finish, fell and endd up losing a couple of minutes. Movistar were lucky he did not take Nairo down with him, as the crash happened adjacent to Nairo. Unfazed, Nairo then followed Froome and Uran's attack, building up a gap over Zakarin. They finished in that order, with a time gap back to Zakarin, bringing Nairo ever so close to the Yellow Jersey at the end of this stage.
Stage winner - Rotson Safford from breakaway Movistar - Nairo Quintana 6th, 11'38" behind, Leopold Konig 13th, 13'45" behind Other important results - Rigoberto Uran 4th, Chris Froome 5th, 11'38" behind, Ilnur Zakarin 7th, Rafal Majka 8th, Carlos Betancur 9th, 12'11" behind.
Nairo trailed Zakarin by just 11 seconds after this stage.
To be contiued...
Edited by AbhishekLFC on 18-01-2016 15:15
Stage 17 - Mountain with mountain top finish, including 2 major and 1 minor intermediate climbs
The hallowed stage approached with the leaders separated by the smallest of margins. Anyone from 5 riders still had a realistic chance of winning this race! The stage was also quite a long one, to add to its intrigue. The breakway consisted of fairly strong riders including Aru and Amador, neither of whom was likely to bother the top of the leader-board. The peloton maintained a decent pace and slowly brought down the breakwaway's lead. They were caught with 15 km left, on the base of the climb up Alpe d'Huez. Up the climb, high effort riding from Nairo saw him take the lead, ahead of Carlos Betancur. The duo managed to build up a gap over their rivals. With less than 2 km to go, Betancur put his final attack into place, with Nairo tiring from his effort. Betancur pulled ahead with less than 50 metres to go, taking the win on the famous mountain. Nairo, took the yellow jersey, with just 3 stages to go.
Stage winner - Carlos Betancur Movistar - Nairo Quintana 2nd, same time, Nairo took the lead by 26" Other important results - Tejay van Garderen 3rd, 28" behind, Rigoberto Uran 4th, Wilco Kelderman 7th, Ilnur Zakarin 9th, 37" behind
Stage 18 - Hilly with 1 major and 2 minor intermediate climbs
The last hilly stage of the Tour saw a big breakaway, and a winner from the breakaway, but no time gaps amongst the leaders. They rode into the finish almost 15 minutes behind the breakaway, saving themselves for what would surely be the decisive ITT on stage 20 - stage 19 being mostly flat, and not likely to see time gaps.
Stage winner - Thomas Damuseau from breakaway
Stage 20 - Individual Time Trial - Flat - 53 km
With the time gaps remaining same as after stage 18, it was down to this stage to decide the fate of the TDF. The leaders time gaps stood as follows:
1)Nairo
2)Zakarin - 26"
3)Uran - 1'5"
4)Froome - 1'42"
5)Majka - 2'30"
There were a lot of questions being raised about how Nairo would perform here. The ITT was not his strong suit, and with such a narrow lead, the odds were not in his favour, given the TT prowess of the three men behind him. On a different note, this stage saw Dumoulin beaten for the first time this season on a major TT stage. Nicholas Roche pulled off a stunner, an upset of sorts to take the win. True to form, and ability, Nairo was not strong enough to keep hold of his slender lead, as Zakarin excelled, taking 3rd place. Uran and Froome also gained time on Nairo, but he was able to hold on to second place.
Stage winner - Nicholas Roche Movistar - Nairo Quintana 21st, losing 2'32", Leopold Konig 52nd, losing 4'32" Other important results - Ilnur Zakarin 3rd, losing 26", Chris Froome 7th, losing 1'34", Rigoberto Uran 14th, losing 1'59"
Stage 21 - Flat
The ride to Paris was filled with the usual breakaways, high speed chases and late attacks. Movistar sprinter Viviani wasn't feeling too well, so their main focus was on getting Bennett into a high placing. It wasn't to be as both Movistar sprinters faded at the end. The sprint came down to a three wasy duel between Green jersey holder Cavendish, John Degenkolb and Luca Mezzec. Degenkolb proved too strong for the end and took the win on the famous Champs Elysees. There was no incident amongst the leaders as they rode home safely in the pack.
Team Classification
1)Astana
2)Movistar
3)Tinkoff-Saxo
*Sighhhhh* Second again!! These time trials will ruin Nairo's career! Well, a gripping TDF I must say. As many as five riders were still in with a shot till stage 20! Well done to Zakarin to hang on to Nairo's tail all through the mountains and then capitalise on his own TT superiority to win the first GT of his career. The experts predicted a close race and we got one. The sprinting could've been better from Movistar. Nairo took his second KOM jersey in as many GTs as a sort of consolation prize. After winning two GTs last year, he'd have to settle for two second places this time around. That's his season pretty much done and dusted. A word of praise goes out to the domestiques who did such a fine job protecting Nairo in the mountains.
Mikel Landa was sent as the leader for this race for Movistar, as he missed out this year on the TDF. He was the favourite to take the overall win, provided he did not lose a lot of time in the ITT on stage 7. He started very well, winning stages 3 and 4 to take the leader's jersey. However, he did lose a whole chunk of time on the TT and had to settle for 2nd place. Dennis Shmatovalenko won the race and established his credentials as a potential star of the future.
A strong field turned up for the first autumn classic. Some of the favourites would still be feeling the effects of the recently concluded Tour de France, having participated there as well. The early morning breakaway pulled away to a maximum gap of 8 minutes. In the pack, the attacks started with the approach of the first big climb. Dan Martin was the first, but was pulled back in soon. Gorkha Izagirre rode away from the pack next, riding on a high gear, without getting out of the saddle. He was also caught after a couple of kilometres. This invited attacks from Rui Costa and Bauke Mollema, and then again by the former duo along with Keldeman and Dan Martin. These successive attacks pulled the peloton closer and closer to the break and they were caught simultaneously along with the last attacking quartet. Next it was Alaphilippe with a lone attack which did not survive beyond a kilometre. Finally, it was a group of five riders - Uran, Nibali, Alaphilippe, Dan Martin and Gorkha Izagirre - who rode away from the pack at a high speed with 15 km to go. They shadow-boxed each other till about 4 km to go, none wanting to launch the first offensive. Alaphilippe was the first to attack, but he inexplicably pulled up after a couple of hundred metres. Gorkha, who was the first to follow Alaphilippe's attack continued with his charge, pulling out more than 20 seconds over the chasing quartet with less than 3 km to go. It was only Nibali who chased Gorkha as he approached the finish, as the others didn't have the legs for the chase. Gorkha had enough of a lead coming into the finishing straight and raised his arms in victory, for himself and for Movistar, ahead of Nibali in 2nd place. Uran did just enough to hang on to 3rd place.
(I love the second screenshot - driving rain falling under a dark, cloudy sky, with Gorkha in the foreground, Nibali on the left, the pack bearing down in the background and the boats on the right. Picture perfect!)
This was just the lift that the team needed after the Tour de France.
