Great to see all 9 Wikipedia riders finish seeing as it wasn't my strongest squad. Congrats to Kami and plenty of thanks to Count Arach for making it a great race.
Firstly, thanks for the great reports throughout the whole race CountArach. They were all really great to read - I also really appreciated the cracking pace you kept up with them too. Thanks again.
That was some last stage in terms of the gaps between Sella and Ricco. Stats-wise I was expecting Sella to lose about a minute to Ricco. He somehow managed not to. If he had been in the leaders jersey before the stage, with that bonus he probably would have kept it. Nevertheless, great win for Ricco and congratulations to Kami.
For Colombia, based on expectations, it was a far better race than I anticipated. Two stage wins was a fantastic return and those points may end up being vital.
For Vespa, getting Pozzo on the podium for his first time was a great return as was the two stage wins. Having said that, things went a bit flat after Pozzo got himself into third position. Team no longer tried to get in the breaks and Pozzo closely marked by Sella/Ricco meaning he wasn't able to slip away like he did for his stage win. Also, not quite strong to stay with Sella or Ricco on most of the climbs. What he needed was a mid-race blood tranfusion - would have only been fair I think based on the competition.
Top 50 for Mattia Cattaneo too. He might end up being not too bad a rider in this race one day.......
Edited by fenian_1234 on 15-02-2012 19:46
Outstanding job CountArach, the content and speed of the reports were just amazing. Huge round of applause from me .
Congrats to Kami for the win, and all the other managers who managed to take something out of this grueling race. It was a pleasure to read all the way through, hope the other two Grand Tours to follow keep the same standard.
I'll join in with the praises. Smashing reporting!
Decent race for me, Kohl 9th is as good as it gets. Would have liked a bit better attempts by Grillo in the sprints, but he suffered without a proper lead-out man. Maybe will go better for him in the Vuelta, where he has Meyer.
A stage win early on and a top-10 is good. Lost points on half the teams probably but the goal this year was no to get relegated so I can't be disappointed in this result.
