Last year's winner, Edvald Boassong Hagen will take the start in Gent, but it's most likely to ride just as an domestique for Juan Antonio Flecha, who showed a better shape lately.
It will be very hard for Hagen to retain the title won last year as the startlists here has the same big names as the one for E3 Prijs, where Hagen finished just 10th even though that is probably a harder race, with more cobbled sections. From what we saw in the previous cobbled race, held one day ago Gilbert and the BMC trio, with Ballan, Burghardt and Hincapie, won't be present here.
Team Sky for Gent - Wevelgem: Kurt Asle Arvesen Edvald Boasson Hagen David Cioni Juan Antonio Flecha Matt Hayman Greg Henderson Nicolas Portal Geraint Thomas
Edited by alexkr00 on 06-03-2010 14:49
Here it is, the last chance to see the northen classics specialists before the second Monument of the year, Ronde Van Vlaanderen. And since Gent - Wevelgem is a first class race, Boonen and co. will fight for Pro Tour points as well
There were quite a lot of escapes today and they had a max advantage over the pack of 4 minutes. Even though there were no cobbles specialists there, the biggest names being Velits, Alex Rasmussen and Mourey, they were caught only at the end of the second hill of the day
On the flat section between the paired hills, Cancellara made an attack, while Sentjens tried to keep it up with him. The Milram rider tried to keep it up with the World ITT Champion but he had no chance and after an while Cancellara found himself in a solo lead
At the end of the last ascent of the day, Flecha put in a very strong attack in an attempt to gain some time back on Cancellara, who even though was riding alone was faster than the whole Quick Step team, who was leading the pack
Hoste followed Flecha there, but they only managed to catch Sentjens, as Cancellara was already more than 2 minutes in front of them. Soon, Flecha and Hoste found themselves alone in the chasing group as Sentjens couldn't keep it up with their pace
But only a few moments after that they were joined by Nick Nuyens, while Boasson Hagen, Devolder, Pozzato and Boonen weren't too far either
Devolder and Pozzato joined the group with 15 kilometers left from the race but they didn't stay together for too long as Pozzato made an another attack in one of the last attempts to catch Cancellara and the only one able to keep it up with him was Hoste
Shortly after Pozzato's move, Boasson Hagen also joined Flecha's group, but the 2 Sky riders aren't looking too well as they can hardly keep it up with Nuyens and Devolder
Even though he has be riding alone for more than 30 kilometers, Cancellara doesn't seem tired and he enters the last 10 kilometers of the race in a confident lead
More 1 minute behind him are the chasers, Hoste and Pozzato being the only riders that have a real chance to catch the Swiss Champion now
Devolder is leading the 2nd chasing group, with Nuyens, Flecha, Hagen and Boonen, who even though is the last rider to came in the group seems to be the strongest
In the last kilometers there were some moves in the chasing groups but no one was strong enough to catch Cancellara, who wins the 2010 edition of Gent - Wevelgem!
Hoste hanged on in front of Pozzato to take the second place, with the Quick Step duo, Devolder and Boonen, rounding up the top 5. Flecha won the sprint for the 6th place in front of Nuyens, while last year's winner, Boasson Hagen, finished on the 8th place
The second stage of Criterium International is the queen stage even though the final TT could also be quite decisive. The yellow jersey, Kim Kirchen, is the big favorite to take the stage win, as well as Samuel Sanchez
In the first kilometer of the stage, Kennaugh got away from the pack and passed the first climb of the day in a solo lead. Later he was joined in front by Dyachenko and Ponzi. Kennaugh was first on almost all the climbs but on the penultimate won he cracked and got no points as he was caught by the pack, while Dyachenko took 6 points, which was enough to take the KoM jersey in front of Kennaugh for only 1 point
Before the final ascent of the day, Ponzi and Dyachenko were also caught and the big attacks started. Voeckler, Verheyen and Kirchen made the first moves, being closely followed by Wiggins, Anton, Joly and Samuel Sanchez, while the big favorite to win this year's Criterium International, Levi Leipheimer just sit in the pack
All the attackers got away from the pack, but only 2 of them fight in the sprint for the stage win: Vockler and Anton, while the others were struggling to keep it up, Vergeyen being almost brought back in the pack
Anton lead for the entire last kilometer and took the stage in front of Vockler. But the Basque rider didn't finish in the leading group in the first stage, which means that it's Voeckler who takes the yellow jersey from Kim Kim Kirchen!
Joly finished third, followed by Sanchez and Kirchen. Wiggins finished right after Kirchen, 30 seconds behind Anton but he should win some time back tomorrow in the ITT. The pack lead by Leipheimer's team - mate, Andreas Kloden, lost 1 minute and 1 second to Anton today
The last stage in Volta a Catalunya is a quite short flat stage, which is perfect to end an one week tour where no gaps should be made. The only sprinter than won a stage so far is Freire so Farrar and Cavendish will try to get one as well
The game crashed again at the end of the stage so no pictures for today's stage or exported results. A large breakaway went away from the pack and we saw again a winning breakaway. But they were spread into like 3 or 4 groups, only 6 of them riding in the race's lead: Nocentini, Van de Walle, Pidgornyy, Schroder, Cheula and Veikkanen. In the last kilometer it all came to a sprint between the first 3, where Van de Walle proved to be the strongest and took the second Belgian stage win after a breakaway, Aerts being the previous winner.
Maaskant got Farrar into a perfect lead to finish 10th, first behind the escapes. But that wasn't the big story in the pack today. Inside the last 5 kilometers of the race, Sorensen went down and cause a huge crash where half of the pack was involved. Rogers, Cavendish, Rodriguez, Navaro, Pellizotti, Zubeldia, Voigt, Van Summeren, Gesink, Monfort, Amstrong, Riblon, Cunego and Dupont were just some of the many names that went down there. Almost the entire group of riders that crashed finshed 1 minute and a half behind the pack. With Gesink losing time, Lovkvist took his place on the podium, which is a great result for him and Team Sky, even though this wasn't the way we wanted to win that place
Vockler took the lead in the previous stage but from the top riders in the GC he is probably the weakest time - trialist so it could be between Joly and Kirchen for the final win, while for today's stage Leipheimer and Wiggins are the main favorites on paper
This wasn't Leipheimer's race and we saw that today again as he wasn't even able to beat his team - mate, Janez Brajkovic
Bradley Wiggins showed so far a way better form than in Paris - Nice and today he came up with a very strong time of 10 minutes and 57 seconds, taking the lead with only 4 riders left to ride
The winner of the first stage, Kim Kirchen, was only one second behind Wiggins at the intermediate check point but he lost 14 seconds in the end, which isn't enough to keep the third overall in front of Wiggins, Samuel Sanchez losing his place as well
Voeckler lost just 32 seconds today to Wiggins which was enough to keep the Brit behind him but more importantly he lost 26 seconds to Joly, who finished second in today's stage. 26 lost means that Voeckler lost the overall win to Joly for only 4 seconds!
purepasd wrote:
Good for you that löfkvist not crashed. nice podium
I always keep my leaders at the front of the pack and the crash was somewhere in the middle of the pack
Okay i thought it was in the front because Cavendish and the leaders crashed
well yeah... have no idea what Cavendish was doing back there but maybe he was interested in the sprint since it was clear that the escapes will get the stage
[img-r]https://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz110/sky_story/thomaslovkvist-1.png[/img-r] March has been a great month for Thomas Lovkvist, winning 2 stages in Vuelta a Murcia plus the overall rankings, winning the GC in Tirreno - Adriatico and a third place overall in Volta a Catalunya. And there's no doubt that Thomas is the Sky rider of the month.
In a Vuelta a Murcia he had no opponents winning the individual time - trial plus the queen mountain stage. In Tirreno he didn't got any stage wins, finishing the time - trial second, just one second behind Fabian Cancellara. The decisive move was made in the penultimate stage, where Cancellara wasn't able to follow the leading group of the race and it was Lovkvist who took the leader's jersey for him and then never losing it. Catalunya was a harder race for him because of a stage that had a high mountain finish but in the end with the luck of some leaders crashing he managed to finish third, behind Valverde and Contador.
The last 2 races helped Lovkvist getting the third place in the Pro Tour Individual Rankings, behind Valverde and Gilbert, as well Team Sky getting the first place in the Team Classification. Valverde is looking settle to take the Pro Tour win this year after winning Paris - Nice and Volta a Catalunya and there are some other races in the calendar that suit him, while Gilbert is second after his win in La Primavera plus the second place got in Tirreno - Adriatico. Thomas Lovkvist will look forward to repeat his performances in April, in Vuelta al Pais Vasco and the Ardennes Classics where he will team up with Simon Gerrans.
April Calendar:
April is full of Pro Tour classics: the northen ones, Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris - Roubaix, the Ardennes ones, Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallone and Liege - Bastogne - Liege, plus 2 stage races, Vuelta al Pais Vasco and Tour de Romandie.
Flecha and Boasson Hagen will lead the team in Ronde and Paris - Roubaix, where Flecha will try to get a top 5 and respectively a top 3 as those are one of our sponsor goals for this season. Juan Antonio was also the one that achieved our other goal after finishing third in Milano - Sanremo. As previous mentioned, Simon Gerrans and Thomas Lovkvist will ride in Pais Vasco, where Thomas will try to get into the top 10 overall as that's one of our sponsor goals, and the Ardennes Classics, while Wiggins will lead our team in Tour de Romandie, in his final preparation for the first GT of the year, the Giro d'Italia.
Even with so many Pro Tour races in April, we will ride a few continental ones as well. Scheldeprijs will be the final chance for Flecha and Hagen to warm up for Paris - Roubaix, while De Brabantse Pijl will have the same role for Lovkvist and Gerrans with the Ardennes Classics. For Castilla y Leon, Wiggins will probably lead the team trying to build up some fitness form for Giro, while Flecha might be present as well as the northen classics season will be almost over.
Edited by alexkr00 on 07-03-2010 13:05
The second Cycling Monument is here and we already saw what the current level of the northen classics specialists in Gent - Wevelgem, where Cancellara took the win in front of Hoste and Pozzato.
The 2 Sky leaders, Flecha and Boasson Hagen didn't have the best day there and they finished only 6th and respectively 8th. But they will both look forward to make even a better, especially Flecha, since a top 5 is needed to keep the sponsors happy.
Pretty much all the stars that rode in Gent - Wevelgem are present here as well, this time with the Cervelo duo, made by Hushovd and Haussler also riding. But the shocking news are that last year's winner, Stijn Devolder won't be riding here, as well as his team - mate, Tom Boonen. With the 2 Belgians missing, the French, Sylvain Chavanel will lead Quick Step in what is for them probably the most important race in the calendar.
Team Sky for Ronde van Vlaanderen: Kurt Alse Arvesen Edvald Boasson Hagen Juan Antonio Flecha Matt Hayman Lars Petter Nordhaug Nicolas Portal Ian Stannard Geraint Thomas
On the favorites list of the day rated with the first chance to take the win in the second Monument of the year are Cancellara, Ballan and Haussler but there are a lot of other amazing riders that will get in the fight for the podium today. But the bad news is that the game crashed again, which seems to happen really often now, and there are no pictures even though I really wanted to make a big report for this amazing race
When the pack hit the first cobbled section of the day, there were no attacks and we never saw a breakaway going away from the pack until Hagen's attack with 80 kilometers left from the race. He stayed in front for like 30 kilometers, then he was joined by Rast but they didn't last for too long and only after a few kilometers we had again a large group in front.
It was Cancellara who made the big move then and the only riders that were able to follow him were Flecha and Hoste. Behind them a chasing group was made, which included Nuyens, Ballan and Chavanel, but the first 3 managed to get an advantage of over 1 minute quite easily.
There were no other important moves until Muur - Kapelmuur, where Hoste started having trouble and being very close to lose the contact with the other 2, while behind them Ballan and Chavanel attacked from the chasing group and were very close to join the leading group. At the top of Muur, Flecha made what could have been the decisive move and even though Cancellara tried to keep it up with him but he had no chance.
On Bosberg, things were even better for Flecha as he already had an advantage of around one minute over his chasers. Behind him, Chavanel and Ballan joined Cancellara and Hoste but before the end of Bosberg they were already gone from Flecha's 'attack mates'.
Flecha had no problems keeping his advantage over the flat section and took an amazing win for Team Sky, achieving our second goal this season, after he finished third in Milano - Sanremo. The Spaniard seems to be doing great this year in the Monuments, which is an amazing team with Paris - Roubaix getting closer and closer. Behind him, Ballan won the sprint for the second place in front of Chavanel, while Cancellara and Hoste rounded up the top 5.
Flecha winning Dwars door Vlaanderen 1 week and a half agoEdited by alexkr00 on 08-03-2010 21:08
