The team may be a little too weak for my usual domination. Plus I refrain from using my dirtiest tricks in this career. Though you will see a small team attack soon, but I felt it was fairly realistic.
croatia14 was happy to see Jorgensen's full stats last season, so here are the captain of the spring stage racing team and his deputy, Frech and Kolk. Frech has nothing left to learn except some DHI and a point in RES. Kolk can improve a bit more across the board, apart from MON, so they'll become very similar riders.
The race, it's the 2006 variant, starts with a team time trial and follows up with two flat, three hilly and one moderately difficult mountain stage. We liked the fact that there is a TTT, all our 8 riders have at least TTR 70. And so we won the opening stage by 16 seconds ahead of Quickstep and, surprisingly, Torku Seker Spor. David Pozin is the first leader of the race. He was a U23 signing three years ago, but despite his potential 6 he's not developing into an interesting rider, plus he still hasn't developed that much in his time with us anyway. But after winning stage 17 in last year's Giro this is now officially his 2nd career victory.
Stage 2 was classified as hilly, but had a long flat run to the finish line. We feared it might be up to us to control the breakaway but other teams were so unhappy with the 6 riders ahead that they were caught 93 km out. That led to just one further attack by Delaplace (FLA 76), who looked in great shape to win the stage and even take the overall lead. But our team pushed hard on the final small hill and then Astana took over and Delaplace was caught with 2 km to go. It became a mass sprint, with 27-year old Duncan Birmingham beating Arndt and Jovanovic. The Croatian top sprinter won stage 3, Arndt was 2nd again, Ewan 3rd.
Next was the queen stage with a mountaintop finish in Andorra, though it's not the steepest of climbs. But it was an exciting finale nonetheless. A breakaway with good climbers including our own Arnau Zamora was 4 minutes ahead going into the small but steep penultimate climb. Our protected captains Frech and Kolk moved to the front of the peloton but were still caught out by the sudden increase in speed. Barely making it into the group of most favourites it wasn't enough to catch several riders, including the top favourite, our ex-captain Jorgensen.
We decided to take a breather, the final climb was 20 km long, with a flat section in the lower half. The directeur sportif made the tough call to let Zamora drop from the top group and wait for Frech for the final 5 km. But he and Kolk were still protected for now and upping the effort as we hit the final ramp they dropped a lot of riders. And some came back from the earlier attack, too, like Simon Yates. Only Jorgensen was gone and he went on to win the stage and take the overall lead. Behind him was a trio of breakaway riders that survived and were only a minute or so behind in the GC before the stage, Sepulveda, Zoidl and Santl. Maybe Zamora could have been up there and then he'd have been the new GC leader.
But we were very pleased to see that with his help our leaders left everybody else behind. Men like Pinot (MON 80) whose team had been working hard all day, Quintana (79), even Barguil (81). Giant's Laurie (80) and Orica's two leaders Olivier (80) and Arguedas (81) were especially disappointing, all finishing 3'26'' behind Jorgensen. While our men were only 50'' behind and are now 2nd and 3rd in the GC, just 8'' back. And we know Jorgensen has trouble with hills and we still have two hilly stages ahead. But our men aren't great, either, and both finales are fairly tame. Which on the other hand could help us defend the podium places against the more explosive riders.
Stage 5 to Manlleu was as tame as it looked on paper. It was a mass sprint of nearly 150 riders, no changes in the GC. But the stage went to the breakaway by about a minute - and it was the next win for Pozin! I just scolded him again for not being good at anything, but he does have SPR 71 which is great for a stage like this. He timed his sprint perfectly on the short final ramp and won 8'' ahead of his rivals, Gallopin, Tonini and König.
The final chance for time gaps was a stage to Lloret de Mar. It clearly went to the breakaway, allowing two riders to make it into the final top 10, Caruso (6th) and Ormad (9th). We were a little disappointed that Grande was beaten to the finish line by König, Grande had distanced him on the small descent a few km out and is clearly better on the flat, but König caught and overtook him in the final 500 metres to claim the stage.
The last serious obstacle was over 30 km out and we dared an attack with four riders and were joined by Barguil, Kwiatkowski and Laurie. Barguil then shared the workload with Juhl and Gallardo and briefly they were nearly 2 minutes ahead of Jorgensen and quite hopeful when Sky ran out of steam.
But Quickstep and IAM took over, protecting the GC positions of Pinot and Sepulveda. And so our guys were eventually caught. However, Barguil had attacked once more and gained nearly a minute on the rest of the GC riders. Thankfully, not quite enough to overtake our guys, he moved up to 4th, 10'' behind the podium.
Nothing happened on the final stage, won by Jovanovic, his 2nd stage and the points jersey for him. Our ex-star Jorgensen wins the race, congrats, just 8 seconds ahead of Frech and Kolk. Another fine result for Aviva Cycling, we also won the teams competition. A shame that this was the only TTT our spring team gets to ride.
1
Finn E. Jørgensen
Team Sky
2
Volker Frech
Aviva Cycling
+00:08
3
Matthew Kolk
Aviva Cycling
+00:08
4
Warren Barguil
Astana Pro Team
+00:18
5
Eduardo Sepulveda
IAM Cycling
+00:39
6
Damiano Caruso
Cannondale
+00:40
7
Thibaut Pinot
QuickStep Team
+00:43
8
Riccardo Zoidl
Orica - GreenEDGE
+00:45
9
Pablo Ormad
Movistar Team
+00:47
10
Edmund Santl
Trek Factory Racing
+00:53
Spoiler
Here I tried a team attack with four of my riders but felt it was realistic. I don't know if I'd been totally happy had it worked out - but I was pretty disappointed when it didn't after that 2 minute gap.
Race squad: Alexander Boicenco, Pierre Dallamano, Adalberto Gasparetti, Masakadza, Jo Oakes, Jonas Rauls, Jaffar Sergienko, Marthijn van de Kamp
Our punchers and even sprinter Rauls have to help our three northern classics specialists. Boicenco already seems good enough that he can ride for his own results, so we tried not to use him to protect Masakadza in this race.
The team mates held on for a long time, they would all finish together well inside the top 100, 10'37'' behind the winner. Towards the end Jaffar Sergienko – who has reached his limit with COB 76 – was still protecting Masakadza, with Boicenco nearby.
All late attacks were unsuccessful, until the top 3 took off, Veiby, Heubach and Vanmarcke. Masakadza tried to follow, but couldn't quite keep up. He rode hard and was still surprised to catch the trio again 6 km out. His tank was now empty, though.
Boicenco was able to follow the next group, consisting only of Demare and Bennett. Demare had Heubach, Boicenco Masakdaza ahead, so Bennett had to do all the work.
Veiby launched his final attack and Masakadza had no response, the other two couldn't quite keep up, either. They weren't far back, but Veiby didn't allow them to catch him again. So he did what he couldn't do for Aviva, he won his first cobblestone WT race.
Masakadza was a good 4th, 50 seconds behind the trio. And Boicenco discovered he had a little energy left, surprised Bennett and Demare with a very late attack and finished an excellent 5th, another minute behind.
The top 10: Veiby, Heubach, Vanmarcke, Masakadza, Boicenco, Demare, Bennett, Senechal, Kristoff, Vanbilsen
Race squad: Boicenco, Pierre Dallamano, Denis, Gasparetti, Koloda, Masakadza, Rauls, J. Sergienko
The top three cobblestone specialists decided to skip the race, and yet we could do no better than we did in our first WT season, 5th.
Our trio of specialists broke free on the final Koppelberg and had an advantage of up to 2 minutes over the chasing group, which still included most of our other riders. But they were caught and then six riders took off on their own or in duos. Disappointingly, we could only catch two of them despite relaying hard into a headwind with six of our men.
RJVR beat Bennett to win the race, De Buyst and Senechal arrived alone. We were able to cause a final split in the chasing group and our sprinter Rauls, the only rider who didn't have to relay, was able to outsprint Demare and Boom, a fine result for him. Our specialists were 8th, 9th and 10th.
Top 10: RJVR, Bennett, De Buyst, Senechal, Rauls, Demare, Boom, Masakadza, Boicenco, Sergienko
Race squad: Boicenco, Dallamano, Krasnopjorov, Masakadza, Oakes, Pozin, J. Sergienko, Van de Kamp
Top 5 results in the cobbled monuments aren't an easy task, Masakadza is good, but he isn't quite up to the level of the best riders. And the race didn't seem to go particularly well for Aviva, either. Strong winds of over 60 kmph were causing gaps on the hellingen and we unnecessarily lost rider after rider and too soon Boicenco was the last rider to protect Masakadza, even he was dead with 30 km to go.
De Buyst had already attacked by then and our two riders were in a group of eleven chasers, ten after Boicenco dropped out. We were racing into a headwind and Masakadza was able to recuperate some energy while Heubach and Veiby helped in the chase. But a decisive moment came right at the top of the penultimate cobbled hill. Masakadza seemed perfectly positioned to follow the attack of the big boys Heubach, Vanmarcke and Veiby. But sadly, Heubach's team mate Demare got in the way and blocked our captain.
Masakadza trapped behind Demare while the others attack
Masakadza broke free but just a little too late... he didn't quite dare to empty his tank, at least he was 5th now, which would be enough for the objective. There was no cooperation anymore in the group he'd left behind, but that could still change. The final cobbled climb was enough to find Heubach's rear wheel. Veiby had caught De Buyst, Vanmarcke was alone in between. Our captain had little energy reserves left and stuck to Heubach's wheel for a few kilometres.
But Heubach looked spent and so Masakadza left him behind after a turn in the road took us out of the headwind and our captain easily finished 4th, a fine result. Vanmarcke caught the other two but Veiby soon attacked and the trio fell apart. Veiby celebrated his first Ronde, more will surely follow, he's still only 26 years old. Vanmarcke arrived 30'' back, De Buyst 1 minute, Masakadza 2 minutes, Heubach 30 seconds later.
Top 10: Veiby, Vanmarcke, De Buyst, Masakadza, Heubach, Boom, Thys, Spijkers, Demare, Senechal
Jasper De Buyst will be even more of a threat in Paris-Roubaix with his COB 82 SPR 82, he did surprisingly well here given his HIL 65.
The hilly opening stage to Elgoibar finished with a descent. Grande (DHI 78) attacked on the last peak and pulled his captain Frech (69) along. Oddly enough, Frech then overtook Grande and even left him behind. Grande was quickly swallowed by a big group, but Frech held on to win the stage, just a couple of bike lengths ahead of Kwiatkowski. Goal already fuliflled. 47 riders finished together, the rest had given up and lost at least 8 minutes. This included among others Piton, Hayden and Laurie, plus Sequeiros from our team.
Stage 2 was the only flat stage, Birmingham beat Alaphilippe and SkyDive's Juul Lopes. Stage 3 could have seen a nice breakaway with Sequeiros and several other riders who were 8 minutes or more behind in the GC. But Rui Costa decided to join in to defend his mountain jersey and he was only 30'' back in the GC. So no chance for the breakaway. Then we were also a little unlucky on the final climb. I think we timed the sprint well, not too early because the final 500 metres were very steep. But all our riders were trapped behind others, Grande was the first to break free, but too late. Four riders were awarded a 27'' gap: Ion Izagirre, Pinot, Mohoric and Slagter, while Grande in 5th got the same time as Ivan Balaguer in 66th.
Those 27 seconds wouldn't make much of a difference in the end, the following stage to Eibar was brutal and caused larger gaps. We had Gallardo prepared for a breakaway appearance but he watched who else attacked and among the riders were Elissonde and Gilkinson, both high up in the GC, so Gallardo had to protect Frech instead.
The penultimate classified climb was on a narrow road, had we known we might have been further up front, but it wasn't too bad. Yes, a group of 25 riders, which had already swallowed the breakaway, was 45'' ahead after the climb, but Caja Rural closed the gap for us. The final climb was more mountain than hill, which suited us just fine. Barguil attacked and won the stage by 24 seconds ahead of Izagirre and 45 seconds ahead of Pinot. Frech was 5th, arriving with Seliga, 1'10'' behind, Kolk and Quintana were next, losing 30 more seconds, and then came Nunez and Arnau Zamora, who were still faster than Slagter, Mohoric, Aru, Bardet and the rest.
So we had four riders in the top 10, those positions would be tough to defend on another difficult stage from Eibar to Besain. There are some narrow roads, including on a short but incredibly steep climb we have to tackle three times. After the third time, it's downhill to the finish line. Gallardo joined the escapees this time, once more Rui Costa in his mountain jersey was there, at least now he was over 6 minutes behind in the GC.
But the gap soon reached 12 minutes and we felt we had to do Caja Rural's work to defend our GC positions against Rui Costa and Moses Cox. Finally Astana and Quickstep took over and the gap steadily decreased, though the stage would go to the breakaway. Gallardo had not fought for the mountain points and we hoped that would give him the edge. He left Rui Costa behind, but Cox (HIL 77) proved too strong and won by a minute ahead of our man.
We were very worried about the finale, energy reserves were low for everybody, we lost Sequeiros and Juhl when they tried to get drinks and Iniesta Mendez Nunez was dropped, too. But the rest just about made it over the penultimate climb with the best and caught enough of a breather to take to the front for the last steep ramp. Attacks easily got past our men, but they could then attack at the top of the climb and into the sprint, in the end there were no time gaps between 26 riders.
That left a 24 km hilly ITT, simulated as always. We didn't see any of our riders on the intial stage results sheet, none in the top 21, which was a bit disappointing. But switching to GC positions everything looked good again: Frech 4th, Arnau Zamora 6th, Kolk 7th. So nothing changed in the GC apart from Kolk and Zamora swapping places. Pinot and Barguil also swapped places for 2nd and 3rd and stage winner Talansky replaced Slagter as 10th.
1
Ion Izagirre
Caja Rural - Seguros RGA
2
Thibaut Pinot
QuickStep Team
+01:05
3
Warren Barguil
Astana Pro Team
+01:06
4
Volker Frech
Aviva Cycling
+01:56
5
Roni Seliga
Tinkoff - Saxo
+02:03
6
Arnau Zamora
Aviva Cycling
+02:34
7
Matthew Kolk
Aviva Cycling
+02:36
8
Matej Mohoric
Team Katusha
+02:42
9
Nairo Quintana
Movistar Team
+02:53
10
Andrew Talansky
IAM Cycling
+02:55
We're all well used to them by now, but another fine bunch of results for our guys, beating some high quality riders.
Race squad: Boicenco, Dallamano, Krasnopjorov, Masakadza, Moya, Pozin, J. Sergienko, Van de Kamp
It was a fast race, the peloton was not happy with the size of the breakaway and the chase went on for nearly 100 km. The peloton was down to 144 riders, we'd already lost Van de Kamp, exhausted from protecting our captain before we even hit the first sector. Krasnopjorov was also nearly spent, but he took the lead after the situation calmed down to not let the pace drop too much. He fell back in the cobbled sectors, but returned to the front again, at least for a while.
Pozin was now protecting Masakadza, while Moya and Dallamano had been protecting our other specialists for a while. 100 km out our best riders took to the front themselves and split from the peloton with a few Quickstep riders. Missing were Veiby and Vanmarcke, the latter had his team mate Boom up front and Trek seemed happy with that, though Boom is less of a threat than Vanmarcke.
We lost Pozin, Moya and Dallamano in the Forest of Arenberg, so only our three specialists were left. Sergienko now protected Masakadza and the group was still large enough for the others to work for us, not just Demare and Groenewegen for Heubach, but also De Buyst and Boom, only Spijkers kept to the back.
With 85 km to go we had swallowed a group of breakaway riders and now Heubach made a mistake, resting at the back of this E2 which quickly split into two. So Demare was the last man left for Quickstep, enough for Heubach to sit up and again, that was the easier opponent for us. So things were looking great at that point, an E1 with 8 breakaway artists was still ahead, but E2 consisted only of our three men as well as Demare, Boom and De Buyst. Would the sextett decide the race?
Sadly, not quite, we still had 80 km to go. It was up to Boicenco to set the pace, and we didn't want to drain him of his energy too soon. E3 was swallowed by the peloton, which was still pretty large. Spijkers attacked and Veiby followed, the gap to our group was about 2 minutes. We tried to make it hard for Veiby to reach us, Boicenco increased his effort, other riders in the group tried to help, but Veiby and Spijkers connected pretty easily.
50 km out De Buyst attacked and Demare followed. Boicenco kept up the high pace. 8 escapees were still ahead as E1, including some pretty good riders who'd attacked half-way through the race. We had to close the gap of about a minute quickly so Demare and De Buyst couldn't rest after joining the group ahead. We managed it, but Jaffar Sergienko and Boicenco were spent. Sergienko immediately dropped out of this group, Boicenco was able to to hold on a little longer.
Time for our captain to make his move: 5 km after the two groups joined up Masakadza attacked, followed only by Veiby. With Vanmarcke and Heubach out of the picture none of the other 13 riders had Masakadza's COB. Veiby used the next sector to leave Masakadza behind. It was unrealistic that our man could follow the top favourite, but he was able to keep up an effort of 72 the rest of the way to the Velodrome. Boom, Demare, De Buyst and Spijkers had left the group behind as well and were chasing our man, but they kept attacking each other and none ever quite caught up with Masakadza.
And finally we had the pleasure of seeing the gap grow from the right side. 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes. In the end, Masakadza arrived 4 minutes ahead of those four riders. There was even a slight hope of catching Veiby, our man had certainly managed his energy reserves well. Maybe he should have used his last breath for an attack in the hope of bridging the gap, which was less than a minute. But he arrived with his reserves spent, 44 seconds behind Veiby.
De Buyst won the sprint for 3rd, behind him were Boom, Spijkers and Demare. Alexey Shishelov and Patrick Van Dongen, mid-stage attackers, were 7th and 8th, Boicenco 9th, 9'14'' behind Veiby and just ahead of Senechal. Heubach and Vanmarcke were only 13th and 14th, not far behind Boicenco in the end, but a long, long way behind Masakadza.
Top 10: Veiby, Masakadza, De Buyst, Boom, Spijkers, Demare, Shishelov, Van Dongen, Boicenco, Senechal
A really good result for Masakadza, the race could have hardly gone any better. And the big double for Veiby, unsurprisingly. His COB 84 is unmatched and especially his HIL 76 sets him apart from the rest of the field. Heubach might have a shot of beating Veiby to win in Paris-Roubaix again, but the Ronde should be Veiby's for years to come. I noticed that Spijkers has an AoD of just 28, and he is already 28, so he'll drop out of contention soon. Vanmarcke (33) and Boom (36) have also finally hit their AoD.
A quick rankings update ahead of the Ardennes Week
Will this be the year we win the WT teams classification? Thanks to consistently good results we have a pretty comfortable lead with 784 points, ahead of IAM with 586 and Quickstep with 467. At this point last season Trek was leading with 780 points, Aviva had 653, Astana 497.
IAM's strong position is largely due to Mads Veiby. He leads the individual rankings with 340 points. But right behind him is Volker Frech with 292 points, who's outscoring every previous spring team captain by a mile. Marrou had 154 at this point in 2020, last year Hontecillas only had 61, Catalunya winner Arnau Zamora 108.
Kolk (216) is also doing incredibly well so far and Masakadza (190) has proven to be a worthy captain for the cobblestone classics. All three are in the top 6 at the moment, with Boicenco (46) and Arnau Zamora (40) currently included in the team rankings.
April 2022: Amstel Gold Race
* goal: Top 5
Race squad: Denis, Gasparetti, Koloda, Krasnopjorov, Moya, Oakes, Tewelde, Van de Kamp
We easily have the best puncheur squad so far in this career. After years with a maximum of HIL 78 we now have Jo Oakes and Adalberto Gasparetti with their HIL 81. But the Amstel Gold race isn't made for pure puncheurs, with a pretty long flat section before the final ramp. This is a variant with narrow roads, which might shake up things a bit.
While I have been using the protection feature a lot more in this story than I usually do, I wasn't going to use it here, or only towards the end if it made sense. With everybody reacting to every attack we never felt we had to concentrate on just one rider. What we did do after 13 riders broke free, including five of our men, is to let the other three sit up, making it unlikely that riders further back still had a chance and this included pre-race favourites like Mohoric and Hoem.
One man dared a solo attack before that split happened, Slagter, and I guess our team often helps such a solo rider to make it to the finish line alone. Not that everybody else in the E2 was just watching us, but we only followed, mostly on free effort, any further attacks. As we hit the final 1.5 km leading up a narrow road to the finish line we allowed all our riders to sprint on their own and we'd see where it takes us.
Slagter won by 54 seconds, but Emile Denis, one of our "old" HIL 78 riders, finished 2nd, ahead of our ex-rider Ivan Singh, Jo Oakes was 4th. Then came Machaca, then Krasnopjorov and Tewelde, then Koch and then our nominally best rider, Gasparetti. Jungels completes the top 10.
So while we won last year thanks to Veiby, this was our most dominant performance by far. Except for Veiby our only other top 10 results previously were: Tewelde 8th (2021) and Denis 7th (2020). Now we have 5 riders in the top 10, 4 in the top 7. That bodes well for the future – or maybe you already dread our domination. Though as always in this career, it's all temporary, 21 contracts are expiring this season and who knows what the team will look like next year. But for now, Aviva is on top of the world.
Race squad: Denis, Gasparetti, Koloda, Krasnopjorov, Moya, Oakes, Tewelde, Van de Kamp
Sorry to all Belgian readers that I keep dropping a n in Wallonne.
To be honest, I thought we might repeat the result of Amstel Gold in the Walloon Arrow. With Oakes and Gasparetti we have two legitimate top 10 candidates and the others aren't far behind. But I'm not unhappy to report that the race was slightly disappointing.
First, though, our confidence only rose in the finale. Plenty of riders wasted energy with attacks that went nowhere, our men were at the front with full sprint bars intact as we hit the foot of the Mur for the final time. We've tried sprint train and duo variants which never seemed to pay off, I believe we picked the right spot to start the sprint, running out of red bars on the line. But "only" two riders made the top 10, Oakes in 4th and Gasparetti in 10th. Oakes just missed the podium, but 4th is a very good result, equalling Igor Sergienko's performance in 2019.
In all fairness, it was a good bunch of riders. Slagter won yet again, that his team mate Pedro Campana (HIL 80) was 2nd was a bit surprising. But SkyDive's Van Baarle (84) deserved to beat Oakes and his team mates.
Top 10: Slagter, Pedro Campana, Van Baarle, Oakes, Barguil, Koch, Hoem, Bardet, Jungels, Gasparetti
April 2022: Liege-Bastogne-Liege
***** goal: Top 5
Race squad: Denis, Gasparetti, Koloda, Krasnopjorov, Moya, Oakes, Tewelde, Van de Kamp
Really, for the longest time I was going to restart this race. It wasn't fair on our team and probably a lot of other teams, too. The wind of up to 70 kmph played a big role and riders got stuck everywhere on just about every climb in the final 80 km. We lost our best rider first, Gasparetti, Moya and Koloda soon followed... the front was very bunched up and when one rider ran out of energy he'd hold up 5 to 10 riders behind him, which constantly caused splits.
I admit I didn't restart because it partly worked to our advantage. Gasparetti may have been lost in an A1 while E1 to E8 had formed ahead of a small peloton in the final 35 km, riders on their own or in twos and threes. But when the dust settled and the small groups merged into a larger E1 of up to 14 riders, we still had 5 men in the group, which was pretty impressive. Denis tried a late attack on the penultimate climb in the hope he'd be ignored, but it didn't work and he finished last of the 14. Van de Kamp was 13th, he was the weakest rider in the front group.
We once more failed with a short sprint train up the ramp to the finish line. The order was Tewelde, Krasnopjorov and Oakes and they finished 4th, 5th and 8th respectively. Possibly Oakes would have done better had he sprinted separately. The Doyenne went to Piton ahead of Kwiatkowski (despite his decline) and Mohoric. Piton hadn't scored a single WT point so far this season, and suddenly he's there to take a monument. Slagter was only 6th this time, ahead of the pre-race favourite Van Baarle. Behind Oakes, Machaca and Singh complete the top 10.
Top 10: Piton, Kwiatkowski, Mohoric, Tewelde, Krasnopjorov, Slagter, Van Baarle, Oakes, Machaca, Singh
A lot of objectives this season are top 5 results, that included all three Ardennes Week races, and we completed them all, 9/9 goals so far. That was by no means certain, even with our new additions. And oddly enough it was the old guard of HIL 78 riders who secured two of the three results this week. Gasparetti, unlike Oates, will stay with us another year and so he has a year to improve and hopefully deliver top results then. If he does improve, he'll very likely justify a captaincy with protection, something we didn't do this week. Oakes and Gasparetti may have their HIL 81, but our veteran riders have worked on their other stats and have higher FLA or ACC or RES.
The Romandie started with a short prologue won by Kelderman ahead of Dumoulin, Frech was 13th. Next was a fairly simple hilly stage to Fleurier, 32 riders arrived together, Barguil won, beating Ion Izagirre and Dombrowski. Vuk Jovanovic, of course, won the mass sprint of the only flat stage. Jan Bo Meinert was a good third with his SPR 77. He rode for Aviva back in 2016 and 2017 and is now in his 5th season with Tinkoff-Saxo.
Stage 4 was a MTT up the Col du Lein. Both of our captains had a pretty bad day, Kolk was 16th, losing 58'', Frech 23rd, 1'28'' behind the winner. The stage went to a new name in the WT, 28-year old Luc Pantarolo (MON 78). Impressively, he beat Jorgensen and Hayden.
The queen stage didn't lead to any time gaps, 45 riders arrived together. Nunez was in the breakaway of the day with Fraile and Rolland, but they were caught early on the penultimate climb. While that climb was fairly demanding, it was followed by a short descent, a flat section and then a tame uphill finish. Dombrowski beat Barguil and Pinot.
So it would come down to the final flat ITT, every second counts with the small gaps we have so far, for the win and for the whole top 10. Barguil was only 84th and drops from the top to 10th. Both Frech and Kolk rode pretty well. But while it was enough for Frech to move up from 14th to 5th in the final GC, Kolk drops from 8th to 11th. He's just one second behind the riders in 9th and 10th.
The Romandie goes to Team Sky's Stanley Hayden, who celebrates his biggest career result yet. He has become a very good stage racer (MON 82 TTR 75, but ACC 60), previously his best results were winning the Tour Alsace in 2019 and 6th overall in Catalunya in 2020. Quintana was runner-up, ex-Aviva rider Köszegi (MON 76 TTR 78) completes the podium. A really good result for him.
1
Stanley Hayden
Team Sky
2
Nairo Quintana
Movistar Team
+00:16
3
Hannes Köszegi
Trek Factory Racing
+00:18
4
Wilco Kelderman
Belkin Pro Cycling Team
+00:22
5
Volker Frech
Aviva Cycling
+00:53
6
Thibaut Pinot
QuickStep Team
+00:55
7
Justino Aller
Team Katusha
+01:01
8
Ion Izagirre
Caja Rural - Seguros RGA
+01:03
9
Michal Kwiatkowski
Lotto - Belisol
+01:06
10
Warren Barguil
Astana Pro Team
+01:06
5th may not seem very impressive, but it's actually our best ever result in the Romandie.
It's going top be a close race until the final week and the last podium position will only be decided by 2 seconds after stage 20. Kolk just missed the top 10 in the Romandie, but his performances so far justify making him co-captain with full protection.
The first few days were rather boring, from our point of view. Bennett won stages 1 and 2 before the game allowed our ex-man McLean to take stage 3 with an advantage of 51'' ahead of the sprinters, he'll wear pink for 5 days. Stage 4 was completely flat except for the final 1.5 km. Lander won, Iniesta Mendez Nunez was 5th, no time gaps whatsoever.
Stage 5 was the first real test, a more difficult hilly stage with five climbs. I don't know why we sent Grande into the breakaway, especially since a hard chase was on over the first 50 km and it was just about survival, staying in the strong escape group with hardly any KOM points for Grande. They were caught easily. Ulissi won by 37'' thanks to a late attack over the final hill, Frech was a good 2nd, towing a group of 41 riders. Bouhanni then won the next mass sprint.
Stage 7 was a long and completely flat ITT from Grosseto to Orbetello. It went to Howson, Frech rode well, losing just 40'', Kolk has been working on his TT skill but he lost twice as much time. Talansky had a bad day, he was only 24th. While McLean had another great day, 5th, just 18'' behind Howson. He's still in the lead, 1'16'' ahead of Ulissi, with Frech only 1'' behind.
We'll soon find out who's really challenging for victory with two mountaintop finishes ahead. My money's on Sky's Egon "Ghostbuster" Braglia, an easy choice, he's currently the best climber in the world (MON 83) and he just rode a surprisingly good ITT considering it's his weakness, he's 15th currently. Otherwise there's just Majka (MON 81), who lost 3 minutes in the time trial, the same is true for Olivier (80). There's also Seliga (80), but he's already 10 minutes behind. A podium finish for Frech isn't entirely unrealistic, because on stage 13 we have an even longer flat ITT on the menu, 60 km, and all the above are cleary weaker against the clock.
But first the tough climb to Pian de Valli. Only two smallish mountains across 140 km before the final climb started. Arnau Zamora was in the breakaway, it became clear the group would be caught on the final climb so Zamora decreased his effort a little to be able to help Kolk, while Frech was protected by Juhl (now MON 76).
Our captains were at the front when the climb started, they were soon overtaken by about 20 riders but managed to turn the tables on a lot of them. Majka pedalled clear, but soon Braglia set off after him and the Italian won the stage by 9''. Next were Olivier, Ulissi, Dombrowski and Villela, losing between 39'' and a minute flat. Frech was 7th, 1'16'' behind, Kolk 8th, losing 17 more seconds. McLean lost his pink jersey, he dropped to 9th in the GC.
Braglia has moved up to 2nd in the GC, 20 seconds behind Ulissi and just ahead of Frech. Kolk is currently 5th, but the next three riders were all faster on this stage, Majka, Dombrowski and Olivier.
The next mountain stage finished with a very uneven climb, in hindsight our men could have picked a higher effort. Of the top 7, our captains were the slowest, 47'' behind the winning quartett. Majka, Olivier and Dombrowski are moving in on Frech's podium position, Kolk dropped down to 7th. Gallardo spent the day in the breakaway and collected 34 KOM points, but Elissonde, Cross and Zoidl collected over 50 each.
After the rest day we faced a hilly stage with one steep climb, 3 km long, which had to be tackled three times in the finale. The other teams apparently didn't want an Aviva rider in the breakaway. Grande tried three times and was chased down every time, later Zamora wanted to join the six riders ahead but again, no dice. Did we piss off anybody?
A shame because the breakaway made it, if only barely, Movistar's Espada won the stage. Ulissi once again gained time on everybody else in the top 10. He was 25'' behind the winner, the next 50 riders were 30'' slower.
Next were a couple of flat stages which both went to breakaway riders. Then came stage 13, one of the longest time trials around, flat from Forli to Faenza, 59.6 km. PCM being PCM, some riders will overperform while others will fail miserably. Despite the length the winning time came down to a fraction of a second, with Howson once again coming out top, just ahead of Arnold. Talansky was just 8'' behind and has suddenly moved up to 4th in the GC. Possibly the biggest news, however, certainly from Aviva's viewpoint, is that Frech has moved into the maglia rosa!
And he managed it despite the fact that Braglia once again overperformed, he was 35th, only slightly over a minute behind the far better Frech and over two minutes faster than Ulissi, who has the same TT skill. Behind Talansky Nerz is back in 5th, Kolk is now 6th, having overtaken Majka and Olivier, Marrou is 9th, and McLean back in the top 10. The big losers were Villela and Dombrowski – Villela lost 6 minutes, Dombrowski was only 133rd, 7'36'' behind. Yonder Godoy, another good climber, even lost 8'24''.
To put this into perspective with Braglia: Braglia has TTR 68, Dombrowski and Godoy have TTR 66. And yet Braglia was 6'20'' faster than Godoy, 5'30'' faster than Dombrowski. Of course it wasn't just Braglia, for example Olivier has TTR 67 and was only 13'' slower than the Italian. I really wish PCM wouldn't cause such a spread of results for riders with similar TT skills.
Anyway, it's been a while since the top 10 has been this close so late in the race and we don't seem have that many tough stages ahead. Stage 14 is hilly but with a flat finale, stage 15 has a MTF to Planaval, but is completely flat until the final climb. Stage 16 is a MTT up the Saint Bernard, probably only producing small time gaps. Then we have a stage to Bormio with a long downhill run from the Passo di Gavia to the finish. And then three flat stages and only stage 20, once again finishing on the Zoncolan, to really make a difference.
Frech won't be able to win the Giro, that seems certain, Braglia is only 38'' behind. Ulissi and Talansky are within 90 seconds, so even making the podium will be very difficult. And there's only a minute between Talansky in 4th and McLean in 10th. But these gaps will grow significantly very quickly. I don't think I've mentioned it yet, we have a third rider who's possibly aiming for a GC result and he's the reason Aviva is leading the team standings by 2 minutes, Iniesta Mendez Nunez.
He's reached MON 77 and so far hasn't been used to protect either captain. The idea at the start of the Giro was that he might be within 5 to 10 minutes of the top 10 before stage 20 and he'd try and escape, win the stage and maybe make it into the top 10 that way. However, he's been doing too well so far, he's 12th after the ITT, just 4'12'' behind. Theoretically he could make the top 10 without a breakaway, he's a better climber than McLean and Santl, who are ahead of him. Or we now sacrifice him to protect Frech after all.
Planaval: It's not like we aren't still trying to win stages with breakaway appearances, but we haven't had much luck this season. Arnau Zamora was in a breakaway that succeeded, but he finished 2nd, a minute behind Sergio Henao, who isn't a better climber than Zamora anymore, so that was slightly disappointing.
Ulissi, Majka and Olivier attacked and worked together up the final climb. Braglia was having a bad day, though together with Talansky he was also ahead of our men, but he couldn't close the gap to the trio ahead. Kolk was stronger than Frech today, even Nunez seemed stronger, and so our third man had to work for our race leader today. It just about paid off, Frech and Kolk were 51'' behind the top trio and arrived together with Braglia, so Frech is still in the lead, by just 17''. Nunez was a little over a minute further back. He was still faster than Santl and McLean, but he remains 12th in the GC. He was overtaken by Adam Yates as well as stage winner Henao.
And Frech is still in the lead after the mountain time trial! He rode very well and finished 6th on the day, 40'' behind Braglia. Ulissi was 6'' faster, Olivier 16''. And so Frech leads just 11'' ahead of Ulissi, 12'' ahead of Braglia and 58'' ahead of Olivier, even Majka, 1'34'' behind, is still a threat. Kolk is 6th. Santl and McLean moved ahead of Nunez again, while Yates and Henao fell behind. So TT skill must have played some role today.
While I downplayed Frech's chances to make the podium, secretly I felt he had a fair chance. But as it happened, they all died on the Gavia and the downhill run to Bormio. Braglia left everybody behind on the monster climb and was over two minutes faster than Ulissi, Olivier and Majka who in turn were over two minutes faster than Frech, who was two minutes faster than Kolk and Nunez. So Braglia has taken the lead while Frech has tumbled from 1st to 5th in one day. Kolk was passed by Talansky and dropped to 7th. Also, Zamora again had to settle for 2nd place, this time he was beaten by Rolland.
There are a couple of good news, though. Nunez has moved up to 10th, gaining over three minutes on McLean and Santl. And Arnau Zamora has slipped into the mountain jersey, equal on points with Elissonde and Espada, with Rolland not far behind. Slightly surprising because he didn't fight much for the points in his three breakaway apperances. But now he'll be our man for the Zoncolan stage. Also, we gained another 10 minutes on Sky in the team rankings, we're now nearly 30 minutes ahead.
We finally won stage in this year's Giro thanks to our sprinter Rauls, who slipped into the breakaway on the flat stage 18. The best result he managed with his SPR 79 in any simulated flat stage was 47th! But in a breakaway of 11 riders he was successful. We nearly paid dearly for it, when checking in on our other riders in the peloton Kolk, despite protection, had nearly dropped out at the back and Frech was way back there, too. One rider crashed inside the final 10 km and it was Adam Yates, who lost over 4 minutes, dropped to 13th in the GC, which places Nunez in 9th before the last brutal mountain stage.
All three of our top 10 riders were protected on stage 20 finishing on the Zoncolan, while Arnau Zamora joined the breakaway trying to defend his mountain jersey. Zamora, starting in the front row, attacked immediately. We didn't check where his main opponents were in the pack, but we were happy to see that none were among the 5 riders who joined Zamora to form the breakaway of the day. There was a bit of a fight for the KOM points, even from Alfredo Fernandez, who wasn't on the scoresheet previously. Zamora let the first cat. 4 go, but then attacked 4 km from the next two small summits and both times had to ride a short sprint against Graeme Cross to take top points on the cats. 2 and 3. That just about assured the overall KOM rankings.
The breakaway arrived at the foot of the Zoncolan with 10 minutes to spare. We had to focus on the peloton now and set Zamora on a free effort of 72. When we checked back in, he was 2000 metres from the top, leading only Berisha and Warbosse and he still had a decent chunk of energy left. So he attacked and we didn't check again until we saw the message he'd taken the stage, 10'' ahead of the other two. So we haven't lost our KOM touch completely and also managed to win two Giro stages.
Further back, Ulissi dared an early attack while on the approach to the final ramp, but Braglia's Team Sky chased him down again. As soon as we hit the climb Majka went, followed by Ulissi, Braglia and Olivier. Well, Frech can't compete against those guys anyway. Then Yates and Talansky also got a gap we couldn't close anymore, it was all about energy management now. And in fact, we'd been too conservative again, we could have set a higher pace. At least our trio was able to speed up in the final 3 km.
Braglia and Majka arrived together ahead of Olivier and Ulissi. Majka didn't gain enough time to pass Ulissi, but it was just enough to take the final podium spot from Daan Olivier, by 2 seconds. Talansky gained over a minute on Frech, so did Yates, but our GC positions didn't change: 5th, 7th and 9th. Only Marrou was knocked out of the top 10 by Yates. Zamora moved all the way up to 15th with his fine performance.
Egon Braglia, from zero to 100 in just three weeks. He's in his fourth professional season, he spent his first two years with Bardiani before being picked up by Team Sky. He was 15th in the Giro last year, he had no notable results so far this season, but now he's caught a really big fish.
As for Aviva, three riders in the top 10, a new GT record. The team rankings to complement that. Also the KOM jersey plus stages from Rauls and Zamora. A highly successful Giro campaign, though it would have been great to see Frech on the podium. But 5th was enough to complete the important objective.
The last hurrah for our spring stage racing squad, when they've tackled this hard Dauphine they can go into a well-deserved break. Stage 1 is the only flat stage and once again Birmingham takes the win ahead of Alaphilippe and Appollonio. The British sprinter is coming into his own this season, no wonder with his SPR 84. He won a stage in the Basque Country and in Catalunya and a couple of stages and the green jersey in California.
Stage 2 went to Boswell in a hectic sprint, stage 3 to Kwiatkowski, with Frech and Kolk right behind him. Then we had a flat ITT in Anneyron, 38.4 km long. Frech and Arnau Zamora rode very well, 7th and 8th, leaving nearly all the other climbers and stage racers behind them. Kolk was 29th, just ahead of Nunez, 1'48'' and 1'52'' behind Durbridge, who beat Phinney and Talansky.
Next came a finish atop the Mont Ventoux. We didn't send a rider into the breakaway, they were all too well placed after the time trial. Plus we expected the escapees would be caught easily on the final climb. We misjudged that slightly, because Cattenao was only beaten by one rider, the new GC leader Rivelino Laurie.
Frech was struggling on the Ventoux. A group of about a dozen riders peeled away, Kolk didn't have much trouble catching up to the group that formed and Nunez bridged the gap as well. But Frech found himself only in the next group, though he was together with big names like Majka, Adam Yates and Talansky.
After Nunez was dropped from Kolk's group we had to keep an eye on three riders in three groups and lost sight of the overall picture a little. 3 km from the top we saw that Kolk was pulling his group now and he still had the energy reserves to up the tempo. He attacked briefly and there was no reaction. Similarly, Frech dared to attack the big names a little further back and also created a little gap.
In the end, Kolk crossed the finish line in 3rd, just behind Cattenao, 38'' behind Laurie, but 19'' ahead of Pinot, Arguedas and Barguil. Very impressive. Iniesta Mendez Nunez was a great 7th, only 11'' further behind, just ahead of Hontecillas and Noah Davis – two of our ex-riders. And Frech finished 10th, 25 seconds behind Nunez and nearly half a minute ahead of the next trio. That's good enough for 2nd in the GC, if he'd performed as well as Kolk, he'd be the race leader. Davis now is 3rd, Kolk is 4th and behind Dennis and Talansky, Mendez is 7th, with Pinot breathing down his neck.
Stage 6 only widened Laurie's advantage. Together with Kwiatkowski he gained over 90 seconds against the rest of the top 10, with Arguedas, Majka and Yates losing even more time. One rider in the breakaway was too strong for Grande, Jesper Hansen. Despite a steep descent to the finish line and Hansen's lack of DHI the gap Hansen had at the peak remained.
And then came stage 7 from Gap to Valloire across 7 classified climbs, including an HC climb and at the end a pretty steep climb up the Col du Telegraph and a short downhill finish. It was a spectacle, another reason to love PCM. We immediately started with a cat. 2 and Aviva attacked with their only rider outside the top 30, Gallardo. However, Quintana also attacked and he was 19th in the GC, only 6 minutes behind. That prompted us to take an unusual step and we sent the wearer of the white jersey after him, Juhl. He was even better positioned in the GC, 15th. So we had two riders among the dozen escapees. Quintana (MON 79) seemed the favourite, there were also Boswell (78), Geijo (77) and Rolland (76) and our men, Juhl (76) and Gallardo (75).
Our two riders did very little, they were prepared to relay at 48 effort, but the rest wanted to go faster. That prompted attacks throughout the stage, especially from Quintana and Boswell, usually into a medium headwind, a nice waste of energy. The gap to the peloton grew and grew, up to 12 minutes, and Laurie's Giant team needed the help of Sky to bring it down to 10 minutes before it grew again.
How would our captains fare? They didn't have as much protection as usual, Nunez had to do without, Kolk had Grande, Frech Sequeiros and later Zamora. Leader Laurie grew restless on the HC climb, the Col de la Croix de Fer, and attacked alone and built up a lead of up to 2 minutes. But in vain, he was caught after a long descent. There was one cat. 2 before the final climb and it spelled doom for Frech, who really needs the break. While Kolk and Nunez made it into the group of top riders, Frech had a little gap he just couldn't close anymore. Grande dropped back, the great descender trying to help his captain, but while our attention was elsewhere Grande had been going too fast and was alone ahead of Frech's group. Zamora was able to help him a little on the final climb, but Frech ended up losing 2 minutes to the best riders.
The breakaway would certainly win the stage. And Juhl had a trump card up his sleeve, Gallardo's protection, as they hit the Telegraph. Both still had a full energy reserve to work with, Juhl set a high pace. Everybody bar Quintana and Boswell fell back and when Gallardo was done, 3 km from the top, Juhl attacked. He won the queen stage and fulfilled our goal, by 44'' ahead of Quintana and Boswell, what a great achievement for him. Gallardo was 4th.
Juhl wasn't that far behind in the GC, how big was the gap today? First to arrive were Pinot and Barguil, 2'01'' behind, but they had been outside the top 10 before the stage. 35 seconds later a group of 11 riders crossed the finish line, including Kolk and Mendez, thanks to generous time keepers, they had lost contact on the peak. Another group arrived a minute later and Frech was 26th, 4'10'' behind Juhl.
So Juhl seansationally moved up to 2nd in the GC, 1'42'' behind Laurie. Frech dropped from 2nd to 7th, Kolk is 4th, Nunez 6th. 4 riders in the top 10, but we still have a hilly final stage ahead and the time gaps are small.
Though we considered protecting all four top 10 riders, the finale seemed easy enough for a large group to finish. So we sent Sequeiros into the breakaway. The most dangerous opponent seemed to be Leon Foulon (HIL 77), but the last climb must have been rather mountainous. Gilkinson (MON 78 HIL 74) left the rest behind, Sequeiros could only beat Swinnen to 2nd place.
The wind was nearly always blowing into the rider's faces which discouraged attacks from the peloton, we didn't see any until the final flat 10 km, but they went nowhere, 118 riders arrived in one large group. Well, wow, what a view, 4 riders in the top 7. 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th. That's the team rankings as well, of course. Plus the white jersey for Juhl. He's only on a one-year contract, but he's still at AVG 73 so within our price range if he doesn't improve in the next weeks.
June 2022: Tour de Suisse (1/2)
** goal: Stage Win
Race squad: Elkhan Bejdiev, Berhane, Blaesi, Ando Brackstone, Dracke, Werther Gazzola, Alban Thierry, G. Zamora
The summer team springs into action. Let's take a look at the clear captain and his deputy:
AVG 78! I repeat, AVG 78! We finally have a real stage racer wthout any weaknesses, a proper GT podium candidate. His deputy also has MON 80 and isn't terrible in time trials, but some of his other stats are worrisome. The rest of the team also deserves a mention, they are all good climbers: Thierry (MON 78), Bejdiev, Brackstone and Dracke (76), Berhane (74) and Gerardo Zamora (72). Brackstone even adds TTR 78, he's now our best bet for time trials.
And in fact the Tour of Switzerland started with a short and hilly ITT. Dumoulin takes the win, Brackstone was 6th, Blaesi 7th, Dracke 13th, Gerardo Zamora 14th.
Just one day later we were greeted by a fierce profile with two HC climbs, then a very long descent and a cat. 2 peaking over 20 km out. Berhane was supposed to be our man for the breakaway of the day, he attacked and was ahead of a chasing group for a while, but exhausted he was swallowed by the peloton again and only three riders remained ahead. When the gap had grown to over 3 minutes and we were at the foot of the first big climb, Thierry dared an attack, seeing if there would be any reaction. He has MON 78, so he's quite the threat. But there's no reaction from Dumoulin's Astana team nor anybody else.
Thierry quickly bridged the gap, the other three riders were weak climbers, the best was Trofimov, but even he's down to MON 70. Without much exertion Thierry dropped him before the first peak, but allowed the great descender to catch up with him again and Trofimov was kind enough to share the workload until we got to the next HC climb. Now Thierry was really going for it. The gap was already frighteningly large, up to 15 minutes. Thierry only has FLA 62, but that will only come into play in the last 15 km or so. Trofimov was 7 minutes behind when Thierry reached the next peak, and nearly 9 minutes after another cat. 2. He gained back about 30'' on the descent, but Thierry still had plenty of energy left.
Astana seemed to give up at some point. If I still did team attacks... Trofimov was swallowed at the foot of the final climb, but Thierry was still 9 minutes ahead. Eventually he crossed the line 7'11'' ahead of Blaesi, who had little trouble winning the sprint from the greatly reduced peloton of 20-ish riders with his SPR 73. Poor Dumoulin had to do most of the work himself in the end, with only Katusha chipping in a little. A 7 minute GC lead – could this be the Tour de Suisse for Thierry?
Nobody was helping Dumoulin
Stage 3 was hilly and rather than controlling a breakaway, we sent Gerardo Zamora ahead. This season he's not riding together with his brother. He's a good choice for a hilly stage, his HIL 76 is the best any of our riders from the summer team have to offer. He was up against Earle and Pantano, who didn't seem much of a problem. However, when the trio was 6 minutes ahead Moser attacked, together with Brecht Soenens, and reached the others with 40 km to go. Zamora stopped working altogether for a while before he attacked on the final classified climb and once again on the small plateau and got a gap of 30'' which even grew further.
All other escapees were caught by the peloton, or not quite caught, Moser and Pantano were 2nd and 3rd at least, but without a time gap. But Gerardo Zamora won by a minute, a nice victory for our domestique who last won a couple of years ago, a stage in the Dauphine.
Next we had two flat stages, both won by Michael Matthews. It allowed Thierry to recover from average freshness to good, the same goes for Zamora, the rest is back at excellent. Thierry will have to take it easy on the hilly stage 6, then we have a time trial which should help him recover which he'll need it for two brutal final stages with mountaintop finishes in Verbier and Saas-Fee.
Gerardo Zamora was supposed to join the breakaway again on the last of the hilly stages. But his attempt didn't make it and we felt he was now too overworked to try again. So instead Berhane jumped across, sadly, he lacks the DHI and FLA of his team mate. And that proved to be fatal in the finale, Berhane was 5th out of 5 riders, De la Cruz won. No gaps further back.
How much time would Thierry lose across 24.5 km with his TTR 62? The answer is 2'13'' against the winner Dumoulin. Less against the better climbers. His advantage was still about 6 minutes, even 7'17'' against Giro winner Braglia, ahead of the two very difficult mountain stages. Our other riders also looked in good shape, Blaesi and Gazzola were 3rd and 6th at this point, about 2 minutes ahead of Braglia, though less than a minute ahead of Mohoric and Olivier.
The MTF in Verbier wasn't what I made it out to be. Bejdiev should have won the stage from the breakaway, but he wasn't only beaten by Figares, but also by our ex-star Hoem and his lowly MON 68. And so 44 riders arrived together behind the survivors of the break. The finish in Saas-Fee on the last day can't be that easy, but it's looking very good for Thierry nonetheless.
In the end we rode the final stage very conservatively. We sent Dracke into the breakaway, another real MON 76 threat and he delivered, beating Figares and Pantano. That's our third stage of the 2022 Tour de Suisse. Thierry had Bejdiev to support him, which allowed him to stay with Blaesi and Gazzola and a whole group of riders. We caught Aller and Herrada who had escaped, but we have to admit we didn't see that another GC riders was still a few seconds ahead, another local, Robert Schreiber (27, MON 79).
Our three men together under the flamme rouge
Schreiber was 17 seconds faster than our group, which meant he pushed Blaesi down from 2nd to 3rd in the final GC. Thierry also lost the mountain jersey to Pantano by 3 points and Blaesi the sprint jersey to Matthews by 2 points. All that could have been turned to our favour, Dracke could have fought Pantano for the KOM points and Blaesi finished just one position higher on the final stage, he easily had the energy, but we didn't want to make any kind of trouble for Thierry. Let the other teams have something to celebrate, too.
1
Alban Thierry
Aviva Cycling
2
Robert Schreiber
IAM Cycling
+05:06
3
Hoang Doc Blaesi
Aviva Cycling
+05:08
4
Jesus Herrada
Movistar Team
+05:16
5
Werther Gazzola
Aviva Cycling
+05:33
6
Justino Aller
Team Katusha
+05:54
7
Pedro Morillas
Team Katusha
+06:04
8
Angel Figares
Movistar Team
+06:05
9
Matej Mohoric
Team Katusha
+06:19
10
Alejo ElÃas
Cannondale
+06:30
Anyway, another stunning result for our team. Let me remind you once more that no rider is earning more than 6000 per month. In fact, 6 of our 30 riders are earning 6k, but some like Juhl are earning just 3.5k. He would have been happy with 2.5k, but we can afford to be generous.
