March 2014 started with a 5th for WIlco Kelderman in Paris - Nice and a 2nd for Robert Gesink in the Tirreno. Then Matti Breschel started his great win strike, winning Nokere Koerse and Dwars Door Vlaanderen. Wilco Kelderman won the Volta a Catalunya and Sep Vanmarcke the E3 - Harelbeke. Not bad!
Media awards
Winning Pars - Nice brings Thomas De Gendt the rider of the month award.
Rankings
World Tour riders
The top 3 is very close, with Filippo Pozzato being the new WT-leader, followed by Tom Boonen and Matti Breschel.
World Tour teams
Petronas - Monster Energy stays in the lead, with Katusha jumping from 5th to 2nd and Radio Shack from 12th to 3rd.
Continental Tour riders
Stefan Schumacher jumps from 3rd to 1st. Gianni Meersman drops a place to 2nd and Daniele Callegarin is new in the top 3, coming from 6th place.
Continental Tour teams
Team Type 1 is still in the lead, with La Française des Jeux in 2nd and now Liquigas in 3rd.
CQ riders
Matti Breschel leads the CQ-riders ranking, just as last month. Pozzato and Boonen have switched places.
CQ teams
Petronas - Monster Energy has got a comfortable lead over Katusha and Movistar.
Wins riders
1 win this month for Tom Boonen brings him 8 in this year. Matti Breschel follows with 6 and Mark Cavendis with 5.
Wins teams
Petronas - Monster Energy has got the most wins so far, namely 13. That's 1 more than Katusha and 2 more than Team Type 1.
April is a month with 2 faces. First, the 2 biggest cobbled races, Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris - Roubaix, followed by the Ardennes classics, and not to mention the World Tour stage races Vuelta al Pais Vasco and Tour de Romandie.
Monthly goals
- Winning De Ronde or Paris - Roubaix.
- Top 3 in 1 of the Ardennes classics.
- Top 5 in the GC of Pais Vasco or Romandie.
All the cycling fans in Belgium have looked forward to this day, as the nations most important cycling race is organize: Ronde van Vlaanderen. The race has many nicknames such as De Hoogmis and Vlaanderens Mooiste. Belgium really wants a Belgium winner, as it has been since 2009 (Stijn Devolder) since the fans could celebrate the win with lots of beers and sausages or fries.
Last year, Matti Breschel was the fastest in the grup sprint, beating Pozzato and Boonen.
The Route
258 kilometres with the start in Brugge and the finish in Meerkerke. With 18 hills, most of them cobbled. The cobble-fetishists must love it.
*** Tom Boonen (Katusha), Fabian Cancellara (Sky), Filippo Pozzato (BMC). **Matti Breschel, Nick Nuyens (Saxo Bank), Johan Vansummeren (Rabobank). * Alessandro Ballan (BMC), Sylvain Chavanel (Garmin), Niki Terpstra.
Our Goal
We can't do better than last year, only do as good as, as we won last year. But to win again, than all luck must be on our side. So we'll aim for a top 3, and will look for the win.
It's great weather in Belgium today, 16 degrees and lots of sun. So the riders are eager to make a great show. Already early in the race, a strong leading group is formed. Ronan van Zandbeek (Rabo, Co 77), Guillaume Blot (FDJ, Co 74), Kevyn Van Impe (Landbouwkrediet, Co 76) and Bernhard Eisel (Vacansoleil, Co 77) went in the counterattack a caught the early breakaway, full of non-cobblers as Egor Silin, dropped them on the cobbled section of the Paddestraat and now lead the race at the 3rd hill of the day, the Rekelberg.
94km to go
2 strong riders go in the counterattack and join the 4 leaders before the summit of the Kruisberg. Radioshack's Heinrich Haussler (Co 80) and BMC's Manuel Quinziato (Co 76), and the 4 others take a lead of 3'13 to the first peloton, that has already thinned out to 61 riders.
81km to go
Realizing that we have made a mistake of not being part of this extremely strong breakaway, we decide to chase them. Peter Sagan takes over the pace of the first peloton at the Oude Kwaremont.
70km to go
The first peloton breaks in a few more groups after the ascend of the Koppenberg, with a maximum gradient of 22%. We hear that Fabian Cancellara has contact with the first group due to a puncture, and decide to wait. We don't want to profit from this bad luck this early in the race, also knowing that Team Sky can be helpful in chasing the breakaway.
65km to go
The group Cancellara (together with riders as Lars Boom, Nick Nuyens, Philippe Gilbert, Bobbie Traksel, Jurgen Roelandts and Thor Hushovd) rejoins the first peloton at the Steenbeekdries. Still 65km to go, and the margin to the 6 leaders is over 4 minutes.
48km to go
The first attack out f the peloton occurs at the Molenberg, with 48km to go. Filippo Pozzato, 1 of the main favourites attacks, and gets countered by Jetse Bol, Kevyn Ista and Bobbie Traksel. We immediately increase the pace of the peloton, as Pozzato is a rider that is too dangerous for the win.
29km to go
It's Tom Boonen himself who does most of the mork to catch Pozzato, and with success. Because of this, the the margin to the 6 leaders decreases rapidly to 1'45.
18km to go
The 6 leaders have arrived in the streets of Geraardsbergen and the Muur awaits them. But the chasing group of 21 riders is aboutto catch them.
16km to go
And that's all for the 6 leaders, as the peloton catches them in the steepest part of the Muur (18%). Jetse Bol leads the group of 27, with our riders in the first ranks of the groups.
15km to go
At the summit of De Muur, Niki Terpstra attacks! He gets countered by Jetse Bol, and a little while later also by Tom Boonen and Johan Vansummeren. The 4 arrive at the summit of the Bosberg with a margin of 20 seconds to the peloton.
9km to go
It's Cancellara himself who bings the 2 groups together again. Unless attacks occur, 19 riders can prepare themselves for a sprint for the win in Meerbeke.
4km to go
With the group of 19 about to enter the streets of Meerbeke, we have formed a small sprint train, with the goal of bringing Matti Breschel in a perfect position to win his 2nd consecutive Ronde.
3km to go
1 final attack by Johan Vansummeren. Knowing he's a fairly weak sprinter and an attack is the only way to glory for him, he decides to attack with a little less than 3km to go. But the pace set by Niki Terpstra is that high, he can;t create a ga.
1km to go
Vansummeren gets caught before the final kilometre. Exiting the last corner, Martijn Maaskant launches Matti Breschel perfectly. Chavanel is in 3rd and the 2 main rivals Pozzato and Boonen are in 6th and 8th.
300m to go
Breschel can dream about a 2nd win in the Ronde untill 300 metres before the finish. Then he gets passed by Pozzato and shortly after by Boonen. Their maximum sprinting speed is too high for our Dane.
Finish
But also Pozzato can forget about the win and takes another 2nd, just as last year. Tom Boonen is extremely dominant in this sprint and let the Belgian fans cheer after 5 years. He takes his 3rd Ronde van Vlaanderen-win, 8 years after hs 2nd in 2006, and equalises with Achiel Buysse, Fiorenzo Magni, Eric Leman and Johan Museeuw. It's already his 9th win of the season, and the 2nd monument (after winning Milano - San Remo).
Behind Pozzato, Breschel manages to hang on in 3rd, thus taking a great podium for the team. Philippe Gilbert takes the 4th place, Fabian Cancellara the 5th and Martijn Maaskant the 9th.
At least we tried..... First Terpstra with the attack, then Breschel in the sprint. But Pozzato and Boonen were just too strong today (what didnt helped is that our main riders Breschel, Terpstra and Maaskant had a daily form of 0. The only rider from the team with a positive daily form was Vanmarcke with +5....)
Edited by dienblad on 12-12-2012 15:20
@ all: yes, it was close, but the 2 were simply too fast in the sprint. Maye the daily form of 0 costed him the win, as a form of +3 or 4 would have been enough... Oh well, you can't win all the races
In the middle of the week between De Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris - Roubaix, we start in one of Belgiums oldest classics, the Scheldeprijs. In contrary to the 2 monuments, this is a race most often won by a sprinter, as the route is almost flat and (in PCM) without cobbled sections. Last year, Team Sky dominated the race, and without having to serve as the luxury helper of Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel could ride for his own chance, and wn the sprint, beating team mate Ben Swift.
The Route
200 flat kilometres in the surroundings of harbour city Antwerpen, with start and finish in Schoten.
*** Theo Bos (Omega Pharma), Bernhard Eisel (Vacansoleil), Ben Swift (Sky). **Matti Breschel, Kenny Dehaes (Sky), Kenny van Hummel (M&M's). *Peter Sagan, Michael van Staeyen (Topsport), Tom Veelers (Vacansoleil).
The Race
The race is very, very hard today. With wind blowing at at least 45km/h and attacks the entire race, a lot of riders get dropped out of the peloton before the finish.
We try to be in a breakaway, and try that a lot. Rosseler, Vanmarcke, Vermeltfoort and Maaskant, all several times, are part of breakaways, but every single time, Omega Pharma - Quick Step catches the breakaway again. And the first time we aren't present, the Omega boys stop the chase..... WTF??
But this time, Team Sky and Landbouwkrediet do the work, just as we set up a train on our own. But our locomotive Terpstra with dot 99, Fl 80, daily form +3 and fitness of 96 is cycling slower than Sky's Jure Kocjan with Fl 71..... So Breschel has to start the sprint outside the top 5 and gets passed by for more ending in 9th place.
The win goes to Kenny van Hummel, who profits maximally from the Sky-train, being set in Kenny Dehaes his wheel the last few kilometres. It's the 3rd win this season for Van Hummel, after 2 stage wins in the Tour de San Luis. Dehaes takes the 2nd place and Kevyn Ista the 3rd. And Omega Pharma?? They were nowhere to be seen in the last 15 kilometres, with Theo Bos finishing in 7th....
Results
1
Kenny Van Hummel
M&M's
4h14'50
2
Kenny Dehaes
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
3
Kevyn Ista
Landbouwkrediet - Euphony
s.t.
4
Jetse Bol
Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
5
Bernhard Eisel
Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
6
Tom Veelers
Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
7
Theo Bos
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step
s.t.
8
Ben Swift
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
9
Matti Breschel
Petronas - Monster Energy
s.t.
10
Anthony Roux
FDJ
s.t.
The Winner
Word from the DS
What was Omega Pharma thinking? Chasing every single breakaway that 1 of our guys was in. Have we done something wrong to them? Well, we'll pay them back sometime, even when we have to sacrifice our chances for the win.
Ow, not to mention the doped (no, should say the suspicious...) Sky-train, how the heck can a guy like Kocjan look Terpstra like an amateur???
Tom Boonen
Filippo Pozzato
Fabian Cancellara
Bernhard Eisel
Ben Swift
Anthony Roux
