Thanks, it definetely is a good start into the season. (:
23/01 Race Results
Spoiler
Tour de San Luis Stage 1, flat
1° Mauro Abel Richeze (Nippo) 3h26'35"
2° Guillaume Boivin (SpiderTech) s.t.
3° Boy Van Poppel (UnitedHealthcare) s.t.
24/01 Race Results
Spoiler
Tour de San Luis Stage 2, hilly
1° Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent Jobs) 4h07'16"
2° Pablo Lastras (Movistar) s.t.
3° Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) +5"
25/01 Race Results
Spoiler
Tour de San Luis Stage 3, flat
1° Mauro Abel Richeze (Nippo) 3h27'02"
2° Robert Förster (UnitedHealthcare) s.t.
3° Boy Van Poppel (UnitedHealthcare) s.t.
26/01 Race Results
Spoiler
Tour de San Luis Stage 4, ITT
1° Paul Voss (Endura Racing) 22'33"
2° Patrick Gretsch (Argos-Shimano) +1"
3° Vladimir Gusev (Katusha) s.t.
27/01 Race Results
Spoiler
Tour de San Luis Stage 5, hilly
1° Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) 4h03'17"
2° Fabio Duarte (Coldeportes) +10"
3° Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent Jobs) s.t.
28/01 Race Results
Spoiler
Tour de San Luis Stage 6, hilly
1° Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent Jobs) 4h44'49"
2° Alberto Losada (Katusha) +6"
3° Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) +11"
29/01
Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise
Grand Prix d'Ouverture La Marseillaise is a single-day road bicycle race held annually in February around the city of Marseille, France. Since 2005, the race is organized as a 1.1 event on the UCI Europe Tour. It is usually the first race of the European calendar, one day before the stage-race Étoile de Bessèges, which is held in the same region.
Astana:
This will be Roman Kreuziger's first race for the season, as he has a little peak for Paris-Nice, so we want to get him in shape soon enough. As there is no other top rider in the peloton here, we definitely plan to destroy the opposition with him. With Simone Ponzi, who is already in a decent fitness, we have another rider for the win here, as he is a superior sprinter and would get that win from a sprint out of a bigger group. Egor Silin can ride for himself, targeting a Top10 result. The other rider are supporting Roman.
Allauch - Marseille, 155km A hilly classic with some opportunities to attack or to fasten the pace to get rid of the not-so-skilled riders. Espescially on the last climb, Kreuziger is looking forward to go for the victory! And the flat finish is promising for Ponzi, if there will be a group at the end.
Favourites Roman Kreuziger (HIL 79, RES 75, STA 76)
Jure Kocjan (HIL 73, RES 68, STA 73)
Samuel Dumoulin (HIL 73, RES 72, STA 72) Simone Ponzi (HIL 73, RES 66, STA 68)
Bert De Waele (HIL 74, RES 72, STA 74)
Report tomorrow!
Edited by janne_837 on 14-08-2012 23:51
Janne is back Good to see you back Your Radioshack story was the first story I read here and one of my favourites stories ever. I am on a holiday and with limited net connection, so I will have to catch up with most results in next 2 weeks from you - but boyy, it's great that your back
Great start to the season so far! Nice riding Down Under by Gasparotto, Ponzi, Kiserlovski, Bozic and Muravyev. Too bad you missed the overal win. Now go get another win with Kreuziger in Marseille!
Hahaha Alakagom. Thanks man, I really appreciate that! Feeling kinda sorry for just abandoning my former story as it seems to had some followers :/ Well lets do this one even better (:
Yo Spilak, thanks as well! As you can see in this report, we were successfull today!
Race report
Depart
8 riders formed a breakaway, I forgot their names tho. There was not a really important to look at after all.
With three other rider, including quite a good puncheur with Patxi Vila, attacking, we set a higher pace in the pack as we does not want to risk to let Vila to get to far away.
E1 < +31" Group Vila < +2'14" P
Our team worked great as we were gaining ground and ...
... the high pace were doing its job in another way just as great, as the amount of riders desperately shrinked.
Egor Silin, who were feeling great despite having to protect Kreuziger, was allowed to try something on his own with 34km to go, just as he hit the ascend of the Julhan les Bastides. He opened a little gap, though he never was able to get out of view for the peloton and therefore missed with his attack.
We acted defensively as we already had one man out in front, but some other teams used the last hill for an attack with their leaders! Samuel Dumoulin, Pieter Vanspeybrouck and David Le Lay tried their best..
...but in the end, thanks to Gautier and some other dudes who set up a crazy pace, everyone, including Silin, were riding in the pack again. 6km to go, and 29 rider in the front group! Looking good for a sprint, and Simone just waited for that one...
2400m to go. Geoffrey Lequatre in the lead, with Ponzi and Kreuziger at his wheel!
Simone making his move with 900m to the line, Kreuziger still following him..
...and a strong 1-2 for Astana in Marseille! Our italian destroyed the small group in the sprint, and Kreuziger, just going for his slipstream, achieved a great 2nd place, showing some unknown sprinting skills!
Dumoulin, who even looked not that bad in the final showdown, was way to bad positioned to be interesting for the stage win, however, he did not waste his team's effort with a 3rd place.
Egor Silin can be satisfied as well with finishing top 10, fulfilling his personal goal for today.
Tour de San Luis Stage 7, flat
1° Guillaume Boivin (SpiderTech) 3h48'26"
2° Robert Förster (UnitedHealthcare) s.t.
3° Mauro Abel Richeze (Nippo) s.t.
Overall
1° Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) 23h59'57"
2° Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent Jobs) +17"
3° Alberto Losada (Katusha) +1'14"
Points: Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) Mountain: Fabio Duarte (Coldeportes) U25: Eliot Lietaer (Topsport Vlaanderen) Team: Movistar Team
30/01
I got requests to take one national team to the World Championships, one from Germany, one from Kazakhstan. As it is the last season for Vinokourov, I decided to go for Kazakhstan, trying to lead Vino to some shine at the Worlds.
Etoile de Bessèges Stage 2, hilly
1° Jimmy Engoulvent (Saur) 4h20'20"
2° Kevin Denis (Veranda Rideau) s.t.
3° Markus Fothen (NSP-Ghost) s.t.
03/02 Race Results
Spoiler
Etoile de Bessèges Stage 3, hilly
1° Michael Matthews (Rabobank) 4h02'12"
2° Troels Ronning Vinther (SaxoBank) s.t.
3° Sven Vandousselaere (Topsport Vlaanderen) s.t.
04/02
Gran Premio della Costa Etruschi
The Gran Premio della Costa Etruschi is a one day professional cycling race between the towns of San Vincenzo and Donoratico on the Tuscany coast in Italy. The 193 kilometre long race takes place at the beginning of February and has now taken over from the Trofeo Laigueglia as the opening event of the Italian professional cycling season. It is ranked 1.1 on the UCI Europe Tour. The race has been dominated by Italians since its inception in 1996, with riders from that nation winning on 14 occasions, with an all Italian 1-2-3 happening eleven times out of the 17 editions of the race.
Astana:
We go with an almost all-italian squad into this one. This won't be the only time where we will compete at an italian classic with an squad like this, as we have a lot of riders from Italy which can present our sponsor quite well.
The first race of the season for the second italian sprint ace from Astana, Jacopo Guarnieri. We hoped for an easy victory here, however, with this strong opposition, we will be satisfied if we can achieve a Top10. Francesco Gavazzi, who won't have as much problems as Guarnieri to get other the small slopes, will act as co-leader, supporting Guarnieri in the first place, but replacing him if Guarnieri does not fulfill his role. Paolo Tiralongo and Francesco Masciarelli might feel free to try something in a breakaway.
The opponents
The top favorite for this one is also the record winner of this GP, Alessandro Petacchi. Im sure he will try hard to achieve another win in Donoratico. Romain Feillu, who showed some decent sprints in Australia, and Gerald Ciolek are his main opponents. Alexander Kristoff might be interesting as well, but he was nearly invisible at the TDU. And let's not forget the italians who are motivated to achieve a victory in their home country as well, naming Andrea Guardini, Francesco Chicchi and previous year's winner Elio Viviani.
The break of the day, including Lotto's Andrew Fenn, Liquigas' Tiziano Dall'Antonia and our Francesco Masciarelli.
Lampre and Vacansoleil were responsible that the escapees did not make it through.
A crash with 20km to the line split the pack, and with Davide Cimolai, Jure Kocjan, Rüdiger Selin and Jaan Kirsipuu, some not-to-underestimate-sprinters lost their chance to shine today.
The breakaway was in line with the pack with 6000m to the finish.
The sprint begun with 1400m to the line. Kenny van Hummel in first position with Romain Feillu and Viganò at his wheel, looking good for Vacansoleil. Napolitano is jumping out at the left, followed by Baggio and Guarnieri. Gavazzi and Guarnieri, our aces-in-the-sleeve for todays bunch sprint, failed to position well. We tried to orientate us on Alessandro Petacchi, but whats up with him?
Things are looking really bad for Ale-Jet! Without any lead-out, he failed to get into the a good position for the final sprint. But he might take comfort from the fact that Gerald Ciolek, another favourite for today, was even worse than him.
400m to the line and Napolitano in one comfortable situation! But he is slowing down, Feillu accelerating from behind...
Close Call! Napo is sure that he won.. but in fact, Feillu stealed him the victory on the lane! What a tense finale! Viganò finished third, making it a good day for Lampre even with Petacchi's 17th. It was not for us tho, Guardini and Gavazzi crossed the line as 12th and 14th, definately missing the goal for today.
Good to see you back 
