The first part of the season can undoubtedly be considered a success for Team Saxo-Tinkoff, although it didn't look that way at the start of March.
We perhaps went in to the Tour Down Under with rather lofty expectations, but anyhow any expectations we had were not fulfilled in the first World Tour Race of the season, as Michael Rogers provided two top ten finishes, but little else.
The next World Tour race was Paris-Nice, where Kreuziger and co were met by a strong field. A strong final time-trial up the Col d'Eze, where he finished third, meant that he slotted in to fourth place, above riders like Bauke Mollema and Jurgen van den Broeck, but below Alejandro Valverde, the eventual victor, and a double dose of souped-up Chris's. (Froome and Horner, in case you're wondering).
Roman Kreuziger narrowly missed out on a podium in Paris-Nice, but fourth place overall was the first significant result of our season.
While Kreuziger was ably battling away in Paris-Nice, Contador was also fighting hard a little further south, at Tirreno-Adriatico. After a solid climb on the Prati di Tivo stage, finishing in and around the favourites on an uneventful stage, he hung on to take fifth place, not brilliant but just warming up for greater things to come.
Alberto Contador was pivotal to the success of the team, winning both a stage and the overall classification in Catalunya; as well as finishing fifth in Tirreno.
And so we moved on to the classics: Milano - SanRemo was exciting in terms of the racing, but not in terms of results for us - McDermott being the best-placed rider in 17th, a good result nevertheless considering our team is not particularly suited to this race.
Next up was the formidable duo of E3 and Gent-Wevelgem. We were relying on McDermott, Breschel and Tosatto to deliver, and, with the exception of Breschel, they did. Tosatto narrowly missed out on one of our goals with a surprising 6th place in E3 behind winner Tom Boonen, and McDermott sprinting rather surprisingly to a 5th place behind Peter Sagan in Gent-Wevelgem.
New signing Erik McDermott was brought in to give our classics squad that leader it needed, and he delivered with a second place at the Omloop (pictured) and fifth place at Gent-Wevelgem
'Save the best until last' is a common saying, and it's certainly worked here at Saxo-Tinkoff so far. We sent a strong team to Catalunya in the hope of a good result, but we did not expect quite such a result as this! Four out of the seven stages were won by a combination of Bennati and Contador, with Bennati taking the points competition, and Contador beating Richie Porte by almost a minute to win the overall classification. An astonishing 528 points were gathered by the team here in northern Spain, something which shot us up the rankings.
Daniele Bennati won three stages and the points jersey in Catalunya, capping a dominating race for the team.
As for the CT races we received wildcards for, apart from the Omloop, where McDermott achieved another impressive sprint to finish second behind Boonen (yes, him winning again...) the team failed rather miserably. San Luis was a complete write-off, it was mainly being used as a warm-up for the coming season, and Oman looked full of promise after Jonathan Cantwell sprinted to a podium finish in the opening stage, but was ultimately disappointing, no results gathered of note after that. Lugano was one of our season goals, but was failed miserably, no rider in the top 20; and Dwars door Vlaanderen was easily the worst out of the cobbled classics so far - best finisher Breschel in 18th.
A full list of results can be found here and a summary of the team's goals here.
Here I can present to you the current ranking of the members of the team - to see who has been succesful over the first part of the season.
RIDER RANKING
1
Alberto Contador
509
2
Erik McDermott
235
3
Roman Kreuziger
167
4
Daniele Bennati
165
5
Matteo Tosatto
100
6
Michael Morkov
30
7
Michael Rogers
16
8
Matti Breschel
14
9
Jonathan Cantwell
12
10
Takashi Miyazawa
8
Ranking system in accordance with that of official EPIC rankings
The overall team rankings and individual rankings will be posted either here or in a further update, once they are published.
Contador now finds himself in 10th position, a good base to build on when he competes in more prestigious races later on in the season ; and McDermott is 38th, a good ranking for him considering he has the Ronde and Paris-Roubaix on which to build on that.
Team Rankings after Part 1
1
Omega Pharma
3107
2
Belkin
2695
3
Sky
2445
4
Movistar
2247
5
RadioShack
2082
6
BMC
1532
7
Cannondale
1382
8
Europcar
1346
9
Argos
1300
10
Lotto
1254
11
Saxo-Tinkoff
1247
12
Garmin
1100
13
Euskaltel
1059
14
Astana
677
15
Orica-GreenEdge
675
16
Katusha
671
17
FDJ
645
18
AG2R
571
19
Androni
535
20
MTN
506
21
Lampre
428
22
Colombia
412
23
Cofidis
409
24
Bretagne
334
25
Sojasun
280
26
Vini Fantini
263
27
Bardiani
217
28
IAM
199
29
Topsport
178
30
Crelan
175
31
RusVelo
178
32
Accent Jobs
108
33
NetApp
104
34
CCC
47
35
Novo Nordisk
26
36
UHC
-7
37
Caja Rural
-10
38
Champion System
-230
39
Vacansoleil
-441
11th place on the Team Rankings is not to be sniffed at, considering we had a truly abject start to the season. If things continue on this upward curve, I would not be surprised to find the team in the top 5 or even top 3 come the end of Part 2.
Edited by Stromeon on 27-01-2014 14:52
Ronde van Vlaanderen
Pais Vasco
Paris-Roubaix
Amstel Gold Race
La Fleche Wallone
Liege-Bastogne-Liege
Tour de Romandie
Giro d'Italia
Criterium du Dauphine
Tour de Suisse
Trentino
Turkey
Finanzplatz
Dunkerque
Philly
I see we're not racing Norway as I had hoped, so I just wanted to hear what plans you have with me after Roubaix.
I have trained both my strength on hills and my sprint, so I'm thinking most of the CT-races in the plan should suit me decently. At least better than the WT-races with all their mountains...
I'm really motivated and feel ready for the two upcoming classics, which are also the two most important races all season for me.
I have been training a lot on the local hills hoping to be able to better cope with them in Ronde van Vlaanderen and I even feel I have improved my sprint a bit, whivh should come in handy in terms of finishing as well as possible in my finishing group - hopefully at least on a podium.
I have also spent some time with Michael Rogers after his bronze medal in the continental TT-championships. I've never been that good in TT's, but Michael have given me some pointers that should allow me to lose a little less time - at least in the short TT's.
Some of you are probably wondereing what I'm going to do after the cobbles and I'm happy to now be able to bring you the answer:
First I'll be going to Tour of Turkey, where there should be several possibilities for a rider with my specialities.
After that I'll be going to the US for the Philadelphia International Cycling Classics, where I probably will be taking on teh job as leadout-man or perhaps an even earlier step in the sprint train depending on how the race pans out.
I'll leave you with my uncel singing a song he wrote when my grandfather died:
Back from Belgium with a small break before I'm going to Turkery I though I'd better give you my view of the two big cobbled classics and what happened.
I could make a lot of excuses about de Ronde, but to be honest I just still haven't worked out how to get myself properly placed on the hills without wasting my energy too early so I lost contact end ended up cruising home to a 32nd with the points out of reach hoping to save a bit of energy for Paris - Roubaix, which have always been my favourite race.
Going into Paris - Roubaix I have to admit that I was a bit worried about the long distance of the race so I tried not using my energy to early while making sure to stay safe on the cobbles.
All-in-all it worked out pretty well, though I probably waited around a bit too long, so when I caught up with the front group I was too tired to give much of a sprint.
Still 6th in my first Paris - Roubaix finishing in teh same group as Boonen was rather good I think!
Long time no see, but I think it’s about time I gave you my view of the things that happened in Turkey.
I mainly went there as a key helper for Bennati in the sprints.
On stage 1 things pretty much went as planned with me as 2nd last man for Daniele and Matti doing the main leadout. Unfortunately my fellow Dane didn’t have quite enough of a kick to bring Bennati to the very front. Still two guys in top 5 ain’t too shabby!
So for stage 2 we mixed things up a bit and placed me as final leadout hoping to give that bit of extra kick needed. I had a splendid day and had our tactics been different I think my “record-breaking” top speed of 75 km/h would have brought me the win. Unfortunately I timed it as a leadout which resulted in me burning out too soon to mix in for the win while Daniele was burned out even sooner trying to keep my wheel.
Not quite what we had in mind before the stage.
Stage 3 was very different in terms of terrain and I was told to spare myself for the rest of the race so I just rolled to the finish quietly when things started to explode.
For stage 5 things were back to normal except that the entire train was a lot more balanced in form than on stage 2. To be honest I thought I had blown it for a moment holding my sprint too much back, but it was perfectly dozed to allow Daniele to take the stage win!
A brilliant team effort if I may say so!
On stage 6 things were back in hilly terrain and that basically counted as a day off for me. Only I was told by the manager that I shouldn’t drop quite as much as on stage 3.
Stage 7 was another bunch sprint. Once again I did the leadout for Bennati and delivered him nicely along with being in the way of Modolos sprint. Unfortunately our Italian only had the legs for a 2nd place.
Stage 8 went pretty much the same way.
All-in-all I think we rode a good race even though I can’t help to be annoyed about my failed leadout on stage 2 – especially since Bennati was only 1 point short of the points jersey. He would probably have taken that if I hadn’t screwed that sprint up for him…
I thought I’d just give you a song along the way as well as my uncle made a tune that could have been written for Daniele. Well at least if you ignore the actual lyrics and just look at the title
A while back I went with the team to Philadelphia IC to ride a race suited for strong sprinters. Sort of like me – or at least what I hope to become…
To be frank I didn’t have the strongest team imagianable around me for the sprint so I had to fend a lot for myself in the finish which cost me a lot of energy. I ended up on 12th place, which was less than I had hoped for, but at least it got the team some more points.
We did however send a pretty strong squad for the Danish Championships, but somehow we managed to fuck up the sprint in spite of having both the most and the fastest guys. I still have no idea how we did that…
6 guys in top 8 is just not good enough when none of them wins!
So that concludes the second part of the season for me with the 6th place in Paris - Roubaix being the obvious highlight and the 32nd place in der Ronde an equal disappointment.
It goes to show that I still need to build some strength for uphill terrain in order to do well on a more consistent level...
~ Erik McDermott Edited by Atlantius on 17-06-2014 20:03
Just wanted to check in to hear what you have in store for me in the last part of the season.
I was earlier promised Post Danmark Rundt, Eneco, Vattenfall and Plouay, but I would love to race even more be it as a helper or in a leading role.
Personally I think that San Sebastian, the Canadian classics, Beijing and USAPCC would suit me fairly well...
That would bring me on 60 race days if I'm doing my math properly so if you want me to help out in the first half of a couple of the harder classics I'm open for that as well.
Just wanted to check in to hear what you have in store for me in the last part of the season.
I was earlier promised Post Danmark Rundt, Eneco, Vattenfall and Plouay, but I would love to race even more be it as a helper or in a leading role.
Personally I think that San Sebastian, the Canadian classics, Beijing and USAPCC would suit me fairly well...
That would bring me on 60 race days if I'm doing my math properly so if you want me to help out in the first half of a couple of the harder classics I'm open for that as well.
~ Erik McDermott
Hey Erik,
Apologies for not replying to you earlier, we've been having sleepless nights about the TdF startlist The calendar you suggested is fine with us on the whole but my maths makes that a total of 64 race days? Would you mind if you didn't ride the Canadian classics?
Edited by Stromeon on 06-08-2014 16:16
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