Diego Ulissi doing everything I can ask of him. He's not going to get a good GC result obviously with the TT, but perhaps top 5 sprint jersey which gives a bit aswell.
Tim Dees fucked up big time here, I kinda expected him to be in that front group when it all melted back together, but he has been a major dissapointment this season.
Oh and Cio:
Liege-Bastogne-Liege:
36 Domenik Klemme Team B&O s.t.
43 Andrei Grivko Team B&O s.t.
77 Rasmus Guldhammer Team B&O s.t.
Fleche Wallonne:
22 Andrei Grivko Team B&O s.t.
24 Domenik Klemme Team B&O + 42
31 Rasmus Guldhammer Team B&O s.t.
Amstel Gold Race:
27 Domenik Klemme Team B&O s.t.
35 Rasmus Guldhammer Team B&O s.t.
It seems rather random what those blokes are performing, and having 22nd as their best result in all 3 major classics should indicate that they will probably be somewhere around 25-40th. You should be able to do equally well. But is it enough? What about Heineken? Are they close still? Cause Pozzato could potentially do well on his home ground.
EDIT: And holy begeezus I had not seen this one coming! I honestly this is my second time, in the team's 6 seasons history that I have won a KoM comp
Edited by niconico on 05-02-2014 21:29
That was probably as good as it could get, even though Van Garderen proved it could have been done better. Amazing performance from Wikipedia, congratulations on the stage win, the overall win, and the overall win in the Pro Tour ranking!
Trofimov, Cancellara, Coppel and Phinney will probably all storm past Boasson Hagen in the time trial, and Gesink will also be around. But that gap was really vital, and 40 seconds down to most of the contenders should secure a top 10, which is what I hoped for pre-race
For the relegation battle, it just gets more intense! I still fancy Van Den Broeck to pull Puma-SAP through thanks to his nice sprint stat in Lombardia. but I have to say, go on, you Danish team!
Great for Ponzi to keep chipping away with the points, though I feel his gap won't be enough for a top 10 in the gc after that TT. Hopefully Ignatiev will step up for a top 5 or so!
By the way, I just realised I forgot to say this in the report: Sorry that EBH wasn't riding in the rainbow jersey, ember. It didn't hit me until I had raced the stage, and I didn't think it would been fair to redo the whole thing.
Edited by Pellizotti2 on 05-02-2014 21:36
Pellizotti2 wrote:
By the way, I just realised I forgot to say this in the report: Sorry that EBH wasn't riding in the rainbow jersey, ember. It didn't hit me until I had raced the stage, and I didn't think it would been fair to redo the whole thing.
EBH shouldnt have been riding in the rainbow jersey anyway.
Great stage for us. Crappy stage for the attackers - major omg at VdB, you can imagine the reception at the hotel room in Hobart afterwards. CIO going lord of the rings all over jurgen's ass.
Both Cancellara and the home boy bobo could have GC here - c'mon canc beat up that French Nancy boy and craptastic haircut American man once more time.
Fantastic ride from Van Garderen. I figured having him here would help mark some of Phinney's bigger threats and maybe he'd end up in a front group like that, but I never envisioned this! Happy i didn't give into fears of bringing multiple leaders to this race. Just hoping for solid tt's from my guys to shore up a couple top placings, while Bookwalter and even Meyer should be solid as well from the clump of riders on the same time.
Great stage for us. Crappy stage for the attackers - major omg at VdB, you can imagine the reception at the hotel room in Hobart afterwards. CIO going lord of the rings all over jurgen's ass.
Both Cancellara and the home boy bobo could have GC here - c'mon canc beat up that French Nancy boy and craptastic haircut American man once more time.
Great racing and nice reporting on the final stage as well. A good race for us, unfortunately it won't be enough to keep hold of that 10th place, as 1t4i must have outscored us by a lot here, considering they've got four riders in the top 20. Congrats!
And what a time trial by Fab! And it just gets stronger if the hill played an important role.
Must say I liked this race. The hilly stage provided great racing, even though much of it came back together again in the final kilometers, and the time trial gave bigger gaps than I thought it would.
Well, that actually salvaged a bit. Still horrifying thinking of what would've been if VDB would forget his fighter stat for a second...can we downgrade stats in the offseason?
So we lose 6 points because of one second in the TT...but we gain 10 points by finishing 50th and 100th in the GC instead of 51st and 101st...could you make it any more exciting if you wanted to?
Not really a special race for us, but we didn't expect that either. Ulissi did well taking a few points here and there, but thats about it. We won't move any higher based on that performance surely.
