The sponsor wanted us to win a stage in the Tour of Austria, Kudus came close on the mountaintop finish on stage 2, but was beaten by Locatelli (MON 77). But two days later it was Grimshaw who managed to fulfil the objective. It was a mountain stage with a HC climb, but it came in the middle of the stage, after the long descent the rest was flat. Grimshaw attacked his two breakaway partners 20 km out and claimed the stage.
Our first appearance in the Tour de France wasn't much to shout about. Our best result was a 3rd place by Santeramo on stage 18, Carter added a 4th place on stage 3. Santeramo ended 39th in the GC and 9th in the polka-dot rankings, he had some hopes of winning the white jersey but was beaten by 5 minutes by MTN's Robert Bernar, a very interesting young stage racer, MON 79 at the age of 23.
Quintana and Froome had already faced-off in the Giro, they were back in action in the Tour de France with Kwiatkowski also staking his claim. Of all stages the long and nominally flat stage 3 proved to be decisive. Quintana (TTR 71) lost surprisingly little time in the ITTs, he was just 25 seconds slower than Froome, 30 seconds behind Kwiatek in the very long flat ITT over 72 km. But on the third stage there was a late attack initiated by Kwiatek, who won the stage, Froome followed and ended 1:19 behind, but Nairo missed the move and lost 3:01 on the day.
The Colombian took time off Froome and Kwiatek on every bar one of the mountain stages, winning three of them, but it wasn't enough to catch Froome and the Brit had a lead of 1 minute going into the short ITT on the last day. Froome won the stage and the Tour, Quintana and Kwiatkowski completed the podium, everybody else kept a respectful distance to the trio.
Cheers, df_Trek! I'm afraid Kudus is not planned for the Vuelta, he's already got 54 racing days in his legs and is winding down his training. But he will be in action again very soon in the Tour of Poland, probably his last stage race of the season. The race includes two mountain stages well suited for him, but they come at the very beginning, so the survival of a breakaway is unlikely.
The sponsor's overall happiness couldn't be any better. We fulfilled 8 of his 12 objectives so far with the stage win in Austria and added 10 noteworthy results. Were were informed that the wage budget will rise from 110k to 185k per month next year. And since we are currently spending only 85k we have even more leeway to afford better riders. On the other hand we do want to increase the squad size from 24 to the full roster of 30 riders.
We have decided to let 8 riders go: Aregger, Willwohl, Anishenko, Honkisz, Chudza, Grimshaw, Pfingsten and Santeramo. Their potential is limited and/or their wage demands too high for what they bring to the table. We are thus looking for 14 new riders.
Since the 21st of June we've been busy making contract offers. Sadly, once more a score of riders preferred to sign with other teams instead, the list includes among other names Zakarin, Parra, Atapuma, Haga, Bilbao, Lavieu, Locatelli, Dennis Vanendert and Wallays. Also on that list is Sebastian Reichenbach (MON 80), who we viewed as a “real” GT captain, his wage demand of 23k wouldn't break the bank – but after a week of negotiations he rejected our offer of 26k and decided to stay with Trek.
We were able to hire 5 riders who'll be paid low five-digit salaries: The punchers Romeu, Gautier and Hermanski as well as the climbers Olivier (MON 76 AVG 75) and Olesen (MON 78 AVG 73). By the end of July we were still 4 men short and once more turned to the U23 riders and again picked up two gems as trainees, Boothroyd and Foure, both TT specialists with room to grow into good stage racers in the long term. The final signing took place on the 3rd of August, Manuel Mayordomo, an unknown 23 year old puncher (AVG 72) who currently rides with Caja Rural.
The bottom of the WT team rankings on the 1st of August:
14.
Movistar
148
15.
Amore & Vita
69
16.
Giant
68
17.
Garmin
67
18.
NetApp
40
For Amore & Vita the following riders have collected WT points: Kudus (21), Gross (16), Smetannikov (15), Santeramo (11), Howes (6), Mannion (4), Carter (4), Irgalin (2) and Barton (1). Note: Only the 5 riders per team who collected the most points are counted towards the team rankings, which is why the total is 69, not 80.
We brought our best 6 punchers and the two trainees to the Classica San Sebastian. In windy conditions the attacks started early, it became a war of attrition, one Amore rider after another was left behind until only Smetannikov remained in a group of 13 riders. He was too exhausted to display his sprinting skills but it was enough for a respectable 10th place and 2 more WT points. Ulissi won ahead of Valverde and Clarke.
Kudus joined the early breakaway on the first stage of the Tour of Poland, he was joined by our ex-rider Kuznetsov (now FDJ), Pirmin Lang and Westra. The stage to Madonna di Campliglio was mostly flat before reaching the finale with 2 cat. 2 mountain passes and a final climb to the ski resort.
The Eritrean was clearly the best climber of the group and dropped his companions on the first classified climb, still a long way from the finish line. It didn't pay off, with 2 km to go Kudus was caught by the group of favourites and ended 11th.
Mannion held back on day 1, lost 22:35, and initiated the breakaway on stage 2 to Val di Fassa. The profile was very similar, only that two cat. 1 passes came before the final climb. Mannion used the same tactic as Kudus – but with much greater success, he won the stage 2:41 ahead of Fulgsang and Uran. WT stage #4 for Amore & Vita.
Young Jean-Claude Birtz had the chance of winning the hilly stage 5 from the breakaway, but he was up against 8 other riders. He possibly mistimed his final uphill sprint, Cort Nielsen won the stage, but Birtz was runner-up ahead of Van Der Lijke.
The mountain jersey would be decided on stage 6, 5 laps over three hills, altogether 8 of them classified as cat. 1. Alex Howes was part of the breakaway and collected 84 points, but so was Van Der Lijke and his 50 points were enough to win the jersey by 5 points. Howes was the best of the escapees, but like Kudus he was caught by the top group and ended 11th.
Birtz (TTR 76) added a 3rd place to his palmares in the ITT on the final day. No TT specialists participated, Velits (77) won the stage, behind Birtz in 4th was Bakelants (72). His strong performance in the ITT made him the surprise winner of the Poland Tour. Uran, Kelderman, Fuglsang and Vanendert all underperformed and squandered the advantage they held before the stage.
We felt that Smetannikov had a real shot at claiming a top 10 GC result in the Eneco Tour. He's at the top of his game, a true allrounder, he shouldn't lose much time in the prologue, he might be able to keep up with the specialists on the cobbled stage and do well on the only hilly stage. However, things didn't quite go his way. He was 9th in the prologue but lost 2:19 on the cobblestone stage, arriving in a large group with all his team mates. The hilly stage was even worse, he lost 4:34 that day.
But the hilly stage 6 to Aywaille opened up a chance for Pfingsten. At the start of the season he was nominally our best puncher, but never managed to record any notable result. Now he was just 3 minutes behind race leader Degenkolb when he joined the early breakaway. He soon rode himself into the virtual leader's jersey and half-way through the stage he must have been dreaming about winning the Eneco Tour.
But those dreams were soon shattered as the peloton set a brutal pace on the numerous short and steep hills, a big E2 group formed with all our riders including Smeta missing. Pfingsten took his heart in his hands, left the breakaway companions behind 50 km from the finish line and held off the onslaught from the favourites, winning the stage by 13 seconds against Henao.
On top of that, after the dust had settled, Pfingsten was now 4th in the GC with only a flat stage to go! Smetannikov was over 5 minutes back before the final stage and joined the early breakaway. He didn't stand a chance against Roelandts, who won the stage by 1:39, but Smeta came 2nd and held off the peloton by 54 seconds which was just enough to claim 10th in the GC, relegating Geraint Thomas to 11th by 4 seconds.
But the bigger catch was, of course, Pfingsten's 4th place finish. That great result combined with the stage win netted him 66 WT points which nearly doubled our total in the team rankings.
Next we travelled to Hamburg for the Cyclassics. We had a clear leader for this race, our only real sprinter, Natanael Hita (SPR 78 ACC 77), who was well protected, even Smetannikov was delegated to a lead-out role. Hita was rewarded with a 9th place, unable to beat the better sprinters Coquard, Sagan, Cavendish, Viviani, Bouhanni and Martinez.
However, the race was won - once again - by the early breakaway. I have noted this before, several times probably, the AI is often unable to catch the escapees in Hamburg, we wish we'd sent somebody along. Navardauskas won ahead of Kuznetsov. Our ex-rider who finished 4th last season in the Continental Rankings and has no other result to speak of this year. But this 2nd place awards him 60 WT points, while Hita has to be content with 6 points.
The GP Quest a week later offered a chance for our punchers to break into the top 10. Nominally flat, it features that late steep upslope just before the sprinting starts and our riders were at the front of the peloton going into the climb. Vanmarcke attacked uphill and won by 25 seconds, Coquard and Sagan followed, while Pfingsten came 7th, Carter was 9th, De Vos just missed the top 10 with an 11th place.
Pfingsten is now 41st in the WT rankings with 80 points, head and shoulders above the rest of the team, Smetannikov follows with 25 points, then Kudus with 21 points.
For the Vuelta a Espana we had two goals in mind for the three climbers we brought along: To go for stage wins from breakaways and possibly to break in the top 20 in the GC to add more World Tour points to our tally.
Sadly, we couldn't win a stage in Spain, we were close with a number of top 5 results, but there was always at least one superior rider in the group. The team was a great 2nd in the opening TTT, then young Boothroyd was runner-up on stage 6. Santeramo was 3rd on stage 9, Mannion on stage 10, he crashed two days later and had to abandon the Vuelta. Our neo-pro Shatskikh was 3rd on the hilly stage 15, his best result so far. Santeramo and Beltran were each 4th on stages 16 and 17, then Santeramo was only beaten by Jungels on stage 19.
Stage 20 was the final mountain stage up to Bola del Mundo. Our two remaining climbers, Santeramo and Beltran, were both sitting just outside the top 20 and we decided to let them escape together. Of course, nobody else would help out in the group that formed, but the stage is just 127 km short. The two riders who joined us were Trofimov and the young Brazilian Raul Kleina and the peloton gave us a long leash.
In the end, Kleina (MON 73) profited from our work and won the stage ahead of Santeramo and Beltran. Rui Costa was 2:56 behind, Dombrowski 3:37, Dan Martin 4:04, but the region of the GC our riders cared for lost around 7 minutes, which was enough for Santeramo to jump to 15th overall, worth 14 WT points, Beltran ended 19th (4 points).
Rui Costa's performance on the final mountain stage reflected his dominance throughout the Vuelta. He claimed the red jersey on stage 3 and never took it off again. He won on the mountaintops on stages 8 and 13, increasing his lead on nearly every hilly or mountainous stage and he wins the Vuelta 2017 by over 10 minutes, as well as the green jersey. The mountain jersey goes to Reichenbach, the man who'd refused to sign with us. Adam Yates is the best young rider.
Santeramo collected 36 WT points during this Vuelta, taking his total to 47, 2nd place behind Pfingsten in the internal rankings.
We brought our 8 best punchers to Quebec and all of them made it into the final group of 18 riders. However, the other riders were Nibali, Froome, Uran, Bardet, Betancur, Mollema, Kwiatkowski, Velits, Quintana and Landa. We were very happy when Carter managed a 5th place in the uphill sprint and De Vos ended 10th. Nibali won ahead of Uran and Froome.
Two days later the same team raced in Montreal with less success. Mollema beat Bardet and Kwiatkowski, our best rider was Smetannikov as 15th.
Carters 5th place in Quebec takes his total WT points to 40. With his performance in Canada and Santeramo's in Spain we now have 213 points and overtake Lotto-Belisol (183), Giant (116), Garmin (still 69) and Netapp (42) followed. My confidence is now great that we'll stay in the WT.
Next we travelled to the World Championships 2017 in Hamilton, Canada. Both the ITT and the RR courses were flat as a pancake. I took control of Russia and the goal was a top 25 finish by Smetannikov, which the sponsor would deem a notable result.
Now 23 years old he's at the top of his game. In the Superprestige Rankings he's by far Amore & Vita's best rider, #23 with 1069 points, more than twice as many as Carter and Kudus collected. However, he couldn't transform it into many WT points, with 25 points he's only 4th in the internal rankings, 84th in the world.
First up was the time trial, exactly 40 km long. The big favourite was Luke Durbridge, nobody can match his TTR 84, everybody else has 81 at best. And Durbridge took the Gold, he was 33 seconds faster than Jungels, Cancellera was a further 2 seconds behind.
Then it was time for the road race, 12 laps on a circuit without any hills and on wide roads. For a long time, it was a pretty boring race. Only two riders escaped early, the Lithuanian Juodvalkis and the Colombian Jeffry Johan “JJ” Romero. For everybody in the peloton it was an easy ride, except for the Germans who were tasked with keeping the break in check.
With 35 km to go - the two escapees were still ahead by 90 seconds - the Belgians suddenly made their move, Gilbert and Roelandts attacked together. 10 km later the speed of the peloton still seemed too low to catch them, the gap had increased to 2 minutes. Smetannikov decided to risk it, with the protection of Ignatiev he rode to the front of the peloton and attacked and there was no immediate response from the other nations.
He could easily ride 25 km with an effort of 82, and to my surprise the advantage over the peloton kept on growing and he was also catching up with the four leaders. The original escapees were barely holding on to Gilbert and Roelandts, with the latter – the better sprinter – doing all the work. Smeta caught them 8 km from the finish line, he was prepared to just stay behind Gilbert, but the the speed set by Roelandts wasn't that high and the peloton was closing in – so Smetannikov attacked again!
His red bar was still nearly full as he entered the final 3 km, the Belgians were 10 seconds behind and the other nations had mistimed the whole thing.
Smetannikov won, 11 seconds ahead of Gilbert and Roelandts, everybody else was 36 seconds behind, Degenkolb wins the sprint for 4th. Absolutely crazy, World Champion 2017!
Yeah, I know. I couldn't believe that the peloton wasn't speeding up, you can't let Gilbert and Roelandts get away so easily. And then Smeta reached the group and had to decide what to do, he could have beaten Gilbert (SPR 66) in a sprint. He should have been working for Roelandts (73), not the other way round. It was risky to attack again, but the peloton was closing in... it all worked out in the end.
Gilbert went on to win Il Lombardia a week later as consolation. Van Avermaet won the sprint from the next group against Moser, Porte and Quintana. Gallopin, Battaglin, Simon Yates, Gerrans and Betancur completed the top 10. Our best riders were Pfingsten and Howes as 50th and 55th.
Amore & Vita's final World Tour points this season were collected by the new World Champion Smetannikov, riding in the rainbow jersey. On stage 2 of the Tour of Beijing he tried to repeat his success from Hamilton with a late attack, he nearly succeeded and was only overtaken by Bouhanni. He and the whole team disappointed slightly a day later in an uphill finish, they all lost 14 to 22 seconds against the 12 best riders and would finish outside the top 10 in the GC.
Carter joined the early breakaway on the final stage to collect enough points to win the mountain jersey. The stage ended in a mass sprint won by Sagan ahead of Bouhanni and Meersman. Bouhanni had won the first two stages so the time bonuses were enough to win the Tour of Beijing by 4 seconds ahead of Sagan, who takes home the sprinter's jersey, stage 3 winner Simon Yates is 3rd overall and the best young rider.
Relegation from the World Tour: Before the Tour of Beijing Giant-Shimano seemed safe from relegation with 116 points, Garmin-Sharp had 69 points, NetApp-Endura 42. But Garmin's Slagter was 2nd on the decisive stage 3 and ended 5th overall in China and with 122 points Garmin slipped past Giant at the last possible moment. Giant and NetApp lose the WT status. They will be replaced by Europcar and Caja Rural, the latter narrowly beating Cofidis to the punch (1959 vs. 1936 Superprestige Points).
Amore & Vita: At the start of October our team was ahead of Lotto-Belisol in 14th position. But Lotto's Simon Yates reached an 8th place in Il Lombardia and a 3rd place in the Tour of Beijing. Lotto finishes 14th with 279 points, Amore & Vita is 15th with 217 points.
Our 217 points come from Pfingsten (80), Santeramo (47), Carter (40), Smetannikov (29) and Kudus (21). Gross (16), Mannion (14), Beltran (10), Boothroyd (8), Birtz (7), Howes (6), Hita (6), Shatskikh (4), Irgalin (2), De Vos (2) and Barton (1) also got on the scoresheet.
As expected, the World Tour was no picnic for our rather weak team. One good stage in the Eneco Tour from Pfingsten, a few results from breakaways in the Vuelta by Santeramo (who remained without a victory this season) and a 5th place by Carter in Quebec make up the majority of our WT points.
In the Superprestige Rankings, which aren't so selective, the picture is a little different. Smetannikov ends a strong 22nd with 1164 points (Kwiatek wins with 3609), far ahead of Carter, who is 76th (564). Hita is 5th in the team, 133rd overall (372) thanks to good results in (simulated) non-WT races, especially winning stage 3 and ending 3rd overall in the Tour of Britain. Everybody in the team collected some points, in case of Shishelov just 3 (1028th), even Chudza managed 46 points (566th).
The sponsor is extremely happy with our performance. We only missed 4 of 15 goals, a very good result, if I may say so, though admittedly only one was in the WT and some were very easy to fulfil. We added 11 noteworthy results, none more so than the World Champs win by Smetannikov but also stages and mountain jerseys in the Giro and Dauphine. The sponsor is pleased with the popularity of Smetannikov, especially as Russia is a secondary market and Santeramo's popularity in Italy since the Vuelta is also a bonus.
At the top of the table Omega racks up 55 victories, well ahead of Katusha (36), Ag2r (33), Sky (32), Tinkoff (32) and Orica (30). Sagan (Omega) and Kwiatkowski (Orica) record 16 victories each, followed by Kittel (also Omega) and Quintana (Tinkoff) with 14. Omega wins the Superprestige Rankings easily, but in the World Tour they are beaten by Tinkoff, Ag2r is 3rd.
In the individual WT rankings Kwiatkowski (882 points) beats Quintana (779) and Sagan (767). The Polish superstar won LBL, the Basque Tour, the Romandie, was runner-up in the Swiss Tour and Paris - Nice and on the podium of the TdF. Last year's winner Quintana won the Giro and the Tour de Suisse, was 2nd in the TdF and 3rd in the Basque and Romandie Tours. While Sagan won the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Down Under and Eneco Tour as well as 5 TdF stages.
Froome (744), winner of the TdF and Dauphine and runner-up in the Giro had to settle for 4th place. He is followed by Vuelta winner Rui Costa (627), Paris - Nice and Catalunya winner Mollema (612) and Betancur (563), who won Tirreno - Adriatico and Milano - Sanremo. Uran (455), Degenkolb (419) and Ulissi (393) complete the top 10.
Grand Tours:
Giro d'Italia: 1. Quintana 2. Froome 3. Mollema
Tour de France: 1. Froome 2. Quintana 3. Kwiatkowski
Vuelta a Espana: 1. Rui Costa 32. Dombrowski 3. Daniel Martin
Monuments:
Milano - Sanremo: 1. Betancur 2. Rui Costa 3. Van Avermaet
Ronde van Vlaanderen: 1. Sagan 2. Cancellara 3. Stybar
Paris - Roubaix: 1. Cancellara 2. Boasson Hagen 3. Vanmarcke
Liege - Bastogne - Liege: 1. Kwiatkowski 2. Rui Costa 3. Froome
Il Lombardia: 1. Gilbert 2. Van Avermaet 3. Moser
Before we move into the new season here's a quick overview of the development of the monthly budget, the squad size, the average rating and monthly salary per rider so far:
Season
Division
Budget
Riders
AVG rat
Wage
2014
Cont
37.5
15
63.4
2.5
2015
Cont
35.1
12
69.3
2.5
2016
CPro
67.2
16
70.3
2.6
2017
WT
110
24
71.5
3.3
2018
WT
176
30
73.0
5.3
With a total salary bill of 159k/month in 2018 Amore & Vita will be 22nd overall, Astana is the biggest spender with 1,016k/month.
Thanks, Tamijo. Actually, the objectives have really gotten hard. Stage wins in P-N, T-A, Giro, Dauphine and TdS. Top 10 in Sanremo, Vlaanderen, Roubaix and Amstel Gold... I seriously doubt we'll hit many of those. But I'm confident we'll get other results which will make the sponsor happy again. I'll present the new team next time, but I'm afk for the weekend.
We've increased our squad size to the full 30 riders. 18 punchers, 5 climbers, 3 TT specialists, 2 sprinters, 2 northern classics riders and one fighter, the man in the Rainbow Jersey, Smetannikov. The focus will remain on winning stages and reaching top 10 results in the one-day races. We've also changed and increased our coaching team and are now able to offer level 7 training in HIL and GC, level 6 in MON, COB, SPR and FTR and level 5 in TTR.
Here's a look at some of our specialists, first the 5 climbers:
Like last season there's little potential for improvement in the core stat among the five climbers, only Olesen is still able to improve a point or two. He already gained 2 MON points since signing with us in July, we are very happy to have such a good climber in our team, he should dominate breakaways in mountain stages.
We also have three young TT specialists who have a lot of potential, all three of them will turn into good stage racers given more time.
For the cobblestone races we've added two northern classics specialists:
Both riders haven't quite reached their potential yet, they are not exactly fearsome, but there aren't many specialists around currently, just six riders with COB 80+, maybe there is an outside chance of a top 10 result.
Our strongest suit are the punchers, all 18 of them might be able to reach a result, here are the 7 riders with HIL 76+:
Sebastian Romeu not only has an AVG 75, he also has a lot of room to grow. Together with the reigning World Champion Smetannikov he's our most promising rider this season.
I confidently predict that we won't have to worry about relegation anymore, the two freshly promoted teams Europcar and Caja Rural don't have any rider rated above AVG 75 and will struggle to stay in the World Tour.
As already mentioned, the sponsor objectives have become harder this season, most important for Amore & Vita are the Italian races, we've been asked to deliver stage wins in Tirreno - Adriatico and the Giro as well as top 5 finishes in Milano - Sanremo, Strade Bianche, the Giro del Trentino and the Campione d'Italia.
The contract with Amore & Vita runs out this season and we believe it is time to look around for a new sponsor. We don't have any Ukrainian riders in the squad anymore because the few riders around simply aren't very good.
The Australian NC is always a great chance to start a season with a victory. Two Australians are new in the team, Jonathan Bunce, a 21 year old sprinter, and puncher Jay McCarthy. He's 25 years old and already has 7 seasons under his belt. 5 years ago he won the Tour of Wellington and was picked up by Tinkoff but was unable to produce any results. The last two seasons he rode with Verandas Willems and collected 23 points in the Continental Rankings.
McCarthy attacked as soon as the race started but nobody was willing to join him, he'd have to solo his way to the finish line. His advantage grew to 20 minutes and it was clear he'd become the new Australian Champion. Late attacks brought Porte 2nd place, 14:29 behind McCarthy, Simon Clarke was 3rd, Bunce arrived with the peloton, 19:45 down.
We sent 7 of our punchers to the Tour Down Under. Considering the tough competition a top 10 in the GC seemed out of reach, so we didn't mind that this year's course featured a stage finishing on Mount Kosciouszko. The first stage of this year's WT campaign was won by Degenkolb in a mass sprint, a day later Kittel took the stage.
Six strong climbers fought for the win on stage 3 and overall victory. Mollema came out top, he was followed by Pinot, Dan Martin, Betancur, Ulissi and Nibali. Our best riders was Gross as 18th (4:37).
Stage 5 was the only hilly stage with the traditional finish on Willunga Hill. Dwayne De Vos was our pick to join the early breakaway. It's his second season with Amore & Vita, last year he was 10th in Quebec and won a stage of the Tour of Turkey. He had lost 6:31 on the mountain stage and was the highest placed rider in the GC in the breakaway.
At the half-way mark the advantage of the escape group had increased to 7 minutes, making De Vos the virtual leader. That wasn't going to last, but the group of 5 riders was still working well and would fight for the stage win. De Vos was unable to beat the great Cancellara, but he was 2nd, 13 seconds behind the Swiss superstar.
However, to our delight Simon Yates, Poels and Dennis were over 4 minutes behind De Vos who would thus end the Tour Down Under in 8th place, take the U25 jersey and collect 24 WT points for our team. Victory went to Mollema, Martin and Ulissi completed the podium. Cancellara won the mountain jersey, Degenkolb the sprinter jersey, equal on points with Sagan.
The concurrent stage races Paris – Nice and Tirreno – Adriatico both seemed perfect for our punchers this year. No mountain stages and all the hilly stages were pretty straightforward. The difference was that while P-N had no time trial, T-A started with a TTT and finished with a short ITT.
The Race to the Sun started with three flat stages which were all won by Demare. Five fairly simple hilly stages followed. We decided that Gautier and Carter would be protected leaders and try to make it into the top 10 while the others dropped behind the peloton on stage 4 and would look to join breakaways.
On stage 5 Shatskikh slipped into the escape group. His AVG 71 might not look like much, but he is a good descender (DHI 75) and thus well suited for the downhill finish. After the peloton had reduced the gap to 90 seconds with 20 km remaining he launched a final attack and managed to win the stage.
Stage 6 was the toughest of the race with a short but steep uphill finish and a cat. 1 climb just beforehand. Despite the protection by their team mates Carter and Gautier couldn't hold onto the top group and ended 11th and 12th, 1:51 and 2:39 behind Ulissi, who won the stage.
On stage 7 Dernies escaped with 10 other riders of comparable level. He didn't waste any energy fighting for mountain points and concentrated on the finale, which was mostly flat. Like Shatskikh two days earlier he attacked 20 km from the finish line and won the stage by 27 seconds. On top of that, further back our riders were attentive when Quintana initiated a late attack and not all top 10 riders made the group. Rui Costa dropped off the podium and Carter and Gautier moved up to 9th and 10th overall.
We feared that they would lose time on the final stage but fortunately the breakaway would take the stage and there were no late attacks, Gautier and Carter finished safely in a peloton of 124 riders.
Two stage wins and two riders in the top 10, Carter wins the U25 competition – and Amore & Vita wins the team rankings by 30 seconds! What a great performance!
