@Croatia14 The team is hoping to get the first win in this race. That would be awesome if happens

@sutty68 Phil is in good shape, but he is still one level behind of the sprinters who are in this race. Will see if he can do something

We all agree that this is Quick Step stage to lose. They have brought here his A-Team for the Ardennes, with Gilbert, Martin and Alaphilippe, so everything that is not a win will be a major disappointment for the team

Halvorsen entered the breakaway, with other 8 riders, including Bettiol and De Marchi. Both Quick Step and Sky, who still wants a stage win despite the GC failure, were the team which were pulling from the bunch

When the peloton was starting the climb to Paracombe, race leader Michael Hepburn had been dropped lots of kilometres ago, while Belkov and Burghardt were the last ones to be caught from the breakaway, right in the first slope of Paracombe

Egan Bernal was the first to launch an attack, and would find himself with a top10 finish. Meanwhile, Julian Alaphilippe closed a gap to Tony Gallopin and out-sprinted him to win by the first time in a WT race. The Frenchman is now the race leader



Valerio Conti didn’t had the legs today, and would lose 1 minute in the finish line, the same as Chris Froome or Jay McCarthy

sutty68 wrote:
Another top ten finish

After yesterday summit finish, we have again a flat stage. Sprinters teams will make sure this time that no breakaway will prevent them from fighting for a win today.

Not a lot to be talked about this stage initially. Conti was in the breakaway, trying to overcome yesterday’s bad feelings. But when we entered the final circuit, the wind was really high, and echelons happened. Now our biggest worry was to keep Bernal in the main group, trying to be in the front to avoid being dropped

Egan was here only to learn, but it will be disappointing if he loses the chance the be in the top10 of his first WT race because of echelons. At the end, no echelons were successfully made.

Due to his bad climbings abilites, Phil was miss-placed after a bump with 6 km to go, so Halvorsen would sprint on his own, looking for a top10, which he sortly missed in stage 1. But in front, Conti was still in the lead within the last 2 km, with an advantage that should be enough to fight for the win.



Valerio only had to follow William Clarke’s wheel, and then out-sprint him for the win.



What a way for our first ever win!

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sutty68 wrote:
Great win for Valerio

Another flat stage, and after 2 successful breakaways in the other 2 flat stages, will the sprinters team miss out on another chance today?

Today, names as Bettiol, Dowsett, Elminger and Edmondson were in the breakaway so Valerio and Julen start to pull since early in the race.

But all of this was useless, as the breakaway was going to fight for the win. With 20 km to go, they still had more than 2 minutes, so another missed chance for sprinters and for Phil, who was feeling great today

In that group, Alex Edmondson proved to be the strongest, in order to win his first ever WT race.



In the bunch, Arnaud Demare was the fastest, with Bauhaus finishing just outside the top15. Alaphilippe kept his leader jersey

@Tamijo The goal was to win a stage here... I guess now I can withdrawn my riders from this race
@VoetsT

The queen stage is here. Two climbs to Willunga Hill will decide who wins the GC. Alaphilippe will try to retain the leader jersey, but it won’t be easy, as riders as Izagirre, Gallopin, Valgren, Gerrans or Wellens, without pointing to his team-mates, Gilbert and Martin, are within 10 seconds of the lead. For our team, Bernal will try to enter the top10 of the GC.

The day until the 2 climbs was easy, with only a 2-men breakaway, featuring Julen and De Marchi. Julen was caught in the middle of the first climb, in the very moment that former World Champion, Michal Kwiatkowski, launched an attack. The Pole is no dangerous for GC, as he has already lost 4 minutes, but thinking for the stage win, other team shouldn’t let him take lot of time.



But Kwiatkowski was caught after reaching the summit. Obviously, several groups were made, making the first group only a 40-men group. Chris Froome kept proving that he was far out of his ideal shape, as he was dropped to a third group.

In the final climb, Philippe Gilbert led-out his team-mates Martin and Alaphilippe, with only Kwiatkowski and Izagirre being able to follow them. These four riders would fight for the stage win, with Martin and Alaphilippe doing the 1-2 for QuickStep, both in stage and overall. In the GC, Alaphilippe keeps the leadership, six seconds ahead of Dan Martin and 12 ahead of Ion Izagirre


It seems like I forgot to clear the screen for this picture jajaja

Both Valerio and Egan had a bad start of the climb, but they were able to recover and finish in the group who fought for fifth place, 16 seconds away from Martin. If everything goes right in the final stage, Egan will finish in the top20 in his first ever WT race. What an achievement for the young Colombian

sutty68 wrote:
Egan still within touching distance on the GC

Final stage of 2017 Tour Down Under, with a 90 km stage in Adelaide. At this moment, all flat stages has gone to the breakaway, so teams like FDJ and Trek will be impatient to not let the breakaway win again. No one can say that Arnaud Demare is having a bad race, as he sits on forth place in GC, and is leading the points standings, but a stage win is a win. We’ll also work for Phil, who wants to fight for a win.

Lots of riders tried to get in the breakaway, but Conti, Wallays and Amezqueta never let the breakaway become bigger than 5 members, so we can control it later. This meant that, despite the lack of wind, the peloton was spliting in several groups



And Dan Martin was suddenly in troubles, being alone far of the pack



In the sprint, Halvorsen led-out Bauhaus, although the German was a bit closed by Enger when he started his sprint, and with less than 40 metres to the finish, it was a really close sprint, with Enger, Bennett, Nizzolo and Bauhaus still able to win this



And in the end is Sam Bennett who wins! The Irish was clearly the fastest today, as he made an awesome comeback in the last metres to win the stage. Phil was only able to finish forth, but anyway is a good result



Dan Martin never catched the group again, and would lose over 2’30 today, slipping outside top20.

Julian Alaphilippe wins his first World Tour GC, ahead of Ion Izagirre and a surprising Sondre Holst Enger. Alaphilippe also wins KoM jersey and U25 jersey. Sam Bennett wins the Points jersey, thanks to today’s win and a bad day for Arnaud Demare.

For us, Egan Bernal was up to 13th in GC, and Valerio Conti will finish inside the top20 (19th)

The manager of Cepsa - Estrella Galicia has announced that he will create a Development Team for this very season.

The Dev Team will have 20 Spanish young riders, and team manager has promised that every single year, at least two riders from the Dev Team will be signed for the WT squad.

The aim for this team is to be able to discover first the new Spanish talents (and also some foreign talent, but that will be for 2018 and more) without having the risk that they sign for other teams.

The team has been confirmed to ride all the 1/2.2U races of the season plus a few pro races, like Vuelta a San Juan, which will be the first race for the Dev team.

@VoetsT Phil has got some confidence for his next race, Cadel Evans Ocean Race, where we will fight for the win
@sutty68 We know about Phil ablities, but Kristoffer's are not really far from that bunch of "third level WT sprinters".

First goal of the season for our sponsor, and that is to win this race. For that, we have Tejay van Garderen as leader, and also David Gaudu as a back-up plan. We also bring Magnus Cort Nielsen to fight for a win in the two possible sprints. Completing the team are Raul Alarcón, Alexis Gougeard, Vicente Garcia de Mateos and Adrien Costa. For all of those riders, this is their season debut.

Not the strongest field here in Mallorca, but Richie Porte, Alejandro Valverde, Steven Kruijswijk, Tom Boonen, Elia Viviani and Andrew Talansky will be here for this 4-day race.

First and last stages are flat, while second and third will be the ones who will decide who wins the GC

@sutty68 Thanks!

Boring stage with a 4-men breakaway, who always knew that they were not going to last, as QuickStep and Sky were working hard to avoid what happened in Tour Down Under.

We woke up with some bad news, as Tejay was not feeling good, something that he noted a few days ago. He hopes to recover well for the mountain stages.

In an incredible messy sprint, Cort Nielsen was able to finish second, just behind of surprise winner Maarten Wynants

Probably the queen stage of the race, with Puig Major around 50 km to go, and the uphill finish in Mirador d’Es Colomer.

As Dani Navarro tried to get in the breakaway, the day was really fast. In the little descent heading into Puig Major climb, a big crash happened, including most of the big names, as Valverde, Porte, Kruiswijk, etc.



Due to the crash, David Gaudu was forced to abandon. We hope that his injuries are not severe and he can go on the bike soon.

The crash put us in a incredible situation, with 5 men in the first group, which was composed of only 13 riders. Both Costa and Alarcon started to pull to put some difficulties for Porte and Valverde if they wanted to comeback. The race was completely teared up with over 50 km to go.

They made it, and reached our group, as Van Garderen was left without any team-mate. In a 11-men group, with most of the GC guys, like Valverde, Porte, Kruijswijk and Nieve, Cannondale had 5 guys. Meanwhile, in front, Navarro and Voeckler had a 1’30 advantage



In that situation, everyone would expected Cannondale to chase the escapees, but they didn’t. They just let a group with Jungels and Betancur catch them, as the leaders now have over 3 minutes.

We started the final climb with a disadvantage of 3 minutes, but the big acceleration of Valverde, and the tiredness of Navarro and Voeckler, saw that gap quickly decrease. Both escapees were going to fight for the win anyway, but now they don’t have also secured the GC.

In a dramatic sprint, Thomas Voeckler wins in Mirador d’es Colomer, the first win of his final season.



Valverde and Porte arrived 32 seconds after Voeckler, opening a gap with Tejay’s group of 13 seconds. Tejay is now in 13th place (s.t. Kruiswijk 5th) at 59 seconds

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