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Tour of Qatar Discussion
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 05-11-2021 21:23
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Dang, so close to something, but ultimately nothing. At least we've decided to show up to the race now.
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 05-11-2021 21:55
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Good job by Reinhardt, picking up some minor points at the intermediate sprints, and finally getting his best result of the season so far. Disappointed to not see anyone else working though, especially given the Xero train. But well, PCM sprint preparations have been random in PCM 18, and they still are. Good to see that the "yellow jersey curse" seems to be gone, indeed.
Congrats to ISA for the win and to Isostar for almost securing the overall win now.
And thanks for the report, Nemo - just one minor detail: "unfortunately", Reinhardt is not quite Swiss 
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 06-11-2021 08:10
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Great ride!
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-11-2021 08:57
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While I'm happy for Xero, this is about as close as I'd like Rowe to get overall. 
Congrats Scorchio for the win, and Gaviria has debuted in style on the big stage so far.
It's nice to see Aregger much more in the mix than the day before, but sadly there was no space to slot into, if he even had the speed for more.
At least this puts him at the front of the little s.t. group he found himself in after the prologue.
Ganna still in third overall gives us an extra two points that I didn't expect to still be eligible for after two sprint stages, so that's a nice bonus.
With three days to go, it's still too early to tell how far down the order he will slip, but he's done all I could ask of him and that was never going to be in our hands.
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 06-11-2021 09:56
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Fabianski wrote:
And thanks for the report, Nemo - just one minor detail: "unfortunately", Reinhardt is not quite Swiss
Oops Of course I knew it, but radio Tour was shouting that he was Swiss, and I followed them in the heat of the moment
Little heads up as well that today's stage will be posted quite late btw
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| knockout |
Posted on 06-11-2021 23:20
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Congrats tasta!
I hope Luke Rowe will win the GC for maximum ridiculousness 
Nice to see Polanc trying to join the break. Pretty solid choice of attacker because he didnt risk losing any GC points. Even if he isnt the strongest possible danger, the chances of getting a break through are slim. So good job there.
| 17 | John Degenkolb | ISA - Hexacta | s.t. | | 18 | Bryan Coquard | Festina - OAKA | s.t. | | 19 | Fernando Gaviria | Isostar - Specialized | s.t. | | 20 | Jonas Ahlstrand | Mapei | s.t. |
lol |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 06-12-2025 20:04
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 06-11-2021 23:21
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Two Top 10 spots, hooray for that at least! O'Shea is having a nice race, having been our best TT performer too.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 06-11-2021 23:31
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What is going on?
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
1x  x1
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 06-11-2021 23:33
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Sure, Pedersen, world's top sprinter... Nothing against him, he's a great rider, but such results are just ridiculous. Guess they wanted to improve sprint AI for PCM 20 but instead broke it even more ^^
And no, I'm not complaining about Reinhardt; it's obvious that he won't always compete against this massive competition. But still, wondering how a 78/77 sprinter can constantly finish so strong, and a 79/84 sprinter can't. It almost feels like Flat is now more important than Spr/Acc...
Congrats nonetheless, but I still hope we'll see a couple more "normal" sprints
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| tastasol |
Posted on 06-11-2021 23:49
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Thanks guys, certainly didn't expect that! Thought the 6th place yesterday was more or less a a maximum result for Pedersen in a field with such depth, but I guess he had a super day here and also of course a lot of luck with Gaviria/Coquard/Degenkolb etc suddenly switching off.
Rowe with a very good start here. Always rooting a bit for our former rider, so cool if he can hang on to a podium.
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 07-11-2021 00:14
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knockout wrote:
Congrats tasta!
I hope Luke Rowe will win the GC for maximum ridiculousness
Nice to see Polanc trying to join the break. Pretty solid choice of attacker because he didnt risk losing any GC points. Even if he isnt the strongest possible danger, the chances of getting a break through are slim. So good job there.
| 17 | John Degenkolb | ISA - Hexacta | s.t. | | 18 | Bryan Coquard | Festina - OAKA | s.t. | | 19 | Fernando Gaviria | Isostar - Specialized | s.t. | | 20 | Jonas Ahlstrand | Mapei | s.t. |
lol
It was to be expected as they're too high up the GC favourites now and thus won't follow the trains or get one so none of them participates really.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-11-2021 03:48
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Well that's quite annoying as I was banking on Rowe and Kemboi to never make it past Ganna...although it's nice to see two promoted teams doing this well!
I fear practically every participating sprinter can still push down Ganna quite far in the final two stages, with them all having closed in on him.
Though I'm happy as long as we don't get any more of those ridiculous sprint gaps, or at least have them neutralized on the line. 
Second weird sprint in five iterations, let's see where the ratio ends up after the season. Congrats to Grieg though who are certainly trying their hardest to avoid a season finale like last time!
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| SotD |
Posted on 07-11-2021 05:36
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Coquard for gods sake
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| roturn |
Posted on 07-11-2021 09:31
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Croatia14 wrote:
knockout wrote:
Congrats tasta!
I hope Luke Rowe will win the GC for maximum ridiculousness
Nice to see Polanc trying to join the break. Pretty solid choice of attacker because he didnt risk losing any GC points. Even if he isnt the strongest possible danger, the chances of getting a break through are slim. So good job there.
| 17 | John Degenkolb | ISA - Hexacta | s.t. | | 18 | Bryan Coquard | Festina - OAKA | s.t. | | 19 | Fernando Gaviria | Isostar - Specialized | s.t. | | 20 | Jonas Ahlstrand | Mapei | s.t. |
lol
It was to be expected as they're too high up the GC favourites now and thus won't follow the trains or get one so none of them participates really.
Not really thinking this can be 100% true.
Otherwise Gaviria on stage 3 or Manninen in TdU stage 2 wouldn't have followed wheels neither.
And neither would some of the others e.g. Rowe/Kemboi then.
Must be something in between or a much bigger impact of daily form when it comes to choosing who sprints and who not or anything else. |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 07-11-2021 17:57
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Unfortunately looks more and more like investing in a great sprinter isn't the best idea (and no, I'm not speaking of Reinhardt). Those random groups of 7-10 riders breaking away is really annoying - and "random" mid-level sprinters like Pedersen or Stepniak winning stages (and the likes of Gaviria or Ahlstrand not even getting involved) is really bad for the game in my opinion.
Well, Qatar has already given us surprising results in the last two years - but definitely not as "random" ones as this year! I really hope it's just an odd race, and we'll see more realistic results in the upcoming races!
Btw, the hypothesis of great Flat/Res being the decisive factor is not accurate - Stepniak definitely isn't among the top guys there. And if Lo Cicero can get 8th, Res can't be a factor at all
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-11-2021 18:06
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Well Stepniak certainly wasn't on my favorites list! Congrats Roman. Again a sprint won by the most cautious, not the best.
Ganna could still Top 10 this which would match the best TTer results in the Qatar GC throughout the years, although I fear it'll be 11th at best with Coquard, Dege, Grosu and Ahlstrand all very likely to pass him.
If we can keep Aregger in the Top 20 to boost the points haul and defend third in teams, I'll call this a very successful race.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 07-11-2021 18:19
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Grosu pretty consistent for these sprints, I guess. But still needs a good sprint in the last stage to even stay in the top 10.
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| SotD |
Posted on 07-11-2021 18:42
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It wasn’t good in the last game, and it sure as hell didn’t improve. I know Qatar is a sprintersfest, and other races tend to go different, but this is horrible.
4th from Coquard I guess is the best we are going to get from this race. We surely won’t get anything close to what we hoped for going into this race.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 07-11-2021 19:17
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Guess it's realistic in terms of pre-race expectations, but not nice to see Rowe completely lose all his form from this race because he got too high up the GC apparently :/
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT] Xero Racing
5x x5
1x x1
2x x2
2x x2 |
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 07-11-2021 21:45
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As expected, Gaviria again not trying to follow due to GC position. Same for Rowe and others. Let's keep this in mind next year when racing flat & bumpy GC races...
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