Definitely an exciting stage! We had already lost pretty much all our scoring potential in the first few days, so there wasn't much to gain outside of a random stage win. But, as far as salvage jobs go, this was a pretty decent stage.
Guldhammer finally has a good day to get a stage top 5. Not what we wanted from him here, but it's something. Moves him up to 14th too, which at least a handful of points. To not even get a top 10 on GC from him here hurts, but it least he was 1/5 on good days instead of 0/5.
More importantly, it was a great day in the mountains for Eg and Aranburu! Both of them had very good legs to stay at the front into the final breakaway selection. While they ended up getting caught, that's some initiative we need to have when our GC guy is out of it and we have numbers. Always nice to see Eg finish in a scoring position with his 8th place too, and he should score a couple on GC too.
Overall, definitely not what we needed from this race though. It's becoming more and more likely that we aren't as serious of promotion contenders as we looked in the last rankings update.
Huge congrats to Tyrg and Wellens on a tremendous week! Thank you to LLS for some terrific reports too. Today in particular was really riveting, and you did a tremendous job covering everything when the race was breaking up.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
It may have taken us a hot minute but we finally have it, our first overall victory of the 2021 season. Something of a shame that it had to happen in a Category 1 contest, given the strength of the field easily could match some of the HC races we've had so far, but beggars can't be choosers. This is absolutely vital for our fight against relegation. especially in the context of the dismal outing in Lithuania.
Wellens has been magnificent throughout. On the opening stage he followed the right move, before springing off and away from that main group. A second surge to remove Quintana from the wheel, and then powering his way to the finish and an early lead in the GC. From there on out it had been damage control.
Stage 2 wasn't hard enough to create any real gaps in the peloton, but the real work began on Stage 3. Wellens was incredibly patient, allowing those behind him on the General Classification to fight amongst themselves. Only when it looked like the favourites' group wouldn't be able to bring back Oomen did he move himself to the front. He neutralised the situation and scored a solid 5th at the finish.
The mountain timetrial of Stage 4 was again about minimising losses, but there would be nobody to pace him up the climb that day. Still a decent result in sixth, and his closest competitors lost time. On the final stage, the Belgian knew he didn't have to keep anything in the legs, and decided to go out with a bang. He forced the pace up with an early attack, and then positioned himself well for the finish. A second stage victory and the GC secured, simply excellent!
My thanks go to LLS for the excellent reporting, as well as Padun who did the important work marking attacks were our own domestiques could not. Slightly fortuitous for us, but I feel we deserved some luck after the season so far. Apologies to beagle for snatching that stage win from you.
Horrible decision to not have Anguilet in the break and put Talansky in there, who didn't even try to protect the jersey. The stage result didn't go to the break either, so it was pretty much downhill from there. Shame for Anguilet after two good breakaway outings. Still 2nd is decent. 13th for Penasa and he seems to have slotted into the Top 15 climber rather than the glimpses of being better that he had shown earlier in the season. Not a great race again for us, just about some points to keep the scoreboard ticking. Rounds off a disappointing July.
Impressive that he managed to finish in the leading group on this long, grueling stage. I was sure he was gonna have a bad day, but in fact he's only had one bad day here, punctuated with two great stage results
Before the season started I thought this was going to be a good race for Alarcon, because it's just pure mountains with the MTT and no hilly stages. But on 2nd thought I was afraid his weaker energy stats would really work against him. Seeing some better riders struggle, I have to count myself somewhat lucky here. But in the end it looks like I made the right decision
I was surprised to see our best mountain domestique Gilanipoor in the early breakaway. I didn't expect him to achieve any result, but looks like that lifted some of the pressure off Alarcon and the team. 5th in GC is very good and being 2nd in pts classification shows how consistent Alarcon was in this race. Ardila 6th in U25 adds a cheeky point to keep our streak going further
Congrats on the overall and stage wins, lief. A good time for you to come back
Thanks for the reports LLS. That last stage sure was exciting and thank you for helping carry the reporting all season
Well, the start was great with Quintana getting 2nd, but unfortunately he did worse pretty much every day. The MTT was a big bummer already, given that he won one in Japan (with less flat and more uphill parts though iirc), and the final stage was really, really bad. He actually looked great for most of the stage, but suddenly completely ran out of gas. In particular, I can't see a realistic scenario where he loses this one against Alarcon, being about two classes higher in terms of energy stats... PCM ^^
Well, with those spots lost, this finally has to go down as mediocre result, slightly below our target PpRD. And we need to get some margin on the relegation spots quickly, given that we don't go to ToA...
Congrats to lief, great race by Wellens for sure! Oomen and Pluchking on the podium feels correct as well, although the latter definitely should have been closer to the win. He probably prefers winning HC races than C1 ones ^^
Thanks for the reports, LLS, they were great to follow - except for the final few meters on stage 5
Things got a bit wacky around here, but it's great to be back and see Amador put up a very nice performance here. With the field we faced I didn't expect much, but a top 10 is really, really nice.
Congratulations to liefwarrior and thank you very much for the reports!
