Milan-Sanremo. The longest classic of the season, 294 though kilometres was going to be eaten. As our team are in lack of sprinters this race would all be about attacking.
We sended: Valverde (leader)
Konovalovas (co-leader)
Lucas Haedo (close to be a sprinter)
Phinney (team mate)
Pervis (team mate)
Pliuschin (team mate)
Steensen (team mate)
Belkov (experience)
It was a boring first hour, but finally Corioni dared to attack.
He was followed by Ladagnous (FDJ), Zberg (GST), Reihs (LIQ) and Loddo (Ag2r). They were allowed to go and they formed the break of the day.
The peloton sat a quite hard pace up Turchino, and the break only held a lead of 3,30 over the top. They were soon reeled in, and the pack slowed down, it was all about the last part of the race. With close to 90 kilometres to go there was an attack, Celestino from Euskaltel tried his luck.
He was followed by a lot, so I sended Pliuschin to mark them.
Van Avermaet just sailed away from Pliuschin's group and when Pliuschin & Co. was swallowed by a chasing pack, Van Avermaet just continued in his pace. But before La Cipressa he was also chased down.
Immediately when the pack hit La Cipressa, Konovalovas attacked! Nobody followed him and he held a lead of 20 seconds at the final climb of the day. Valverde saw that Konovalovas came closer and closer to the pack, so he decided to attack himself.
He bridged the gap to Konovalovas and Konovalovas gave it all he had for his captain.
But on the downhill in the run-in to the finish line, he had to let Valverde go. Valverde was looking strong, but suddenly Paolini attacked from the peloton. It was a really powerful attack!
He flew past Valverde and was looking for a spectacular win!
At 1.5 kilometres Valverde was swallowed by the sprinters, he was soon hitting the wall, but Paolini, he old off at the front.
Paolini could celebrate a great victory. Boonen headed for second, and Bennati finished the podium. What a win for Paolini
Valverde did really hit the wall in the sprint, and ended as number 22. He was really disappointed, and so was I, but on the other side, we couldn't have done so much else as we are not having the great sprinter like we had last year.
You could say we are in lack of a sprinter, but we are definately in lack of experts on the cobbles. I was wondering if we could make a top 50 in the Ronde van Vlaandern.
Pliuschin will be our leader, the best thing is that he will gain some experience, hopefully he will reach the maximum of level 4 in time for the Giro.
There was of course a break, and as always, they would be reeled in, just a question of time. It consisted of Millar (SDV), Hasic (RAB), Gacjek (Wiesenhof), Baumann (Mobile) and R. Grabsch (MRM).
QuickStep and Lotto sat a great pace at the front of the pack, and with 30 kilometres left, there were only 16 left in the front group.
Leif Hoste was the strongest of those 16 and created a gap to all the others on the Bosberg.
He just kept pacing, and could cross the line first. A great win! Ballan was following behind him.
Boonen was clearly the best in the sprint between the rest of the peloton, and he took the last podium place. Pliuschin made a great 30th, in front of f.ex riders like Hushovd.
30 Aleksandr Pliuschin TEAM MAXBO BIANCHI + 13'14
101 Ignas Konovalovas TEAM MAXBO BIANCHI s.t.
125 Lars Petter Nordhaug TEAM MAXBO BIANCHI + 16'26
130 Jonas Decouttere TEAM MAXBO BIANCHI s.t.
GP al Pais Vasco was next up. We sended a strong squad. Konovalovas was here to gain fitness for the Ardennes, Pliuschin for the Giro. Steensen crashed at stage 3 and abandoned, he won't back until mid-May. "Luckily" his aim is the Vuelta, and he is maybe having good of a pause now.
Konovalovas did great, being 9th before the decisive time trial. Di Luca was the leader, and he held a safe lead of 49 seconds to Andy Schleck.
Di Luca was on his way to the overall, he had been very impressive, 2 stage victories. Konovalovas will get hard times in the Ardennes.
Konovalovas did a good time trial, ending 21th. He took one more place in the overall, and ended 8th there.
Yes I know alexkr00, but I didn't want to just sit there with Valverde and Konovalovas, aiming for a top 10 in the sprint, I wanted the win and attacked. It turnet out to be horrible decision
alexkr00 wrote:
I always win Milano San Remo after an attack
Do you play on Hard difficulty though?
Also, Im guessing Valverde is not yet in top form.
I don't remember the difficult level (talking only about pcm07) but I think that was on hard. Most of the times I atack on flat or one of the small hills before CipressaEdited by alexkr00 on 27-10-2008 19:54
I also used to attack on the flats or at the Cipressa before and always won, but that was on normal...I hoped it worked on hard, but it did definately not
[/quote]
Sorry, mistook your career for Halvor's.[/quote]
But Paolini has "overperformed" in my career too, he was very strong until he punctured in Ronde van Vlaandern, he was definately close to a podium. And the first year, he won Milan-Sanremo for the first time, Vattenfall and Clasique Plouay + 2 TdF stages
Paris-Roubaix, the hell of the north. A race only for the strongest. That was why we sended a norwegian captain, a viking for the race. Lars Petter Nordhaug will be our captain, he's only 74 in cobbles and 78 in fitness. My bad I didn't prepare him for this race.
There were no breaks in this year's Paris-Roubaix, the first 40 kilometres was easy, but at once we hit the cobbles, Rabobank, CSC and Lotto went to the front and sat a fast pace.
Karsten Kroon from Rabobank was honoured to lead the pack in on Trachee d'Aremberg. Surprisingly, there was no puncture or fall, but out of the Aremberg, the peloton was on a long line.
With just over 100 kilometres to go, Trofimov, one of Cancellaras most important helpers crashed.
And with just under 100 kilometres to, we were left with only to riders in the pack. Our viking Nordhaug, and our brave, young, belgian cobbled-talented Jonas Decouttere.
But quite soon, he was gone too, and Nordhaug was the only one left in the pack from Maxbo Bianchi, and still, there were 85 kilometres to go.
With 70 kilometres left, Hoste's most important team mate, and a future Paris-Roubaix winner, van Avermaet had a flat.
The attacks started with 43 kilometres left, and it was Luca Paolini, the overperforming Italian, who started it.
Does he ever gets tired?
But he wasn't allowed to break away, as Franzoi, Ballan's team mate chased him down. It was great for Ballan, he attacked. There were many that tried to counter him. Cancellara, Flecha, Hoste, van Impe, Hincapie and many more.
Only Cancellara and Flecha managed to follow him though, and they formed the leadtrio. They were going to hold on and fight for the victory.
Behind the trio Discovery tried what they could to get them back, but it wasn't meant to be. Nordhaug was on his own, behind the big chase group. (If you see down at the right at this picture you can see that E3 is behind them, that is Nordhaug)
Ballan got the doubtful joy to lead the trio out on the Velodrome. Cancellara seemed cold as ice as he was the last of them.
Gusev lead the chase group.
As Ballan was first to enter the Velodrome, he also had to lead out the sprint. I thought it was going to be a close sprint, all the three was quite equal in sprinting.
But then, Cancellara used his horsepower, he flew past them both at their right.
He took a great victory!!
Lars Petter Nordhaug managed a brave 19th. He was the only one at our team that reached the velodrome.
Amstel Gold Race, the first of the Ardennes, the first hilly classic. The first chance for Konovalovas to show the world that he is a world class rider.
Konovalovas will be our captain, even though Valverde is "official captain, " that is because I don't want to lower his morale.
There were a break as usually. Monnerais from Francaise de Jeaux and De Jonge from Credit Agricole were the "lucky."
With 50 kilometres to go to the finish line, there was a mini-split in the pack. 10 riders went clear, Valverde was one of them, Konovalovas was not.
But it didn't last for long, and with 46 kilometres to go, the biggest favourite, Di Luca attacked!
That attack started a wave of attacks. In the end, with 36 kilometres left, Horner, Ten Dam, Ricco, Bettini (AST), Rebellin and Grivko were the front 6. But they were followed close by Sanchez, Cunego, F. Schleck, Di Luca, Valverde and Konovalovas.
With 30 kilometres left, Rebellin and Ricco attacked from the front group and got a gap.
They hold there lead, and Di Luca attacked from Konovalovas' group with 22 kilometres to go. Konovalovas tried to follow, but he couldn't manage it though. Di Luca made it up to Horner, Ten Dam, Bettini and Grivko. Konovalovas was reeled back of Sanchez.
With 2.5 kilometres to go, Ricco attacked. He got a good gap on Rebellin, who was getting closer to the chase group. Ricco seemed to win it!
But, he didn't start to sprint, and the 5 riders behind him closed in on him.
Ricco first started to sprint with 200 metres left, but it was too late. Di Luca flew past him to take a great victory!
Konovalovas came on his own to 11th.
A bit disappointing from Konovalovas, he was sleeping when the wind gave the 10 in front a lead, and he had to use a lot of power to bring it back, and follow the favourites. He couldn't do it this time, but next time....
