On the 21st of June we had consider our options. We only had 9 riders under contract for next season, the lowest number yet. But there was the chance to extend up to 11 contracts, 8 within our new limit of 7k, 3 just outside. Berhane is the weakest by AVG of them all and 31 years old, so he'd have to go. The older of the Zamora brothers, Gerardo who'd just won a stage in the TdS, could continue despite lack of further development. What about Pozin, our U23 signing three years ago? Potential 6, still a bit of room to grow, but not into anything exciting.
Then there's Jaffar Sergienko, who's already maxed out his stats with COB 76, FLA 72 and HIL 68, so we'll only keep him if we don't find somebody better. Bejdiev should get a contract offer, he's peaked at MON 76 HIL 74, but that's far from bad and he can still work on his TTR (currently 72). Juhl will certainly get an offer. Next is Kolk, despite AVG 74 he's still within our budget, he wants exactly 7k, a steal considering his results this season. Just outside our limit are Grande, Thierry and Moya. All of them have reached the limits in their important stats, but all would be worth a wage of 7k.
As for new riders, there are plenty of interesting looking climbers on the market, with MON 75 to 78. The situation is a little worse with puncheurs, a couple more Italians maybe, we are very happy with the two we already have. We need new riders for the northern classics, we also looked around for sprinters but couldn't find a good option, Rauls will remain our only fast man.
Bonus transfer story 1: We dodged a bullet with Marek Zawara. He looked like a very good choice, 28 years old, HIL 81, still within our limit because of his weak secondary stats. A week later he's ready to sign – but now with HIL 80! So he is declining early and by pure luck I caught it.
Bonus transfer story 2: For three years now we employ a scout who specialises in climbers and punchers. Since then he's only been scouting Britain, nominally our home country, and he's got the full overview by now and found 148 riders. He believes four of them are future greats, though that includes two sprinters and a TT specialist, just one is a puncher, Bill Blackwood.
We uncovered his full stats over a year ago, Blackwood was 20 at the time, and we thought he might develop if we wait another year. Apparently, that's not the case, we scouted his stats again this season and they remain unchanged. A bit of a shame, because apart from HIL 73 all other stats are still below 70. We ended up signing him for the full three years and also take him on as a stagiare in August, a first for out team. Hopefully those extra months will help him improve quickly.
NC RR: Australia (Kolk), USA (Dracke), France (Thierry), Estonia (Krasnopjorov)
While the Giro was exciting because the time gaps were small for a long time, this fantasy Tour de France (asodb8) will be absolute mayhem, with huge gaps, big breakaway wins and an ever changing GC. This will be the longest report of them all, so put on your reading glasses.
We were lucky again, just after catching Zarawa's decline before hiring him, Thierry had back problems which could take 3 to 10 days to heal, but on the day the Tour de France started, he had fully recovered. We were prepared to bring Tewelde instead, though this year there are only two hilly stages and at least the first of them, stage 13 from Bayonne to Larrau, looks pretty mountainous to me, so he might have had to wait for stage 18.
Let's take a look at the favourites: My favourite is Stanley Hayden (Sky), MON 82 TTR 75. He's the best stage racer in the world at the moment, but he's no superman, STA 68, RES 71, ACC 60. Next is Justino Aller (Katusha), MON 81, TTR 74, though he has similar weaknesses. Astana's Barguil has MON 81 and ACC 83, but his TTR is lacking. IAM brings Schreiber, 2nd in the TdS, MON 79, RES 80. Quickstep has Pinot, MON 80, ACC 85. Orica's Arguedas has MON 81, though his other stats are a bit weak. Which brings us back to Sky, who have another card to play next to Hayden, our ex-star Jorgensen, also MON 82. Plus a very Sky-ish supporting cast with Davis (MON 79), Froome (78) and Dennis (76), plus a great sprinter, Birmingham (SPR 84). Trek's best bet is Dombrowski (MON 79).
So as you can see, our Blaesi stands a chance against all of them. By AVG the riders he has to fear the most are Pinot (81) and Barguil (80). None of the other riders I just mentioned have more than Blaesi's AVG 78.
The flat opening stage to Aire L'Ville was won by the reliably fastest man around, Jovanovic. Then we had a short ITT, 15 km in Bardonnex, won by Dumoulin. He is still the second best rider in the world against the clock, behind Howson, who won both ITTs in the Giro, but didn't come to France. Our young Brit Brackstone (TTR 78) recorded a fine 3rd place. Blaesi was 13th, 12 seconds faster than Hayden. The slowest of the 194 riders was Fabio Aru, losing 3'29''.
Stages 3 to 7 were flat, ending in the expected mass sprint 4 out of 5 times. Jovanovic seemed unbeatable, winning stages 3, 4 and 5, before Demare broke the spell, winning ahead of RJVR and Jovanovic. On stage 7 the two Belgians Davey Syx and Vanmarcke got the better of the peloton, but not enough to take the yellow jersey from Dumoulin. Stages 8 and 9 were the first two mountain stages, stage 8 took us to Bellegarde-Sur-Valserine, a tricky stage with a steep HC climb in the middle before hitting the peloton with a lot of smaller Hills and mountains in the finale.
We had to choose whether Thierry should join the breakaway on stage 8 or 9. Stage 9 offered more KOM points, but the HC points on the Col de Flain are only a few kilometres from the finish line. While on stage 8 the HC climb, the Mont Semnoz, is in the middle of the day, which made it the better option, though more likely that the break is caught.
But what I hadn't considered and realised only when the stage was under way: It's a carbon copy of stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse, with Dumoulin and his MON 72 in the lead and his Astana team working for him, while Thierry is in the breakaway.
So the breakaway led by Thierry built up a massive lead of up to 20 minutes. It was sure to win the stage and that meant it was sure that Thierry would win the stage. He let the rest of the breakaway, nobody with more than MON 73, catch up with him after the first two climbs, but he left them behind for good on the HC climb. He had to ride the second half of the stage solo, he pushed as hard as he could and eventually Thierry finished exactly 9 minutes ahead of his breakaway companions Molard and Arrendondo!
Further back, Jovanovic had to do some of the work, already on the second climb a group of 25 riders, with all our men, most of Astana and some of the other favourites, left the rest of the peloton behind. It looked like a few of the riders I mentioned, including Jorgensen, might lose any hope of a high GC finish. But the E2 wasn't going terribly fast, either, and on the HC climb the group swelled to 70 riders. At the top Astana's Van Garderen and Barguil got a small gap, now Movistar had to chase, after they were caught there was a long lull and Thierry's gap grew again.
50 km out Pinot had enough and attacked, for a while he was 2 minutes ahead but then he was caught again, too. We reached the final climb, unclassified even though it surely deserved a cat. 3. Laurie attacked and our captains reeled him back in and they had a small gap together with Barguil at the top. There was still a descent to the finish line and Blaesi attacked with Gazzola in tow, it looked liked our captains might also gain time on everybody else. Sadly, Blaesi crashed on the descent, taking Laurie down with him. Gazzola rode on alone, he arrived 14'35'' behind Thierry, 30'' ahead of Barguil. Most of the favourites were another 16'' behind, Blaesi only lost an additional 23''.
So, what a GC: Thierry knows this situation from the Tour de Suisse, but we have many more hard racing days ahead and he's already exhausted. Discounting the other breakaway riders, the first GC candidate behind him is our Gazzola in 7th, 12'31'' behind. Next are Van Garderen, Davis, Dumoulin and Brackstone, now in the white jersey, all about 13 minutes behind Thierry, Blaesi is 17th, 13'23'' behind. At the very least Thierry has done the Voeckler. A Frenchman in the lead – even wearing the NC jersey he won two weeks ago – by a large margin, the fans are loving it.
I hope I know what I'm doing. The next day we'd planned for Dracke to join the breakaway, so our team wouldn't have to do the work in the peloton. And Dracke was close to the front, but when he attacked, Bardet tried to follow. That was inacceptable, so Dracke broke off the attack. Bardet then tried to follow the next attack, but we shut that down as well. Then Bardet's team mate Dumoulin went instead, his MON 72 would be easy to handle, but he was followed by decent climbers like Godoy and old Froome (both MON 78). So we had a radical new idea, Gazzola took off after them and joined the breakaway as well.
For a while I thought I'd broken PCM with that move, the peloton slowed to a crawl, it was so bad that Blaesi and Berhane, though Blaesi was just on a keep position order, left the peloton behind and built up a lead of a minute. The breakaway gained 12 minutes in no time. But finally Pinot's Quickstep stepped up, setting a high pace for a while, reducing the gap to 7 minutes, which caused the breakaway to pick up speed, too.
Quickstep couldn't keep up that tempo for the whole stage and the breakaway's lead increased again to 10 minutes. Entering the final third of the stage Gazzola took control of the group, more and more riders dropped off until only Godoy remained. The duo worked together on the first half of the long last climb, over 25 km long, and into a strong headwind on that first half. Then the switchbacks came and Gazzola attacked and rode to a solo victory. A second stage in a row for our team.
Sadly, we had misjudged the situation further back. We were going to watch the situation on the penultimate climb, something might happen there, but in fact, it happened even earlier and a dozen riders, mostly captains, got a gap and decided to push their advantage. Brackstone did his best to contain them, but the group was still a minute ahead as we hit the final climb and Blaesi had to ride into the headwind.
Long story short: Pinot was the strongest GC rider on this 9th stage, he was 3rd, just 3'06'' behind Gazzola. Mohoric was 4th, 50 seconds back. Another 20 seconds later Van Garderen crossed the line, while Blaesi was only able to catch the next group with Barguil, Laurie and Arguedas, nearly 2 minutes behind Pinot. Thierry lost an additional 2 minutes. He still has the yellow jersey, he's now 5'32'' ahead of Gazzola, Pinot is another 4 minutes behind, next are Godoy, Van Garderen and then Blaesi, just ahead of Mohoric, Barguil, Laurie, Arguedas and my pre-race favourite, Hayden.
I guess we have to ride for Gazzola now. Thierry might still wear the yellow jersey, but he lost 5 minutes to Pinot on this stage and we have plenty more tough mountain stages ahead. But a protected Gazzola might keep up with Pinot.
To prove the point, Thierry had a terrible ITT a day later. In just 26.4 km from Le Mans to Le Sarthe he was 142nd and lost over 6 minutes. Gazzola and Pinot were exactly equal on time, 1'34'' behind Dumoulin, so Gazzola is now just 56 seconds behind Thierry. Van Garderen was 2nd and has moved past Pinot into 3rd. Blaesi rode well, 4th on the day, and moved up to 5th, Godoy dropped down to 9th.
Thierry and Gazzola desperately needed the rest day, their freshness was only average, but now everybody's back to excellent. We restarted with a flat stage and it was won by a lone escapee, Remi Marcellin, a 30-year old sprinter who's never won anything in his career, well, now he has a TdF stage to his name. The same happened a day later, Max Heuze held off the peloton by just 12'', it was also his first professional victory. On both days Gazzola was the last rider in the peloton to cross the line.
Stage 13 went from Bayanno to Larrau and was extremely hilly, possibly mountainous, with some very steep gradients even on the longer climbs. Again we planned Dracke for the breakaway, but when he was joined by Hoem and Piton as well as Bardet, the plan changed. Dracke dropped back, Aviva would actually do its job today and lead the peloton. Not at first, Caja Rural was chasing the breakaway for quite a while, but then Pozin took to the front. Despite a fair speed the gap kept growing and the riders up front are all better uphill then our captains, so Bejdiev took over and rode even harder up the longest climb, halfway through the short stage. At this point we decided to let Thierry fall back and lose the yellow jersey. Now he can possibly go back to his original plan of chasing the polkadot jersey. In fact he'd wear it the next day, Gazzola has two more KOM points, but he'll be in yellow tomorrow.
At the foot of the final steep cat. 1 our protected captains went to the front. Pinot and Barguil increased the pace even further, Blaesi still looked good, Gazzola was starting to struggle. Sadly he lost contact to the group just before the peak of the cat. 3 and the long descent to the final steep ramp. Descending is Gazzola's big weakness (DHI 60), he would lose time today.
While Blaesi did very well to stay with Pinot. Most of the breakaway had been reeled in after all, one man survived to take the stage, none of the riders named earlier, it was IAM's Arslan Krapivny. Barguil was overtaken by Pinot and Blaesi in the final km, they arrived as a group, but Blaesi picked up the bonus seconds. Mohoric was next, losing a minute, then came Gazzola, who managed to catch Bardet and even leave other riders behind by a minute.
After stage 13 Gazzola is in yellow, 2'23'' ahead of Pinot. Blaesi is 3rd, 42 seconds behind Pinot. Van Garderen lost time and dropped to 4th, Barguil is just a second behind him now, both about 90 seconds behind Blaesi. Many of the riders I named before the Tour started lost more than 7 minutes today: Hayden, Davis, Aller, Arguedas, Jorgensen, Dombrowski.
A good stage for Gazzola, our man in yellow, the only long descent is from the penultimate mountain and has a few flat sections, so his DHI weakness won't be exposed.
The breakaway was going to win the stage and several riders move up in the GC. Thierry, 11th in the GC, was in that breakaway. That wasn't our plan, he was supposed to lose time today and attack tomorrow. But too many good opponents from the top 20 made the group, including Aller, Elias and Quintana. Astana organised the chase, but gave up halfway through the stage. Maybe I should have let the situation play out, maybe the breakaway would have won by 30 minutes and Thierry could have won the Tour.
But eventually we defended the yellow jersey. Brackstone set a good pace on the penultimate climb, an HC climb. Well, technically not true, there was a cat. 1 hidden on the very long final climb up the Col du Cauteret. Our opponents accelerated to the top of that hidden cat. 1 and Gazzola lost contact for a short while. But he had Brackstone working for him, and then Bejdiev dropped back from the group ahead and together they made contact again.
Aviva in control
Thierry fought for the KOM rankings, but did little otherwise, he wasn't going to attack his team mate in yellow himself. It meant he had full energy bars for the final climb and he won the stage easily, nearly 3 minutes ahead of Quintana. Once again I marvel how far the team has come, beating Quintana by 3 minutes, ok, he's not who he used to be, but still...
Further back Barguil attacked with Mohoric and Pinot. Blaesi was looking better than his team mate, he reduced his speed a little so Gazzola could keep up. 5 km from the top they caught up to Pinot and Mohoric and were able to overtake them and leave them behind by a minute on the ramp to the finish line. But Barguil remained ahead by 41 seconds. The GC looks even better than yesterday, Pinot is now 2 seconds behind Blaesi and 3'07'' behind Gazzola. Barguil is another minute further back, Van Garderen 2 further minutes, Mohoric another minute, 7'11'' in total. Thierry moved up to 7th, Laurie lost a lot of time, Arguedas even more, Hayden even 12 minutes on the day. He's still Sky's best rider, Davis and Jorgensen are even further behind. Poor display from Jorgensen, currently 22nd, over 30 minutes behind.
We're so close to winning our first Grand Tour, something we never imagined for this career, but it might all just slip away in the end, as it did for Frech in the Giro. After Pinot seemed the biggest threat for a while, it now looks like Barguil might get the better of us. Three mediocre riders including our Berhane attacked on stage 15 but the peloton reacted forcefully and reeled them back in. Instead, a larger and much stronger group took off and won by over 10 minutes, Chumillas beat Aller and Izagirre and they are now 9th, 10th and 11th in the GC.
Dracke led the peloton over the HC climb and the following cat. 1. We were pretty sure there'd be attacks on the next cat. 1, the penultimate mountain, which was only followed by a descent of 10 km and then a final steep climb of 8 km to Bisaurin. Sadly, protection at this crucial stage didn't seem to work at all. Brackstone was supposed to help Gazzola, but he was in about 70th position 20 km from the penultimate climb and despite his order was still in 70th position when the climb started and he was the first rider to get dropped, even before Pozin. In contrast, Bejdiev was ordered to protect Blaesi, but instead he broke free of the peloton and had to be ordered to stop.
While we were still sorting that out, Barguil attacked very early. Of course. And of course he'd stay ahead even though he was alone while Blaesi and Gazzola were in a group of 8 riders working together. Katusha was pushing hard for Mohoric, because Pinot had missed the opportunity and was behind us. As our group hit the final climb, Blaesi had nearly a full energy bar while Gazzola was struggling again. Blaesi set a high pace and left everybody else behind but he couldn't quite catch Barguil, who finished 20 seconds ahead.
Gazzola lost more time. He was able to ride clear of the others, leaving Mohoric, Laurie, Majka, Hayden, Arguedas and Pinot nearly a minute behind him. But he lost over 2 minutes to Barguil. Chances have improved that both our captains finish on the podium, they are 1st and 2nd, but Barguil is breathing down our necks. He is 34 seconds behind Blaesi and 1'50'' behind the man in yellow, Gazzola.
We now desperately need the final rest day. Stage 16 features another HC climb in the finale, followed by a short descent and then a cat. 2 and then a very long descent to the finish line. Gazzola will have a hard time on that stage. Stage 17 is the second and final hilly stage, with an uphill finish, so again Barguil should have the advantage. Then comes the glacier mountain time trial, it's 63.2 km long. I wonder what the simulation will make of it, there are plenty of flat sections which should give the specialists an advantage, so Blaesi should outperform Gazzola and Barguil lose time against both of them. But even of that holds true, we have two more brutal stages ahead on this fantasy route. The final Col de Estaris on stage 19 is a monster, stage 20 features six climbs, including two HC climbs, and a fast descent to the finish line.
Damn what a tour so far. I guess I need a reminder of Gazzolas stats before the next update. Good luck (though I'd guess you played the stages already so it's too late for that )
I showed Gazzola's and Blaesi's full stats ahead of the Tour de Suisse, so just go back a page. Yeah, I played this nearly exactly a year ago, so it's all old news to me.
Ripley wrote:
I showed Gazzola's and Blaesi's full stats ahead of the Tour de Suisse, so just go back a page. Yeah, I played this nearly exactly a year ago, so it's all old news to me.
Seen it. Blaesi is insane, I forgot how good this guy is!
Only Blaesi made it back to full freshness ahead of the final week, which is a little worrying. We allowed a very strong breakaway to get away on stage 16, though we included Brackstone in the mix. Other teams weren't putting up much of a chase and the gap grew to 20 minutes before we decided to push a little harder. Still, the group of favourites arrived 21'18'' behind the stage winner. Brackstone hoped to cause a rivalry among the better riders by attacking into the long final descent. But he was quickly caught and then stayed behind Bardet. Surprisingly, since he's not his old self anymore, Talansky was able to attack and win the stage by over a minute, Brackstone failed to outsprint Pantano and Bardet and finished 4th.
This time, there was no attack from Barguil and our protected captains even left him and the rest behind on the way to the final cat. 2, if only by a few seconds. Both men then attacked into the descent. Blaesi chose 80 effort, Gazzola was supposed to follow him with an effort of 90, but DHI is his weakness and he dropped back, he was caught by Barguil. Astana's captain didn't push hard and the duo was swallowed by a larger group of riders which still contained Thierry.
The speed in the group was slow enough that Gazzola had no problems keeping up, while Blaesi's gap grew and grew. He kept on pushing, though he might suffer in the upcoming days. He finished 11th on the day, 19 minutes behnd Talansky but exactly 2 minutes ahead of his rivals. He's now taken the GC lead, Gazzola is 43 seconds behind, Barguil 2'33''. Suddenly the situation looks even better, rather than losing time to Barguil again Blaesi distanced him.
So for a few days we thought Thierry might be our best bet after that huge gap on stage 8. Then it looked like Gazzola's Tour but now it's in Blaesi's capable hands.
As it turned out, the hilly stage 17 to Les Marty also suited Blaesi. The two late climbs weren't very steep and the final kilometres nearly flat, Blaesi is a great allrounder who can even sprint a little. He followed an attack by Pinot, launched a counter and had a small gap to Barguil and the rest. He then left Pinot behind in the sprint but it wasn't enough for a time gap, the fading Pinot paired with a sprint of Jovanovic, who was still in the top group, annulled the gap that was really there between Blaesi and Barguil.
The good news was that the same was true for Gazzola and Thierry, too, neither lost any time. Thierry really cemented his top 10 position, but what about the polkadot jersey he's still wearing? The gap remains as comfortable as it has been since he won his second stage. He has 140 points against Quintana's 80, a few riders have 60 or slightly less. But there are still high-scoring stages ahead and Thierry can't attack anymore, while others might, including Quintana, who's faded back to 18th.
Back to the stage, which actually went to the breakaway, which included Gerardo Zamora. On paper he was probably the favourite, it wasn't the strongest of groups. In the flat final km he followed Olegario Inacio, but then our concentration was on Blaesi and by the time we checked on Zamora, he was 100 metres out with sprint energy to spare and he'd even overtaken Inacio, but Preidler was half a bike length ahead and he hit his final sprint too late. A bit of a shame, it would have been a great TdF stage for Zamora if I'd not forgotten him.
Now we have that very long mountain time trial ahead. How was the simulation going to handle it? Would TTR play a role? Would the gaps be huge? The answers were that TTR played no role and that the gaps seem rather small. The former was a shame for Gazzola and especially Blaesi, the latter meant the damage was small. Pinot won just ahead of Barguil, Blaesi was 4th, just 11 seconds behind, Gazzola 7th, 23 seconds down. So Barguil gained 5 seconds on Blaesi and 17 on Gazzola. Sadly, Thierry had another terrible ITT, he finished 76th, 4'58'' behind, he dropped to 9th in the GC. Clearly the worst rider in the top 30, the only rider worse in the top 40 is team mate Brackstone, losing 6 minutes flat, his TTR 78 didn't help him at all and even his MON 76 let him down.
Rotson Dracke got another chance in the breakaway on the tough stage 19, across a HC climb, a few smaller climbs and then the long final climb. Dracke even left Froome behind, but he couldn't catch Sepulveda again, who had an even better day and won the stage. Further back, Pinot, Barguil and Mohoric tried to do something and attacked on the small penultimate climb. We decided to let them go for now, we have a strong team and should be able to catch the trio again...
It's true, Blaesi's advantage is pretty comfortable and he's looking really strong. While Gazzola has started to struggle. Return tomorrow for the results.
Ok, the cliffhanger made the situation sound a bit more dramatic than it was. Brackstone exhausted himself and caught the trio of Barguil, Pinot and Mohoric. The same three riders attacked again before the proper final climb started, now Thierry had to work at the front of the reduced peloton, Bejdiev was still protecting Blaesi, Gazzola had to do without. And it worked, we caught the trio again.
Pinot and Barguil then attacked a third time. Blaesi and Gazzola adjusted their effort to 80, Thierry only to 72, because he'd emptied half his yellow bar already. I'm mentioning it because Thierry will finish together with Gazzola, despite the Italian being a better climber and having more energy reserves.
This third attack was unsuccessful as well. And so now Blaesi and Gazzola attacked instead. Gazzola couldn't follow Blaesi and stopped his attack, he was only helping Barguil. Pinot set off after Blaesi but couldn't quite reach him. This was looking very promising.
And indeed it was! Barguil had regained some energy for a sprint, but he arrived 70 seconds behind Blaesi. To add insult to injury the next 17 riders were given his time, so neither Gazzola nor Thierry nor in fact anybody in the top 10 lost time. Blaesi is now 3'38'' ahead of Barguil with only one mountain stage ahead. Is this really going to be our first Grand Tour, and even the Tour de France!?
And now, the final mountain stage of the 2022 Tour de France, and it was going to be extremely messy. The only domestique who still had the energy to finish the difficult stage from a breakaway was Bejdiev, but he was the last rider out of the gate and the attacks started immediately as the flag went down. Other teams chased and for a while it seemed like only three mediocre climbers would form the breakaway, but then another 15 riders got a gap and were pushing hard and this included Jorgensen and Quintana, the latter was still a threat for Thierry's polkadot jersey.
Disgusted, we set a brutal pace with Bejdiev exhausting himself at the front, probably not the wisest idea. Soon we found ourselves in an E3 without Barguil and Pinot, but also without Dracke, a supporting rider we would have very much wanted up there. We caught the big breakaway on the second climb and were only pulling at 32 effort, hoping to see a full peloton again. But that didn't happen. Barguil and Pinot bridged the gap alone and then their team mates set a high pace. Two HC climbs later the group was down to 10 riders, Laurie and Chumilla were missing from the top 10. But then the pace dropped and those two caught up again.
Thierry's jersey was now secure and he wasn't going to move up in the GC either, so he had to support his captains. On the penultimate climb Pinot and Barguil attacked, no surprise there. Thierry led our group on the descent, or rather, he suddenly left everybody behind, even Blaesi, who used the same effort and is the better descender. Thierry had to slow down, then tried an easier pace of 60 but even that was causing problems, and not just for Gazzola. At least our captains hit the final 10 km climb with nearly full energy reserves, but a minute behind Pinot and Barguil.
Thierry protected Blaesi who jumped away from the small pack, then Blaesi went on his own, Thierry dropped back and used his remaining reserves to protect Gazzola. Blaesi was closing in on the duo ahead, Barguil attacked alone and so Blaesi only caught Pinot. But the gap wasn't big enough, only about 45 seconds at the final peak. Barguil is even better downhill than Blaesi, he won the stage by 55 seconds. Blaesi was next, Pinot arrived half a minute behind with Mohoric. Gazzola suffered on the descent, losing another 90 seconds, Thierry was 11th, 5'09'' behind Barguil. So Barguil managed to overtake Gazzola, but the Tour will be won by Blaesi!
The simulated finale stage ended in true PCM fashion with a breakaway winning by 12 minutes, Koretzky took the honours while Krapivny climbed to 11th in the final GC. But Blaesi has done it, Aviva has done it, winning our first Grand Tour, and it's the grandest of them all. It wasn't an underdog victory, Blaesi is so strong now, he was the game's top favourite on most mountain stages. Gazzola also ends on the podium, he fell behind Barguil on stage 20, but had two minutes to spare against Pinot. Thierry finishes 9th and with the polkadot jersey. That's the team rankings as well, an hour ahead of Astana. We also won three stages, two with Thierry, one with Gazzola. While Jovanovic kept the green jersey from start to finish.
Team Sky certainly has to be disappointed, neither Hayden nor Jorgensen made the top 10, they fell well short, Hayden was 17th, Jorgensen 19th. I also named Schreiber and Dombrowski among the favourites, they ended 27th and 29th, roughly an hour behind Blaesi. While Quintana, winner of the last three editions, was 21st. The excellent climber Arguedas also failed to make the top 10, at least he was 12th.
But let's give it up one more time for Hoang Doc Blaesi! During the Tour his AVG increased by another point to 79, MON 80 is his limit, but he's increased HIL to 77, FLA to 72 and STA to 74. He's now a superstar of cycling. Nobody signed him when he outgrew the U23, which thankfully allowed us to pick him up a year later. He immediately made an impact, winning a TdF stage and two Vuelta stages and also finishing 5th in the Eneco Tour, showing off his great versatility. He was 3rd in the Tour of Beijing and this season 3rd in the Tour de Suisse before winning the Grand Boucle. He's probably the top favourite for the Vuelta, too. A top 5 in Spain would be enough to complete all 15 goals again.
Yeah, I guess that was the ultimate goal. It's not a goal I ever set for this career when I started, I had no idea I'd end up with such an amazing rider. Not just him, either, Veiby was amazing and on Monday I'll present another rider who has developed incredibly well. (You've already seen him, croatia.)
Before we get to the race we have to talk about Adalberto Gasparetti. When I presented the squad in January he had AVG 72.7 and was our second weakest rider by AVG. Well, this is what happened since:
From AVG 72 to 79 in just 7 months! I've never seen a development like that, it's insane. From a young hopeful to one of the three best punchers in the world, Van Baarle and Toralf Mendez share his HIL 84. By the end of the season he might be the #1 and we can't wait to see how he'll do in Il Lombardia, where Mendez and Van Baarle were 1st and 2nd last year. So we don't just have the incredible Blaesi, we have another rider we never thought we'd see racing for this team and its crippled budget.
And now to the race, here we go, Gasparetti is PCM's top favourite, but anybody with knowledge of virtual cycling has to disagree. This older variant with only a few small lumps in the finale will be won by somebody who can sprint a bit better. And so we put our trust in our other Italian puncheur, Pierre Dallamano. His HIL 77 looks a little weak, but his SPR 73 is the best our puncheurs have to offer. So he was the only rider with protection.
Same picture, different race: Aviva amassing at the front of the pack
We played it clinically. I'm sorry, I know I could have spiced things up a bit with an attack or two, but there just wasn't any point. Instead, we reeled in other attacks simply by going at a high speed and in the end once again the whole team formed a sprint train. Tewelde and his high FLA at the front, then Gasparetti, then Koloda (SPR 71) as a lead-out for Dallamano, then Moya, Denis, Krasnopjorov and Oakes at the end of the chain.
We caught the last attacker 4 km out, Tewelde was done, he finished 27th, Gasparetti was the first man to sprint and finished 15th. Koloda started his sprint with 2400 metres to the line, Dallamano overtook him under the flamme rouge. And it was no contest, all oppenents opened their sprint early, and Dallamano cruised to victory. Pulling his team mates along as a bonus, Denis was 2nd, Oakes 3rd, Moya 4th, Krasnopjorov 5th and only Molard was able to beat Koloda to 6th.
That was our first win here in San Sebastian. We've placed many riders in the top 10 before but previously always another rider beat our sprint train. Not this year, though, thanks ot Dallamano.
Top 10: Dallamano, Denis, Oakes, Moya, Krasnopjorov, Molard, Koloda, Felline, Duncan Rayner, Pedro Campana
Race squad: Bejdiev, Blaesi, Brackstone, Dracke, Gazzola, G. Zamora
I'm afraid we are continuing with our domination. This year's Tour de Pologne started with a flat 52 km time trial and finished with two extremely steep climbs. We decided to bring our best riders from the summer team, Blaesi was the top favourite to win the race. He started very well, 3rd in the ITT, distancing the few other good climbers by large margins. Rohan Dennis, 4th in the time trial, is probably the biggest worry, and he only has MON 76.
We decided to target the GC not only with Blaesi and Gazzola, but also Brackstone and Bejdiev, so nobody will be protected. Only Dracke, who had a bad time trial, took it easy on stage 6, hoping to join the breakaway a day later. Today's early breakaway was caught on the small penultimate climb, while Daan Olivier decided to attack. We weren't going to chase him hard, the final climb to Smielec is extremely steep and up a narrow gravel road. Olivier reached the same conclusion and broke off his attack.
In the war of attrition, Blaesi and Gazzola came out top. First one, then the other, left Olivier, Villela and Dennis behind. Blaesi even slowed down a little and then pulled Gazzola across the finish line. Olivier and Villela were 1'04'' behind, Dennis, together with Brackstone and Bejdiev, 1'25'' down. Bar Dennis in 2nd we now hold the top 5 positions.
Blaesi and Gazzola near the summit
And it would only get better on the final stage. Dracke joined the early breakaway and the competition was a joke, everybody with MON 63 or less. He rode away from the others on the steep cat. 1 in the middle of the stage, secured the KOM classification and won the stage with several minutes to spare. He even moved up to 6th in the final GC despite losing 15'28'' yesterday. 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the stage were Blaesi, Gazzola and Brackstone, who beat Villela and Olivier to the line. Only Bejdiev had a bit of an off day, he was 9th. In the final GC, Aviva sweeps the podium. Blaesi wins ahead of Gazzola and Brackstone. Dennis drops to 4th, right behind him are Bejdiev and Dracke.
1
Hoang Doc Blaesi
Aviva Cycling
2
Werther Gazzola
Aviva Cycling
+02:47
3
Ando Brackstone
Aviva Cycling
+04:28
4
Rohan Dennis
Team Sky
+05:11
5
Elkhan Bejdiev
Aviva Cycling
+06:41
6
Rotson Dracke
Aviva Cycling
+07:34
7
Daan Olivier
Orica - GreenEDGE
+08:51
8
Roni Seliga
Tinkoff - Saxo
+11:30
9
Davide Villella
Lampre - Merida
+11:50
10
Bob Jungels
Trek Factory Racing
+15:00
What a result. Sure, we brought our A team, and Blaesi and Gazzola really are an A team, plus the competition was weak.
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