GP di Lugano



Grüzi Miteinander! We are in Switzerland for the first time this season! Sadly its not going to be a big EKZ racing team party im afraid, as the top favourites for this race are nibbles (Liq), Scarponi and Cunego (both Lampre) as well as Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver (Katusha). Ourn tactic is the usual one. Go into the break and hope for the best. In order to do, we brought the following team with the exception of Conrad who was substituted with an Audible. Instead its Simon Zahner wholl be riding in his place:



The Race



The race started as planned for us, as we had two riders in the breakaway. Kevin Joost and Simon Zahner were joined by Nippos Gandolfo.



A few Kilometres down the road they were joined by Gatis Smukulins. At least Katusha wouldnt try to reel in the break for now...



The break never really got further away than 2 minutes and both Farneses Andriato and Untensil Nords Vila broke away from the pack in order to bridge the gap, while the pack still didnt show a lot of interest in catching the break.



And with 87km to go,the two southern Europeans joined the break. And they immediately help Zahner with the tempo, something that both Smukulins and Gandolfo refused to do.



And as the advantage rose to over 4.30min the pack started to reel in the break at the hands of Lampre, Androni and surprisingly Katusha who seemed to disbelief in Smukulins skills...



After a long day in the break with long stints of doing the pace for the break away Zahner falls back and will probably be caught very soon. Well doine Simon today. At the same time other EKZ riders were falling out of the pack as well as the pack split several times due to the high forced pace by Katusha!



And suddenly Joost is joined by the Likes of Rodriguez and DiLuca. Meanwhile, Andriato and Vila have st off in pursuit of victory...



And joost only finds himself in a group down the road as the favourites open their sprint!



And as expected before the race, Joaquin Rodriguez takes the victory in a very excting race...
But Joost is our best placed finisher in 41st. Soooo, not that great afterall...

Lets not kid ourselfs, we were expecting more. The rider of the day award goes to Zahner after his tremendous effort. But other than that, there is not much left to celebrate, so i end the tactics corner on this note!

Strada Brianche



Well, as usual we have a field full of strong riders including Sasha Modolo, Pippo Pozzato and Edvald Boasson Hagen. The aim as usual will be to achieve a top10 ersult from the break. Thus we have brought these specialists:



The Race:



As planned we once again got a rider into the break. Seems like we will win the price for most kilometres spent in a break by a team over one season with the mileage we are racking up each race. This time it was Silvan Diller. He was joined by Miche Rochetti, BGZ#s Stachowski and a swiss brother with Fumeaux from Atlas Personal.



As the break didnt really get away from the pack, Nippos Baliani tried to bridge the gap and was evetually successfull.



With Balianis help, the break racked up a 3 minute lead halfway through the stage. Sky was obviously not happy with the Break...



But despite all efforts by SKY, the 5 escapees managed to keep their advantage of 3 minutes...



... But it has cost them dearly as Stachowski and Balliani distanced themselves from the rest of the group. There are only 40km to go so it will probably not be enough for Diller unless a myrical happens...



And as Rochetti and Fumeaux were caught, Diller tried to hang on to a very slim 30 second advantage over the pack...



... which was not enough (who would have thought)! He is caught with about 30km to go. And it would only take 10 more kilometres until...



Balliani and Stachowski were caught (so all their efforts were useless as well).



The pack split with 10 km to go with all the favourites being in this first group. Best EKZ rider was Saggiorato in 20th place about 4 minutes down...



And as he sprints over the line in 20th, Boasson Hagen has been officially announced as the winner for more than 4.30minutes... But on the upside, we can also congratulate Luca Conrad who finished as 21st after being distanced by Saggiorato 3 km before the line...

Well, still not the best of races for us. But it was a lot better than the GP di Lugano. and we earned some money here (well 125 bucks for 20th place but hey...). But tomorrow we have a pure continental race coming up, so we are more than excited about tomorrow. Its a hilly classic so Joost has a real chance, plus we will as usual bring a strong squad to compete in the breakaway... STAY TUNED!!!

fernando97 wrote:
Can`t wait to see what you can do against the littler guns!

MacC wrote:
Great Story Miggi, looks like it will be a long hard sesaon though.

What are your goals?

fernando97 wrote:
When will this wonderful story continue?