Team Pure Black - Genesys are off to a good start at the TDU, claiming 3rd position in the Stage 1 sprint.
Matt Goss sprinting to 3rd in his first race of the season to The Gorilla, Andre Greipel, and young hot-shot Johan Veenhof, proves to be a good result and that the team has hit some decent form to open their season.
With a strong sprint team, and a few tweaks left to perfect the lead-out, we are all very excited to see what they can do when they hit top form, and can be a bit more drilled when it comes down to the last 10km's.
The team managed to secure 4 in the top 25, with Renshaw, Cantwell and Millar finishing well after their lead-out duties to claim 21st, 23rd and 24th respectively.
Tomorrow, we have Stage 2, with Goss being one of the hot favourites for the win.
It's been a mixed day for the team here at PGR. We came one step closer to our Stage Win goal, and have a foot firmly in the door for our GC ambitions, but not who we expected.
Nevertheless, we are still happy with some aspects of the stage. Cadel Evans took 2nd after the sprint home, and now sits in 2nd overall, 12 seconds back on Philippe Gilbert. We also had David come home 17 seconds back in 13th, and he now lurks in 13th Overall, only 27 seconds back.
The bad news, Matthew Goss, one of the early favourite for the stage, dropped Elroy and lost over 13 minutes. Whether he's saving something for the next few stages or not, the team is both concerned and disappointed with him, and we hope he can pick us his game overnight.
Apart from having only 2 finish in the 'main bunch', we are right up there on both the stages and GC. Tomorrows stage is a flat sprint, and Goss will most likely be there to fight it out with Greipel The Gorilla.
The current trend in racing here at PGR seems to be podiums. With the 3rd stage of the TDU done and dusted, the results for PGR have been rather consistent. 2nd's in both the Santander Crit and TDU Stage 2 have been joined by 3rd's in both TDU sprint stages by Matthew Goss, both times coming in behind Gorilla Greipel and Veenhof.
On a more positive note, Cadel still maintains 3rd overall, at 12 seconds behind, and Mr Millar has moved up to 11th, 27 seconds back. I the other jersey's Goss and Evans have 8 and 6 Sprint Ints respectively, good enough for 9th and 10th in the race for that jersey.
We are still very much within striking distance for both a Stage Win and the Overall Win, so all is not lost.
Team PGR have finally received their Micro-Shirt from the graphics company, something that has had a lot of thought and time put into it. Hopefully it will make the team look professional and stand-out. The team would like to thank Bikex Graphics for it.
Edited by Pinktay3 on 10-02-2013 18:39
It was a Tour of Mixed Emotions for Team Pure Black - Genesys. We failed our main goal, of a GC Win and a Stage Win, but were very successful regardless.
Full (Team) Results;
Stage 1
Spoiler
Stage;
Goss - 3rd @ S.T
GC;
Goss - 5th @ 6"
Stage 2
Spoiler
Stage;
Evans - 2nd @ 8"
GC;
Evans - 2nd @ 12"
Stage 3
Spoiler
Stage;
Goss - 3rd @ S.T
GC;
Evans - 3rd @ 12"
Millar - 11th @ 27"
Stage 4
Spoiler
Stage;
Nil
GC;
Evans - 3rd @ 12"
Millar - 11th @ 27"
Stage 5
Spoiler
Stage;
Evans - 3rd @ 9"
GC;
Evans - 2nd @ 8"
Millar - 11th @ 1'20"
Stage 6
Spoiler
Stage;
Renshaw - 13th @ S.T
Torckler - BoTD (2nd and 3rd in two IS)
GC
Spoiler
GC;
Evans - 2nd @ 8"
Millard - 13th @ 1'20"
Points;
Evans - 7th w 10 Points
Torckler - 20th w 6 Points
Just to let everyone know, i've spent a fair bit of time updating everything. There are new 'Results' sections in both the first and second posts, the team squad has had flags updated and the format changed, as well as having the goal's, riders performances etc all updated in the reserved posts. Plus then there's what ive done today as above.
Here at PGR, the riders are very close to finding out their full race schedules for the year. Although certain riders are finished, others are yet to have a race day against their name. However, one thing that's certain, is that with the racing in Oman and Qatar certainly not any kind of Goal for the team, and the weekend comic up, the team should be finished very soon.
One race has been completed however, and we've been lucky enough to see the teams race list for Obsterreich - Rundfahrt.
The team for this short stage race is as follows;
M. Torckler
J. Williamson
J. Cooper
R. Van Uden
T. Gunman
J. McCoy
D. Barry
S. Rodger
Clearly the race isn't an important race for the team, sending a rider list with an average age of around 19. Still, it's a great way to give the youngsters on the team a great deal of experience.
The Headquarters of PGR just got a lot more exciting, with Matthew Goss taking out the 3rd Stage of the Tour of Qatar. In a tight sprint he relegated Tom Veelers and Marcell Kittel to the lower steps of the podium.
In winning, Matt managed to close down his 4 second gap to the GC lead and currently still holds the lead after a hectic and messy Stage 4 Sprint. Luckily for us, the riders closest on GC to Goss got caught up in the sprint as well, and ended up sprinting for Points, not Bonus Seconds.
With only 2 stages left in Qatar, and 3 left in Oman, expect a proper write up for both these stage races in the coming days.
The Final Stage of the Tour of Oman has just been raced, and it was a moderately successful tour for the team. We managed to grab 21st Overall with Mr Millar, not a recognised climber, and we are happy with that. Yet, we are disappointed with Laurens' ride, who only managed 33rd Overall. We really expected some fireworks on Green Mountain and a tough fight for the GC.
Stage wins wise, we had some success. Thanks to Goss and Ten Dam, we managed to finish within the top 10 in all bar one stage (11th on Stage 4). Goss finished in the top 10 on 4 occasions, bringing in two 2nd places with that, and up to Green Mountain, Laurens took aim at the win but fell short and scraped in to take 7th.
In the minor Classifications, Goss laid claim to the 4th largest tally of Points, and Michael Kreder was the 8th fastest Under 26 rider of the Tour.
It has been an immensely successful Tour of Qatar for PGR. First off, we opened Stage 1 with a podium courtesy of Goss (3rd). Then, much to our surprise (as our only serious goal for this Tour was Stage Wins, not the TTT), we finished on the Podium in our first ever Team Time Trial, finishing only 8 seconds back to the winners (who were on Cervelo P5's. No wonder they won...).
So after 2 stages, we had two 3rd placings, and the team was working well and consistently. Then, guess what happened... We got our First Ever Professional Win Thanks To Matt Goss. Besting out Veelers and Kittel, it wasn't any means easy, and we are all very proud and excited with how the stage went. We can now leave the tour with a smile on our face and say it was successful.
This put Goss in the lead, and with the GC Leader in our midst, the team worked on the front all throughout Stage 4 to catch the breakaway. After catching them, with 19km's left to race, the other sprinters teams tried to overhaul our train, and it left us with a messy, messy sprint. Goss finished in 15th, only 2 positions in front of his lead-out man Johnny Cantwell. Fortunately for us, Kittel got relegated to the smallest step of the podium by Veelers and Petacchi, otherwise the GC battle would have really hotted up. Alas, this meant Goss got another Yellow Jersey for his ever expanding collection.
Further into the race, with the Leaders Jersey firmly on his shoulders, Goss seemed to succumb to the pressure, only managing a 6th and a 4th in the final two stages. After stage 5, he lost the Overall to the stage winner, Petacchi, and was bumped down to 2nd, then, on the final stage of the tour, Marcel Kittel flew home to grab the stage win, points jersey, youth classification and GC. Goss finished the tour 3rd @15”.
Team PGR have just begun their first European races as the team tackles Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico this week. With this being the teams first experience of running 2 races simultaneously, we were unsure how to conduct ourselves, however, with 3 top 10 finishes in 4 stages so far, we think we did most things right.
Our team for Paris-Nice includes;
Matthew Goss Taylor Phinney Hayden Roulston Glen Alan Chadwick Raymond Kreder Tom Zirbel Trent Lowe Joseph Cooper
With the opening stage being a 4km prologue, we had some expectations for Phinney. Finishing the stage in 7th place, we are pleased with his result. We also had Zirbel take 16th.
On the other side of Europe, have our team competing in Italy. They are;
David Millar Laurens Ten Dam Leigh Howard Michael Kreder Joshua England Michael Torckler Daniel Barry Peter Pal
With 3 stages raced so far, a TTT and 2 flat road stages, it was one for the sprinters, clearly though, some other riders had different ideas. After a poor start in the TTT (which wasn't really an objective of ours, although its always nice to ride a decent TTT), we made up for it in the next 2 stages.
During stage 1, a large breakaway containing Kreder got away, and stayed away. The next day, with Kreder in the top 3 of the overall, Millar went on the offensive, bridging up to an attack about half way through the stage and giving it lots of extra firepower. He helped the break to stay away again, with Millar getting 6th, and boosting him up to have 2 riders in the top 10.
Finally, we are only days away from the first monument of the season, Milano - San Remo. With a former winner in our midst, we'd be crazy not to take him, and thus our team revolves largely around Goss. The full list;
Matthew Goss Taylor Phinney Mark Renshaw Glen Alan Chadwick Miguel Rubiano Shem Rodger James McCoy Taylor Gunman
For this race, we have Gossy and his lead out, Renshaw to focus on, with Phinney and Chadwick providing the main power to get in formation and over the hills. Rubiano will have a largely free role, and will be free to perhaps make a move on the Cipressa or Poggio late in the day. Rodger, McCoy and Gunman will be let free to get into the break.
Edited by Pinktay3 on 01-05-2013 11:34
After rather quiet races in France and Tirreno with regards to the GC, we once again found ourselves putting all our faith in Matt Goss. Unfortunately we can't send him to every race, and decided his skills were best suited to Paris - Nice. There, he claimed 3 Top 10's in a row in sprint stages, before we had expected Chadwick or one of the other guys to take over. Alas, they didn't, and we were left to scrape home breakaways.
Not that that's a bad thing... In the final 2 stars, we were represented well, by Phinney and Chadwick respectively, and both still managed to finish in the bunch. Unfortunately, when the opportunity presented itself for the KoM or Sprints jerseys, our breakaway riders were a tad misguided in their efforts, instead conserving their energy for the 'GC' battle. We ended with our best rider way down the GC list, and received no overall honours of notoriety.
In our first week in Italy we had similar success, so none. Our high hope, Ten Dam never really looked threatening and with riders like Froome and Contador, could we really expect a victory? We didn't think so either, but a Top 10 was very achievable in our eyes, yet we struggled for a 20th place finish.
Whatever issues the team is having, we need them solved quick. With the team being in 13th place and in danger of relegation, it's time to get cracking.
At this stage of the season, we still have only 1 win to our name, while it hardly counts as its not a World Tour race. Our teams (Goss) best performance so far: 7th place in Milan - San Remo. Although we would have liked a bit more pressure from guys like Phinney and Chadwick, a Top 10 in a Momument is nothing to frown at. With another 5 races coming up in quick succession, lets hope Goss' form is good enough to boost us back up the standings.
Taylor Phinney
Peter Pal
Miguel Rubiano
