Team's Plan

Considering that we have pretty strong sprinting team here, and it's .2 race, we expect podium here. It would be hard to decide how is going to lead our team today, since both, Pibernik and Rajsp are in great form and are in squad for today. We still have some time to decide!

Squad

Starlist

After 2 races in Italy, we finally came back on Balkan, in our nearby country, Croatia , for first Croatian race this year, Trofej Porec.

First few breakaway tries failed, and finally , after 30km's from start line , breakaway group was compact. Beltran Suarez , Ivancec , Thalund Jensen and Totching were guys at front. Pretty strong group for this field. As well as all visitors and whole audience, photographers were impressed by inviroment, so they brought us this great pic.



Anyway, get back on racing. Nothing really happened until 5km's to go. Group at front was in good tempo, but peloton finally caught them. This is going to be mass sprint,most likely. Huuh , big mess at front of group. A lot of attacks, no sprint trains. Tensions are high, everyone's nervous. We don't need result, we just need to keep our guys out of danger! However , Rajsp, the first guy on top of peloton, tried to make little train with Pibernik, but Luka got stucked between Meridiana riders and can't pass between them. This is biiiig problem for us.



Sprint started, Rajsp is still somewhere at top, but Pibernik is at about 10th place. He is loosing his power fastly. Seems like we made mistake about train-making. Giacoppo and Kovac fastly going out of Rajsp's wheel. One of them is going to make it. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand...
Giaccoppo got this amazing win, with even making gap.



Not that he was strongest , but he was smartest. Rajsp and Pibernik finishing 4th and 5th. Hmm...

1	Anthony Giacoppo	Huon Salmon - Genesys Wealth Advisers	3h34'35
2	Maros Kovác	Dukla Tren�ín - Trek	s.t.
3	Weimar Alfonso Roldan Ortiz	EPM - Une	s.t.
4	Andrej Rajsp	Radenska	s.t.
5	Luka Pibernik	Radenska	s.t.
6	Abdelbasset Hannachi	Groupement Sportif Pétrolier Algérie	s.t.
7	Alberto Cecchin	Team Nippo - De Rosa	s.t.
8	Björn Schröder	Team Stölting	s.t.
9	Thomas Rabou	OCBC Singapore Continental Cycling Team	s.t.
10	Dmytro Volovod	ISD Continental Team	s.t.

Post-race comment

It could be better, but what can be wrong with 4th and 5th place. One little mistake in making train can cause big damage. This time,it was putting Pibernik as main sprinter , instead of, today's much better, Andrej Rajsp. But it's okay, we goes on, it's not like we were LAST. 2 TOP5 places are great,even for 1.2 race.

547984 wrote:
Targets podium...

Gets 4-5.

Shit!

Team's plan

Just arrived in Algerie,it's so hot over here! Our guys don't like that temperature,since almost all of them grow up on mountain. Anyway, our target is GC podium and at least 1 stage win. Pretty high expectations, but, we still didn't manage to get win.

Squad

Starlist

Pretty strange profile, so we don't have any breakaway tactic for today. We'll rather stay passive and try something at the end. Still, we're not sure if Rajsp is going to survive these mountains or Polanc will be, once again our leader for finish. We'll see.

Pretty early,just few kilometers after start , C. Flakemore attacked. Everyone expected 5-6 riders breakaway, but , seems like dutch was the only brave guy today.



Peloton took that attack easy and riders were pretty relaxed and not excited with Flakemore's attack. After Campbell earned 9 minutes to peloton, it was late for peloton to react. Of course,they gave their all to reduce that gap,and they and succeeded in doing so.
20 kms to go, 1 minute of advantage for Flakemore. Suddenly, peloton stopped working and they gave up. Seems like they got deal to let him win , and to finish this in mass sprint.
Breakaway rider is going to get win once again, but what's happenin' in peloton?!

Radenska set up absolutely perfect train and this seems like total domination,since only few riders were able to follow that.



Next few kilometers passed pretty fast, everything was obvious.
Campbell Flakemore passed above finish line with painful grimace on his face, it was really hard day for him!



Meanwhile, perfect train worked perfectly for Radenska and we got 2-3. Rajsp was 2nd while Polanc was 3rd. Great result, since Polanc is going to catch up with Flakemore in next few mountain stages, definitely.



Also, one big plus for us that all of our 6 riders finished in TOP20 , which is pretty impressive, you have to admit.

1	Campbell Flakemore	Huon Salmon - Genesys Wealth Advisers	3h15'29
2	Andrej Rajsp	Radenska	+ 1'06
3	Jan Polanc	Radenska	s.t.
4	Mohammad Saufi Mat Senan	Terengganu Cycling Team	s.t.
5	Chia Hong Yang	RTS Cycling Team	s.t.
6	Tadej Hiti	Radenska	s.t.
7	Rahim Ememi	RTS Cycling Team	s.t.
8	Hamza Merdj	Vélo Club Sovac	s.t.
9	Stefan Schumacher	Christina Watches - Onfone	s.t.
10	Julien Antomarchi	La Pomme Marseille	s.t.

Post-race comment

Great result for us. Next few stages are going to be really hard, and Polanc are our first joker for it, so we'll see. This podium place gave him bigger motivation and that may affect to his rides in TdA. Rajsp didn't disappoint and as expected won this group sprint.
Cubes have agreed for us today, that's all.

admirschleck wrote:
HaRe - Ye, pretty annoying. Thanks, also big thanks to you for following my story and regulary commenting on every report, really apperciate that!