Thanks guys. Here's the other half of the Med Tour. Just a quick report, as I don't remember the details very well after playing it like two weeks ago.
After a relatively calm opening of the stage, we turn up the heat on the day's big climb - just over 40 km from the finish. Flaksis puts in a big acceleration with Perichon following, and the two break free around halfway to the top.
Perichon takes over himself as they reach the intermediate sprint after descending down from the climb. An empty Flaksis doesn't even try to follow any longer, and instead slows down to wait for the main field a minute and a half down.
Six valuable bonus seconds for Perichon, but the escape comes to an end just a little while later, as the sprinter teams decide that we've had enough time to play around. Blanco are the ones bringing him back, while setting up for another sprint finish.
Blanco wont let go of their grip around the front, and they're still in charge as we enter the final three kilometers. Martens opens up for Wagner, who is followed by the two previous winners: Impey and Felline. Just behind them are Kwiatkowski and Koretzky.
Martens can't keep up the speed for long, so Wagner takes a risk and launches his sprint with a massive 2,5 km to go. It turns out to be a genius move, as Impey decides not to latch onto the wheel for some reason.
Wagner therefore opens a gap which just grows bigger and bigger all the way to the line, and he can celebrate a dominant victory next to a few lapped riders.
Matteo Trentin is a distant third, pushing Felline down into third place. Koretzky sprints to an unexpected fifth place, while Kwiatkowski struggles and ends up in 15th. Wagner takes over the race lead.
Final day then, and we jump straight to Mont Faron and the action.
Perichon has a good day, so we make sure to move him up into a front position as the riders make the turn up towards the climb. Paiani makes sure to maintain a high pace and keep his captain in position.
The first attack comes from pre-race favourite Gerrans with roughly 3 km remaining, forcing Perichon to up the pace on his own. Koretzky is also feeling good, apparently just like race leader Wagner, who follows easily.
Uzbek champ Sergey Lagutin makes the junction across to Gerrans as the sprint is opened just outside the kilometer mark, but the two aren't very far ahead.
Wagner remains very much in contention in the big group behind them, just like both Perichon and Koretzky.
The small gap is more than enough for Lagutin to hold the lead all the way to the line and win the stage in front of Gerrans. Perichon is the strongest behind them, and shuts the gap in the final meters to finish third.
Koretzky finishes just a bikelength further back, with the yellow jersey another little bit behind. In total, ten riders finish on the same time as Lagutin.
Among those who crack inside the final kilometer is Felline, who leads home the next group just over half a minute later. Also here are Dan Martin, Steven Kruijswijk and defending champion Simon Clarke, who didn't have the same form this time around.
Wagner retains the jersey and thus wins the race thanks to the impressive performance on the climb. Lagutin goes in second with today's bonus seconds, with Perichon in third. Koretzky ends up in fifth, which is far above expectations considering his form at the start of the race.
@ Freitas - Hahah, that's what happens when you really should go to bed instead of writing a report. Corrected now.
I'll try out a slightly more detailed reporting style for this race. I'd appreciate if you'd share what you think of it, to see if it's worth continuing this way.
2.1: Tour du Haut-Var: Preview
Similar to many of the races and stages we've been riding recently. The opening stage remains in La Croix Valmer like last year, but Mur de Fayence has been scrapped in favour of a downhill finish in Graduignan. Bonus seconds will probably be very important, as we probably wont see huge gaps on either of the two stages.
Koretzky is our leader, for the second consecutive year. Lack of form and narrow roads ruined his chances of stealing bonus seconds then, but this time none of those should be a problem, as Smukulis and Skujins will make sure to have him positioned in the right place at all times.
Top 5 seems like a reasonable target after watching a weaker Koretzky follow the best all the way up Mont Faron a couple of days ago.
Well, the organizers can't complain about lack of top riders present! Valverde was very good already in Bessèges and definitely seems ready to handle big pressure here. Without doubt the big favourite.
Lots of great names him aside too, however. Degenkolb should be able to handle these climbs if he still has the form from Bessèges, while Gerrans is surely vengeful after getting beaten into second by Lagutin on Mont Faron.
Up and down all day, with an uphill sprint finish inside La Croix Valmer near the coast of Côte d'Azur, which hosts the finish for the opening stage of this race for the second day in a row. Movistar's Giovanni Visconti was the quickest back then, with Koretzky in ninth place. We hope to improve that result.
The road is crowded with riders trying to escape right from the start, probably because of interest in the early king of the mountains sprint. Attack after attack is brought back, but a trio finally breaks the curse near the top of the climb.
They're accompanied by no one else than a certain Mr. Clement Koretzky on the way down.
Clement accomplishes his mission just a little while later, as he outguns his three fellow escapees to take six bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint.
He then eases up and lets the group go, to wait for the peloton and save his energy for later in the day.
FDJ's Johan Le Bon swishes by him as we pass by the finish area for the first of many times today.
The peloton soon reaches Clement, who drops back to the rest of the team.
A slow, uneventful period follows. The break, strengthened by the addition of Le Bon, gradually works up an advantage of roughly four minutes before Movistar and Vacansoleil starts to narrow it down.
The hunt intensifies in the last 30 km, which causes the peloton to break in two pieces. 80 riders remain in the front half, including all our riders but Christophe and Thomas. Other notable riders missing are Degenkolb, Hushovd and Matthews.
The favourites start to rumble with two laps to go, with Androni's Francesco Reda initiating the first serious attack.
Guillaume Levarlet (Cofidis), Christian Knees (Sky), Pieter Serry (Quickstep) and Jonathan Hivert (Sojasun) also participates, but none of them withstands Movistar's high-speed pursuit.
The Spanish team soon disappears from the front however, as team leader Alejandro Valverde launches a big attack while entering the final lap.
He bridges across to the early breakaway easily, but then decides to take a nap at the back of the group and gets brought back by Vacansoleil.
Lalouette and Kvasina meanwhile tries one final attack, but it doesn't last longer than a few hundred meters.
The offensive Reda shoots off another attack as the break is eaten up, but we make sure to keep him under control as the final sprint approaches.
Great work from Gatis to position Clement up front at just the right time.
The sprint is opened by Gatis just outside the final k, but Clement almost instantly switches wheels as Serry makes a big surge into the lead.
Clement is forced to make the jump around a fading Serry slightly earlier than preferred, as Movistar comes charging up the inside with both former Spanish champs, Fran Ventoso and the aforementioned Valverde.
There's no doubt who's the fastest today though, as Piti's kick is far too powerful for anyone to match. He even creates a bit of distance back to the rest in the end, but chooses to celebrate his win early over a small time gap.
The sprint for second place and the remaining bonus seconds takes place in the distance behind the superior Spaniard. Clement is the one who nets it, by the slimmest of margins over Jerome Coppel (Cofidis).
Colombian champion Carlos Alberto Betancur (AG2R) comes back with great speed in the very last meters, but has to settle for fourth due to bad starting position. Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) rounds out the top 5.
The GC lead obviously goes to Valverde, but Clement is just two seconds back thanks to the smart move at the early intermediate sprint. 59 riders are within 20 seconds, so this is still very open ahead of tomorrow's final stage.
Both start and finish is in Draguignan today, not "Graduignan" as suggested by the stage's in-game name. Large parts are even ridden on the same road, as the last third of the race is the same as the first third, backwards. The Col de Thuillere will therefore both kick off and decide the outcome of the racing.
Valverde will obviously try to defend the jersey, which shouldn't be much of a problem for him judging by yesterday's dominant performance.
Beginning the day with the short but nasty Col de Thuillere causes complete chaos in the peloton as riders attack to establish a morning breakaway and also gain a few points for a possible victory in the KoM classification.
Andzs makes the junction some kilometers later. He was originally supposed to follow right from the start and also fight for the KoM points, but started a long way down the field and had to spend several minutes finding a way through.
Bretagne's Dimitri Le Boulch also joins the group another little while later.
A good cooperation is founded quickly, and the group starts to build up a good advantage. At the bottom of Col de Mons, 85 km from the finish, the peloton is clocked 4'30 back.
Oroz wins the tough fight for points that commences near the top, and crests the summit first. McEvoy is a surprising second, being probably the weakest climber in the group on paper. Hupond and Rowe are third and fourth, in front of Andzs who decided to save his legs for later.
Le Boulch is even dropped by the accelerations, but makes it back in the descent.
The gap back to the main field remains fairly unchanged for the whole climb, but Movistar starts the chase as we get down on the flat again.
They cut it in half in no time at all, and the break enters the final 50 km of the stage with just two minutes of advantage.
The pace really starts to hurt some legs as we climb the steep bottom part of the Mons climb again some 10 km later, and the peloton is thinned down to just around 90 riders.
Up front, Andzs jumps out of the lead group to take six boniseconds and accomplish his goal with this breakaway.
As the gap has shrunk to a sole minute, he decides to drop out of the break and wait for the peloton to save as much energy as possible.
The rest of his group gets brought back too soon afterwards, in a flurry of attacks from various team leaders. Movistar keeps everything under control however, so none of the attacks are successful.
The final climb now starts to come into view, so Gatis makes sure to take Clement into position.
Gatis finally moves aside and finishes a huge pull when Jure Kocjan attacks, looking very strange in the Euskaltel colours.
Clement is the quickest to react, but not the only one, as Hivert, Serry and the yellow jersey of Valverde are also up on the pedals.
Kocjan is unable to keep up all the way to the top, so Clement jumps past him with 300m remaining, and no one responds to this move!
He puts roughly 20 seconds between himself and the other favourites, but former Italian champion Franco Pellizotti (Androni) leads the very fast hunt behind, most likely for team leader Reda.
Valverde also makes sure to stay near the front, ready to go for bonus seconds.
Pellizotti can't quite close the last 100m up to Clement on the way down, so he still has a slight gap when passing under the kilometer kite!
They start to close in incredibly fast in the last 500m, when Gerrans launches the sprint behind. Reda and Ventoso are challenging, but Clement still leads!
Clement digs very deep down his body to find an extra gear, but the legs are completely empty and it's game over just 100m from the line!
Gerrans holds the lead he took earlier to win the stage ahead of a quick Tony Gallopin (Radioshack) and the earlier mentioned Reda in a very clsoe sprint.
A dead empty Clement falls all the way back to 15th place. At least no time lost today, but you can't help wishing that the line would've been a few hundred meters earlier!
Valverde lost his great position in the end and finishes way down in 17th after getting boxed in by many riders. This actually costs him the overall victory, as Gerrans takes the jersey from him on better stage results.
Clement drops one spot down to third, which is still excellent. Andzs joins him in the top 10 thanks to the bonifications and takes sixth place. Another very good race for us!
The day the northern classics specialists have been waiting for has arrived: it's the start of the classics season! Lots of riders will be looking to test their legs today, to see how things are ahead of the bigger classics next month.
JL and the Latvian trio have been preparing for this day ever since the start of the season, and everything looks on track for a good race.
It's the first time in the team's history we take part in a major cobbled classic, so it's hard to set up any expectations. We'll try to have at least one rider in the front group at the finish as long as the race isn't too hard.
Tom Boonen started last year's classics dominance here, by winning this race for the first time. He'll surely want to defend the title, and should do so if the form is good.
Matti Breschel (Saxo), Lars Boom (Blanco) and Vacansoleil's double threat Juan Antonio Flecha / Björn Leukemans are other notable names. Overall a very strong list of starters.
2.1: Tour Mediterranéen: Stage 3, 4
1.HC: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad: Preview
