Vennel, Wilches, Sulzberger and Oliphant set a high tempo at the front of the peleton, with the intention of preventing any breakaways for as long as possible. With 16km to go to the intermediate sprint, an attack comes and Vanderaerden and Lloyd make their way up the road.
Vanderaerden cruised to the intermediate sprint! And was soon back in the peleton - feeling very happy with himself.
Dan Lloyd took 3rd in the next intermediate sprint, some 60kilometres later and we decided to take a risk. Dropping Lloyd back to the pack in the knowledge that - should he survive until the finish, he would get a top 10 GC place.
Lloyd could only hang on for 23kilometres as he was dropped with 38km to go. The risk didnt work, but it was worth a try. The break were caught aftert the first KoM sprint, and that meant the 2nd was open to the peleton. Fleeman lacked the strength to attack and watched on as Pinotti took 2nd to secure his KoM jersey.
With 2.3km to the finish and the sprint beginning, Vanderaerden was in about the 13th wheel. He has 2 red bars though so will not feature.
Weylandt wins the stage and the GC! Vanderaerden's bonus sprint seconds gives him 8th!!
Hamish Haynes tried to get in the first break, but that failed, so Jens Mouris went instead and got in the right one!
The break worked well together, but were dramatically caught on the penultimate lap. Wiesenhof and Landbouwkredit set a fierce pace into the headwind and a group of 15 got away and joined the 12 escapees.
Mattan, Nolf and Pliuchin were all there but Unibet and Predictor were not and chased from the pack. The gap maintained at a minute and the lead group looked set to fight oit out for the win. By this time, they were down to 14. Mouris had been dropped but my 3 leaders were still there.
Hulsmans started the sprint with Mattan in seconds. Stefan Wesemann whisked past Mattan though and closed in on Hulsmans. In a very very tight finish Wesemann grabbed the win, but only just!
Mattan held off Sijmens for 3rd, while in a very tight 4-way battle for 5th, Pluchkin came off worse - in 8th. Nolf did well too taking 11th, it could have been a top 10 if he hadnt of taken a drink in the last kilometre (Oops).
Almost completely flat, but over 200kms. This race is the season debut of Anuar Manan, but Gert Vanderaerden will be the leader.
Cornelissen went in the break that got 10 minutes, but sadly it was chased down. Stannard joiuned the break with an attack but the peleton were all together with 26km to go.
Some counter attacks appear, and not taking them very seriously, I only make Harrigan attack. In hindsight, I should have attacked with Haynes as they quickly got a gap (Without Harrigan). Haynes eventually attacked but it was no use.
Up front, Bart Roesems was soloing, but Nico Eeckhout was not far behind. De Waele and Tjalingii are also ahead of the pack.
Roesems wins! Eeckhout 2nd.
De Waele and Tjalingii just about hold off the pack which is lef by Jan Boven. Gert Vanderaerdan is right behind Boven and takes 6th, with an out of form Manan in 16th. Gert was very pleased with his performance considering his -3 daily form.
When Vanderaerden took 6th in Holland, another team were taking on a much hillier course in France, led by Aleksandr Pliuschin. Nico Mattan will also ride, to maximise his form for the next cobbled races.
Dan Lloyd made his way into the break, that peaked at about 9 and a half minutes before the chase began.
The 2 tough climbs come at around 40km to go and by 18km to go, the break has been surpassed.
Matteo Carrarra is solo while he is chased by 5 others, Lloyd, a Credit Agricole and a Landbouwkredit rider are now slipping back from the break.
Pliuschin chose not to attack with the favourites ~ in the vain hope that they would be caught, but did attack with 11km to go when it was clear that they would make it.
He couldnt quite bridge it across, as E2 decided to attack when he got near. Carrarra would take a superb solo win, with Feillu 2nd.
Pliuschin had created a large enough gap on the pack to take an easy 7th, despite suffering in the last km. Mattan finished in the bunch, having had a -5 Day. Hopefully he'll have a much better day in the next race, Dwars door Vlaanderen.
Looks like things are shaping up for you, but good luck with Gent-Wevelgem, you'll have to make sure Mattan is at 89 fitness for that race, otherwise he'll have a hard time keeping up with all the big boys on the cobbles. Best of luck with it tho.
Thanks, I still dont know If ive been accepted yet, but I should soon. Ronde van Vlaanderen (Which I didnt apply for) received Agritubel and Wiesenhof.
Nico Mattan
Frederik Nolf
Aleksandr Pliuschin
Jens Mouris
Robby Meul
Sven De Weerdt
Bjorn Cornelissen
Ian Stannard
A much tougher field now, with CSC, Discovery Channel and Predictor Lotto looking strong.
I made Stannard attack to show off our new kit (Made by Roadie), and 3 men got away: Steels, Rousseau and Gabrovsky.
With 115km to go, Vandborg crashed, with our DFL riders managing to avoid him, then with 100km to go Predictor's number 2 Bjorn Leukemens crashed.
90km to the finish was very bad for Johan Coenen of Chocolaude Jacques. He crashed and then once he got going again ... he punctured.
Bjorn Cornelissen was the next to puncture.
Cancellara and Wesemann broke away over the top of a cobbled hill, but Cancellara soon dropped Wesemann.
Cancellara's lead over the next group was never more than a minute but he still looked strong. Nolf could no longer follow the pace of the chase group with 25km to go.
Our hopes lay with Mattan then, who fortunately was having a brilliant day on +5. Sadly though, he isnt as good as he used to be and was dropped with 15km to go, along with 5 others. This left a group of 10 (ProTour) riders chasing Cancellara. Mattan was in E3 with Van Bon, Wesemann, Leukemens, Quinziato and Petito.
Only Mattan and Wesemann would work as the rest had teammates in E2.
Can Cancellara hang on? Will Mattan's group manage to catch E2 or have to fight for 12th, and if so can Nico take 12th? Well to find out, youll have to watch a video:
So its a CSC 1-2. O'Grady passed Cancellara in the final sprint to win, while Cancellara hung on for 2nd. Nico took a strong 12th, and finished as the best continental rider.
Stannard was the last of the 116 finishers, as the rest were outside the time limit and all withdrew - 117th placed Cummings was just a few metres behind Stannard, but couldnt cross the line before the games 'Withdraw-slow-riders Device' kicked in.
The ProTour leader! He won all 3 sprinters stages in Paris-Nice and followed that up with victory in Milan - San Remo.
Notable mention to Paolo Bettini who won stages 1,2 and 3 in Tirreno-Adriatico, eventually finishing 3rd overall at the end of the race.
DFL Rider of the Month: Nico Mattan
Who else?? Victories in Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne, and Le Samyn, plus 3rd in Nokere Koerse guided the Belgian to 6th in the Continental rankings.
Brit of the Month: Mark Cavendish
Took 3rd in a stage of Paris-Nice and 4th in another to hand Britain their first ProTour points of the season.
Injuries:
Fractures mean that Andre Korff and Paolo Tiralongo are out to Mid-April. A broken shinbone will force Andrij Grivko to miss the month, while a broken collarbone sees Tadej Valjavecd out of action until early may. Pietr Chmielewski of Action-Uniqa has Mononucleosis and wont be seen until the end of June!
Look Ahead:
Gent Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix are the highlights of the DFL month with 15 'race days' pencilled in, not including the Columbian National Championships where Wilches will be looking for the breakaways.
Nico Mattan
Frederik Nolf
Alexandre Pliuschin
Hamish Haynes
Adam Blyth
Jens Mouris
Gert Vanderaerden
Bjorn Cornelissen
It was obviously not going to be our race today as Nolf had -5 form and Mattan had -4, meaning Pliuschkin would be our leader with a form of the day of 0.
Todays race favourites are Hoste, Pozzato, Hincapie, Van Impe and Flecha. Cancellara, Ballan and O'Grady are riding but CSC, Lampre and Gerolsteiner have only brought 3 riders to the race.
Navarro and Champion broke away but would always be caught with cobbles stats in the low 50s.
With 18km to go the lead group was down to 29, with only Pliuschin from DFL. Flecha attacked but Kevin van Impe counterattacked him and was far stronger.
Van Impe was looking good while with 7km to go, Pliuschin had to let go of the lead group, along with Backstedt.
Van Impe would win ahead of Flecha and Gusev. 26th for Pliuschin.
1 Kevin Van Impe QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC 5h37'45
2 Juan Antonio Flecha RABOBANK + 1'18
3 Vladimir Gusev DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
4 Marcus Burghardt T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
5 Roy Sentjens PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
6 George Hincapie DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
7 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
8 Philippe Gilbert FRANÇAISE DES JEUX s.t.
9 Greg Van Avermaet PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
10 Luca Paolini LIQUIGAS s.t.
11 Stuart O'Grady TEAM CSC s.t.
12 Nick Nuyens COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
13 Fabian Cancellara TEAM CSC s.t.
14 Alessandro Ballan LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
15 Matti Breschel TEAM CSC s.t.
16 Björn Leukemans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
17 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t.
18 Peter Van Petegem QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
19 Manuel Quinziato LIQUIGAS s.t.
20 Andreas Klier T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
21 Fabio Baldato LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
22 Enrico Franzoï LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
23 Leon Van Bon RABOBANK s.t.
24 Magnus Bäckstedt LIQUIGAS s.t.
25 Tom Steels PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t. 26 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
27 Steven De Jongh QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
28 Wim Vansevenant PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
29 Kevin Hulsmans QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
30 Sergei Ivanov TEAM ASTANA + 5'26
31 David Kopp GEROLSTEINER s.t. 32 Nico Mattan DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
33 Frederik Nolf DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 6'05
34 Frederic Guesdon FRANÇAISE DES JEUX s.t.
35 Matthew Hayman RABOBANK s.t.
36 Geert Verheyen QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
37 Giovanni Visconti QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
38 Joost Posthuma RABOBANK s.t.
39 Carlos Barredo QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
40 Roger Hammond T-MOBILE TEAM + 6'59 89 Jens Mouris DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 14'41
110 Hamish Haynes DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 16'09
114 Gert Vanderaerden DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
128 Bjorn Cornelissen DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 18'09
Adam Blyth - Abandoned - Too Slow
Alexandre Pliuschin
Frederik Nolf
Gert Vanderaerden
Daniel Lloyd
Dan Fleeman
Rhys Pollock
Jens Mouris
Jamie Staff
Dan Lloyd went with the breakaway.
Withhim were Ongarato, Amorison and D'Hollander. Many others followed but would not catch up, including Jartazi's Flahaut who was dropped by the group on the first KoM climb.
By the time the riders reached the climb for the 2nd time, Lloyd had 3 and a half red bars He took 3rd at the top though, meaning He, Ongarato and Amorison were all equal on 6 KoM points.
The 3rd time they reached the climb, Ongarato took 5 and held 1'39 on Guesdon who took 2nd having attacked from the pack. Ongarato would soon blow up though and Guesdon caught and passed him. Chasing Guesdon were Van Petegem and Franzoi.
Guesdon would be caught with 14km to go at the foot of the 4th and final scent of the KoM hill. Teammate Phillipe Gilbert took the points, with Pliuschin and Nolf hanging on in the 20 man lead group - they had been dropped once already though but worked their way back.
But they would not hang on as the work of Hoste and a couple others narrowed the group down to 12.
Discovery Channel dominated the sprint though and took a great 1-2.
Pliuschkin and Nolf crossed the line 23rd and 24th, but were fortunate with time gaps and are level on time with 16th placed Quinziato.
Fleeman was the last finisher as the Belgian organisers decided after everyone had finished to withdraw 24 riders, including Dan Lloyd :x:x
Edited by SportingNonsense on 20-10-2007 13:29
Realism!
He took 3rd at the top though, meaning He, Ongarato and Amorison were all equal on 6 KoM points.
