Our first race of the season is a WT race - the Tour Down Under and we were looking to get off to a good start. We sent a fairly strong team, with our main sprinter Jose Joaquin Rojas leading the way.
This race constituted one of our goals, that the sponsors at Nintendo and Ambuja had set out at the start of the season, to win a stage. It would be tough, up against the big names in the WT peloton, but JJ delivered on the big stage! He won the 4th stage in Tanunda ahead of Andre Greipel, who won all the other flat stages; so a great performance from him, and Mr Miyamoto is very happy!
Meanwhile, our young Belgian talent, Rudy Verboven, entered the race as a helper to Paul Martens, but had a barnstorming performance - both on the Willunga Hill and at Stirling, coming tenth in both those stages; meaning that he finished tenth overall, and most importantly, with the white jersey!
Overall, a great start to the team's campaign in the Pro Continental Tour, with a stage win, a jersey, and a good GC placing
Such a short stage, but it seemed so long. Every breakaway I paniced. Who's in there? Can he steal my top 10? Can he steal my jersey? I was so nervous, counting down the kilometres. Finaly, there we were at the finish! I made it!
I have to thank my manager for the confidence in me, first letting me ride this race as neopro, and later on letting me do my own stuff. Also a huge thanks to the team mates, who had no problem to do a bit of work for this youngster. Really, thank you so much guys!
I was getting quite good at that podium stuff, doing everything properly now. I heard the sponsors are very happy about the team's performance, making us the big surprise of the Tour Down Under. Stage Win, top 10 and youth jersey.
A big surprise came when Philippe Gilbert came to me after he won his jersey. He said - in perfect dutch, mind you - that he was impressed with my performance this week, and that he would like to see me in the team for the World Championships this year! I don't know if he meant it or was just being polite, but it sure gave me a huge smile!
Next up for me is the Volta ao Algarve. A time trial and 3 flat stages, so definitely not my cup of tea. I'll be the perfect domestique there, returning the favours and confidence my manager and team mates gave me this week!
And maybe, just maybe, I'll try something in stage 3.
Ollfardh wrote:
I have to agree, you did humiliate some World Tour teams that couldn't even get one top 10.
Or couldn't get in the Top 40 of the GC
Even our sprinter got into the Top 40...
Quick announcement
After a succesful TdU, Jose Joaquin Rojas will ride Tour of Oman instead of Tour of Qatar as originally stated in the team's startlist reveal earlier. JJ will be specifically targeting the 2nd stage in Oman, as it suits his hilly-sprint. His place in Qatar will be taken by Rudiger Selig, who was originally included in the list for Oman.
After the Tour Down Under, I enjoyed a more relaxed race in Portugal. I did my best to help the team, but it would seem breakaways rule the race. Marcus just missed victory in stage 2 and we got another top 10 in stage 3. But I had enough of waiting in the peleton, so i tried to join the breakaway in stage 4. As tomorrow was a time trial, this was my last chance.
The peleton was trying harder to get the breakaway back, but eventually me and 12 others got away. I did my best to repay the team for their confidence in me in Australia - quite literaly! I got some bounties for the team at the intermediate sprint and mountain top. We were going to make it to the finish!
In the sprint, I made a rookie mistake. Was it overconfidence? Was it the impusiveness of youth? I went way too soon and got beaten on the line. Here's a picture of me, the first clear picture of the season.
I finished 5th, not bad of course, but I think I could've done better. Yet my manager said he was glad I got in the breakaway and got some points, making me the first rider earning points in both World Tour and Continental Tour this year. That did make me feel better, I have a feeling I started the season very well!
Despite sending a pretty weak squad to Algarve, we still managed some pretty good results.
In a bizarre race, with the breakaway succeeding in every stage, we managed to get someone in there every stage, securing some good results - especially a second place from Marcus Burghardt.
Rudy Verboven was on song again, he's having a great time so far and is one of our top point-scorers! He managed a top 5 place on stage 4. A surprising top 10 finish from Japanese talent Tomohiro Hayakawa was an unexpected bonus, whilst his efforts in the break on the first stage meant Stefano Pirazzi ended up 13th overall in the GC. Burghardt finished 18th, so we're doing pretty well!
Marcus Burghardt gets ready to power past nearly everyone in the sprint!
The team did reasonably well in the stages, some nice results there, but the GC in Portugal wasn't as good. While the team does some more preparation in the Middle-East, I'll be training at home for the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. While Australia was great, these are the kind of races I hope to win someday.
I'm not sure what to expect this year, top 50 maybe? It will all depend on the startlists I guess. I'll need a lot of training, so this year I'm going to watch other riders, see what they do, how they do it and when they do it. If I learn a lot and train hard, who knows where I'll be next year?
With the two desert races underway, it's time to reveal some more startlists in advance - this time we can bring you three! The first three one-day races of the season are all fairly contrasting races, so different people will be racing them.
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
One of only two cobbled classics in the CT calendar, so we're bringing our cobbled A-team to the race! The in-form Verboven will be joined by leader Marcus Burghardt, and young talent Klaas Boogedal willl make his first appearance
Leader: Marcus Burghardt
Sprinter: Jose Joaquin Rojas
Free Element: Rudy Verboven
Team-mate: Klaas Boogedal
Team-mate: Rudiger Selig
Team-mate: Shinichi Fukushima
Clasica de Almeria
The first race in Spain is classified as flat, but is fairly bumpy, meaning that it suits someone like JJ Rojas! He has a fairly strong back-up team with him too.
A similar race to the Almeria, the Strade Bianche is the first race of the season in Italy, and is fairly hilly with an uphill finish to make it tough. Again, JJ Rojas leads the squad as he racks up some race-days early on in the season
Leader/Sprinter: Jose Joaquin Rojas
Free Element: Paul Martens
Free Element: Marcus Burghardt
Team-mate: Rudy Verboven
Team-mate: Blel Kadri
Team-mate: Takashi Miyazawa
Team-mate: Yusuke Hatanaka
That concludes our round-up of advance startlists - the next one will be our second World Tour race - the Volta a Catalunya!
We sent a fairly strong squad to Oman, aiming for a stage win with Jose Joaquin Rojas and for Hubert Dupont to accomplish something on the Green Mountain.
However, despite finishing inside the top 10 on four of the stages, JJ couldn't break into the top 5. The surprise package was Blel Kadri, who coupled an inspired attack in Al Wadi Al Kabir on Stage 4 to finish 4th; with a great effort up the Green Mountain in Stage 5 to finish ahead of the likes of Jurgen van den Broeck and Simon Spilak. His third placed finish overall was a great result from the team, and more than made up for Dupont's lack of early-season form.
Shinri Suzuki on the offensive during stage 6
Tour of Oman Rating: 8/10
Tour of Qatar Review
While Kadri was slugging it out in Oman, a slightly weaker team of Nintendo's were out across the desert in Qatar.
Led by the impressive Patrick Gretsch, we managed to gain an excellent 4th position in the crucial team time-trial, unfortunately we didn't quite have the sprinting to back it up but Takashi Miyazawa nicked 10th place overall after gaining some bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints. Not a bad race, just not much really happened for the team apart from the TTT
My first race in Belgium, but it was a big disappointement. It was a hard race of course, with almost all the big names present, but still it was not what I expected of it. Maybe it was the pressure from the press after my results in Australia, or maybe it was just inexperience, but whatever it was, I blew it big time.
It wasn't bad at the start, though the pace was high all the time. But when the cobbles came and people started attacking, it was insane. I tried to follow for too long and overdid it. Suddenly I was all out of energy. Small groups of riders kept passing me, I tried to hold on for a while, but each time I had to let go after a few kilometres.
Eventualy, I let it go and just waited for the pack. I tried to stay in the middle, riding out the race very anonymous. Tom Boonen won, good for him that he could finaly win this race, but I was just disappointed to do anything after the finish. I avoided all reporters and went home in shame.
Flying to Italy now for the Strade Bianche, hope I can do better there.
We were optimistic going in to the first classic of the season - a lot of big teams would be there with the likes of ING with Boonen and Motorex with Cancellara. Marcus Burghardt headed up the team, accompanied by Rudy Verboven and Klaas Boogedal.
However we could only manage 26th as our best placing from Burghardt with Boogedal, who professes to be a northern classics specialist, albeit in his first ever race as a professional, finishing 120th, 13 minutes behind the winner, a major disappointment.
As the season begins to meander along a bit, with racing in Langkawi drifting after a boring mountain stage (details of which will follow in our review later), the folks at Nintendo-Ambuja thought that they'd reveal their inside rankings, designed to see who's the best. Heavily influenced by the CQ-ranking system, these are the results so far (including the Omloop but not Langkawi)
Well not much is going on, so why not reveal another startlist?
Our next race that we're participating in that we haven't revealed a startlist for is actually the Volta a Catalunya, but that's being kept under wraps for now
So, the Crit Int is a two-day, three-stage race with a stage for the sprinters, the time-triallers, and most importantly, a mountain stage!
Mountains call for good climbers, and Denis Menchov, holder of 3 GTs, ain't bad. A strong time-triallist, he will be hoping for a good overall position, depending on the field strength and will be helped by our strong climbers Hubert Dupont and Blel Kadri. With Boaro and Gretsch to help, it's a strong side
After what seemed to be a rather prolonged break, the season has got back underway again so it's time to bring you some updates.
Tour de Langkawi has concluded fairly recently, and it saw some real dominatino by Peter Sagan.
Looking at it through a Nintendo lens, it wasn't so great, although we sent quite a weak squad, knowing the number of race days it would use up for our riders. Particularly disappointing was Anuar Manan, who given a lead sprinter's role in his home race, was aiming to do well but failed to score a top 10 in any of the stages!
More encouraging was the performance of Patrick Gretsch, who after a good opening time trial and some good work in some breaks found himself in 4th position on the GC after 5 stages; however he quickly slipped down. Hubert Dupont also slightly disappointed, unable to get away on the big mountain stage despite having a good go. He finished a respectable 13th in the end, 6 places ahead of his rival Gadret
Hubert Dupont attacks on the climb up to Muar on stage 6
Tour de Langkawi Rating: 4/10
KBC Driedaagse van De Panne-Koksijde
Apart from having a pointlessly long-winded name, the 3 Days of De Panne is one of the races that will come up in the calendar soon and so we thought we'd reveal another startlist
Fairly predictable, with Burghardt, Martens and Verboven leading the way for that hilly opening stage; with Manuele Boaro looking to put in a good performance on the time trial
Leader: Paul Martens
Free Element: Marcus Burghardt
Free Element: Rudy Verboven
Team-mate: Manuele Boaro
Team-mate: Klaas Boogedal
Team-mate: Taiji Nishitani
Edited by Stromeon on 06-05-2013 17:09
It was good to race again after my disappointing Omloop. Strade Bianche in beautiful Italy was on the menu. We would all work for J.J. Rojas, who liked the uphill sprint finish. He said he wanted a tough race, so we started working hard, as if we were a big World Tour team.
If you've seen the report, you see me getting a lot of TV minutes, which is of course good for the sponsors. The legs felt great so I just kept setting a good pace. At some point, I even went to fast, dropping Jay-Jay. So we had to slow down for a while. But after that unfortunate event, I was back to pulling the pack forward.
Having done all I could, I had to drop out of the leading group, totaly exhausted. But my work definitely payed off. No more Veenhof, Oss or other sprinters in the group. Unfortunately, Jay-Jay just missed the podium. Fourth is just the lamest place to finish. He was very disappointed, thanking me for the work, but then went quiet for a while. I hope he feels better soon.
My next race will be back in Belgium, De Panne-Koksijde. Hope I can do better than last time for my home fans!
Our second World Tour race is almost upon us, and, having kept the startlist a well-guarded secret until now, we thought it was time to reveal it!
The team is lead by Denis Menchov in his first outing of the season, ahead of the Criterium International (sorry purists who disapprove of a rider racing two races at the same time, scheduling complications). With four big mountain stages on the itinerary, he's going to need some other climbers to help him, so we've brought along Hubert Dupont, who will take his race day total up to 21 already with this race! This tour is also a good opportunity to give two other great climbers their Nintendo-Ambuja debuts - Tomasz Marczynski and Tanel Kangert
Full squad
Leader: Denis Menchov
Free Element: Tomasz Marczynski
Free Element: Stefano Pirazzi
Team-mate: Hubert Dupont
Team-mate: Tanel Kangert
Team-mate: Blel Kadri
Team-mate: Takashi Miyazawa
Team-mate: Tomohiro Hayakawa
Tour Down Under Review 
Jose Joaquin Rojas leading the way. 
Andre Greipel, who won all the other flat stages; so a great performance from him, and Mr Miyamoto is very happy!
Rudy Verboven, entered the race as a helper to 
Tour of Oman instead of 
Tour of Qatar as originally stated in the team's startlist reveal earlier. JJ will be specifically targeting the 2nd stage in Oman, as it suits his hilly-sprint. His place in Qatar will be taken by Rudiger Selig, who was originally included in the list for Oman.
Volta ao Algarve Review 
Tomohiro Hayakawa was an unexpected bonus, whilst his efforts in the break on the first stage meant 
Stefano Pirazzi ended up 13th overall in the GC. Burghardt finished 18th, so we're doing pretty well!
Klaas Boogedal
Blel Kadri
Anuar Manan
Denis Menchov, holder of 3 GTs, ain't bad. A strong time-triallist, he will be hoping for a good overall position, depending on the field strength and will be helped by our strong climbers 
Tomasz Marczynski and 
Tanel Kangert
