Sorry for the recent lack of activity and thanks for the reports!
Of course we missed a TT win, but Morton finally did quite well with a decent GC finish and no real crackdown somewhere. Would love to see a stage win at some point, but for now, after horrible GTs, this was a nice race for Oz.
Quiet race for us, as expected this. Just catching up after some busy weeks. Had hoped for more in the TTT, but at least a good result from Howson in the ITT.
No shock to see Schleck winning here, showing his class wonderfully. Also great to see Galta get a top 10, always good to see the Norwegians do good. Thanks for the reports, matt
First of all, I apologize to having gone awol for such a long time, I had important things at university the last month and I knew I had to cut off daily and other internet things for the time to stay focused on that.
Arndt did a good job on stage 2 ahead of expectedly shitty time trials (at least Sütterlin did fine in the ITT).
I just wish the game would position him well on stages like #4 here, these are the kind of profiles that make him get paid more than he's normally worth, but what does he need 71 sprint for if the AI doesn't recognize it..
At least stage 7 made up for that positioning thing with the sprint working out exactly how I'd want to, 4th on what effectively was a mass sprint is certainly above expectations.
AND THEN the glorious stage 8 happened!
I was waiting for one of my riders to be the good climber far down in the GC that joins a queen stage break the whole season long, and this was it!
PCM 15 works in weird ways, one of them is that such breaks never get caught and still take time on everyone but the very best until the end of the stage.
I'm very very happy we got the better of it this time. Still, that's surely something not really realistic.
Funny how only his horrible TTing allowed him to get into this position in the first place.
Stage 9 went fine, I never thought the KoM jersey was within reach before the race, so why be bitter about losing it on the last stage? The stage result itself was great again.
6th overall, 6th in points, 2nd in KoM, 3rd in U25 and a stage win. Wow.
Certainly unexpected in every category but the U25, and a very good influx in points necessary to keep our surprise top position.
Congratulations to Vesuvio who really needed this, and thank you Matt for elaborate and enjoyable reports!
