In a vacuum, Stallaert finishing 2nd and 1st from pelotons (even behind a breakaway) on the cobbles stages that simply weren't hard enough, and then losing time on the hilly stage to finish Top 15 is not an unreasonable outcome. Kung is a fine winner, Riesebeek showing consistency year-to-year makes some sense. And yet the way the hill stage played out leaves me slightly frustrated. Would like to see how this race unfolds if that comes after the cobbles stages.
Congrats Laurens, happy for you and Kung! Kireva in 3rd is also very nice. HelloFresh with a very favorable outcome isn't great for us in the promotion race, but other than that, I don't think we've lost too much here, even if our own scoring could have been better. Only Kigali now left for Stallaert to gain points this year.
While it would have been beautiful to see Bewley take the GC for historic reasons seeing Kung justify the absurd wage he picked up in FA is nice as well!
I did not expect time gaps on the final stage, but it ended up being to our advantage as we move up a couple of spots in GC here and there and secure the teams classification. Rowe moving up two spots in the GC being the big deciding factor there for sure!
Thanks for the reports and I do believe at the end of the day we got what can be looked at as a consistent Benelux result.
I do think this points haul propels us back into promotion contention but time will tell, Daniel still has Kigali and Battenkill to score points that could see it become reality. No matter what I am pretty sure we're safe from relegation now which always was the main goal!
We love to see Rowe taking a stage win and a great GC finish! Shame to see Stannard tumble down the GC but falling upwards into the white jersey is a nice consolation, as is Florian Vermeersch taking his first (might have got one from a breakaway last year?) career Top 10 on Stage 6
Congrats Laurens, Kung is an awesome rider well worth an overpay for his skillset anyway but as whitejersey said this is a big move forward for him to match it with points! Thanks UU for the quality reporting as ever
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
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Great action packed race. Especially liked stage 5, as a lot of stuff changed during the race. Fun to follow Kaislavuo always taking the stage victory, and Breen surprised on the last stage, by getting a gap down to his contestors and climbing quite a lot of places up in the GC.
All in all a decent race for us.
Great win by Kung, congrats Laurens!
Thank you very much Ulrich for the amazing reports!
Well, that was bad. We tried on a break, but without much success, and worked in the last stage to not compete in the sprint.
At least, there was the experience.
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