The weather is terrific and the temperature very pleasant as we leave Brugge this morning. The riders aren't getting a nice, easy ride however, as it appears as if every team bar the favourites wants a rider in the early break - forcing Quickstep, Sky and BMC to push the pace very high.
Several breakaway groups establish and are brought back before we finally end up with a quartet starting to seriously distance the rest of the field. Our own Gatis was attentive enough to catch the train, together with Tomasz Marczynski (Vacansoleil), Michael Hepburn (GreenEDGE) and Yannick Talabardon (FDJ).
As we reach the day's first climb; the Taaienberg, they're just over 8 minutes ahead.
Back in the main field, Quickstep are setting the pace, and although they're not looking for anything else than maintaining position, the peloton splits in several pieces behind them already.
Among those caught on the wrong side are Chavanel, Cancellara and Roelandts.
Luckily for them, it all goes back together a little while later.
Without too much trouble, he does jump across after around 15 km of chasing. After him also Oscar Gatto (Vini Fantini), who attacked slightly later.
With 80 km remaining, they lead the peloton by 5 minutes.
A while later, the leaders reach the first climb of the Oude Kwaremont. Greipel makes sure to sit on the front, and the legs start to hurt for the 4 former escapees.
Only Gatis and Gatto remain in contact with the German sprinter as they finally reach the end of the long climb.
They go over the Paterberg as well without any problems. The same applies to the peloton, although Quickstep, Garmin and Sky are slowly beginning to reduce the leader's advantage by upping the pace.
Some well positioned riders start to struggle coping with the pace near the top of the Paterberg, and a huge split occurs in the descent. Sagan, Thomas, Pozzato and once again both Cancellara and Chavanel are all caught behind while 24 riders remain in the peloton.
A powerful surge from Pozzato on the next cobbled section brings Sagan, Thomas and Chavanel back to the group together with him, but Cancellara remains distanced and without team mates to help him back!
We thus get a "peloton" of 20 riders, after some more fell off on the last section of cobbles. Jeanlou and Toms are still there for us, together with these:
Boonen, Chavanel, Serry and Meersman (Quickstep)
Thomas, Stannard and Boasson Hagen (Sky)
Leukemans, Flecha and Veuchelen (Vacansoleil)
Vansummeren and Navardauskas (Garmin)
Ladagnous (FDJ)
Chainel (AG2R)
Vanmarcke (Blanco)
Sagan (Cannondale)
Pozzato (Lampre)
Devolder (Radioshack)
The front group has meanwhile reached the Kruisberg, and Gatto's pace becomes a little too much for Gatis.
The Italian also sheds Greipel as they reach the second climb of the Oude Kwaremont a few kilometers later.
Back to the favourites again, where things are really heating up. Pozzato and, surprisingly, Devolder are drilling the pace up the Kwaremont and most of the other riders in the group start to struggle a lot.
As they turn down towards the Paterberg, 10 riders remain:
Leukemans, Flecha and Veuchelen (Vacansoleil)
Vansummeren and Navardauskas (Garmin)
Boonen (Quickstep)
Sagan (Cannondale)
Pozzato (Lampre)
Devolder (Radioshack)
Vanmarcke (Blanco)
Impressive riding from especially Veuchelen and Navardauskas, although they mainly profited from great position going into the Kwaremont. Meanwhile disappointing to see all of Sky and Chavanel getting dropped.
Certainly no waiting around for them, as Sagan attacks over the top of the Paterberg!
He quickly bridges across to the last standing breakaway man; Gatto, while Boonen takes control of the chasing behind.
Veuchelen, Flecha and Navardauskas are dropped in this offensive, while Thomas has impressively caught back on after missing out on the Kwaremont.
Gatto doesn't even try to hang with Sagan as they reach the Hotond, as the Slovakian extends his gap over the chasing group slightly.
Boonen hasn't given up yet however, and his berserk forces Pozzato and Vanmarcke out the back, soon to be followed by a tired Gatto.
Regardless of Boonen's desperate chasing, the gap continues to increase in favour of Sagan.
It goes up to almost a minute as the chasers reach the summit of the Hotond, with Boonen now looking for assistance from the other four.
In front, Sagan continues to push by himself - knowing that he could be on his way to his first monument.
As he starts the final Oude Kwaremont ascent, his lead is 1'10!
It's far from over yet though, as Boonen is giving his all in one last attempt to bring the youngster from Cannondale back.
Devolder and Leukemans are shelled out the back as the Belgian rampages up the cobbles to reach the top just 30 seconds after Sagan!
Leukemans manages to make contact again just before the final climb of the Paterberg. Sagan enters first, just 25 seconds ahead.
Those seconds disappear in the steepest section, as Boonen drops his companions, bridges across and uses his last resources of energy to try a move of his own!
Does Sagan have anything to respond with?
Not by the looks of things!
Sagan seems to have run out of steam and waits for the other three while Boonen explodes away as they descend down from the Pater.
The gap establishes at around 45 seconds, as they desperately try to work together and bring him back in the final 10 km.
Devolder meanwhile seems to have recovered and now tries to get back in contention for the podium as well.
As if unaffected by the long day and the hard work of bringing Sagan back, Boonen overpowers the chasers and increases his advantage to 1'15 as he goes under the banner indicating 5 km to run.
They clearly seem to be running out of steam behind, but somehow Devolder still can't quite make contact and remains alone a few seconds further back.
There's no doubt about today's strongest rider! Tommeke takes the Ronde for a 3rd time and enters the history books!
In the next group, they've been riding for 2nd for a while already. The cat and mouse game finally ends as Thomas surprises the others with an early kick on the left hand side of the road.
Sagan comes back at him very quickly in the final meters, but picking the wrong wheel initially costs him 2nd place to a smart Thomas.
Leukemans is 4th, followed by Vansummeren a few meters further back.
Devolder comes in alone for 6th around a minute later. He almost made it back after the Paterberg, but lacked a little power today. It'll surely annoy him for some time, knowing that he could've fought for a podium finish.
Vanmarcke beats Pozzato in the sprint for 7th another minute down, and over three back on Boonen. The Blanco man is probably rather happy with the result, but Pozzato surely expected more considering his status.
9th goes to Gatto, who truly deserves it after a day of gutsy riding. Vini Fantini will surely be over the moon with the result.
For 10th, we have another little sprint. Amazingly including Jeanlou, who is unfortunately beaten into 11th by Andrey Amador (Movistar). Roelandts and Breschel follow right behind them, probably disappointed to have missed the select group formed on the first climb of the Paterberg.
Almost three minutes after that group, Borut Bozic (Astana) leads home a quintet including Chavanel and Cancellara, the day's biggest disappointments. 16th and 17th, 8 minutes behind Boonen is faaar below par.
Finally, some more good news for us. Toms finishes 20th in his first Ronde, only beaten by Gianni Meersman (Quickstep) in the first big peloton. He'll be back for more, you can be sure of that!
@ roturn - Well spotted. It does indeed happen on occasion. However only for big changes like Amador's sudden improvement on the cobbles in real life in this case.
1.2: GP de la Ville de Nogent-sur-Oise
While the Ronde is running with a few of our riders participating, the rest are here at home in France for this much lower category flat one day race. There are a few shorter hills on the parcours, though none of them really felt like a good springboard for attacks when we tested out the course yesterday.
The main difficulty might instead be the uphill final kilometer, where Kwiatek will try to pull something off. It suits him extremely well and the competition is far from fierce, so this race could actually go quite well.
Following the responsibility of possibly being the strongest team in the race, we set up a leadout train for Kwiatek as we approach the finish. It's Yoann, Yannick and Clement leading the way with 6 km remaining.
Take a close look, because you'll be seeing a train like this dropping Sky riders in the Tour mountains in just a year or two!
Yannick launches the sprint with a little over 2 km to go, closely followed by Clement and Kwiatek. The other top sprinters are positioned right behind.
They're apparently not going to sit around and watch while we set up the perfect leadout, and Fabio Silvestre (Leopard) is the first to jump past from over a kilometer out.
Clement tries to respond as swiftly as possible, but doesn't quite have the kick.
Kwiatek is therefore forced to go himself, and with 300m remaining he is side by side with Nikolai Trussov (De Rijke) and Florian Vachon (Bretagne) as Silvestre is fading.
Only one of them has an extra gear left, and it's Kwiatek who kicks it in and speeds home to score his first win in our colours!
@ roturn - Amador was actually the only one, as far as I remember. Sagan and Gatto did fairly well on the cobbles irl already last year, so they've just developed a bit from the stats they had at the start of the year.
2.1: Circuit de la Sarthe: Preview
Similar to how De Panne Tour can be used as preparation for the Ronde, this race is the perfect final step ahead of Sunday's Paris-Roubaix. Compiègne, and the start of the journey towards the Belgian border is just a few hours of travel away, so we might see some of the contenders lined up today.
As it turns out, the big classics men haven't followed my suggestion above. In fact, our own team is basically the only one with riders preparing for Roubaix. Nevertheless, Jeanlou, Toms and Gatis look forward to adding some more kilometers to the legs while helping Kwiatek go for the overall.
All our fellow French teams will surely fancy doing well, but the strongest team might actually be Movistar. Reigning champion Fran Ventoso isn't returning, but the Ronde's 10th Andrey Amador and former Italian road champion Giovanni Visconti will surely make the best out of the situation.
Other major contenders are Tirreno podium man Lars Petter Nordhaug and his team mate Tom Jelte Slagter (Blanco), Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Argos) or maybe even a sprinter like Cofidis' Adrien Petit.
The easy nature of the stage leaves practically no room for the non-sprinters, and hence we jump straight to the final kilometers. We managed to set up a little train for Alex, but Toms starts to lose a little ground when AG2R and Cofidis launch their leadouts up alongside ours.
Cofidis' train eventually overpowers the others, so Kwiatek leaves Toms' backwheel and moves in right behind their last man: Petit
It's a clever move, but neither Kwiatek nor Alex manages to match Petit's speed as he launches under the red kite.
One man does, however. Yauheni Hutarovich strikes back in the last few hundred meters after his AG2R team mates lost a bit of position. In a close battle with the aforementioned Petit, he just about nabs the stage win.
Marko Kump (Saxo-Tinkoff) comes up in the end for a surprise 3rd place, stealing the last piece of time bonus from Alex and Kwiatek, who finish right after him.
Things come down to a mass sprint again, and this time we have an even stronger train. As we enter the final 10 km, Alex has 5 team mates in front of him.
Only Cofidis tries to challenge us today, and once again they are slightly ahead as we approach the final 3 km. The yellow jersey of Hutarovich is a little further back.
Things are shaken up heavily as we go through the final turn with just over a kilometer remaining. A motorcycle almost leads several riders, including Kwiatek and Alex, the wrong way which which gives Cofidis a huge headstart.
Petit opens a long sprint immediately after he sees this, followed by Spanish champion Enrique Sanz (Movistar) and AG2R's final leadout man Angelo Tulik. A few meters behind him we also see the race leader.
1500m is a little too much even for a sprinter of Petit's calibre. He fades badly in the finale, while Hutarovich kicks clear to make it two out of two in a dominant way.
Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Argos) complete today's podium, while our own riders couldn't quite find momentum again - causing them to end up in a minor place at the finish.
Onto the time trial, with Yauheni Hutarovich leading the race by a good margin of 44 seconds over the best timetriallists in the race. The biggest danger might actually be Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, who is "just" 36 seconds down.
Early morning leader is a pure specialist in TTs like today's: Jimmy Engoulvent (Sojasun)
His time stands tall for quite a while, although riders like Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel) and Tobias Ludvigsson (Argos) push it right down to the wire.
And as expected, it's eventually topped, by another Argos man: Tom Stamsnijder. He never even gets to take place in the hot seat however, as Yoann smashes his time and takes a massive lead of 10 seconds!
1
Yoann Paillot
La Pomme - Bouygues
9'09
2
Tom Stamsnijder
Team Argos - Shimano
+ 10
3
Jimmy Engoulvent
Sojasun
+ 12
4
Mikel Astarloza
Euskaltel - Euskadi
+ 12
5
Tobias Ludvigsson
Team Argos - Shimano
+ 12
Not even that impressive performance turns out to be enough tho, as Blanco's young prodigy Ivar Slik goes another two seconds faster.
Paul Voss (Netapp), Jerome Coppel (Cofidis) and Alexandre Geniez (FDJ) all follow with strong times shortly afterwards, but luckily none of them manages to take down Yoann any further.
Next for us is Gatis, who really overperforms and clocks a time just a seconds short of Yoann's. That's three down on Slik, and enough to put him in provisional 3rd place.
Jay McCarthy (Saxo-Tinkoff) sneaks into the top 10 as well with an impressive time of 9'12, only to turn around and watch as Andrey Amador blows everyone away completely by setting the new benchmark: 8'59!
Damien Gaudin (Europcar) and Robert Vrecer (Euskaltel) are the next two strong men to finish, but they're forced to settle for 5th and 6th, less than a second slower than Gatis.
Here's now Kwiatek, as we've reached the last couple of riders. Although in good shape and not on a particularly bad day, he can't quite match Amador's 51 km/h and goes into a provisional 7th place - behind both Yoann and Gatis.
Nobody is going to touch Amador today though, as the last standing threat; Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, also misses out. He is still just over a second faster than Kwiatek - enough to take over 7th place.
That leaves only the sprinters, who all lose big chunks of time today. Race leader Hutarovich defends himself well enough though, and retains the yellow jersey regardless of Amador gaining 28 seconds on him today.
No yellow for Costa Rica, but at least a superior stage win. He is also now closest behind Hutarovich in the GC, at 15 seconds. 3rd is van Rensburg at 19 seconds, while Yoann is our best bet at the moment - in 6th.
The day's primary breakaway, including Toms among others, never really stands much of a chance against a high, steady pace maintained by AG2R throughout the day. Everything is therefore brought back together already with 35 km remaining, as we go over the final climb for the 2nd time.
Not much happens on the following lap, although Kwiatek snatches some important bonus seconds with a late acceleration near the summit of the next climb. And to make it even better, the other top GC names all miss out.
The passivity continues during the next two laps as well, so we have more or less a mass sprint as the ascent up towards Mont des Avaloirs begins for the final time.
Amador, Van Rensburg and Julien Simon (Sojasun) are leading out, while our riders are a little poorly positioned.
The sprint lasts for what feels like an eternity, and it becomes obvious that timing is everything on this finish. The names mentioned above all start to fade inside the final kilometer, and instead it's Arthur Vichot (FDJ) who takes the lead.
Even his move with around 500m left is a little too early though, as Jonathan Hivert (Sojasun) strikes back in the last 100m to win the stage with impressive speed.
A frustrated Vichot isn't too happy with 2nd, followed by a continued impressive McCarthy in 3rd. No gaps at all in the peloton, which means that Hutarovich nets a shocking overall victory in this difficult race!
Kwiatek moves up to best position of our riders thanks to the bonifications, 5th. Yoann ends up in 8th after finishing 10th today, while Gatis drops to 13th after a weak result on this stage.
The route through France and up towards the Belgian border may not include the difficult Hellingen that the Ronde does, but with around 1/5 of the day on cobbles it's brutal enough as it is. Sectors like the forest of Arenberg, Mons-en-Pevèle and Carrefour de l'Arbre awaits the brave riders who are lined up.
It's surely going to be a legendary race, as always when it comes to Roubaix. Debut edition for us, so the only real goal is to enjoy the atmosphere as much as possible and try to survive the horrendous Hell of the North.
Triple winner of the race and recent champion of the Ronde; Tom Boonen, is the undisputed favourite in the pre-race discussions. A fourth victory will put his name in the record books as most successful rider ever, alongside Roger de Vlaeminck. He'll have to do a lot by himself though, as his Quickstep squad is remarkably weak. Sylvain Chavanel alone would normally be help enough, but there are questionmarks around him after a weak Ronde.
There's another man who is also after the same record however: defending champion Fabian Cancellara. He successfully dropped Boonen to win solo in 2012, but didn't show that kind of form at all in the disastrous Ronde. Improvements were seen in Pais Vasco though, so he might be returning.
The third name mentioned as a real favourite is Filippo Pozzato. The Ronde was a bit of a failure for the sometimes complacent Italian, but he should absolutely not be discounted. His weak team makes him vulnerable, but on a good day he can win this even if isolated early.
Ronde runner-up Geraint Thomas, Vacansoleil double header Juan Antonio Flecha and Björn Leukemans or maybe even former winner and 5th from the Ronde; Johan Vansummeren, are others to look out for.
A shocking revelation has been made in the last couple of hours, just ahead of tomorrow's Paris-Roubaix. Our own Alexander Serebryakov has left a positive test in an out of competition test from earlier this year. The product has not been detected yet, but he has already admitted to use of banned products.
This obviously comes as a total shock to me and everyone else in the team's staff and squad. What has happened is not at all related to our organization, and we take distance from what Alex has been doing. He has been removed from our squad for Roubaix.
The situation is a bit chaotic at the moment, but we will return with further details regarding what has happened as soon as possible.
Edited by Pellizotti2 on 06-04-2013 21:11
WT: Ronde van Vlaanderen
1.2: GP de la Ville de Nogent-sur-Oise
