(sorry in advance, the graphics went completley skitz so if some screens look odd that's why, it will be fixed)
Stage 2 of this years Tour de Romandie is a sprinter's stage, but with a few bumps on the way, a lot of sprinters may not make it. The hot favourite for today is Thor Hushovd (Discovery). In comparison, no other rider in this peleton is anywhere near him in terms of sprinting prowess.
After 20kms, Reus (Magenta), Rosseler (Carrefour), Ulissi (Italia), De La Fuente (Cycling24) and Cortinovis (Fed-Ex), broke away from the peleton, and quickly developed a gap. They worked terrificaly well togethor, but just before the first KOM point, the gap stopped growing and started going down.
FloGas sent Serpa, Lagutin, Dees, Sartasov and Elmiger to the front so with 100kms to go, the gap reached it's peak at 6'40.
500 meters away from the 1st KOM climb, Rossler and Cortinovis were dropped by their breakaway companions, and so 3 were left up front and Reus took maximum point from the climb ahead of Ulissi and De La Fuente.
The front 3 were cruising along very nicely, with none of them skipping their turns the gap was still decreasing, but they felt they could still make it and pushed hard. This made the pack chese very hard, indeed and resulted in a lot of dropped riders, the team coming off worst was...
Cycling24 - Honda. The GC hopes of Mazzolini and Gonzalez Martines had gone down the drain along with Marzono's (Gazetta). Also in that group were riders hoping to be up there in the sprint such as, Förster (Magenta), Simòn (Accumalux), Clerc and Pagliarini (Cycling24), Furlan (C.A) and Bauman (Carlsberg).
Hushovd is now left with a lot less opposition, he is undoubtedly the favourite if they bring back the breakaway which with, 80kms left have a 5'15 advantage.
Then disaster strikes for one team's GC man!!!!!
You guessed correctly. It's Rujano (Cycling24). He's punctured and no teamates drop back to help, but it's ok there a lot of them already behind him.
Anyway back to the people that aren't dropped and the breakaway is still in front, with Ulissi doing a great ride to hold onto these 2 riders, and at the 2nd KOM point it's the exact same order over the top from the previous climb, with Reus taking full points ahead of Ulissi and De La Fuente.
The gap is now at 2'20 with 34kms to go, is the pack the slowing down?? Even with Carlsberg and Ferrari joining the chase, surely the Cycling24 manager is thinking of a great win for his team...
Nope, nothing is going for them and the break is caught with 19km to the finish, a bunch sprint it will be.
A perfect lead-out by Astarloa for Barbosa (Fed-Ex) but Robbie Hunter (Accumalux) is on his wheel. Hushovd is way back, i can't belive he has missed this chance for an easy win.
Eisel (Carlsberg) also gets a great lead-out but he won't win here, the winner is...
BARBOSA!!!
a great win, Hunter was just about to go past him, but he held on, Bozic put a great sprint in for 3rd.
I thought i pressed Export but i obviously didn'tops:ops:
1st Barbosa
2nd Hunter
3rd Bozic
4th Ferrari guy
5th Ferrari guy
6th De Jongh
7th Eisel
8th Millar
Reus will wear the KOM jersey and Klöden easily held onto his jersey he looked very comfortable, even took a relay or two.
Edited by Roman on 16-10-2016 16:43
ops:
