Well, started new season after some updates. The database includes now real names, but I tried my best to remove certain riders. One from my team got the axe too, probably you can guess who. Name is below on white colour.
Michael Rasmussen
But, for the short team presentation.
Mauricio Ardila: climber, targets towards Tour de France
Michael Boogerd: classics specialist, participates in TdF
Jan Boven: domestique, won't ride Grand Tours in my initial plan.
Graeme Brown: sprinter, but struggles too much even in smaller hills. Needs to improve that.
Bram de Groot: Concentrates mostly on local races, also part of cobblestone team.
Marc de Maar: domestique
Thomas Dekker: young star, targets smaller stage races, rides TdF.
Theo Eltink: climber domestique in biggest races.
Juan Antonio Flecha: Biggest hope for cobblestone classics. Breakaway specialist.
Rick Flens: Domestique, takes part in Giro or Vuelta.
Oscar Freire: Sprinter, can try to win some of the classics as well
Robert Gesink: Young climber, goes to Giro.
Mathew Hayman: Mainly domestique on flat stages.
Pedro Horrillo: Lead-out man for sprints, might be main sprinter in lesser races.
Dmitry Kozontchouk: Young domestique
Sebastiaan Langeveld: Likewise, both set for Giro start.
Gerben Löwik: Domestique in classics
Denis Menchov: GC rider in Giro and Vuelta (by rider's request)
Koos Moerenhout: Climber domestique
Grischa Niermann: Domestique
Joost Posthuma: Time trial specialist, helpful also while catching breakaways
Kai Reus: Young domestique
Leon van Bon: Cobblestone classics specialist
Max van Heeswijk: 2nd sprinter, most likely not to do same races as Freire
Thorvald Veneberg: Domestique
William Walker: Domestique
Pieter Weening: Climber
First part of my report goes through races from January to early March. From Paris-Nice onwards there will be more regular updates.
Australian championships
Not too challenging route, so Brown could have been factor, but he was in trouble towards the end. Break formed at the end to win, but I hadn't rider there.
1 Allan Davis DSC 4h59'48"
2 Simon Gerrans A2R
3 Stuart O'Grady CSC
4 Robbie McEwen PRL 2'36"
5 Bradley McGee FDJ
6 Matthew Hayman RAB
7 Baden Cooke UNI
8 Christopher Sutton COF
9 Mark O'Brien DPC
10 Karl Menzies HNM
Two demanding stages, but my hopes were dashed by accident on stage 2, which caused me to lose lot of time with my top climbers. Theo Eltink recovered to take 2nd on stage 3, and was good on stage 8 as well. Matteo Carrara won stages 3 and 9 and delivered well on stage 8 to take overall victory. Lloyd Mondory was best sprinter, he won four stages. Julian Dean, Paride Grillo, Alexandre Botcharov and Alberto Loddo took the other stages. van Heeswijk was second on stage 2 and had two fifth places.
Points
1 Lloyd Mondory A2R 143
2 Paride Grillo PAN 131
3 Danilo Hondo TCS 130
8 Max van Heeswijk RAB 69
18 Theo Eltink RAB 28
Mountains
1 Theo Eltink RAB 42
2 J.A.Perez Cuapio PAN 28
3 Alexandre Botcharov C.A 26
Eltink gave little satisfaction for the team by winning mountains classification ahead of Perez Cuapio and Botcharov. The incident in stage 2 turned my hopes to achieve this.
Mallorca was the place where I was able to get my first win of the season. I had good team there, and Freire took stage 2 in mass sprint. On third stage Stefan Schumacher took solo victory and that helped him to take overall one too. On final stage Flecha brought another victory to my team, but he was already out of overall contention. Freire couldn't survive all the hills, thus ending in 22nd. Dekker was my best overall.
Then two coincidental races: Tour of California and Ruta del Sol. The latter one got stronger team. Freire was 2nd on first stage, won second one and got 3rd place on 3rd, and that was enough to give him overall win, increasing my total to four.
Kim Kirchen and Francisco Ventoso won two stages each. Weening has struggled with condition, and in this race he had drama in first stage, thus losing more time. I decided to not bring him back with the help of domestiques, because being long way behind he could be used in breakaways easier. He was in a break once but that failed.
1 Oscar Freire RAB 20h26'05"
2 Kim Kirchen TMO 14"
3 Francisco Ventoso SDV 40"
4 Romain Feillu AGR 1'00"
5 Michael Barry TMO 1'06"
6 Alessandro Ballan LAM 1'12"
7 Imanol Erviti GCE 1'16"
8 Daniele Bennati LAM 1'20"
9 Vicente Reynes GCE
10 Iñaki Isasi EUS
13 Juan Antonio Flecha RAB
21 Thomas Dekker RAB
48 Theo Eltink RAB
53 Michael Boogerd RAB 3'49"
86 Rick Flens RAB 10'24"
108 Dimitry Kozontchuck RAB 17'33"
116 Pieter Weening RAB 23'08"
Picture from first stage where Kirchen beat Freire, but those two could take seconds on the pack.
California wasn't too succesful for me. Brown was 5th on final stage, where crash caught lot of riders and shook up general classification also. Sprinters stayed quite well within the pack, although the overall win went to Filippo Pozzato.
First one-day races of my season were traditional Het Volk and Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne. First one was quite good. Initially the bunch splitted into parts and I had four riders in the first one. Quick Step had five, Predictor and CSC four, TMobile and Fdjeux two, Cofidis one. Interestingly no Liquigas or Discovery. This made my tactics to sacrifice Posthuma in front, in order that second bunch don't catch us. In the final cobbled sections, there was group of three in front: Cancellara, Flecha and Burghardt. Swiss rider attacked and stayed ahead, while Flecha beat Burghardt for 2nd. With van Heeswijk ending 6th and Van Bon 8th, the result wasn't too bad. Three riders in top 8, while no other team had multiple riders in top 10. Pedro Horrillo was injured in a crash.
1 Fabian Cancellara CSC 5h35'54"
2 Juan Antonio Flecha RAB 36"
3 Marcus Burghardt TMO
4 Philippe Gilbert FDJ 1'33"
5 Leif Hoste PRL 1'59"
6 Max van Heeswijk RAB
7 Peter van Petegem QSI
8 Leon van Bon RAB 3'47"
9 Nick Nuyens COF
10 Nico Eechkout JAC 4'54"
38 Mathew Hayman RAB 10'32"
40 Michael Boogerd RAB
45 Joost Posthuma RAB
64 Gerben Löwik RAB 13'58"
DNF Pedro Horrillo RAB
K-B-K was different story. This time there was quite an early attack by Wesemann and Gilbert. Two strong riders kept it to the end. Time trial specialists Hoste and Cancellara followed, while I got fifth and sixth. Kind of surprise was to see that Tom Boonen didn't took part in neither of the races.
1 Steffen Wesemann WIE 5h05'30"
2 Philippe Gilbert FDJ
3 Leif Hoste PRL 1'06"
4 Fabian Cancellara CSC
5 Juan Antonio Flecha RAB 2'30"
6 Leon van Bon RAB
7 George Hincapie DSC 3'00"
8 Stuart O'Grady CSC
9 Peter van Petegem QSI
10 Vladimir Gusev DSC
