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Tour of Qatar Discussion
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:04
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Team Leader
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 Tour of Qatar
6 stages – 715.8 km
Welcome to the first stage race of the 2018 Pro Tour season, this is the 11th edition constantly raced since 2009. The race is like made for the pure sprinters, almost pancake flat routes every day, with just a short time trail of just 3.5 km in the end.
With the time bonus from the 5 flat stages, the time gained in this short time trail is not enough to favor the tempo riders, but it could make a difference between the best sprinters, very bad prolog skills might be critical if things are close.
The local spectators will cheer for Minions 21 years old talent  Tareq Esmaeli, but he is not likely to make a huge impact on a race like this.
Last year’s winner  Sam Bewley is back to attempt to win the race twice in a row, only Tom Boonen has done that (2013-2014), another rider who could make a record win is  Ben Swift attempting a third win after victory in 2012 and 2015, nobody have done that before.
Also previous winner  Degenkolb (2016) is on the start list.
I find it very hard to pinpoint a top favorite for this race; instead I will look at 10 top contenders in alphabetic order:
 Jonas Ahlstrand:
Ahlstrand has a good combination of all it takes to win this race, his weakness if any is that he does not stand out anywhere compared to the other favorites combined with a low end sprint, but he has a better acceleration than most.
 Óscar Avelino:
Avelino is the outsider in this group having some low scores compared to the others. His resistance will be a problem if the overall pace gets too high and also his flat racing skills and low end acceleration may pose some problems.
Sam Bewley:
Bewley’s palmarès alone makes him amongst the top favorites, last year’s winner haven’t got the top end sprint, but his acceleration is excellent and he has a standalone ability on the flat, also his resistance is second to none. His weakness is the time trail where he may lose some time to especially Bryan Coquard.
 Gerald Ciolek:
Ciolek is just like Avelino amongst those who are in the lower end of this top group, slightly stronger that Avelino overall, but with a very low time trail that may turn out to be costly.
 Bryan Coquard:
Coquard seems to be the on paper strongest to win this race. A low end flat skill is his only weakness. His short time trail is supreme, way better than any of the top sprinters and even between the best in the race, likely not good enough to gain bonus seconds in the time trail itself, but he will gain time over the other sprinters that is for sure.
John Degenkolb:
Degenkolb has won the race before and is amongst the strongest pure sprinters and also his flat skill is top class. His weakness is low resistance combined with a low end short time trail.
 Eduard Grosu:
Grosu is another of the outsiders in this top 10, his low end time trial will cost some seconds and overall the is just a little weaker that the best on most parameters, though he is not very bad anywhere.
 Alexander Kristoff:
Kristoff has one clear weaknesses and one very strong ability to start with the positive he has the 2nd best time trail amongst the top 10 favorites, on the downside is low end acceleration.
Ben Swift: Previous double winner Swift is amongst the best pure sprinters, backed by good acceleration, his weakness is the time trail and a mediocre resistance.
 Michael Van Stayen:
Van Stayen is the last on the list, a rider amongst the best pure sprinters but also the very worst on a short time trail. Given his bad time trail and a low end acceleration he must also be counted as one of the outsiders between the top 10 riders.
The rest of the best:
Groenewegen, may we expected to work for Ben Swift, but otherwise strong enough to aim for a top result, his short time trail is fine. Vesely and Enger also both may be expected to work for their leader but strong enough to aim for a good result on their own, same goes for Van Poppel.
 Kennaugh,  Boeckmans,  Howard Kump and Desigual duo  Maksimov, Zabel those outsiders that could always be dangerous on the right day.
List of favorites:
| Rider | Fla | Res | Spr | Acc | Pro | | Coquard | 73 | 74 | 84 | 83 | 79 | | Swift | 74 | 70 | 84 | 82 | 70 | | Degenkolb | 76 | 71 | 84 | 81 | 67 | | Van Stayen | 76 | 71 | 84 | 78 | 60 | | Bewley | 78 | 76 | 83 | 83 | 71 | | Ahlstrand | 74 | 73 | 83 | 82 | 72 | | Grosu | 73 | 70 | 83 | 80 | 70 | | Kristoff | 75 | 71 | 83 | 79 | 73 | | Ciolek | 75 | 69 | 83 | 79 | 61 | | Avelino | 71 | 66 | 83 | 78 | 70 | | Groenewegen | 73 | 71 | 82 | 81 | 72 | | Kennaugh | 77 | 71 | 82 | 81 | 63 | | Howard | 76 | 70 | 82 | 79 | 68 | | Maksimov | 72 | 69 | 81 | 84 | 69 | | Boeckmans | 73 | 71 | 81 | 83 | 60 | | Kump | 74 | 73 | 81 | 80 | 70 | | Vesely | 73 | 68 | 81 | 80 | 57 | | Zabel | 74 | 70 | 81 | 79 | 55 | | Enger | 73 | 73 | 81 | 78 | 77 | | Van Poppel | 72 | 71 | 81 | 78 | 72 |
Now just a short look at leadout strength, who got the fastest team on the flat:
Evonik – ELKO: Stands out as the strongest team at the flat stage, Van Stayen should have the best team to set him up.
Behind Evonik – ELKO we got a large group of teams led by Iberia, who have good team strength clearly above average: Iberia - Team Degenkolb, EA Vesuvio, Aker – MOT, Volvo acc. by Spotify, Team Tinkoff, Moser – Sygic and T-Mobile.
Then we got a group of teams in the mid-range, with fine average strength:
Air France – KLM, Bennelong – Mitchelton, Festina – Dexia
Then a group quite close the above should be ok in side winds and most likely to deliver their sprinter close to the front.: Aegon – Lavazza, Grieg – Eftel, eBuddy, Porto – Prio
The nest group is below average, could be challenged in side winds and other high pace situations, may also struggle to deliver the sprinter perfectly:
Team Puma – SAP, Berg Cycles, Hugo Boss, Team UBS
Finally we got the worst team setup, these teams may well struggle in high pace situations on a regular basis: Desigual, RBC Pro Cycling, Gazelle, Isostar Slovenija, Minions
Now a list of favourites to win the short time trail:
Rider Pro Res Rec
 Fiedler | 82 | 76 | 78 | | Dennis | 81 | 75 | 67 | | Vlatos | 81 | 71 | 67 |  Kittel | 81 | 70 | 68 |  Yatsevich | 80 | 81 | 67 | | Stoltz | 80 | 79 | 75 |  Sütterlin | 80 | 77 | 67 | | Gonzalez Salas | 80 | 76 | 67 | | Howson | 80 | 74 | 72 | | Paillot | 80 | 74 | 68 |  Van Winden | 80 | 70 | 74 | | Hepburn | 79 | 77 | 72 | | Haugard | 79 | 77 | 70 |  Cataford | 79 | 75 | 73 | | Coquard | 79 | 74 | 84 | | Dempster | 79 | 74 | 73 | | Malori | 79 | 73 | 72 |  Gretsch | 79 | 72 | 67 |
Startlist:
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| SotD |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:24
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World Champion
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Coquard seems to be the on paper strongest to win this race. A low end flat skill is his only weakness. His short time trail is supreme, way better than any of the top sprinters and even between the best in the race, likely not good enough to gain bonus seconds in the time trail itself, but he will gain time over the other sprinters that is for sure.
I don't think bonus seconds is awarded in the epilogue no matter who ends in top 3 
Obviously this will be our key race of the entire season, so if we fail things will look dire for quite some time. Coquard should atleast podium, but I would really like to see him win. This is the most fierce sprinters field in the season, however, so it might be very difficult, and consistency (from both sprinter and team) will be key to win the race.
If you end up low in the top 10 a couple of times, or even miss it, the race can well be lost. The winner will be the rider who will win 1-2 (or more) stages, and never fall out of the top 5. No matter how good/bad the PRL stat is.
I really hope Vlatos is up to his best in the epilogue though to gain a bit of extra.
Also I'd like to keep an eye out for Santos, as he also has 74 PRL, while being out last leadout. If we get lucky a couple of times he might get a top 10 himself which could lead to him getting a pretty good GC. But that's mostly me dreaming. That was the reasoning for not picking Tzortzakis as the last leadout though.
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| ember |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:24
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This should be a bloodbath between sprinters and strong rouleurs  
Really looking forward to this one, especially if we get crosswinds with Evonik and a couple of other teams driving the pace. Then this could be a Qatar edition quite far from what we've seen the last couple of seasons. Worried we'll suffer if that happens, as Ciolek isn't really a rider you trust in crosswinds, judged by his stats.
For my own team, I don't really have any expectations for the overall, but it would be nice with one or two good stages where Ciolek shows he can mix it with the world's best. I'll rather take one top 5 instead of two top 10s, but we'll take whatever we can get, honestly
And yeah, must admit it was fun to throw all sprinters into one race. Expect at least one of them to just sit at the back of the bunch, but it would be very, very cool to see both Ciolek and Holst Enger or Vesely go for a result on the same stage. We won't have a leadout here, which would make it fun if more than Ciolek decides to fight for a top 10. |
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| Heine |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:24
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4116
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As I said on skype the other day, I have no idea how I ended up sending TVG here, no idea at all. I think I looked at the wrong profile, but not sure at all....
My hope in general is a stage win on the prl, then interesting where we end up from that. I had more than enough race days for Fiedler to send him here
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| tastasol |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:27
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2889
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First race for Boeckmans. Don't expect much because of his poor prologue, but Hope to see him being a regular in the top 10. Couldn't for Wisniowski here, but still some flat power in Kragh Andersen. Hopefully he can do a good epilogue as well and fight for the U25.
Coquard the new king of Qatar?
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| SotD |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:28
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World Champion
Posts: 12187
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Heine wrote:
As I said on skype the other day, I have no idea how I ended up sending TVG here, no idea at all. I think I looked at the wrong profile, but not sure at all....
My hope in general is a stage win on the prl, then interesting where we end up from that. I had more than enough race days for Fiedler to send him here
lol yes, unless he does something extraordinary here, it will be quite a bad move really... It would have been a huge mistake not sending Fiedler here though, so good thing you did. He should end up around 8-15 in the GC.
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| roturn |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:31
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Team Manager
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Podium is the goal here clearly and would have nothing against the win obviously.
Swift has a good history here and while he did not have Groenewegen with him in 2017, the other teams dominated due to a stronger train.
Now with Swift-Groenewegen-Sbaragli-Bauhaus I hope to build the strongest train here and get regular top3 results, that make the prologue less important.
Dumoulin and Frison for the time trial mainly while Martinelli and Gallopin might be involved in a sprint train as well as strong backups. Mainly later is supposed to get it organized for a good position of Swift before each 3-5km mark.
Looking hugely forward to this outcome. |
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:43
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Team Leader
Posts: 7406
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I don't think bonus seconds is awarded in the epilogue no matter who ends in top 3
You are most likely right, never did check that out.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 10:48
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World Champion
Posts: 11392
Joined: 17-12-2014
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Dzama Dzama Dzama
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| knockout |
Posted on 24-08-2018 11:37
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
Joined: 21-12-2010
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This race has actually been a question mark for my planning because i was unsure how much i should go all out on flat stat. In the end i went with a quite cautious approach leaving GVA at home because i dont really expect to get a train as others should be stronger on pan flat stages as the preview correctly points out. Horton was left at home too eventhough "not expecting a leadout train" suggests that he could have been useful. Mansilla isnt well suited to this kind of race but he will be Dzamastagic' leadout partner if i get one.
Hence im actually a bit surprised that my flat team stands out as Im only attending with 80-78-76-75-74-73-73-72. Should we get a heavy echelon fest then im gonna regret not sending a stronger setup for sure!
Ill promise that the panflat classics will have a slightly stronger team at least
Not sure what to expect from MVS. Last few seasons Qatar was terrible although i hope that the training gives him better AI treatment. Looking forward to it
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| fintas |
Posted on 24-08-2018 11:37
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2602
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First goal of the season in this race, the top3 will be almost impossible to achieve. Still I think Silvestre might be able to achieve a good result, the combination 78fl 80sp 77prl should give him some advantage over riders with better sprint but who may feel difficulties with the strong winds and in the prologue.
Guys like Maksimov, Avelino or Vesely could have difficulties if the wind appears as usual in this race, others like Van Stayen, Ciolek or Boeckmans should lose precious seconds in the prologue given their bad qualities in this specialty.
Van Winden and Balloni will also be able to achieve a place of respect that will allow us to earn precious points for the goal at the end of the season.
Coquard has everything to materialize his favoritism and win this race, in my opinion will be a big surprise if this does not happen.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 21-11-2024 19:28
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 11:55
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Let's see if Grosu's training will provide an improvement on last year.
Btw, what's up with some of my riders' names in the startlist?
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| viking90 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 12:16
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alexkr00 wrote:
Let's see if Grosu's training will provide an improvement on last year.
Btw, what's up with some of my riders' names in the startlist?
If you mean those dots after "...." i guess its because their lastname is to long to fit in that table. |
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| viking90 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 12:18
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I dont really look forward to this, Ahlstrand have dissapointed me to much before but I hope he can get Top 5 or very Close and atleast a stage podium. Two decent leadout for him but dont think they will do any train eitherway.
Coquard will have a great chance to win this IMO. |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 12:24
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viking90 wrote:
alexkr00 wrote:
Let's see if Grosu's training will provide an improvement on last year.
Btw, what's up with some of my riders' names in the startlist?
If you mean those dots after "...." i guess its because their lastname is to long to fit in that table.
But I don't think it's too long. Both Howson and Lampaert are missing 3 letters each. Doesn't look like it would be bigger than Lammertink or Van Poppel.
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| viking90 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 12:28
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alexkr00 wrote:
viking90 wrote:
alexkr00 wrote:
Let's see if Grosu's training will provide an improvement on last year.
Btw, what's up with some of my riders' names in the startlist?
If you mean those dots after "...." i guess its because their lastname is to long to fit in that table.
But I don't think it's too long. Both Howson and Lampaert are missing 3 letters each. Doesn't look like it would be bigger than Lammertink or Van Poppel.
Good points, then I dont have a clue. Just saw that Bertilsson in my team also have ... But not Campenaerts who has a longer last name... |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 24-08-2018 12:41
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The sprinters field is way too strong this year well, at least Howard should try to sprint and if he does, maybe he gets some bonifications for a somewhat okay GC result eventually. As for my TT guys, I just hope they will do better than last season and avoid being dropped at any windy stage prior to the epilogue. Dennis could be a podium contender for the stage, but I really will count on a good result. The team's rankings may be a minor goal though.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 24-08-2018 12:42
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How to avoid the inevitable disappointment of a badly performing sprinter in Qatar: Don't send one!
Quite obviously, we didn't have much of a choice this season, Demare isn't suited to this in the slightest.
All we can hope for is that this frees up our baroudeurs like Bol, Declerq or our new addition Sagiv to join the breakaways. If Sagiv or Weinstein manage to take early bonus seconds that way, we might even look at a day in white considering Groenewegen as the best U25 sprinter should be busy working for Swift.
Apart from that, all we have to look out for are crosswinds.
For the TT and therefore GC, Sütterlin can prove himself against the very best again, sadly he's not U25 anymore. (on that topic, why would Porto-Prio not send Leung?)
It'll be a lottery, but there's hope for a Top 5 in the stage and a Top 15-20 in the overall, depending on the sprint seconds distribution.
Coquard will win this.
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 24-08-2018 13:21
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cio93 wrote:
How to avoid the inevitable disappointment of a badly performing sprinter in Qatar: Don't send one!
My thoughts exactly! No point wasting Van der Lijke here.
Afewerti is here because why not, but am under no illusion that he will do anything. Kittel is our best hope for something.
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| dev4ever |
Posted on 24-08-2018 14:34
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Small Tour Specialist
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Looking forward to this! Kristoff is my first sprinter since Guillen so excited to see how that pans out
Im feeling like Swift will dominate here.
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