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Balkans International - Discussion
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 26-04-2023 05:31
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Directeur Sportif
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 Balkans International
Welcome to the 5th edition of the PTHC Balkans International. The 2022 parcours repeats the adventure from the last three years with one not so minor revision: the race is down to 6 days with the first two stages eliminated and the old stage 3 becoming stage 1. This leaves 5 hilly stages and 1 for the sprinters (or a break).
Despite the changes to the parcours many of the same riders feature among the favorites. Those include the last two winners  Lopez (2021) and  Kwiatkowski (2020) and the last two third place finishers Kwiatkowski (2021) and Lopez (2020). The last two runners up  Beltran (2021) and  Sagan (2020) and the last two 5th place finishers Sagan (2021) and Beltran (2020).
Finishing 4th must be very frustrating because neither of the 4th place finishers from the last two years is back (although Sagan finished 4th in 2019). And since we have covered most of historic top 5 in the race already we should also mention that Beltran finished 5th in 2019 and that 2018 2nd place finisher  Bobridge is also back.
The full list of favorites for this year include:
| Rider | MT | HI | SP | AC | RS | | Lopez | 79 | 84 | 66 | 78 | 74 |  De Bie | 71 | 84 | 72 | 75 | 76 | | Sagan | 74 | 83 | 73 | 76 | 74 |  Gidich | 76 | 82 | 62 | 75 | 77 | | Bobridge | 68 | 82 | 68 | 79 | 73 |  Vakoc | 71 | 81 | 71 | 74 | 71 | | Kwiatkowski | 78 | 81 | 67 | 75 | 76 |  Koretzky | 71 | 81 | 71 | 79 | 70 | | Beltran | 79 | 81 | 66 | 76 | 72 |  Areruya | 79 | 81 | 68 | 76 | 78 |  Prevar | 71 | 80 | 67 | 73 | 70 |  Gebrezgabihier | 70 | 79 | 67 | 69 | 74 |  De Plus | 76 | 79 | 61 | 72 | 73 |  Chaves | 76 | 79 | 60 | 72 | 73 |  Bilbao | 67 | 79 | 71 | 75 | 71 |
Among these Lopez seems like a good bet to pull off back-to-back wins. Areruya joins proven contenders Kwiatkowski and Beltran as a top hybrid climber. Gidich is slightly weaker on the longer climbs than those three and may lack a little finishing acceleration, which can be important in a race where most of the gaps occur in the last 2 km of each stage. Among the pure puncheurs Sagan has proven to have what it takes to do well in this race. De Bie is a little weaker in the mountains and has struggled in prior editions. However, this year there is no question of shared leadership to hold him back.
These 7 are probably the top favorites but Vakoc, Koretzky and Prevar aren’t too far behind.
De Plus and Chaves will hope the race favors the climbers but will also need to make up for weak finishing stats while Bobridge is good at the finish but may suffer on the long climbs.
Gebrezgabihier and Bilbao are definitely outsiders in this company. Kraftwerk may well look to Boily or Arndt for leadership although they are weaker puncheurs than those making the list above. Another interesting rider who just misses this list is Sosa who could be an important lieutenant to Gidich or may even be the designated team leader.
There is now only 1 sprint stage so not surprisingly the list of sprinters isn’t that strong.
| Rider | FL | SP | AC | RS |  Van der Lijke | 73 | 82 | 79 | 71 | | Appollonio | 73 | 80 | 76 | 64 |  Rowe | 78 | 79 | 80 | 70 | | Van der Sande | 75 | 79 | 79 | 73 | | Kump | 72 | 79 | 77 | 70 | | Havik | 73 | 79 | 76 | 68 | | Contreras | 72 | 78 | 80 | 75 | | Thwaites | 73 | 78 | 76 | 70 |  Ackermann | 72 | 77 | 80 | 71 | | Thijssen | 73 | 77 | 79 | 69 |
Van der Lijke is the strongest sprinter on paper and will also hope to be competitive on the less selective hill stages (2 and 4), as will Kump and Ackermann. Van der Sande could also maybe survive stages 2 and 4. Although the breakaways will be perhaps the biggest obstacle on those stages. The rest of the list are probably focused on that one precious flat stage.
190 riders take to the start, just 2 short of the maximum peloton size.
Startlist
Edited by Ulrich Ulriksen on 27-04-2023 02:16
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| SotD |
Posted on 26-04-2023 06:50
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Thanks for the preview! 
I don't think Koretzky can cope with the more mountainous looking stages, while Giannoutsos/Mavrikakis probably can't cope with the more hilly profiles. So for us I suspect Spanopoulos would be the best fit, and he's by no means a favorite, nor outsider.
We have a decent setup allround, but still I think we could end up with very little from this race. Lopez is the obvious favorite, but it will be interesting to see if the likes of Koretzky, De Bie, Vakoc can keep up - or if it's a race for the likes of Kwiatkowski, Areruya and Beltran instead. Could very likely be the case!
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| redordead |
Posted on 26-04-2023 07:41
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Penultimate chance for Beltran to leave his mark on this team and salvage his season or continue to plummet into oblivion. The choice is 'his'.
Thanks for the preview, but why Qatar flag? I could understand the joke if it was Bahrain, but I'm drawing a blank 
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 26-04-2023 09:12
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3367
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Thank you for the preview, Ulrich!
We really bring a disaster of a team here, not even a maxed rider and only Osorio as higher than lvl 4. Osorio and Lopez Nolasco could be breakaway options for us, although they aren't really ideally suited for stage or KoM-hunting. So I suppose max we can expect is some TV-time. Good luck to everyone!
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 26-04-2023 09:27
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World Champion
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Don't mind me. Just casually swooping in to checkout the competition
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 26-04-2023 09:40
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World Champion
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Win goal here, will be far from easy but very excited for Areruya's first outing against the PT guns since his training 
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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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 26-04-2023 10:59
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Definitely an important race for us, but it's hard to see us fighting something meaningful. Hopefully Bobridge and co. proves me wrong.
Thanks for the preview, Ulrich!
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 26-04-2023 11:06
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Thanks for a great preview!
We're here to avoid a 0 pointer. Made the decision in planning that this was too tough of a field to invest race days from Meurisse, which panned out earlier in the season. Looking forward to watching the best puncheurs in the world duke it out though!
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| knockout |
Posted on 26-04-2023 11:30
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Grand Tour Champion
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In an ideal world, we win this, secure the Win Goal and remove any chance of a relegation. So this an absolutely crucial race for us but luckily, we do have the top favourite in Lopez so that the ideal case is a reasonable scenario. Kinda wish i'd have a better support team here but we've gotta deal with whatever we have...
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 26-04-2023 11:40
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World Champion
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Hoping Novak gets at least a shared leadership here. I probably need a better result then I should get here. Thanks for the preview!
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 26-04-2023 19:37
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2633
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Like this race very much. Shame it wasn't in my two favorite tiers.
Good luck everyone!
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 27-04-2023 02:22
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 3264
Joined: 02-11-2010
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redordead wrote:
Thanks for the preview, but why Qatar flag? I could understand the joke if it was Bahrain, but I'm drawing a blank
Well the race goes through a bunch of countries so I figured I would use a completely random flag to avoid offending any one of them or having to list them all.
Or I forgot to update my template. Fixed.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 27-04-2023 03:09
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World Champion
Posts: 11395
Joined: 17-12-2014
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No excuse for that from Areruya, glad it wasn't a bigger loss
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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| SotD |
Posted on 27-04-2023 06:09
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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6 riders in top 50 sounds pretty awesome, but none in the top 20 makes it quite bad. Anyway it was pretty much as expected. The mountainous look was too much for Koretzky. Let's see if we can claw something back now that we are not in a favorable position.
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| redordead |
Posted on 27-04-2023 07:25
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4881
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Solid start to the race by Beltran. Which is something I haven't been able to say all season. Also, me thinks Gaudu won't be finishing top 10 here 
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 27-04-2023 08:20
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3367
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Always nice to see the big favourite delivering, must feel great for Evonik! Los Pollos hopefully able to get in the break on the coming stages.
Thanks for the nice report, Ulrich.
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 27-04-2023 08:28
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Some significant time losses already, let's hope the next stages suit us better.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| knockout |
Posted on 27-04-2023 08:29
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Brilliant start for us and this could be the spark that we needed for this race.
Feel bad for roturn. De Bie suffering this badly when he needs a big performance in the fight for relegation sucks
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 27-04-2023 08:41
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Directeur Sportif
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MAL is back where he belongs 
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 27-04-2023 08:55
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2905
Joined: 07-08-2011
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Wow, did not expect Gaspar and Potocki do mix it with the best on the opening stage! While I doubt we will maintain the lead in the teams GC that's a fun little bit for now. Also nice to see Hermans being active in breaks, while I suspect a move has a higher chance to stick either tomorrow or on stage 4.
Congrats to knockout on a win for MAL, and also nice to see that Beltran didn't forget his will to ride a race bike at home for this race.
Thanks for a great in depth report!
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