The team was active in the chase, but Higuita himself was rather quiter, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the end his main job was to outscore Kudus and Hirt, and that's luckily what he did
Congratulations on another monumental victory, jandal!
Phenomenal report Ulrich! Obviously loved all the Man Game history sprinkled throughout. it was an exciting race to with the attention to the title fight. Congrats to Xero and Gazelle!
The tilt towards puncheurs definitely didn't favor us. Last year we were able to stack climbers with great depth, while this year Aranburu was pretty much left on his own. Luckily, though, he had a very solid race. A top 10 would have been amazing at the highest stage, but 11th is good too. I always worry about his stamina in a race like this, but he didn't crack hard at the end, which was my biggest worry after last year.
Now, we'll see if it was enough!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Brilliant stuff with the stats/history in the report!
Glad Formolo could snatch a top 10 there. Too bad Champoussin couldn't capitalize from the good form from Japan. Maybe the long trip took its toll on him
I'm a bit late to the party, sorry.
Firstly, I also want to say thank you for the outstanding report. Having all these little facts in there made for a great read.
Result-wise this is quite a conciliatory end to the season from my team. Quita has not shown much so far this season, but this way more than saved it. It was great to see him lead the sprint into the final kilometre. In the end he was just not strong enough to stay ahead of Valter and Areruya but a podium is more than I could've asked of him. Gidich getting 4th in the sprint is decent as well.
Firstly, a properly amazing report. Loved the detail, stats, storylines and looks to the past so much UU, thank you very much!
For us, truly brilliant stuff to end the season. Nearly a decade in the game, and this season has been a fairytale. Don't worry, I'm nowhere near finished, but feels very special and certainly the culmination of our nine years so far with a Top 10 PT finish and two Monument victories. Can't believe it.
A great ride from Areruya, something poetic in such an aggressive rider taking his biggest ever victory by waiting for his perfect moment and timing the sprint perfectly. Commiserations to Valter and Quita, that was a heartbreaking late catch and I really thought they'd done something special there, did not think the favourites would catch up.
Also hilarious for him to do truly terribly in the other fall classics and then turn up and win here. Doing just enough to maximise the team's rankings position in the lower top 10 scrum and secure himself the PT podium, while maybe shaving a few thousand euros off his asking price by denying himself 2,000 points on the season. Truly a company man
Thanks everyone for the congrats
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
