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Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Discussion
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 04-05-2014 23:08
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,
 Volta Ciclista a Catalunya | PT
| 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | | 1. | Alberto Contador |  Aleksandr Pluchkin | Alejandro Valverde | | 2. | Aleksandr Pluchkin | Beñat Intxausti |  Rigoberto Úran | | 3. |  Andy Schleck | Alberto Contador | Rubén Plaza |
The third of the three ProTour stage races that are held parallely in February is the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. Similar to the Tirreno, it's a rather hilly race, however with a heavier share of time trialing. While the opening prologue is something for the specialists and won't make much of a difference GC-wise, the hilly time trial has the potential for some larger gaps and will challenge every serious GC contender.
But the three hilly stages on days four, five and seven shouldn't be underestimated either and without a doubt, it will take a strong puncheur to conquer and win this race. This puncheur has to have a strong time trialing ability, though, and that's where stage six may be the tie-breaker.
Finally, we also have two flat stages that, by the looks of it, should be a safe thing for the fast men. Some top class sprinters are here, and the finals will be heavily contested.
Let's look at the favorites:
Perfectly combining hilly and TT qualities is  Robert Gesink. The Dutch is the most well rounded of the GC contenders and one of the top favorites. His team mate Joost Posthuma is a good bet for the time trials, too.
Among the best puncheurs in the field are  Yuri Trofimov and  Stefan Schumacher. Both are elite riders on the hills and have a more than decent TT as well, and both are targeting at least the podium, I'm sure.
The likes of  Rui Costa,  Luis Leon Sanchez Gil and  Nicholas Roche have a very similar skill set, though maybe a level below the ones mentioned before. Still, they have to be watched out for when it comes to the Top 10 and Top 5.
 Taylor Phinney leads the riders who are relying more on their time trialing skills. He and  Mikhail Ignatiev, the sensational runner-up of Herbiers, have the potential to ride with the best on the tough terrain, at least on a good day, and surely fancy their chances for a good overall position. Whether  Jerome Coppel will be able to achieve that is doubtable, although he surely is the top favorite for the time trials.
Then there are the pure puncheurs, namely:  Dimitri Claeys,  Ben Gastauer, Jay McCarthy,  Maurice Schreurs and the German duo  Domenik Klemme and Alexander Flügel. Those rider will have to achieve great things to enter the first places, but nothing is impossible and at least a Top 10 is achievable for every one of them.
Teams without high hopes for a good GC result are
 Team Bpost - Vlaanderen (with Zingle),
 Team B&O (Kwiatkowski),
 Santander (Herrada),
 Pendleton's (Kohl),
 ING - Pro Cycling Team (King),
 Good Energy (Diggle/Scarponi),
 Festina-Canal+ (Boily),
 Bouygues Telecom (literally noone),
 Becherovka - Kiwibank (König) and
 Aker - MOT (Kruijswijk).
However, some of those are still here with ambitions, for instance in the sprints:
The German sprinting contingent is strong here in Catalunya, with Erik Mohs leading the way, along with Andeas Stauff, Rick Zabel and Martin Reimer.
But the competition is fierce: Ben Swift is one of the main contenders and has a strong support in Pedro Merino Criado and Romain Feillu.
Daniele Bennati is here, too, with Lars Croket as his lead out.
Bennati's compatriot Jacopo Guarnieri comes with Luke Rowe, and Festina brings potentially the strongest trio in Oscar Guerao, Georgos Tzortzakis and Jens Keukeleire.
Interesting as well: Bouygues Telecom only attends the race with four riders, three of whose are good sprinters: Wouter Weylandt, Adrien Petit and the almighty Theo Bos!
Last but not least, there're Leigh Howard, Bruno Santos, Giacomo Nizzolo and the promising South African Duo Daryl Impey and Juan Van Heerden.
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| Scorchio |
Posted on 05-05-2014 00:45
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Nice preview mate. Looks like will be an interesting race to follow.
I know 3 PT races clashing, but surprised to see across them that many teams not fully represented. Would have thought that most teams had the necessary numerical number of riders to fill 3 full squads. Will continue to watch PT tactics and ideas from afar trying to fathom the various strategies. Many years until any learning becomes relevant though for a lowly CT team like GNU!
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| cio93 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 00:52
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Surely many teams have the numbers, but there are quite a few top riders not fitting into any of these races because of very limited race days and not perfectly favourable profiles/less scoring opportunities.
Plus, in the end even good domestiques might not get any points from riding here like leadout men if you don't send your sprinter.
PT planning is indeed pretty difficult and different from PCT/CT planning, not being able to select for suitability is a big issue.
F.ex. it makes the race days 40 to 70 very difficult to spread for most riders.
On the other side, your leaders have to miss races they're suited to because there are too many week-long stage races for GC riders.
In PCT/CT you just select 50 mountainious race days if your GC rider has 50 race days.
Edited by cio93 on 05-05-2014 00:56
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 00:54
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Scorchio wrote:
Nice preview mate. Looks like will be an interesting race to follow.
I know 3 PT races clashing, but surprised to see across them that many teams not fully represented. Would have thought that most teams had the necessary numerical number of riders to fill 3 full squads. Will continue to watch PT tactics and ideas from afar trying to fathom the various strategies. Many years until any learning becomes relevant though for a lowly CT team like GNU!
Well, not having a full squad doesn't necessarily mean you don't have enough riders. For example, Henao Montoya isn't suited for any of this races so he's not going to ride in any (leaving me exactly one riders short) 
(looks like cio already beat me to it)
It will be hard for Gesink to beat Trofimov here, but not impossible. This is our first win goal of the season. We need a good set-up for Basque Country and Germany.
Edited by alexkr00 on 05-05-2014 00:55
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| cio93 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 00:57
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Sorry alex, 2am is not the usual time to get Zabel'd 
To compensate for that, I wish Gesink good luck with staying on his bike this time! 
This clash is always really interesting indeed while we're on that topic, I remember sending my basically 4 weakest riders to Paris-Nice because of these issues and ended up getting some nice points with Sanz finishing 3rd in the KoM despite having 65 hill...in hindsight, luckily it wasn't more! (my precious Silvio  )
Edited by cio93 on 05-05-2014 01:00
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 01:01
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It's 3 am here. Even worse I guess. At least I took the time to quote, ha
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| cio93 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 01:02
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Well we Germans still need to take sufficient revenge for that MSR, so this is only a small step into the right direction for once
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 01:07
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As a fan of Oscarito, I guess I have to take this
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| Roman |
Posted on 05-05-2014 01:20
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The interesting test for my team is coming: what can König do as my leader in a race and what can Howard do as my main sprinter in a race. Both of them will enjoy many of these opportunities in this season, so it would be nice if they could get something from these races with a really strong competition. This will be the key to my overall placement in PT in this season, I belive.
The race for the win should be a really interesting battle, PCM13 hilly AI should make it a great race. It will be interesting to see how long Coppel, Ignatiev or Phinney can hold that leader's jersey they should get in prologue. With some good luck, some of them could even win it all, maybe. But my pick for the winner is Gesink.
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| roturn |
Posted on 05-05-2014 05:49
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Indeed hoping to finish between 5th and 10th here. National bonus included.
Thurau, Koep, Olivier are decent support. Nizzolo won't stand a chance though. Top10 would be great already.
Gesink the favourite of course.
Nice preview!
So all but Keijzer race the 3 race clash. For him those here would have been a waste.
Edited by roturn on 05-05-2014 05:50
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 05-05-2014 06:08
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Ignatiev as nr.1 in startlist, that is nice.
Insane opposition in prologue, but i hope for top3 in that first stage and top10 overall would be great for our 2nd wildcard this year,but likes of Gesink, Phinney or Trofimov should be too good opponents for Mikhail.
Also one of our younger riders joining the break will be expected.
Very nice preview Cunego, i will look forward to your reports. Good luck to all.
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Posted on 09-12-2025 19:16
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| Smowz |
Posted on 05-05-2014 07:33
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I quite like having 8 at each race, but it does led to two of my riders really being redundant which probably is not optimal. In the protour you do get points just for finishing so I don't think it is something to take lightly missing riders.
Coppel is here for the opening stage but that will be a tough one against Phinney. Even so he has a good chance.
Other than that I have a few nice chances with De Bie, Santos ... It is a good puncher field but their could be a chance of a top 15 or so.
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| ggDonovan |
Posted on 05-05-2014 08:33
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I wanted to be here but at the end I didn't feel I had the right riders to ask for a wildcard. Maybe next year.
Good luck to everybody!
Spoiler BTW, quite a transfer going to Eibar (600 km from Barcelona) to do just a TT 
Edited by ggDonovan on 05-05-2014 08:34
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| SotD |
Posted on 05-05-2014 08:51
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Hopefully Óscar Guerao can win atleast one of those flat stages. Last season he showed his capabilities in this race, and with the best possible train for him I hope it will be sufficient. I am a bit scared about Swift though. He is almost always superior to Guerao, and still a couple of strong other sprinters like Bennati, Stauff, Mohs and Guarnieri makes it a coinflip whether or not it was a good idea to bring him at all...
Besides that I hope to see some attacks from my sub hilly guys. I should have a good shot at a decent stageresult, if they do get into a break that lasts, and then hopefully Boily can go for Top 20 also.
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| CountArach |
Posted on 05-05-2014 08:56
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I come here expecting nothing and the right riders to meet my expectations. Stauff will maybe grab a couple of top 10 results but I'm not overly optimistic.
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| Crommy |
Posted on 05-05-2014 09:09
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ALLEZ THEO
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| niconico |
Posted on 05-05-2014 10:44
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Weakest of my triple-header team here, the lack of mountains kept Pluchkin away this season. Hoping Kwiatkowski, Hacecký or Garby could do something from a break.
Other than that, Gesink stands out as the obvious favourite.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 05-05-2014 11:15
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Everybody seeing Gesink as the favorite. This usually back fires with a crash in a crucial moment. Damn you, people
Edited by alexkr00 on 05-05-2014 11:15
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 05-05-2014 11:24
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ggDonovan wrote:
BTW, quite a transfer going to Eibar (600 km from Barcelona) to do just a TT 
Yeh, the Pais Vasco TT managed to insert itself into Catalunya. There wasn't meant to be a long TT in this race, but that mistake wasn't spotted until last week, so too late to change it.
For Vesuvio it is about the sprint stages and Swift here, it should be a good time to grab a first win of the year. Gastauer can hopefully feature on the hill stages, and if there are gaps like in the other races, gain enough to still have a decent post-TT GC position.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 05-05-2014 19:46
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Have good expectations for this race with Costa. Fortunately the field doesn't look so dense in comparison to the other 2 races, which looks good for us. Gesink is the man to beat in my eyes as well.
With the AI already proven itself in both T-A and P-N, I'm expecting nothing but great racing here too.
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