Exciting end to the race! Big congratulations to especially DD and alexkr on amazing races, but also Team Kennett , Xero on two stage wins, and Lierse on a massive final stage.
For us, Kragh got what we expected. Always hope for yellow to last longer here, but it proves difficult every year Romo was disappointing stage results wise, but this was always going to be a difficult race to score in for pure puncheurs.
Horrible day from Skjelmose to round it out. Unfortunately, I think stamina is gonna be the issue looking at where he ended up. His medium mountain is on par with some of the better climbers, but it clearly didn't matter that much. He was tiring early and lost huge time on all the contenders. Hopefully that doesn't end up being a trend, but I'm not optimistic. I guess the good news is the 55 seconds he lost on stage 6 didn't matter since he cracked so hard.
11th place, two more in the top 30, some minor stage placings and minor classification spots. It's not the worst result, though we definitely dreamed of more bringing our A-squad here for Skjelmose's first race. I'm also quite worried about how the AI is handling having leaders on multiple terrains and support outside of sprints.
Thank you for the reports and congrats to Gazelle! They always seem to find the best niche riders.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Congrats for the stage to wj and the overall win, DD! Ranaweera in 4th (and some depth points from most of the team) is clearly a good result, especially as the best PCT rider. But with all three riders on the podium worse climbers than him there's still a feeling there could have been even more in it here.
Misbah with a top 5 GC here for the second season in a row is really nice to see. no depth points unfortunately but between this and Hirschi's TdU it's been a strong opening month for us so far.
Now to hand the reigns over to Einhorn for Juarez and GORC
Without that silly time loss on a hilly stage or a better time trial Reis would have been fifth instead of seventh. Maybe fourth if both fell his way. So in the end maybe not that much lost but still leaves a sour taste and not a welcome sign for some races to come.
Thank you! Very happy with what I think is Leknessund's first GC win.
Many strong riders (including Aleotti and Carboni) lost unnecessary time in various stages, but Andreas' positioning was top notch every day. Great performance.
The way the final stage played out was the perfect scenario for us. That first big attack with 10km to go featured many of the strongest climbers (Almeida, Rodrigues, Ranaweera) so it probably cost Evenepoel a lot of energy to follow it. But it got reeled in by domestiques.
Then a few km later a similar group (this time also including Leknessund) went and an already half-cooked Evenepoel had to go all-in AGAIN. Eventually this resulted in the GC-defining screenshot of Leknessund pulling the group away from the cracking yellow jersey under the 5km banner.
This was a fun tour to follow. Thanks for the reports Imladrik!
A great ending to the race. Gutted to see Evenepoel lose it after a perfect eace this far, but the mountain stage was interesting lively and realistic imo. In the end Leknessund proved to be the better allrounder. Congrats DD and everyone else who did well.
The hilly stages were worryingly unselective. Happy to see Rodrigues fare well in most of them. The TT stage was fatal though. I really didnt expect a 1min deficit let alone two. He redeemed himself igniting the first wave of attacks in the final stage which ultimately gave us 6th. Better luck than many, can't complain much, but one can't help thinking what could have been. Think we were 5th last year so it's also worrying to see us fare worse than the '24 stressful season.
Loved the reports. Thanks for everything Imladrik!
Pity Yates wasn't sprinting for the win. Still 9th is probably a reasonable GC outcome given the startlist. Three more in top 50 so a few depth points.
Fun to see the PT young guns battling it out. Congrats to DD on the win. Thanks for the reports.
Nice preview Jakstar22 and great reports Imladrik.
Both the prologue and time-trial went pretty good, too bad Rikunov and Mamykin lost time during stage 4. Luckily they both bounced back by being in the break during the last stage, but overall not many points gathered I suppose.
, Xero on two stage wins, and Lierse on a massive final stage.
