So, objective achieved, I got my top 3 placing, but it was disappointing to be leading for 2/3 of the tour, only to lose it in 2 time trials near the end.
Still, Crawford gained the Mountain Jersey, and Ricco won the Points jersey and Young riders jersey, and we got a whole stack of stage wins. So overall, a successful Giro! and a hard one - only 145 riders finished it!
Apologies if that was a bit too in depth a report - but it was a hell of a race to take part in and I thought I'd share it........I can go back to short reports for a while now Edited by facmanpob on 16-10-2008 22:18
He attacked before the Poggio and lead over the top where my Frank shleck attacked and bridged and held it for a 1-2.
Macquet wrote:
"We all know that wasn't the real footage of the Worlds anyway. That was just the staged footage to perpetuate the coverup that it was actually Vinokourov that won the race."
Kim Kirchen - 1st overall and Points Jersey
Tiago Machado - Mountain Jersey
Thomas Lovkvist - Young Riders jersey
Dauphine Libere
John Devine - 1st overall, Points Jersey and Young Riders jersey
Kanstantin Siutsou - Mountain Jersey
Tour de Suisse
Kim Kirchen - 3rd overall
Marco Pinotti - Mountain Jersey
Tour de France
Season Goal - Win the Tour de France - Failed!
Contador won, 3 minutes ahead of Kloden, with Menchov in 3rd at 9'30"! Sastre would have challenged, but fell on one of the mountain stages and lost over 15 minutes!
Kim Kirchen - 4th overall and Points Jersey
Michael Rogers - Mountain Jersey
John Devine - 7th overall and Young riders jersey
Smoothie wrote:
Good season. Well done. Devine is a monster!
tvm
Devine has been a bit of a revelation this season and is currently in 3rd in the Pro Tour points list behind Contador and Basso:
3rd in the Tour of Malaysia
2nd in Tour of California and Young Riders Jersey
5th in the Tirreno Adriatico
2nd in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and Points Jersey
1st in the Dauphine Libere, Points Jersey and Young Riders Jersey
7th in the Tour de France and Young Riders Jersey
As you can imagine though, his season is now well and truly over!
A win for Linus Gerdemann overall, 3 stage wins for Cavendish (and the points jersey), and a TT win for Wiggins capped off an excellent ENECO tour for us. Oh, and Boasson Hagen won the mountain jersey with some good breakaway work in the first few stages.
GP de Plouay
Kim Kirchen showed his hilly riding ability by powering over the last hill and holding off the pack on the finishing descent to win this important one day race.
Upcoming races:
Tours of Deutschland and Poland
Linus Gerdemann is in peak condition, and I am expecting big things. Greipel and Cavendish will be the main sprinters.
Vuelta
The final season goal (Top 5), should be achievable considering the team I am fielding, and in fact there is no reason why we can't win. I haven't won a Grand Tour yet with Columbia in this career, so I'm looking forward to it!
Team Leader - Pardilla (82 Mtn, 82 TT)
Lieutenants - Ricco and Kirchen - good team mates to have!
Sprinter - Pacheco (81 Sp, 70 Mtn, 73 Hill) - good candidate for the points jersey.
Next Year
The team is also shaping up for next year, with the following signings already confirmed:
Yaroslav Popovych (GT helper and smaller stage race leader)
Vanoverschelde (21 year old super sprinter)
Southerland (Lead out man)
Joost Posthuma (Hilly classics rider)
Quennoz (Swiss rider scouted as a 'Future great' - we'll see!)
A very strong startlist meant this would be difficult!
1st Basso (AST) 2nd Gerdemann (THR) (+Points Jersey)
3rd F. Schleck (CSC)
4th Sastre (CSC)
5th A. Schleck (CSC)
Vattenfall Cyclassics
2nd for Linus Gerdemann
Tour of Poland
1st Linus Gerdemann (won with a great time trial on the last stage)
2nd Tjialingi
3rd Basso
Vuelta a Espana
As you can see from the Tour of Germany results, an enormous number of good riders didn't turn up for the Vuelta. In fact, apart from my team, the only real threats were Kloden, Kreuziger, Pereiro and Di Luca.
In the end though, the combination of Pardilla, Ricco and Kirchen proved unstoppable....
Also, Blanco won the Mountain jersey for us, Pacheco won 2 sprint stages, Reynes and Blanco won breakaway stages in the latter part of the race. So my first GT victory, whilst enjoyable, seems a bit hollow when you consider that Basso, Contador, Sastre, Valverde, Cunego, Evans and the 2 Schlecks weren't there!
World Champs (simmed)
A good result for Britain and Team columbia in the ITT, with Pardilla taking the win, and Wiggins finishing a close 2nd! Frank Schleck won the Road Race in Mendrisio, with our Linus Gerdemann finishing in 6th place.
Autumn Classics
Zuri Metzgate:
1st Vanendert (FdJ)
2nd Valverde (Caisse)
3rd A Schleck (CSC)
... 5th Kirchen (THR)
"We all know that wasn't the real footage of the Worlds anyway. That was just the staged footage to perpetuate the coverup that it was actually Vinokourov that won the race."
The game is so unfair. I was heading towards one of my rather rare wins -- Devolder had attacked 15 km from goal in Monte Paschi Eroica. 5 km from goal he crashes and doesn't get up until his follower, Marco Marcato, passes him. I never manage to catch him again (maybe due to the fact that Devolder is injured), and I lose the sprint for the third place to Gusev.
My best ever win on PCM'08 came at that race when I was using the Real Name Package. Had CSC on the front setting a murderous pace and Cancellara got clear just over a 100k out. Rode away and won the race. Only one even close to him was Ballan.
Unlucky in the Eroica - its so frustrating when riders just fall over randomly! Particularly when its so close to the finish that there's no time to recover.
Last night my new super-sprinter, Kobe Vanoverschelde, who was leading the Tour of Malaysia, fell on the 5th stage, with 10km to go, just as he was being led out for the sprint, and lost 2 minutes to the pack.
Really having to pluck away at my first career in 2008 with young German side Thorn. Made a few signings;
Ekaitz Pena Iza
Massimo Iannetti
Gorka Gonzalez
They have all helped the cause though the most Continental Tour points has come from Daniel Bocke with wins in Santarem, Sarthe and Frankfurt thanks to a radically improving flat and time trial stat. Training working well for all of the young riders as they improve to near green stats. Financially im doing better than expected as well, I cant offer new contracts til my updated wage allowance in October but with prize money I only lose about 10,000 euro a month.
As I write my next race is Tour of Slovenia (mid june) and a win would put Thorn back in the Top 2. Its a tight race for promotion with Agritubel, Barloworld and Thorn about 400 points ahead of Garmin-Chipotle, but its certainly tight between us 3 (within 150 points).
My only minor concern is with the automatic fitness schedules, all of them seem to have a larger affect on fatigue than any of my training on the 2007 game. Hopefully it will all go come the season break.
***FOLLOW @pcm_NetApp for my PCM13 story!***
DEVONIAN
*****[EPIC]***** Agent of Aaron Arblaster and Robert Andrews DS of Sojasunas Morgan Schneiderlin
Its been an interesting start to Season 3 (2010) with Team Columbia, with Michael Rogers unfortunately failing to win a 3rd consecutive Australian Championship. That honour went to Adam Hansen of Team Columbia, however, who managed to get into a big break which just stayed away until the end.
Big signings in the off-season included Popovych, Zabriskie and Voeckler. Already, we have re-signed all of the riders through 2011, with the exception of Ricco, who we will release at the end of the season (he doesn't know that yet though! shhhh! )
In other news, Linus Gerdemann has won the Vuelta al Pais Vasco (I love those downhill finishes!), and Sergio Pardilla took the Tirreno Adriatico (season goal). Next up will be Kirchen for the Ardennes Classics!
Won my first classic on PCM08 today, Ronde van Vlaanderen on hard, of course with Cancellara. I used a good tactic!:
In the example I use CSC, which I used.
1. Set all your riders in the first 1/6 of the peloton
2. When you reach the first camera, set Arvesen and Bak on 80 % and crush the peloton. When I did this, Ballan did not come in the first group.
3. When Arvesen and Bak are empty, move Breschel up front and do the same, just in 75 %.
4. All the time, use the dot(?)(The dot with an arrow next to it) 70-80%(well, just after how fast it goes) in the hills with Cancellara, O'Grady and Kroon.
5. When Breschel is dead, There aren't that many riders in the front group, a few Quickstep riders and a few Silence riders, and of course all the favourites are there. Quickstep will take over now, maybe some of the favourites also will do some work.
6. When 50-45 kms to go, set O'Grady and Kroon in front, and be ready to pace when some of the captains attacks. When you've paced them in, continue the pacing, many of the attackers will be too tired to hold the group, and loose a minute
7. When O'Grady and Kroon are done, set them on 80 % *many dots-button* and wait for the final attacks.
8. Attack over the second last or the last top, and hold a pace so the yellow bar would not be empty.
This worked really well, and I beat Boonen with 45 seconds after chasing him down when 8 kms to go. Try
I play a career with a custom-made team. That team started with just Norwegians, and the best rider with 68 in average. After a few years, the young Norwegians got better, and I got a promotion. Then, I signed Valverde, Klöden and Evans to help me in the three GTs. Klöden won the Giro, Valverde got 2nd in the Tour, with Sangnes on 3rd. Sangnes is one of the Norwegians I started with. Evans won the Vuelta, I think. In PCM, who cares about the Vuelta anyways (except spanish/portuguese teams)?
Now, I'm in 2012. Just before the Giro. The sponsors wany me to:
Win Paris - Nice
Top 3 in Volta a Catalunya (or something)
Win the Giro
Top 3 in the PT-race during the Giro. Vuelta al pais Vasco? O.o
Win the Tour.
High demands? With riders like Valverde, Evans and F. Schleck, and some Norwegians that turned out to be good, I don't think so... Unless Pardilla or Contador participates..
BTW: Klöden has started losing stats. D=
ChristerT wrote:
I play a career with a custom-made team. That team started with just Norwegians, and the best rider with 68 in average. After a few years, the young Norwegians got better, and I got a promotion. Then, I signed Valverde, Klöden and Evans to help me in the three GTs. Klöden won the Giro, Valverde got 2nd in the Tour, with Sangnes on 3rd. Sangnes is one of the Norwegians I started with. Evans won the Vuelta, I think. In PCM, who cares about the Vuelta anyways (except spanish/portuguese teams)?
Now, I'm in 2012. Just before the Giro. The sponsors wany me to:
Win Paris - Nice
Top 3 in Volta a Catalunya (or something)
Win the Giro
Top 3 in the PT-race during the Giro. Vuelta al pais Vasco? O.o
Win the Tour.
High demands? With riders like Valverde, Evans and F. Schleck, and some Norwegians that turned out to be good, I don't think so... Unless Pardilla or Contador participates..
BTW: Klöden has started losing stats. D=
Catalunya is during the GiroEdited by alexkr00 on 01-12-2008 17:26
and a hard one - only 145 riders finished it!
