I'm in a difficult situation here. I really don't know whether or not I would be able to stay with the top riders in the final. And as there are some strong teams here (T-Mobile mostly, but also Leopard or NetApp), it wouldn't make much sense to go into the break if no one from those teams is in there. Maybe I can follow the right attack, otherwise I'll just try to hang on with the favorites.
Live Ticker
Km 2:
The first attacks are made by riders from smaller continental teams.
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Km 9:
Three riders are 1'30 in front. T-Mobile already starts pacing a bit.
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Km 10:
Three more riders try to escape...
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Km 19:
The advance is growing slowly, but it's growing: Two minutes for the six leaders.
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Km 23:
Two more riders made it to the front, which still consists of only weak riders from weak teams. They try to use the only chance they have today.
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Km 40:
On the first big climb, T-Mobile continues to lead the chase and the advance already starts to decrease. Dominik Nerz comfortably sits in second row.
They as well reach the two minutes gap. T-Mobile keeps controlling the pace.
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Km 87:
Marcel Kittel attacks...
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Km 91:
… followed by Bertling (Eddy Merckx) and Burghardt (BMC) …
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Km 107:
… and during the combination of hills halfway through the race, Kittel reaches the leading duo, who are 5 minutes in front of the pack. Bertling and Burghardt follow 1'30 behind.
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Km 124:
T-Mobile now ups the pace! They don't want to leave the win to the break today.
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Km 134:
As a result, the main pack starts to split. 13 riders including Nerz, Voigt and Klöden leave the others behind.
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Km 141:
In the meantime, Marcus Burghardt reached the leaders. With almost 50 kms to go, they're 3'30 in front. Bertling is about to be caught.
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Km 158:
The favorite's bunch approaches the last ascent of the day.
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Km 160:
And finally, there's some movement! Jens Voigt attacks, followed by Paul Martens.
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Km 161:
The favorites go, but Dominik Nerz can't follow anymore. He won't fight for the win today, but that was pretty clear either.
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Km 166:
On the descent, the four original break riders are still in front with Paul Martens right behind them. They're followed by a group of five around Voigt and Klöden. Nerz is one minute behind them.
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Km 172:
The two groups unite and Tony Martin attacks right away!
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Km 177:
That attack was half-hearted. 13 kms to go and eleven riders ride together in front now. Kittel and Greipel would be favorites in a sprint, but they were in the break almost the whole day.
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Km 185:
5 kms to go. We will indeed see a sprint for the win today. Do Kittel and Greipel have enough power left?
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Km 187:
Jens Voigt starts the sprint for the win from the very front, not quite the best position. He's followed by Niermann, Martin and Martens. Kittel and Greipel are at the back of the group.
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Km 189:
Under the flamme rouge, Martin takes over the lead with Paul Martens right on his wheel...
As expected, I couldn't do much. If I followed Greipel at his breakaway, I might have been able to finish in the first group, but that hadn't make much of a difference anyway. 17th is okay and I could continue to build up my shape.
Now I have about a week without racing until the Österreich-Rundfahrt starts.
@sutty68: Yep, you're right! Among the riders in front of Dominik, only Kittel and Greipel have a lower hill stat, and they survived in front being in the break, so considering his shape, Dominik did okay.
@ Avin: Thanks. Yes, Dominik will lead the team, but he won't have much support. For the mountains, it's just Valerio Agnoli, otherwise the team is quite sprinter-orientated - not the best planning by me, tbh, as there won't be many sprint stages
+++ National Championships: Kreuziger, Boasson Hagen and Popovych dominant, Pierfelici surprises +++
In the past week, the National Championships, both in road race and time trial, took place in most countries. Some of the results were quite surprising. Here's an overview:
Time Trial:
Belgium
Dominique Cornu
Topsport Vlaanderen
Canada
Svein Tuft
GreenEdge
Czech Republic
Roman Kreuziger
Liquigas
Denmark
Jakob Fuglsang
Leopard
France
Damien Monier
Cofidis
Germany
Andreas Klöden
Team T-Mobile
Great Britain
Bradley Wiggins
Sky
Italy
Marco Pinotti
Acqua & Sapone
Netherlands
Thomas Dekker
Rabobank
Norway
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky
Poland
Przemyslav Niemiec
Lampre
Portugal
Tiago Machado
RadioShack
Russia
Denis Menchov
Geox
Spain
Alberto Contador
Movistar
Switzerland
Fabian Cancellara
Leopard
Ukraine
Yaroslaw Popovych
Unicef
United States
Steven Cozza
NetApp
Roman Kreuziger dominated the time trial in Czech Republic, as expected, and took Liquigas' only NC win. He repeats that on the road race two days later!
Road Race
Austria
Gerrit Glomser
Elite-2
Belgium
Tom Boonen
Quick·Step
Canada
Ryder Hesjedal
Garmin
Czech Republic
Roman Kreuziger
Liquigas
Danmark
Matti Breschel
Rabobank
Estonia
Kalle Kriit
Cofidis
France
Steve Chainel
FDJ
Germany
Paul Martens
Rabobank
Great Britain
Mark Cavendish
Team T-Mobile
Italy
Luca Pierfelici
Miche
Ireland
Roger Aiken
Elite-2
Kazakhstan
Assan Bazayev
Astana
Lithuania
Dainius Kairelis
Elite-2
Luxembourgh
Joel Zangerle
Differdange
Netherlands
Karsten Kroon
Skil
Norway
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky
Poland
Radoslav Romanik
Farnese Vini
Portugal
Ricardo Vilela
Onda
Russia
Alexandr Kolobnev
Rabobank
Slovenia
Marko Kump
Geox
Spain
Alejandro Valverde
Unicef
Switzerland
Johann Tschopp
GreenEdge
Sweden
Jonas Ljungblad
Differdange
Ukraine
Yaroslav Popovych
Unicef
United States
Tom Danielson
Garmin
The biggest surprise of all: Luca Pierfelici put one over all the Italian top starts and takes the national champions title!
Great review of the champs, it will be nice to see Kreuziger in the National Champs shirt on the road and time trial. It must of taken a while to do that report, with all those flags! Well done. Can't wait for Austria.
@ Teddy: Thanks. Actually, the flags didn't take too much time. I have a relatively quick "strategy": I don't copy every code of every flag each by itself from photobucket but I just copy one and paste it in every row. And then I just change the two letter that determine the country. E.g. I copy the code https://i1221.phot...ags/be.gif as often as I need flags and then just change the "be" to the respective country code. That doesn't take very long.
I hope you understand that, didn't really know how to put it
@ sutty68: Well yeah, he is, but it would have bee really disappointing if he didn't win the races, as he's so high above any other Czech rider^^
Cofidis had a terrific month with Leonardo Duque winning both the Tour du Luxembourg and the ZLM Tour and Jurgen Roelandts' triumph at the Delta Tour Zeeland. Another outstanding rider was Astana's Robert Kiserlovski with two overall wins at the Tour de Slovenie and the GP d'Argovie. Meanwhile, Alberto Contador proved his good shape towards the Tour with the win in Switzerland.
World Tour Ranking
With his fourth spot at the Tour de Suisse, Fabio Duarte overtook Nibali and Boonen, otherwise the individual ranking didn't change at all.
The Top 7 mostly stayed the same, only Boonen switched with Gilbert and Cancellara overtook Scarponi. Martin and Roelandts enter the Top 10 after a very successful month.
Leopard jumped to third place and kicked Skil out of the Top 5. Movistar advanced a spot while Lampre falls from 3 to 5.
French and Italian teams really dominate here. With their fantastic month, Cofidis created a gap to the others. Saur is still their main rival but Geox made a big leap forward due to Duarte's great performances. What a pity they didn't get a wild card for the Tour.
Victory Ranking
Boonen and Duque catch up to Casper but Cunego still leads comfortably.
Liquigas extends their lead with three more wins this month. Cofidis reaches the Top 5 of this ranking as well and kicks Skil out.
Kreuziger and Brajkovic build the dual leadership for the Tour de France but the only real chance of getting the leader's jersey will be to win the uphill finish on stage one - a hard challenge. In the meantime, young gun Dominik Nerz gets the chance to demonstrate both his skill and his leadership in Austria and Italy. The Clasica San Sebastian will then terminate Kreuziger's season.
. July 2, 2012 - Internationale Österreich-Rundfahrt
Preview
The Race
The Österreich-Rundfahrt is the biggest cycling event in Austria and has a long tradition going back til 1947. In that time, its length varied from seven to ten stages and was often used as a preparation for the Tour, due to its many mountain stages, but since 2005 it's held in July parallely to the Tour, thus not being very attractive to top stars like Cadel Evans anymore, who won the race in 2001 and 2004. Record winner is Wolfgang Steinmayr with four wins in the 1970s.
Including four mountain stages including two mountain top finishes and a 32 kms long time trial, the Österreich-Rundfahrt features all the classical aspects of a stage race and is a tough challenge for the participating riders.
It starts with a relatively easy stage, mostly flat, but the hills towards the finish might prevent a mass sprint finish. We then see the first mountain top finish already, the hard ascent to the Kitzbühler Horn. The next stage, though classified mountaineous, shouldn't be that hard as the climb of the day is in the middle of the stage with lots of descending kms afterwards.
On stage four, we have the second MTF on the Großglockner, which again will challenge the overall contenders to give their very best. The short fifth stage features two mediocrely hard but rather long climbs, both followed by a long descent.
The last three stages are all mostly, but not completely flat, allowing both sprint and breakaway finishes - except for the time trial on stage seven, of course, which will fix the GC.
Spoiler
Result in 2011
1
Gustav Erik Larsson
Saxo Bank - Sungard
2
Michael Albasini
HTC - Highroad
3
Tejay Van Garderen
HTC - Highroad
4
Markus Fothen
Team NSP
5
Chris Anker Sörensen
Saxo Bank - Sungard
Favorites
Tejay Van Garderen (T-Mobile) , Michele Gaia (Miche)
Dominik Nerz (Liquigas)
Johan Tschopp (GreenEdge) , Hector Guerra (Christina Watches)
Marek Rutkiewicz (CCC)
Stefan Denifl (Vorarlberg) , Constantino Zaballa (Miche)
The field is, compared to recent editions, quite weak. Dominik has very good chances in the overall classification. Although there are better climbers like Guerra or Gaia and better time trialists like Van Garderen, he is more than decent in both disciplines. Plus, his high regeneration might help him during the tough four consecutive mountain stages.
Team Liquigas
As stated above, Dominik aims for a good overall ranking, maybe even the win. We would be satisfied with a Top 5 as his shape isn't quite perfect yet. Also, we have a strong sprinter squad so we hope for some good results on the three flat stages as well.
@ sutty68: Thank you! I think I will need some luck...
@ Teddy: Well, easy - surely not Tejay will surely be my main rival, he has 75 in mountain just as Dominik but 77 in time trial... Only good thing is that he has only 70 in Reg, so this might be my big advance after the huge mountain stages... But unfortunatly, I didn't perfectly time his training schedule so he starts the race with only 83 shape. Well, we'll see what he'll be able to do.
The stage starts with loads of flat kilometers but the finish is preceded by a lot of up and down which should harm pure sprinters.
Dominik's Pre-Race Comment
Unfortunately, my shape is still not too good, so I'm glad we don't start right off in the mountains. Today, I'll just try to stay in the front group, which shouldn't be too hard, and maybe even make a move myself. Otherwise, it seems important to bring someone into the break today. The finish seems perfectly shaped for Tiziano Dall'Antonia, hopefully he can achieve a Top 10 finish or more.
Live Ticker
Km 2:
Adria Mobil's Blaz Jarc starts the race with an attack. Among others, Liquigas' neo pro Carlo Favini jumps on his wheel.
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Km 12:
A group of ten is about 1'30 in front of the peloton.
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Km 17:
Favini and Stauff get away from the rest of the group but still aren't clear.
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Km 23:
They didn't make it but Favini is still in the front group.
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Km 58:
With 17 riders, the group got too big for the pack to tolerate. Everything is back together.
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Km 73:
The next attacks succeeded: Five riders among Alan Marangoni got away!
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Km 92:
The four riders including Marangoni have an advance of three minutes in front of the pack while Pole Mariusz Witecki is another 40 seconds up the road.
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Km 115:
The advance already began to decrease as Janek Tombak (Osterhus) attacks from the pack.
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Km 135:
On the ascent to the first mountain sprint, all the escapees are caught again. Only Witecki is still a bit in front.
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Km 138:
The Pole takes the points but will soon be caught by the chasing Rabobank Continental Teams.
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Km 144:
Nothing happens over the second mountain sprint as Rabobank Conti for Pim Ligthard and NetApp for Daryl Impey control the pace.
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Km 149:
Piotr Kieblesz tries a late attack with 11 kms to go...
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Km 156:
He only creates a very small gap and with 4 kms to go, Dominik Nerz tries to use the last ascent to do something!
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Km 158:
Nerz starts the sprint with a couple of meters of advance. In the pack, Dall'Antonia is in a good position, too.
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Km 158:
While the sprint is in full play, a huge crash happens at the back of the pack. We'll have to see who's affected later.
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Km 159:
Nerz is still in front under the flamme rouge but the pack is chasing. It doesn't look like he'll make it.
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Km 160:
So close, yet so far: 200m in front of the line, Dominik is overtaken.
Eventually, only 69 riders finish within Szczawinski's time. From the favorites, only Atlas' Hubert Schwab lost more than three minutes and can burry his overall hopes. Two minor riders had to abandon the race after the crash.
I think we can be pretty satisfied with today. We went into the breaks and got TV time, and I got another chance to test my legs before the real mountains start. My late move even got us a Top 10 finish and it felt good to be on the attack again.
Tomorrow will be really tough so I better be going to bed now. See you,
Poor form my ass! I know you had some luck there with the crash, but Dom obviously feels good after such a strong attack. So close to an amazing stage-win, but 8th is just as good!
I know you had some luck there with the crash, but Dom obviously feels good after such a strong attack. So close to an amazing stage-win, but 8th is just as good!
