Il Lombardia! La corse della foglie morte, or the race of the falling leaves. The season closing around Lake Como in the North of Italy, just South of the Alps. The route changes every few years, but the famous Madonna del Ghisallo is present every year!
It's the 105th edition and Fausto Coppi is the record winner with 5 wins in '46-'49 & '54. The last 2 editions were won by the same guy, Belgium's Philippe Gilbert.
The favourites: *** Damiano Cunego (Lampre, 3 times winner), Robert Gesink, Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma, 2 times winner) ** Alberto Contador (Saxo), Cadel Evans (BMC), Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) * Ivan Basso (Liquigas), Joaquim RodrÃguez (Katusha), Andy Schleck
Our goal:
The sponsor goal is a 5th place, we aim for a top 3, but too be honest our dream is the win.
The action starts short before the summit of the first climb of the day, the Salita d'Intelvi (9.0km, 6.0%). Geox' Fabio Duarte attacks and is the first on the summit.
In the descend he is joined by 6 companions: Jerome Pineau (Quick Step), Jurgen van den Broeck (Omega Pharma), Anders Lund (Leopard), Dimitriy Muravyev (Radio Shack), Amets Txurruka (Euskaltel) and Pierpaolo de Negri (Farnese Vini). With 110.5 kilometres to go, they have 8 minute lead over the peloton.
The leading group has started the climb of the Madonna del Ghisallo (10.9km at 5.0%). De Negri has already lost contact and the next one to get dropped is Muravyev. There are still 62 kilometres remaining, and the peloton is 5'19 behind.
Van den Broeck and Pineau set a high pace, that also makes Lund and Txurruka get dropped. Shortly before the summit, when the rider here the bells of the chaple on top of the mountain, Duarte cracks and has to let the 2 go. The peloton follows at 4'45 with 53km to go.
Immediately after the Madonna del Ghisello, the riders face the next climb, the Colma di Sarmano (9.4km at 6.5%). 4 kilometres under the summit, with the leaders having an advantage of 4'30, Joaquim Rodriguez attacks. No one reacts, the favourites belive it's too early to attack.
Jurgen van den Broeck is the first on the summit. Pineau follows at 1'13, and Rodriguez at 4'11, who has passed Duarte.
The peloton. led by Alberto Contador and Damiano Cunego, follows at 5'09. 3 riders from our team are present in this group of 19: Robert Gesink, Andy Schleck and Jelle Vanendert. Gesink has the best legs (and daily form), so the other 2 decide to ride for him!
And sometimes a rider surprises the entire cycling-world with strange sttacks. Damiano Cunego, THE favourite to win his 4th Lombardia, attacks in the descend with 36 kilometres to go. Why does he do that? Okay, he joins with RodrÃguez, but Vanendert and Schleck are chasing them.
Meanwhile, Jurgen van den Broeck is back on the flat part of the race, next to the Lago di Como and rides towards the last climb of the day, the San Fermo della Battaglia. 20 more kilometres to go.
Pineau follows at 1'37 and the chasing group at 3'27. Cunego and RodrÃguez have been caught. But can they close the gap to the Belgian leader in time, or are they too late?
7 kilometres later, the peloton has closed a 1'50-gap to Pineau. So with 13 kilometres to go, there is one leader left, with an advantage of 1'52.
Van den Broeck feels already wasted when he starts the ascend of the San Fermo della Battaglia (2.2km at 8.7%, with parts up to 22%!). He only has 6600 metres left, but the chasing group is just '44 behind, thanks to incredible work by Schleck and Vanendert.
It tooks less than one kilometre before the chasing group passes leader Van den Broeck. And 3 riders look much stronger compared to the others: Contador, Cunego and Gesink.
With a little over 5 kilometres to go, and a few hundred ascending metres, Robert Gesink launches his attack. He knows that he will be beaten by both Contador and especially Cunego in a sprint, so he has to try it.
At the summit of the San Fermo della Battaglia, Gesink has a lead of '15 to Contador and Cunego. The others are too far behind!
After the descend, with a little over one kilometre to go, Gesink has lost 4 seconds. The sprint starts with a lead of '11!
The sprint has started and the Dutch rider gives it all he has got. 300 metres to go and Cunego is coming fast!
The legs are burning and the speed starts fading. The Italian is closing in quickly. Gesink continues peddling to the finish line and..........
He has done it!! Robert Gesink has won Il Lombardia, the first Dutch rider in 30 years (Hennie Kuiper in '81)! He is exhausted but out of his mind. Cunego gets 2nd and is angry: "5 more metres and I would have won my 4th Lombardia...). And Contador? He's happy with 3rd.
Word from the DS:
What a perfect way to finish our dream season! The entire team worked their asses off to get Gesink in a good position to the last climb, and they succeeded. Bring those bottles of champagne, Chianti, Brunello, Vino Nobile, beer, and what ever is left, it's time to party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Riders
Only 7 points was the gap between the number one and the number two, Thanks to his own in Il Lombardia, Robert Gesink jumped over Joaquim RodrÃguez and totally deserves this first place. He won the tour de Romandie, the Giro d'Italia and la Vuelta a Espana, before winning Il Lombardia. Philippe Gilbert takes the 3rd place.
Riders
Mostly thanks to a lot of top 3 finishes and a few wins, it's Team NetAPP's Daryl Impey who wins the Continental-rankings. He deserves a transfer to the new World Tour team GreenEDGE with it! Andy Schleck takes the 2nd place, before Colombian Leonardo Duque.
Riders
Thanks to winning Lombardia, Robert Gesink is the only rider who won 14 times this season. Fabian Cancellara and Andy Schleck celebrated 13 times.
Teams
Team Sky got 3rd with 26 wins, HTC - Highroad 2nd with 29 wins but one team ruled them all! Monster Energy - Ford took 56 wins (and yes, I know, time to switch to extreme for an entire season in all the races.....)
The first season was a dream season: winning 2 Grand Tours and winning 3 World Tour-classics with a young and very promosig team. Already looking forward to 2012!!
As already said before (and some things not said before), I will change a few things for the 2012 season:
- Geox and HTC will dissapear.
- Leopard and Radio Shack will merge into Nissan-Radio Shack-Trek.
- Omega Pharma - Lotto and Quick Step will become Lotto - Ridley and Omega Pharma - Quick Step.
- Skil - Shimano will become 1T4i.
- The HTC-riders will go to the irl-life team for 2012, but not if they went to an other team in the game (eg if Cavendish went to Rabobank in the game (and that's not), he would stay there, but because he goes to Sky irl, he goes to Sky in the game).
- I'll try to fill in th eplaces of the newly formed teams (Greenedge, NRST, OMQS, LR) as close to reality as possible (unless they had a completely different transfer in the game)
- Everyone in team Monster will stay there!
So here are the most important transfers:
Cadel Evans doesn't feel comfortabole anymore at BMC, after the arrival of Gilbert, so he decides to leave. He chooses for the big money of Katusha. Together with RodrÃguez, he will go for the GT's again.
Tejay van Garderen is a big talent, but was dissapointing this season. As the HTC-quits, he decides to go to Continental - team Colnago. Strange move, but probably Tejay likes linving and racing in Italy and maybe he can give the Italians promotion to the World Tour together with Pozzovivo.
That's too many sprinters for Heinrich Haussler, so he decides to move to Rabobank. Indeed, the former team of Freire. Together with Matti Breschel he will form a dangerous sprint duo, also for the cobbled classics!
Who would have thougt that??? Former dope sinner Michael Rasmussen joins the team of ALberto Contador and Bjarne Riis!! Rasmussen is already 37 years old, but can help Contador in the GT's!
I'll give you a season review by naming the 5 biggest disappointments and than the 5 biggest riders (to my opinion).
Negatives
5 Mark Cavendish
Negative? He is the world champ? Yes, because besides the world championship, the best sprinter in the world only won the national champs, 2 stages in the Bayern Rundfahrt and one stage in the Vuelta a Espana. In the Tour de France he did not get a top 3. Pretty disappointing to me.....
4 Andre Greipel
Greipel had a decent start of the season, winning Kuurne - Brussel - Kuurne and 2 stages in the Driedaagse De Panne - Koksijde. But after that, he only managed to win 2 stages in the Poland Tour. And that's not enough for one of worlds best sprinters!
3 Jurgen van den Broeck
The Belgian hope for a podium in the Tour de France had high hopes for this season, after a 5th place in the Tour de France of 2010. He won no races, and finished 9th in the GC of the Giro and 17th in the Tour....
2 Frank Schleck
Without the help and support of his younger brother, Frank Schleck focussed completely on the Tour de France. He was in yellow, but collapsed in the Alps, ending up in 14th place. Also the Ardennes-classics were pretty bas, with a 5th in the Fleche Wallone and a 9th in Liege - Bastogne - Liege. No wins for Frank, that makes him the second biggest disappointing rider of 2010.
1 Tom Boonen
An early season win in a stage in the Tour Down Under proofed to be a good season for Tom Boonen. But that was it. No more wins, not even podium places. Not in the sprints, not in his beloved cobbled classics. But I'm sure Tommeke will be back next year!
Edited by dienblad on 07-11-2011 18:05
5 Joaquim RodrÃguez
Purito was one of the most attacking puncheurs and that brought him the GC/win in Pais Vasco, as well as a stage win in La Vuelta and many, many podium finishes!
4 Damiano Cunego
Only one rider could attack better than Rodriguez and that is Damiano Cunego. Il Piccolo Principe won the Amstel Gold Race in the spring and in the autumn he won 4 stages in the Vuelta, and got 2nd in the GC.
3 Thor Hushovd
Norwegian Thor Hushovd showed that he deserved wearing the rainbow jersey in 2011 (untill the worlds in Copenhagen of course). He was the king of the cobbles of the Flanders-Roubaix double!
2 Alberto Contador
El Pistolero started in the Giro d'Italia and won a few stages and ended up on the podium. After a period of rest he won his 4th Tour de France. He even battled for the win in Il Lombardia with the 3rd place. A great year for Alberto, who still waits for the verdict in the Clenbuterol case. For the record: no positive doing tests for him thi season!
1 Robert Gesink
Winning the tour de Romandie, than winning 2 stages and the GC in the Giro d'Italia. Than performing at his best in La Vuelta with 4 stage wins and his 2nd Grand Tour win of the year, and to finish it with the win in Il Lombardia.... Need I say more?
Congrats!
