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Criterium du Dauphine Libere Discussion
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 23-11-2014 18:27
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 Criterium du Dauphine Libere
The annual ProTour-stage-race-pre-Le Tour-double-header is completed by the Criterium du Dauphine, kicking off with a prologue und finishing with a long flat timetrial.
Whoever wants to follow on last year's winner Phinney (who won't be at the start this year), needs to be strong on hills, mountains and against the clock. The crucial mountain stages on the last three days, but also the two hilly stages will definitely make for an interesting race. The sixth day is meant to be the queen stage, featuring a summit finish up the "Mont Bisane" (13km, 7.8% average, 12% max), but we may see major changes in the GC on the concluding 42.5km ITT.
Two-time Dauphine-champion Spilak (2011, 2012) will aim for his third title here after finishing as runner-up behind Phinney last season.. and with Dekker we have another former champion (2007) at the start.
The Startlist
The Favorites
| Rider | MO | HI | TT |  Spilak | 85 | 80 | 77 |  Taaramäe | 82 | 78 | 80 |  Sicard | 82 | 78 | 76 |  Dekker | 82 | 76 | 79 |  Rujano | 82 | 74 | 71 |  Gesink | 81 | 81 | 80 |  Martin | 81 | 77 | 73 |  Keinath | 79 | 76 | 75 |  Monsalve | 79 | 74 | 70 |  Pinot | 79 | 74 | 65 |  Faiers | 78 | 71 | 75 |  vd Hugenhaben | 77 | 80 | 71 |  Bibby | 77 | 76 | 77 |  LL Sanchez Gil | 77 | 79 | 75 |  Kunshin | 77 | 73 | 71 |  Costa | 71 | 80 | 76 |
Spilak is of course the one to beat here, though the competition is fierce: Taaramäe and Gesink both have an extraordinary strong allround package of skills to be the most serious contenders for the overall win.
Local hero Sicard will aim for the first French victory since John Gadret's double from 2009 and 2010, while former champion Dekker will love the concluding timetrial just like Taaramäe and Gesink in particular.
Less stronger TTlers like Rujano, Martin or Keinath may need to be aggressive on that mountains. Stronger puncheurs like vd Hugenhaben or Costa will target for yellow on that hilly stages.. and allrounders like PCT-invitee Bibby or LL Sanchez should be threats for the Top-10, too.
The Stage-Hunters
| Sprinters | TTlers | Puncheurs |  Swift |  Coppel |  Claeys |  Impey | Cornu | Flügel |  Degenkolb | Martin | Dowsett | | Avelino | Mottin | Levarlet | | Stauff | | Sagan | | Guardini | | | | Bouhanni | | | | Santos | | | | Keukeleire | | | | Krasnov | | |
TT-superstar Coppel is here to at least complete a triple of winning the prologue as he did in 2013, 2012 (and also 2010). With already 5 stage-wins here in total (three in 2010), those two TTs on the menu will of course offer great chances to make it seven this year.
Two flat stages did also attract premium sprinters like Swift, Impey or Degenkolb to participate. Especially Impey will love the challenging parcours on that flat days, but we may see tight sprints there.
Claeys, Flügel and Dowsett are mainly here to be in the mix for those two hilly stages and maybe establish such a comfortable gap on pure climbers to somehow hold on to a decent GC-position eventually.
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| Smowz |
Posted on 23-11-2014 20:06
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So this is where Spllak and you could argue festina's season begins. they have struggled to get anywhere near the top of the rankings this year, cannot surely fail with Mr Dauphine Spilak.
Gesink is probably the biggest danger with old foe Dekker.
coppell should win the opening stage, if not we at SRB will need to rectify that, think final stage may swing GC guys way. I if course hope not so setting goal of two stages and possibly short spell in lead.
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| roturn |
Posted on 23-11-2014 20:10
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Had hoped for less competition here but too many strong riders.
LLS for top10 would be cool. But he will need a selective hilly stage then.
One chance only but Guardini in the mix is nice. |
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| ember |
Posted on 23-11-2014 20:26
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To make a long story short, this is all about Impey and possible breakaways for us, as I doubt Levarlet will be able to follow the GC guys on the hilly stages if they decide to make a race of them.
Great preview, and no doubts this race has an outstanding favourite in Spilak. Really hard to see him lose this. |
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 23-11-2014 20:37
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Not sure how suitable the flat stages are for Swift, but he is here for them just in case. Not much GC hopes for Vesuvio, but hopefully Jaguar can do well in that regard
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| CountArach |
Posted on 23-11-2014 22:05
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Thanks for the preview, it looks like we might be able to scrape something from here after all. I just have to hope that the hilly stage is selective enough.
I'm surprised that there aren't more pure TTists here.
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| roturn |
Posted on 24-11-2014 07:56
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This is probably due to the TTT in Suisse.
While Keizer skips both again, Schädlich is "supporting" Gomez Marchante in the TTT. |
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| CountArach |
Posted on 24-11-2014 10:51
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roturn wrote:
This is probably due to the TTT in Suisse.
While Keizer skips both again, Schädlich is "supporting" Gomez Marchante in the TTT.
Yeah I realised afterwards. Still hopefully that will benefit me sending Cornu here.
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| SotD |
Posted on 24-11-2014 11:38
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Anything less than a stagewin and the overall GC will be extremely dissapointing. Especially looking at how my season has been below-par so far.
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| Roman |
Posted on 24-11-2014 16:30
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Top 10 overall from Rujano and some decent stage results from Sagan are expected results here for me. Sagan could especially do something here with this field for hilly stages with his decent final kick.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 24-11-2014 17:10
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Gesink to podium here? Hopefully.
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| beagle |
Posted on 24-11-2014 18:35
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I can only repeat the same from Tour of Swiss thread. This time Degenkolb could possibly do something in stages 2 & 4. And it would be really really nice to see Ion Izagirre being active finally. Comparing to his wage, it would be hard to find another such invisible rider through PT 
Manager of Polar in Man-Game
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| Smowz |
Posted on 24-11-2014 19:41
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Good... perhaps not convincing as it might have been but a win in a prologue is always a good win. Coppel could well hold on to the lead through to stage 3 and perhaps beyond that?
Now I am being greedy as the brilliant reporter tsmoha suggest it is currently party time at SRB HQ!
Great chrono kit thanks oleg tinkov
Edited by Smowz on 24-11-2014 19:51
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 24-11-2014 19:52
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Solid start from Jaguar with two in the Top 10. Interesting day for Vueling with two 2nd places.
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| SotD |
Posted on 24-11-2014 20:26
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7th here is pretty good... Let's hope Spilak will shine.
Edited by SotD on 24-11-2014 20:27
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| ember |
Posted on 24-11-2014 21:13
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Coppel does what he's expected and paid to do, and it's always good to see a rider match the expectations. A quiet prologue for us, just as expected. Hopefully Impey can give it a real go on the coming stage, but Swift is the obvious favourite with Degenkolb also looking dangerous seeing how he rocked the Vuelta.
And thanks for your huge effort to keep the pace of the game, tsmoha! It's great to see you basically report any race be it a continental race or a Pro Tour race, all to keep it going. |
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| CountArach |
Posted on 24-11-2014 22:56
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Oh third place is brilliant. It is nice to see that Cornu has handled the step back up to the top flight quite well. Also VdHH lost very little time which is great.
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| dave92 |
Posted on 24-11-2014 23:43
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Pinot losing over 50 seconds already underlines his weakness, but I wanted to send him here to animate the mountain stages so we will see how that goes.
Coppel is absolutely dominant in the tt's.
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| roturn |
Posted on 25-11-2014 08:19
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LLS with a nice start as 10th.
He has to perform on the next few days to have a decent gap to the pure climbers later. |
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 25-11-2014 18:31
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Swift still has a Vuelta hangover then, quite an appalling sprint considering the stats. Bouhanni a very surprise winner
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