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Tour of South Africa Discussion
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| Vien |
Posted on 11-03-2019 06:41
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Small Tour Specialist
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 Tour of South Africa
Welcome to South Africa for another thrilling edition of its Tour. For many years now, this C1 race has the same recipe: Lots of hills, but with a novelty TTT in the middle. Letsgoo!
The race starts off with two hilly stages, but without a very tough finish. Then, a sprint stage follows, though you need to be able to survive the hills to even make it to the end within the peloton. After that, a 35-kilometre TTT that will surely shake up the GC. Followed by the two hardest stages, with a marathon stage 5 and stage 6 with an uphill finish. The riders will all want a break after having finished this one, that's for sure.
Needless to say, if you want to bet for a winner, your eyes will go to a puncheur. And then, Kinoshita will be your safest one. The Japanese cyclist has had a pretty invisible season so far, mainly as he preferred to spend time on training camps and his home ground than doing actual races. But that should only make him stronger. Reasons to pick another favourite though are his weaker final sprint, and a weaker TTT squad.
Flügel, Schreurs and Froome are the other “81” puncheurs here. Actually the field is much stronger than last year, in which the TTT seemed to have scared off a lot of teams. I wonder if teams only sent their puncheur because they expected it to happen again? Anyway, a trio that have similar stats, and have every right to give themselves a good shot to win it all.
Diesgo Ulissi can't be rules out, either. 2016's winner actually had a major shot at winning last season too, but dropping from Generali's extremely strong TTT squad in the TTT cost him over two minutes. He is now back, and wants to benefit from his strong sprint and stamina to beat the puncheurs that are slightly better on paper.
If you're feeling especially dangerous, two extreme outsiders to bet on are Kreder and Ignatiev. Kreder can rack up a lot of bonification seconds if stages end up quite dull, and Ignatiev can benefit from a strong TTT. A top 10 could be on the cards for them.
The bookmakers predict Generali, Fablok and Euskaltel as the biggest favourites to win the TTT. But they will have to hope their respective leaders will hang on! Otherwise their day may be ruined despite the stage win.
Meanwhile, the biggest team name missing from the TTT favourites list is Meiji. The expected time loss Kinoshita will face here means he has to come up with a plan on the hills.
Some sprinters also made it to South Africa, likely in an attempt to win stage 3. Kip, Carsi and AKA are easily the best ones. Though it's hard to see how many of them survive the hills in that stage. Therefore, Kreder, Redecker and perhaps even Ulissi should be the favourites to take this stage.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 11-03-2019 06:47
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World Champion
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Yay, a home race! Going for some action in RSA, with - and please don't laugh - one of our best possible TTT squads, as well as a strong puncheur contingent to hopefully do something and likely do nothing. Especially hoping for Venter to show himself at home. Let's get hectic 
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
1x  x1
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| sgdanny |
Posted on 11-03-2019 07:05
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decided not to send my strongest TTT lineup and instead experiment with some more backup for Froome. I do fear he will be dropped in the TTT and our GC leader will be Roche, but I wanted Roche here both for the TTT and to help Froome win. Risky business
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 11-03-2019 07:17
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Surprised Navardauskas is not among the list of favourites, with 75 HIL and 76 TT (and decent sprint). Not that his season has earned him that  . Costa also not getting a mention despite being the best TT rider among the favourites barring Ignatiev. Our leaders haven't performed where they were expected to but have done well when they've been away from the limelight. So maybe this preview is a good thing!
Decent TTT team here, where both Costa and Nava should safely stay in the group. We won't come close to winning that stage but can keep our leaders in contention for sure. Need a doubly good result.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 11-03-2019 12:29
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Tour de France Champion
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Alright, I'm clueless as to why we sent AKA here. He probably won't even be able to survive stage 3. Oops.
Obviously not looking for a GC ride by JJ. Attacking and a stage win is what I ask for. We don't have the TTT team to pull off anything overall. Just hoping we put together a couple of fun stages along the way.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 11-03-2019 12:42
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Excited for this one!! I got a strong team! Hopefully we can get some nice results!!
Good luck everyone!
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| the_hoyle |
Posted on 11-03-2019 14:07
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Grand Tour Champion
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No mention of Hategeka in the preview... I hope that is not a bad sign for things to come! Nice to see Dowsett riding for his team, as he won this race a few years back for La Poste
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 11-03-2019 14:22
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Hoping for Kinoshita. We will see if it was a mistake coming here. We really couldn't do much better without Kinoshita anyway, so if we cant get a GC result, hopefully he can atleast get a few stage wins, but I think maybe his sprint stat may be too low looking at some of the profiles.
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| quadsas |
Posted on 11-03-2019 15:44
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Barring any rigging, Siskevicius top 10 and MAL top 20, it's ez
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 08-12-2025 19:22
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| Scorchio |
Posted on 12-03-2019 11:28
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Really time for WCC to get back on track after a series of very poor outings is making a big dent in our ppRD, which looked pretty healthy at the previous standings update, but now taking a beating at the same time that many of our peers are doing rather well. Hence relegation fears that had been waning, suddenly back front-and-centre!
Uncertain how this race will go, as our better climbers that suit the majority of the course are our worst TT riders, hence the TTT might well destroy any decent GC hopes.
Stage 1 just up, and at least no time lost, but looking at the result, hard to see why WCC were taking a fair bit of responsibility policing the bunch. Perhaps the next few stages will shine a better light on why the lads are keen to be pushing the wind!
Manager of ISA - Hexacta in the MG |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 12-03-2019 12:12
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Bad start for JJ. Obviously I didn't expect him to be with the best, but nothing good happens when you're that far back.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Aquarius97 |
Posted on 12-03-2019 12:17
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Not the race i'm really looking forward the most, as the TTT should ruin any great GC placing for Bystrom, and he's surely too strong to get in breakaways in the final 2 stages, and too weak to fight with the top guns for stages. Anyway i brought here the best TTT team we really could, trying to minimize his loses.
Maybe then Duchesne can go in those breakaways, having a hill lower than his true performance when given the chance to lead/breakway.
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| Aquarius97 |
Posted on 12-03-2019 12:23
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Now with S1...
Don't know how Bystrom pulled this out  The race is already a success, no matter what happens in the rest, being this the first stage win of the season for the team (until now, only ToME, Corsica and Eritrea GC and Philly classic as wins). Really impressive lead-out by Duchesne, who has barely appeared in this season, but when he has, Bystrom gets amazing results (TDU S5 and now this)
Now hoping that Bystrom somehow retains the lead tomorrow, so he can arrive to the TTT as race leader and get the leader bonus to lose less time 
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 12-03-2019 14:19
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Not how I hoped it to go, but honestly, its how I expected it too.
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 12-03-2019 15:50
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Pichon seems to be in a decent spot looking forward to the race!
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| quadsas |
Posted on 12-03-2019 16:49
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Just hoping our big guns didn't lose any time
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| the_hoyle |
Posted on 12-03-2019 17:12
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Any chance of seeing the full stage result instead of just Top 10? Any information on how my team did?
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 12-03-2019 18:03
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I think I saw one of mine somewhere in the backgroups.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 12-03-2019 18:34
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Ag ja, the lads are up for this one! Roux with a great performance in fifth and even a cameo from MTK in the top 10 , love it! Great to see some exposure in SA as we look to convince Octagon to renew 
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT] Xero Racing
5x x5
1x x1
2x x2
2x x2 |
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 12-03-2019 20:41
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Small Tour Specialist
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Great 2nd place from Flugel grabbing a few bonus seconds but the key question is can he hang on in the TTT? He is our 5th best tester just in front of Paulus who is leading the U25s so want him to hang on too.
Great to be racing again, thanks to Vien for the report and congrats to Aquarius for the win.
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