The final Monument of the year, is also the final race in the PT calendar, and one of the three races which will bring down the curtains to the MG regular season. It's been a long haul for the riders, their teams and the management to get here, but it should definitely be worth the wait.
This is the 13th edition of this race and judging by the fact that certain teams will be facing the prospect of relegation afterwards, it will be an unlucky edition for them.
A total of eight winners have graced the top step of the podium in this race's storied history. Simone Ponzi leads the winners list as one of two riders to have won this race thrice, the other being the Damiano Cunego. He is back this season to try to make it four wins. Also here is 2017 winner Simon Spilak, who will be hoping to finish off the season on a high note for his team, and join the likes of Ponzi, Cunego and Frank Schleck as multiple winners.
Race Profile
This year's race will take the peloton from Varese to Bergamo, travelling a total of more than 255 kilometers, testing both the skill and the resilience of the riders. The first challenge the riders will face is the double spiked Madonna del Ghisallo. This is quickly folllowed by Pescate. After the halfway mark, the climbing comes thick and fast. The short but steep Colle Dei Pasta leads up to the harder Colle Gallo. No respite for the riders after this, as they tackle Ganda next, the highest climb of the race. Another shorter and steeper climb follows, which is Bracca. After that, it's the last long climb at Berbenno. The road undulates for some kilometers after, before making the riders go over the Bergamo Alta, the final uphill section of the race. The finish is at the end of a very short flat section after the descent of the Alta.
Let us now look at the riders who are expected to have some role to play in deciding the result of this race.
Top Climbers
MON
HIL
RES
Pluchkin
85
75
78
Spilak
84
81
80
Morton
84
76
78
Henao Montoya
82
71
79
Guldhammer
81
77
75
Barguil
81
75
77
Preidler
80
78
77
Olivier
80
76
80
Krasnoperov
80
68
69
Formolo
79
77
76
Yates
79
76
80
Arndt
79
76
76
Keinath
79
76
76
Bongiorno
79
75
77
Konig
79
75
76
Kirsch
79
74
73
Pluchkin, Spilak and Morton are the elite climbers who will start this race. Spilak holds a slight advantage to his rivals, with his better puncher abilities and support stats.
Henao Montoya is a strong climber but his relative weakness on the hills could make his challenge fizzle out in the closing stages. The more likely challenger for T-Mobile looks to be Guldhammer, who's balanced skill-set should prove to be an asset for this race.
Barguil, Preidler and Olivier are the other top climbers, who'll be looking to make the race as hard as possible to make life difficult for the pure punchers.
Further down the list, Yates holds his team's PT survival chances on his shoulders, as he tries to bridge a 53 point gap in the relegation dogfight. He does have a strong team in support, but will need more guile than brawn to lead his team to glory.
Formolo represents the champions-elect Gazelle in the last race of the season, and anything barring a calamity for them, and a near miracle for the chasing teams, will see them crowned champiions.
Arndt is the chosen rider to defend his team's, incidentally the defending champions, podium place. They have a bit of a lead in this regard but a strong performance from any one of six chasing teams could see them drop down the table.
Top Punchers
MON
HIL
RES
Hagen
70
85
74
Ponzi
73
84
72
Bakelants
74
83
77
Sagan
74
83
74
Lutsenko
73
83
73
De Bie
71
83
76
Mohoric
71
83
72
Skujins
70
83
77
Van Garderen
72
82
75
Gastauer
71
82
70
Spilak
84
81
80
Koretzky
71
81
70
Ginanni
68
81
75
McCarthy
67
81
75
Buchmann
76
80
74
Boswell
71
80
73
Ulissi
66
80
71
Lopez
78
79
73
Chernetskiy
71
79
69
The main difference between the top climbers and punchers are that none of the best punchers are better than average climbers. If the race gets hard, the punchers might have a hard time keeping up with the best climbers.
Keeping all that aside, Hagen and defending champion Ponzi are at the top of the food-chain among the punchers. Both riders have had exceptional seasons so far. However, while one rider has powered his team to podium contention, the other has been fighting a near lone battle to save his team from relegation.
Bakelants and Sagan are the best climbers among the punchers, but it's not a huge improvement.
Looking down the list, we can see that it's anyone's guess who'll come out on top in a pure puncher's race from this bunch. Lutsenko, De Bie, Mohoric and Skuijns are all equally good and can be the best of this bunch on a good day.
Conspicuous by his presence here is Spilak, who's perhaps the best prepared for a race like this!
Favourites
MON
HIL
STA
RES
ACC
Spilak
84
81
79
80
73
Bakelants
74
83
80
77
77
Ponzi
73
84
77
72
80
Hagen
70
85
81
74
79
Sagan
74
83
78
74
76
Lutsenko
73
83
76
73
81
Pluchkin
85
75
78
78
74
Morton
84
76
79
78
67
De Bie
71
83
77
76
75
Guldhammer
81
77
74
75
76
Van Garderen
72
82
78
75
79
Skujins
70
83
80
77
76
Lopez
78
79
74
73
76
Mohoric
71
83
78
72
77
Preidler
80
78
71
77
69
Taking the previously mentioned points into account, Spilak looks to be the top favourite for this race.
The length of the race, together with the need for riders to survive the attrition puts Bakelants higher than his puncher competitors and in prime podium contention. Defending champion Ponzi looks the most likely to also be challenging for the win in this race.
Hagen will be keen to add his name to the illustrious race-winners list. He's as good as any of the previous three, when it comes to race-winning ability.
Sagan and Lutsenko are quite similar, and both will be hoping to challenge for the podium at least. The latter's team hold a slender lead in the relegation fight, with three teams biting at their ankles to try and overtake them here.
Pluchkin and Morton lack a little in puncher capabilities, which could make their life a little hard in the business end of the race. They will be looking to take advantage of the longer climbs to tire out the punchers.
De Bie will be hoping he finish well, after what has been an underwhelming season. He looks likely to be more of a Top 5 contender than a race-win challenger.
Guldhammer and Van Garderen lead T-Mobile's bid for survival. Neither look to be a prime contender for a top posiiton, but if both can get a good result, it will be a good haul of points for the struggling outfit. If Preidler, who looks like a decent wildcard shout for an over-performance in a race like this, can get involved too, it could become a great outing for them.
Another duo carrying their team's hopes is Skuijns and Lopez, both of whom have had a solid season, but neither have had a memorable one. They'll be looking to improve on that particular statistic.
Mohoric looks to be the perfect foil for teammate Spilak, and will probably be the one looking to attack more for his team. He too, hasn't had a particularly good season and will hope cap it off successfully.
De Bie for the pure hill potentially top5.
Olivier for the hill/mo top10 and Keinath the same I guess as he like those hard races.
With best possible support in Dekker, Zardini, Hugenhaben, Eiking and Thurau I have huge expectations here.
Surely should be enough to remain in the top10 rankings but if I don`t have anyone inside the top10 of the race, I would be hugely disappointed alongside couple more in top20-30 and top50 as well.
Other than that nothing to worry for me in the rankings, so it doesn`t even matter that much luckily. The relegation fight is big though and let`s see how it ends.
Ginanni will most certainly be useless; I hope the team realizes that.
In this field I don't expect Formolo to manage a top 10 either. He'll just have to hang on as long as possible and sneaking into the top 15 would be a good result.
And there it is...the final disappointing performance by De Bie....what a bad season for him and hopefully accepts a smaller wage now.
13th is simply not enough for a 83 puncheur with decent backups.
Olivier in 17th I wonder if he could have done better without De Bie today.
At least couple more in the top40 and 7 in the top100.
Congrats CT for another Boasson Hagen show. SPAR with a big sign here as well.
Thank god this awful season is over. We were useless again, working for nothing in the end once more. Time to reconsider the project. This could've very well been the farewell ride for the #meninlime-adventure as it stands.
Finally a great race from Lutsenko and only missing out closely on the win. Good to see he's there at the moment it really counts. Really tense finish of the season.
T-Mobile's depth here was scary and I feel like they scored around as much points as me, but shouldn't overtake me in the rankings.
Brilliant report, Abhi! Really enjoyed that as a neutral, watching the teams fighting to avoid relegation battle it out. That was kind of crazy, and I loved how much emphasis you put on it too.
For our team, that was a big, big race from Oss. It took two seasons, but finally he joined a breakaway and used his strengths from there. Really been waiting for that. And as Abhi rightly writes in the report, that is also a placing that I guess saves us from the spectacular fall in the rankings I expected before the final monument
Big congratulations to CrueTrue, always nice to see EBH take such a big win, and even on such a course.
Formolo did exactly what he had to do and Sosnitskiy / Karnulin also delivered with their top 25 results. Cool to see former rider Oss pull such a great stunt for Aker.
Congrats to CT. That win catapulted AF up the rankings.
Everything's still to play for. We could defend third, or fall all the way out of the Top 5 and miss our sponsor goal.
It's all down to Nikias Arndt and what Spilak, Sagan et al. can do.
We don't need to try and fight for the win, we just need to avoid stupid splits and post a good result to survive with the 250 point gap to everyone bar Aker.
Most of the overall standings implications of this race are not in our hands, but we can limit the amount of teams mathematically able to beat us. A lot could depend on how many riders a team can get into the positions 30-50 as well.
In that regard, I do love the move Hadi made to ensure we have someone up the road in case something weird happens later on.
Vasyliv gone early as a 77mo rider is obviously bad, even though many Generali riders seem to suffer with him to at least take them out of contention as well as Mohoric hopefully limiting how much Isostar can score here.
Hadi still in front of a splintering peloton also great news for his points scoring chances.
But then, inevitably, disaster strikes. 79 mountain is not good enough for this mountainous route. Arndt has been a joke all the way from the spring classics to the last race of the season.
Yates is still up there, and he only has a bit of STA, RES and DH on Arndt!
So, we're left with watching the fight for the win unfold, while hoping Arndt can win the sprint from his group later and Hadi isn't spent completely and can also utilize his great sprint. But the Pro Tour podium decision won't be influenced by us anymore.
Up front, congratulations to Air France on winning this! And I start to fear that we may lose our podium spot for the entire season by literally half a wheel, and a random 77 climber overperforming in Salinas...
But, our climbers did pull through well in the end! Besides Arndt of course who will face scrutiny over this year's performances, but Vasyliv and Stüssi did very well to gain 5 points above minimum each, and Hadi did hold on to a Top 50 as well! It will be very close against Air France, but we should have 4th secured at least.
A great sprint from all three of them in a large group that saw good riders miss out on the Top 50.
Either way, a thrilling race very well reported to end the season! Thank you Abhi!
This is just a perfect way to finish off the season. LOVE it.
Norwegians rarely make me happy in any way, basically just an annoying neighbour, but this virtual EBH has certainly saved my season and been worth every penny of his salary.
Thanks for the congrats - and thanks for an excellent report. Exciting until the last screenshot.
