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Classique du Grand-Duché - Discussion
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 24-11-2020 08:21
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3837
Joined: 20-04-2020
PCM$: 425.00
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 Classique du Grand-Duché
Welcome to Luxembourg for the tenth edition of the Classique du Grand-Duché! The Pro Tour managers had to make some hard choices as there are three races going on at the same time. Contrary to stage races Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, the Classique du Grand-Duché is a one day classic. This should be a race for the puncheurs, which leads to the presence of last year’s winner  Sagan as well as the runner-up a year ago,  Lutsenko. Sagan won the race in 2017 as well, with another former winner,  Demare, trying to get his second win here, which has only been realized by Sagan and  Trofimov, the now 36 year old Russian who is still active on PCT level with Repsol – Netflix. A surprise for many is the presence of  Phinney, who was expected by some managers to be in a stage race this week. His team, Isostar – Specialized, had other plans for him nonetheless. Let’s have a look at the favourites of tomorrow’s race.
| Name | MTN | HILL | STA | RES | SPR | ACC |  De Bie | 71 | 84 | 77 | 76 | 72 | 75 | | Lutsenko | 73 | 83 | 76 | 73 | 72 | 81 | | Sagan | 74 | 83 | 78 | 74 | 73 | 76 |  Lopez | 79 | 82 | 76 | 74 | 66 | 78 |  McCarthy | 67 | 81 | 80 | 75 | 65 | 74 |  Gastauer | 70 | 81 | 77 | 69 | 66 | 75 |  Koretzky | 71 | 81 | 77 | 70 | 71 | 79 |  Buchmann | 76 | 81 | 73 | 74 | 65 | 73 | | Demare | 67 | 80 | 75 | 72 | 82 | 81 |  Vogt | 62 | 80 | 78 | 71 | 62 | 63 |
Nobody in this race masters the hills like De Bie does. The Belgian came to this race for the last time in 2015, when he was only 24 years old and managed to secure a 14th position. With Vliegen and Stuyven having joined Aegon – Peroni in the off-season the team has a strong hill squad that can perform in any hilly race.
Nevertheless, the competition is hard. The biggest competitors of the Belgian should be Lutsenko, Sagan and Lopez. The Kazak national champion and Peter Sagan are only slightly worse than the top favourite in terms of going up the hills, but make up for that with their better mountain and acceleration skills. The Slovakian would love to complete his Luxembourgian hattrick tomorrow, while Lutsenko wants revanche for finishing second last year, which was his third top 10 position in this race in the last five years. Lopez, while not belonging to the three best hilly racers in theory, has an incredible advantage on the longer hills. It’s his first time competing in the Classique du Grand-Duché however, which might prove to be a problem at decisive moments. He has a very strong domestique with him though, as Van Stayen could maybe even upset the other riders himself with a surprise attack at the right time
2018 winner Demare might have a hard time holding on until the final hill, but if he manages to do so he would immediately become the top favourite to secure the victory. Some other names on the list have also come close to winning this race in the past, such as home rider Gastauer and Koretzky. Another interesting name on this list is the German Buchmann, defending the colours of PCT squad Mapei. The ambitions of Mapei this season are clear, they are aiming for promotion and hope to grab the title as well. Will Buchmann prove tomorrow that the team deserves a spot at the highest level of cycling? The other two names on the list are Vogt and McCarthy. Two strong puncheurs, without a doubt, but are their climbing capabilities enough to survive until the end? That question will be answered tomorrow as well.
Those ten names are not the only names you should be looking for, though, as there will be several other strong riders at the start.  Formolo,  Teuns,  Serry,  Zakarin, Guldhammer,  Reichenbach and  De Plus combine decent climbing and hill talent and are the outsiders for tomorrow’s race. The last name, De Plus, rides for the other PCT squad competing; Lierse SK – Pizza Ullo PCTeam. There will be one other rider who has a very decent hill stat and combines it with an okay climbing capability: Taylor Phinney.
The only thing left for me today is to share the startlist with you, the only thing left for the riders is to win the Classique du Grand-Duché for their team.
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 24-11-2020 08:25
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15025
Joined: 08-08-2011
PCM$: 11500.00
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Our first wildcard, and actually one where I can field a decent team.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| SotD |
Posted on 24-11-2020 09:17
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
Joined: 29-11-2006
PCM$: 2980.00
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Taylor Phinney here is a massive surprise to say the least. I have to hope for him to be succesful otherwise that is not the best planning I have seen tbh... Obviously not knowing whether or not the best possible planning was just giving up exactly 2RD and no other race seemed better, but I think I would have planned him out of GT contention rather than throwing "away" 2 RD like this. I could well be proven wrong though when he wins or does a top 5!
Clement Koretzky is in the mix of 5-10th here normally. A good day could see him challenge for the podium while a bad day would see him around 15th. It will be interesting to see what Budyak can do aswell as Kastrantas who usually likes these races (25-40th kinda like).
I think Sagan will take this one, but it will be interesting to see if De Bie is now a top top rider or he will still struggle a bit. Miguel Angel Lopez is also very interesting here.
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| tastasol |
Posted on 24-11-2020 09:17
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3030
Joined: 11-09-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Phinney on the startlist is a cool move. Low expectations for us. Hope Lastra and Grossschartner can do something in a slightly weaker field and would love to see one of them in the break. Sagan the favourite for me.
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| roturn |
Posted on 24-11-2020 09:22
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Team Manager
Posts: 22043
Joined: 24-11-2007
PCM$: 3900.00
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Probably the year where the stage race has kind of the perfect route for De Bie, I go with the classic.
Let`s hope the "weaker" startlist helps him to get his first big classic win. He is the best puncheur here and with also being my win goal, all but a win is a disappointment.
All but a podium is a no go anyway as he finally must deliver after his training!
Support in other races might be a bit better but with Vliegen, Stuyven, Ciccone, Boom and also Ballerini, Van der Hoorn and De Kleijn he has a full team of capable hill riders and flat engines behind him.
Sagan, Lutsenko, MAL and Koretzky obviously the big dangers here with Phinney being a very interesting rider as well here. All others should be beaten easily on any day. |
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 24-11-2020 09:31
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 12681
Joined: 27-07-2015
PCM$: 1961.50
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tastasol wrote:
Phinney on the startlist is a cool move. Low expectations for us. Hope Lastra and Grossschartner can do something in a slightly weaker field and would love to see one of them in the break. Sagan the favourite for me.
Let's go Felix 
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 24-11-2020 10:00
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9137
Joined: 13-03-2013
PCM$: 2100.00
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I think Phinney should be one of the favourites in this race. The climbs should be long enough to have an impact, and if not I like his finishing kick for this. Kozhatayev, Polanc are strong enough to make this race very hard.
If the game treats us right, then a podium should be possible. Very curious to see this experiment working out (or massively failing).
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 06-12-2025 23:13
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| matt17br |
Posted on 24-11-2020 10:20
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Directeur Sportif
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Def interesting to see someone like Phinney here. Won't make a prediction so that I don't make a fool out of myself afterwards  We're just gonna be out here chilling, riding for my man Laporte. Nice preview Nemolito!
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 24-11-2020 12:33
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World Champion
Posts: 13561
Joined: 05-08-2008
PCM$: 400.00
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Harder startlist than usual, Gerts is going to have a hard time repeating last year's performance, but nothing is impossible looking at Badaling.
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| Scorchio |
Posted on 24-11-2020 12:40
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2073
Joined: 14-09-2013
PCM$: 4500.00
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For ISA - Hexacta this is the line-up most impacted by the triple clash. We have a number of guys just aiming to get round for the participation points. Zakarin is given a free hand to play his own card and try and break into the top 15-20. Koshevoy in the BotD would be ideal!
Manager of ISA - Hexacta in the MG |
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 24-11-2020 12:55
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2773
Joined: 31-12-2007
PCM$: 450.00
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We signed Vogt with this race in mind, let's hope he can do a top-10
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 24-11-2020 16:03
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World Champion
Posts: 12429
Joined: 20-05-2009
PCM$: 530.00
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Originally wanted Kinoshita to race here, but after filling out my race planner, putting him in every hill race possible, he still had several race days left, so I had to swap him out for Tirreno. Lets hope Serry can get a Top 20 still.
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 24-11-2020 21:55
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Team Manager
Posts: 31706
Joined: 08-03-2007
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Home race is always an important one, but it hasn't always gone too well. This year is the last realistic shot at a Luxembourg Top 10 for quite some time, so hopefully Gastauer can pull it off.
Was a shame to only send 6 riders here, but developing riders were better off in the stage races for more RD. Glad to see Aegon sending De Bie and a full 8, to hopefully help keep all things in order in the peloton.
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| Bikex |
Posted on 24-11-2020 22:49
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Team Leader
Posts: 7385
Joined: 25-08-2012
PCM$: 600.00
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I picked this as my win goal after Lutsenko did. well here already last year I hope he can repeat his performance or do even better! |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 25-11-2020 09:33
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2797
Joined: 20-04-2008
PCM$: 200.00
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Really hope Formolo can find his form. Plenty of riders here that are better at bursting up hills than him, but there's a lot of climbing to be done before the finale. We'll need some of them to struggle with that.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 25-11-2020 17:49
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World Champion
Posts: 10616
Joined: 29-10-2007
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The title of "returning former winner" for Demare is obviously worth less here considering it was on the old game, but at least the startlist is looking decent here to get some good points regardless, if the race is going in our favor.
Ideally, that means a small breakaway group and manageable speeds up most of the longer climbs, but most importantly, it means the game sees us as contenders on the day and actually cares about Demare.
The top 4 will be practically impossible to beat unless there are major unexpected events occurring, and Phinney's certainly the best dark horse possible in such a race.
Coming from 7th last season as second best of the rest (excluding anyone 82+ hill), I hope to see Arnaud repeat that result as it would be right around where he should stand in the favorites pecking order behind De Bie, Lutsenko, Sagan, Lopez, Buchmann and Phinney.
As always, our main goal is to beat Michael van Stayen though!
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| viking90 |
Posted on 25-11-2020 18:03
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3836
Joined: 24-01-2009
PCM$: 200.00
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Breakaway is all we can hope for here! |
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 26-11-2020 10:43
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9137
Joined: 13-03-2013
PCM$: 2100.00
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Yeah that gamble didn't pay off, we now know it for next season when we'll try to attack the title
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 26-11-2020 10:48
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15025
Joined: 08-08-2011
PCM$: 11500.00
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Wow, 11th and 15th is great, if only we could score points here. But this definitely shows De Plus can do better in the PCT as well.
Thanks for the report!
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| redordead |
Posted on 26-11-2020 10:57
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Team Leader
Posts: 5511
Joined: 18-10-2017
PCM$: 200.00
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No Skujins, MAL wins. It's just that simple 
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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