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Paris - Nice Discussion
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| roturn |
Posted on 23-10-2023 13:47
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The 2023 Paris - Nice is a rather hilly version with a 25,8 km ITT to seperate the pure puncheurs and allrounders. Other than that a lot of opportunities for sprinters as there are 3 clear sprinter opportunities alongside a 50/50 sprinter/puncheur stage on the final day.
The puncheurs without a time trial skill should probably use stages 3/4/7 to attack the allrounders.
GC Riders
| Mo | Hi | TT | | Mo | Hi | TT |  Izagirre | 72 | 79 | 75 |  Conci | 77 | 74 | 78 |  Sepulveda | 75 | 77 | 75 |  Geoghegan Hart | 79 | 74 | 78 |  Kaczmarek | 68 | 75 | 75 | Craddock | 73 | 74 | 76 |  Wirtgen | 78 | 75 | 82 |  Ganna | 69 | 73 | 80 |  Bazhkou | 69 | 75 | 76 |  Leknessund | 75 | 73 | 76 |  Mano | 72 | 75 | 80 |  Kiriakidis | 74 | 73 | 77 | | Herregodts | 73 | 74 | 75 |  Stüssi | 79 | 73 | 75 |  Dennis | 73 | 74 | 77 | Munton | 74 | 73 | 78 |  Evenepoel | 72 | 74 | 75 | Ioannidis | 75 | 73 | 78 | | O'Brien | 65 | 74 | 75 | Brown | 75 | 73 | 76 |
Despite the TT dominant route the top stage racers such as Phinney, Lecuisinier etc. are not here, which might be due to the triple header in February.
Instead the list of top favourites in a very weird Hi order might be led by Izagirre even though the actual top favourites on a course like this likely are Wirtgen or even Mano, who might not have the top hill skill but the dominant TT stat alongside very decent uphill skills. Even Ganna as TT rider must be named here as weaker version of the other two.
Then there are the regular alrounders such as Sepulveda or the climber versions as Geoghegan Hart or Conci with a high TT.
Puncheurs
| Mo | Hi | TT | | Mo | Hi | TT |  De Bie | 71 | 84 | 72 | Van Niekerk | 75 | 79 | 65 | | Lutsenko | 73 | 83 | 68 |  Storer | 75 | 78 | 69 | | Gidich | 76 | 83 | 73 | Errazkin | 74 | 78 | 70 | | Sagan | 73 | 82 | 67 |  Ardila | 79 | 78 | 68 |  Trakhov | 69 | 79 | 65 | Meintjes | 80 | 78 | 71 |  Aranburu | 77 | 79 | 63 | Strakhov | 70 | 78 | 67 |
Some of the very top puncheurs of the PT are here including De Bie, Lutsenko, Gidich or Sagan. They really need the hills to create gaps as their TT stats are ranging from rather weak to just below average. They clearly will lose time on strong riders such as Wirtgen on the TT day.
Meintjes coming from wildcard team Bralirwa is a strong allrounder here but he would likely prefer the longer climbs the most, but will be interesting to see how a rider like him can perform here.
Same goes for the second wildcard team, which has several options such as Schmid/Masnada or Stüssi on the more TT side.
Sprinters
| Sp | Acc | Hi | | Sp | Acc | Hi | | Coquard | 84 | 83 | 67 | Hodeg | 79 | 78 | 65 |  Philipsen | 81 | 80 | 69 | Banaszek | 79 | 81 | 65 | | Kragh Andersen | 81 | 77 | 64 | Thijssen | 79 | 81 | 63 | | Groves | 80 | 79 | 72 | Van der Kooij | 78 | 77 | 69 | | Carsi | 80 | 82 | 55 | Contreras | 78 | 80 | 68 | | Bol | 79 | 77 | 70 | Rajovic | 78 | 82 | 64 | | Silvestre | 79 | 79 | 66 |  Bogdanovics | 78 | 77 | 62 |
Sprint wise a clear big name here in Coquard. His season so far though was ridicilously bad with lots of blocking and misunderstandings between team mates etc. Can he perform better here?
Philipsen and Carsi alongside Kragh Andersen and Groves might be best of the rest but to be honest, the gap between Philipsen and the 14th sprinter on the list is rather small.
TT Stage
| TT | Fl | Hi | | TT | Fl | Hi | | Wirtgen | 82 | 73 | 75 | Nareklishvili | 78 | 74 | 69 | | Ganna | 80 | 76 | 73 | Onodera | 78 | 74 | 69 | | Vlatos | 80 | 71 | 65 | Kukrle | 78 | 72 | 66 | | Lammertink | 80 | 74 | 69 | Conci | 78 | 71 | 74 | | Mano | 80 | 71 | 75 | Kämna | 78 | 71 | 71 |  Oliveira | 79 | 70 | 72 | Hofer | 78 | 73 | 65 | | Bjerg | 79 | 75 | 68 | Geoghegan Hart | 78 | 70 | 74 | | Razumov | 79 | 74 | 70 | Pelikan | 78 | 75 | 70 | | Dal Col | 79 | 71 | 64 | Atkins | 78 | 75 | 68 | | Goldstein | 79 | 74 | 61 | Munton | 78 | 67 | 73 | | Thomas | 78 | 73 | 66 | Ioannidis | 78 | 67 | 73 | | Hayter | 78 | 78 | 70 | Vorobev | 78 | 74 | 64 | | Cosnefroy | 78 | 76 | 71 | Christodoulos | 78 | 72 | 68 | | Ferreyra | 78 | 72 | 72 | | | | |
Obviously when just talking about the TT stage itself, Wirtgen is the big favourite here without Würtz, Phinney etc. at the start. Ganna, Vlatos, Lammertink, Mano the main rivals.
But the list here is down to 27 riders, which shows how close it will be and how tiny the gaps are expected between a very nice top5 performance and a top30 performance.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 23-10-2023 13:59
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Too many similar riders around these days for the GC. We've brought a duo of Aranburu and Kamna - polar opposite riders. The TT basically makes Aranburu useless here for GC. Unfortunately there weren't many real hybrid options on the PT calendar that didn't include such a poision pill. So he'll have to go for stages. I just hope he doesn't tank Kamna in the process. If the pattern of unselectivity on hills continues, Kamna should theoretically be good enough to hang onto the big pack and dish out a solid TT to finish well on GC. But that won't happen if he checks out completely positioning wise, like he did in Portugal.
Hopefully AKA does well here too. On paper he should, but he may be even too far up the sprinter queue for my liking. At least he'll have a chance on a few different stages.
Thanks for the preview!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 23-10-2023 14:22
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When making the planning I figured Remco would be an interesting underdog here, but we'll see how it goes. If Remco can pull off something this year, I think this will be the race to do it.
And looking at the puncheurs here, Grand Duche is going to be stacked. Not good news for Gerts.
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| jph27 |
Posted on 23-10-2023 14:26
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Sent De Bie here as it was the only way I could fill his RDs, even though it presents more of a risk than Grand Duche due to the TT. Hopefully the game engine works better here than it has on hilly stages so far, but I'm not too optimistic - in normal circumstances the aim would be a GC podium, but who knows based on what we've seen so far. |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 23-10-2023 14:40
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Better should have brought Durbridge here.. Well.
Groves in the mix for sprints though. Don't expect Storer to do too much, but hopefuly we will show our colors in breakaways. Portugal was too quiet for my liking.
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 23-10-2023 17:05
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Fun to see three of our guys show up as notable riders in a PT preview! I think Meintjes has a decent shot at stage 3, and then stage 7 is the only other one that has the potential to be selective. If both stages are tough and Louis is doing well, he might have a shot at a good GC result, else maybe Izagirre can step up. This is another good litmus test for his abilities, although of course against even tougher competition than he'll face in most non-PT races. And then Silvestre, he's arguably not a Top 5 sprinter here but is close enough to get a result in that range on a good day.
Thank you for preview roturn, looking forward to the reports!
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| ember |
Posted on 23-10-2023 17:37
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We're here hoping for Zhao to give the sprints a go, and then all others are free to go for breakaways. Really hope we'll be active and try to make it into the breakaways, if not, I suspect we won't feature much here  |
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 23-10-2023 18:27
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Kinoshita had to go the Grand Duche and given Tasmania, a smart move not to use him here. Leadership to Dennis who hopefully has the stats for a good GC result.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 06-12-2025 12:27
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 23-10-2023 18:28
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Hope the big puncheurs can get some gaps in the hills this time. Otherwise Lutsenko's points will all have to come from stage success.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 23-10-2023 19:15
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Looking at how puncheurs fail to get significant gaps so far this season, this race has been upgraded from "well Ganna was always going to be here anyway" to "we have a chance to podium this".
Clearly, Wirtgen will be near impossible to beat, and Mano has made vital progress in the off-season to at least be on par with Filippo now, but that's about it in terms of obviously stronger riders present if the race pans out in a similar fashion as Portugal and Tasmania.
Particularly stage 3 will be crucial to decide which rider type succeeds at the end of this, with no previous TT to propel the specialists into a favorable GC and thus AI position, while stage 7 should hopefully see us benefit from that bonus if things go to plan until then.
Alternatively, if gaps are too large going into the TT to overcome them there against Izagirre-type riders, this could be a disaster too.
Joining Ganna here are the obvious candidates to both support him on hilly terrain as well as go for decent depth GC points if they can hang on in the tougher days, with still unmaxed O'Brien and Cemazar alongside Stork and late veteran addition Brändle all enjoying the uphill/TT combination.
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 23-10-2023 20:25
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First PT stage race for us since Tour de Suisse two years ago, looking forward to it 
It's interesting to see that PCM considers Stüssi to be our leader, given that there are three stronger puncheurs in our lineup. But the stage 3 final climb looks like it could be too long for the pure puncheurs indeed, which is why I sent him here after all (and because it doesn't cost any RDs, of course).
In the hilly stages, I'm hoping for all of Errazkin, Schmid and Masnada to be active - they shouldn't be among the favourites and might get some freedom to have a shot at a breakaway win. Stages 7 and 8 could be difficult to control for the peloton - especially if the GC has basically settled by then.
Otherwise, Bol should be among the more resistant sprinters, potentially surviving a couple of hills - given the sprinter field, he should at least get involved on the flat stages.
Thanks for the preview, and good luck to everyone!
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 23-10-2023 21:41
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GC hopes here are all on Conci! I don't expect he'll be fighting for the win given the presence of the likes of Wirtgen and Mano but he should be capable of a Top 10 if not a Top 5. He'll need to rely on making the bumpier stages more challenging.
Cosnefroy unlikely to stick around in the hills so he and Thomas will be hoping for decent showings in the TT.
First real chance to see if Thijssen can mix it with the best of them in sprints. Outside of Coq, it's an open field really.
Thank you for the preview and looking forward to what should be an interesting race!
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| tastasol |
Posted on 23-10-2023 22:52
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Nice to see Bazkhou mentioned so early, but I'm guessing that the race will be too hard for him. Would be great if he could prove me wrong! Other than that, we're hoping for some breaks and looking for the experience. Our time to shine is around the corner, but not quite yet.
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| redordead |
Posted on 24-10-2023 06:38
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I hope we score well, but I don't have a good feeling to be honest.
Thanks for the preview.
"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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| knockout |
Posted on 24-10-2023 07:07
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Super weak evonik lineup. Very little expectations, hoping for surprises
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 24-10-2023 10:52
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It cannot be underlined enough how much of a disaster it would be for Coquard to miss out on a stagewin with this field.
On paper he should land 3 stagewins, 2 days in the leaders jersey and the PTS jersey. I reckon it's more likely that he comes away with nothing of the above.
Kiriakidis, Ioannidis, Spanopoulos and Vlatos could have decent succes aswell looking at the route and lineup. We badly need the points so everything is crossed for a good tripple-header.
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 24-10-2023 15:21
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Poor first showing from Thijssen but have to feel for Sotd. That result in this field for Coquard is nothing short of a disgrace. No other words for it. Hope for his sake that he can turn it around.
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| knockout |
Posted on 24-10-2023 15:24
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Krasts in the break, securing tied KoM lead is almost the best result i could hope for. Maybe a stronger rider instead of him would have given me better chances to defend later but cant complain about that. So im very happy with the first stage.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 24-10-2023 15:28
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Another one for Calsberg 
Van der Kooij seemed to be in a good position, but like everyone else who seemed to be in a good position he faded towards the end. While it is understandable for this to happen to Van der Kooij, who is not exactly the fastest guy out there, it sucks to see Coquard (yet again) and even Philipsen miss out on the top 10.
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| ember |
Posted on 24-10-2023 15:48
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Carlsberg everywhere! Congratulations, bbl!
Happy to see Zhao being active and join the sprint. Fingers crossed we can do even better moving forward, also appearing in breakaways |
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