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Balkans International Discussion
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 05-12-2025 21:16
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| Laurens147 |
Posted on 05-05-2025 11:05
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Sprinter
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Joined: 26-04-2020
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 [PTHC] Balkans International 
Report by JT
| | | | | | | | | | | | Stage 1 |  | Ljubljana > Jelenici | 146,3 KM | | | | | | | | | Stage 2 | | Banja Luka > Pajici | 187,0 KM | | | | | | | | | Stage 3 | | Bileca > Dubrovnik | 195,3 KM | | | | | | | | | Stage 4 | | Dubrovnik > Podgorica | 168,7 KM | | | | | | | | | Stage 5 |  | Podgorica > Tirana | 167,2 KM | | | | | | | | | Stage 6 | | Berat > Ioannina | 225,9 KM | | | | | | | |
| Year | Winner | Runner-up | Third | | | | | | | | | 2023 | ARERUYA Joseph | LOPEZ Miguel Angel | AMEZAWA Takeaki | | | | | | | | | 2022 | LOPEZ Miguel Angel | SAGAN Peter | SICARD Romain | | | | | | | | | 2021 | LOPEZ Miguel Angel | BELTRAN Eduard Alexander | KWIATKOWSKI Michal | | | | | | | | | 2020 | KWIATKOWSKI Michal | SAGAN Peter | LOPEZ Miguel Angel | | | | | | | | | 2019 | CALMEJANE Lilian | BOASSON HAGEN Edvald | WAEYTENS Zico | | | | | | | | | 2018 | BAKELANTS Jan | BOBRIDGE Jack | LUTSENKO Alexey | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 1 | Joseph Areruya | Xero Racing | 27h12'3 | | | | | | | | | 2 | Miguel Angel Lopez | Evonik - ELKO | 18" | | | | | | | | | 3 | Takeaki Amezawa | Aker - MOT | 51" | | | | | | | | | 4 | Davide Formolo | Rabobank | + 1'07 | | | | | | | | | 5 | Attila Valter | EA Vesuvio | s.t. | | | | | | | | | 6 | Daan Olivier | Fastned | + 1'11 | | | | | | | | | 7 | Ivan Sosa | King Power | + 1'40 | | | | | | | | | 8 | Yevgeniy Gidich | King Power | + 2'01 | | | | | | | | | 9 | Tomohiro Kinoshita | Minions | + 2'33 | | | | | | | | | 10 | Alexey Lutsenko | Gazelle | + 2'40 | | | | | | | |
S1:Â Alexey Lutsenko (Gazelle)Â S2:Â Jonas Iversby Hvideberg (Grieg-Maersk)Â S3:Â Joseph Areruya (Xero Racing)Â S4:Â Takeaki Amezawa (Aker - MOT)Â S5:Â Alan Banaszek (Tinkoff - La Datcha Team)Â S6:Â Joseph Areruya (Xero Racing) Pts: Joseph Areruya (Xero Raciing); Miguel Angel Lopez (Evonik - ELKO) KoM: Milan Menten (King Power) Yth: Attila Valter (EA Vesuvio)
***
| Last name | First name | Country | Age | MT | HL | ST | RS | RC | SP | AC |  Areruya | Joseph | RWA | 28 | 81 | 81 | 76 | 78 | 79 | 68 | 76 |  Lopez | Miguel Angel | COL | 30 | 80 | 84 | 76 | 74 | 74 | 66 | 78 |
**
| Last name | First name | Country | Age | MT | HL | ST | RS | RC | SP | AC |  Yates | Adam | GBR | 32 | 80 | 76 | 79 | 80 | 76 | 67 | 76 |  Formolo | Davide | ITA | 32 | 79 | 80 | 76 | 76 | 74 | 69 | 71 |  Gidich | Yevgeniy | KAZ | 28 | 76 | 83 | 78 | 77 | 73 | 63 | 75 |  Hirschi | Marc | SWI | 26 | 77 | 79 | 78 | 78 | 77 | 66 | 75 |  Morton | Lachlan | AUS | 32 | 84 | 76 | 79 | 78 | 78 | 57 | 67 |
*
| Last name | First name | Country | Age | MT | HL | ST | RS | RC | SP | AC |  Meintjes | Louis | RSA | 32 | 80 | 78 | 77 | 76 | 78 | 61 | 69 |  Phinney | Taylor | USA | 34 | 83 | 75 | 74 | 71 | 73 | 70 | 72 |  Paret-Peintre | Aurelien | FRA | 28 | 76 | 77 | 73 | 75 | 73 | 72 | 74 |  Schlegel | Michal | CZE | 29 | 79 | 77 | 71 | 74 | 76 | 64 | 75 | | Champoussin | Clement | FRA | 26 | 78 | 78 | 76 | 76 | 77 | 59 | 76 |  Buchmann | Emanuel | GER | 32 | 76 | 81 | 73 | 74 | 74 | 65 | 73 |
Sprinters
| Last name | First name | Country | Age | FL | ST | RS | RC | SP | AC | |  Kemboi | Salem | KEN | 29 | 78 | 74 | 77 | 81 | 80 | 80 | |  Hayakawa | Tomohiro | JPN | 32 | 73 | 75 | 68 | 76 | 79 | 79 | | | Ovsyannikov | Alexandr | KAZ | 27 | 74 | 75 | 72 | 80 | 79 | 78 | |  Gross | Felix | GER | 26 | 74 | 69 | 75 | 76 | 79 | 79 | |  Lutsyshyn | Roman | UKR | 30 | 70 | 69 | 73 | 74 | 79 | 80 | |
Areruya Joseph: Scandinavia ORR winner, Classique du Grand-Duché 2nd, Clasica San Sebastian 2nd, Amstel Gold Race 3th, Fleche Wallonne 3th
Lopez Miguel Angel: Fleche Wallonne winner, Tour of East Java 2nd, Classique du Grand-Duché 3th, Clasica San Sebastian 3th, Scandinavia ORR 3th
Yates Adam: Tour de Pologne winner
Formolo Davide: Classique du Grand-Duché 4th, Liege-Bastogne-Liege 4th, Clasica San Sebastian 4th, Fleche Wallonne 6th, Amstel Gold Race 8th
Gidich Yevgeniy: Tour of Lithuania 2nd, Liege-Bastogne-Liege 3th, Fleche Wallonne 4th, Scandinavia ORR 4th, Amstel Gold Race 5th
Hirschi Marc: USA Pro Cycling Challenge 3th, GP Wallonie 4th, Clasica San Sebastian 5th, Tour de Pologne 7th, Euskal Bizikleta 7th
Morton Lachlan: GP Liechtenstein winner, Vuelta a Espana 2nd
--
Full startlist:
MG - Lotto - Caloi
[MG] New Manager of the Year - PCM.daily Awards 2022
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| roturn |
Posted on 05-05-2025 12:50
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Team Manager
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While I am confident, Phinney can show up here and there to do something in this race, it mainly shows our dilemma, that once we got the chance to pick him up, we didn`t fully plan through the season.
Once moving him away from a GT (luckily I must say I guess), races with TT kilometers weren`t available anymore with us avoiding basically all the TT PTHC bands.
So he is now leading us in the hilly! and no TT event here in Balkans.
Top10 I guess is all I can really hope for. |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 05-05-2025 13:18
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2797
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Glad there is some strong competition for Gidich here. If he destroys this edition of Balkans, King Power is completely back in the title fight.
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| quadsas |
Posted on 05-05-2025 14:27
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2728
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A top hills squad for us, Sagan and Kwiat need to be deliver
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 05-05-2025 14:35
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World Champion
Posts: 13560
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With Gerts' win in TONE the pressure is not as high as it could have been on Formolo, but it's still crucial that we get a good result here.
Hopefully we won't see a repeat of Scandinavia where the entire team sacrificed their GCs for Formolo (who didn't even get a good position in the end), with Champoussin having the potential to do well here as well.
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 05-05-2025 18:44
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Sprinter
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Thanks for the preview, Laurens, and also for mentioning APP there! It's actually a top 5 goal race for us, but reasonably a top 10 would already be huge. Maybe we get some of our riders in the breaks and snatch some KoM points. In addition APP or Oliveira could actually get a stage result.
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| knockout |
Posted on 05-05-2025 18:54
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8235
Joined: 21-12-2010
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As always: big expectations for this race. Lets beat that Rwandan annoyance!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 05-05-2025 18:56
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-08-2011
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Hopefully Meurisse can do something here.
Thanks for the preview!
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| SotD |
Posted on 05-05-2025 19:09
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
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Hmm interesting choice to bring Phinney to this race. Wouldn't have been my natural pick, but who knows if he can show up to get a top 5 or so regardless. I think it will be a stretch, but given Oliviers 6th place last season it can't be ruled out.
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 06-05-2025 03:35
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Directeur Sportif
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The two obvious guys are clear favorites for 1-2. But nice to see Laurens place Yates as best of the rest. I feel like the 2 and 1 star guys are all slightly different and it could play out a number of ways. Yates could as easily finish 12th as 3rd. ideally he picks up bonus seconds on the easier stages.
Phinney and particularly Morton will be interesting to watch, I have been doing this report for like 5 years and nobody has ever brought a really top climber in that time.
Hopefully TOA is enough to pull us clear of relegation but Yates scoring well here wouldn't do any harm.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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| ryant |
Posted on 06-05-2025 09:02
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2388
Joined: 15-08-2012
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One of those where I had to go here based on our PTHC choices if we were to do the Vuelta as we couldn't do one of TA/PN as we didn't have the race days. Morton should be far from a favourite but I hope that one of the stages is tough enough that his Mountain stat comes into play. We have a strong team around him with Romo and Kanerva here so hopefully we can make up for the dismal scoring in ToNE
 John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25Red Bull Driver in RFactor
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| Bikex |
Posted on 06-05-2025 10:00
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Team Leader
Posts: 7385
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Yevgeniy make me happy please |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 06-05-2025 14:54
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 5234
Joined: 29-09-2018
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Great to see Stannard keeping up his great form after the "pointless" success he had in ToNE! Lopez just a tad stronger, though - the first step on his road to taking back the Balkans crown? Congrats to the S1 win anyway.
Looking forward to the new stage 2 now, should be an interesting and potentially selective one!
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 06-05-2025 15:23
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2797
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Great start for MAL, congrats!
If he takes the leader jersey all the way to the end and also adds more stage success, he might put Evonik back in title contention.
Because their scoring potential in Japan and Lombardy is pretty huge.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 06-05-2025 16:27
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World Champion
Posts: 13560
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Not off to a great start. Hopefully it will get better in the harder stages.
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| knockout |
Posted on 06-05-2025 16:48
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8235
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Thanks guys, brilliant start indeed.
Once again no good depth behind for us but also no gaos. Which i didnt like for lopez but could end up being helpful for blums etc
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 06-05-2025 18:05
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Classics Specialist
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Not the best opening stage for Marc but no time gaps means he's got chances to improve.
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| knockout |
Posted on 06-05-2025 18:53
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8235
Joined: 21-12-2010
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DubbelDekker wrote:
If he takes the leader jersey all the way to the end and also adds more stage success, he might put Evonik back in title contention.
Because their scoring potential in Japan and Lombardy is pretty huge.
I want to point out that you gained ~140 points in ToNE on me which raised the gap over 800 points between us. So even if i'd knew a 450 pts performance here and a Lombardia victory would be coming, I'd see myself in an underdog position - particularly if your climbers group will work decently in Lombardia.
That ToNE outcome was sneakily fantastic for you as you dodged big results for the entire rest of the top 6 with the only exception of S1 where Tinkoff and Polar delivered nicely in the sprint. Outside of that, you easily outscored everyone around you.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 06-05-2025 20:10
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2797
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Fair point. Guess "title contention" is a bit of an exaggeration.
A 450 point Balkans would make you a frontrunner in the fight for third place and a dark horse for the win.
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 06-05-2025 21:56
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3221
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Nice to see some vintage Naud breakaway action, a tad dissapointed to not see Meurisse mix it at the end of the stage however!
Thanks for the report and congrats knockout on the MAL win!
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