In Praise of Edvald Boasson Hagen

frenchfighter

This rider has impressed me a huge amount this year and I am very excited about how far he could go. He has style, power, grit and an attacking mentality.

I did a little research on him and here is what I found:

He was born in Norway in 1987, got into MTB aged 9 then road aged 15. When he turned junior he focused exclusively on road.

He turned pro with Team Maxbo - Bianchi in 2006. During that year he won eight races and had plenty of other top ten placings.
Results of note were: 3 stage wins in Tour de l'Avenir, a win in the Scandinavian Open Road Race, 2nd/4th in the Norwegian National RR/TT and 9th/5th in the World RR/TT.


In 2007 he won 15 races.
Results of note were: 1 win in Tour de Normandie, 1 win in Tour de Bretagne, 1st in Norwegian National TT, a win in the Tour of Ireland and 6th at the World TT.


In 2008 he moved to Team Columbia and got 7 wins.
Results of note were: 1st in Critérium International TT, 1st/4th in Norwegian National TT/RR, 1 win in Eneco Tour, 3 wins in the Tour of Britain and 21st at the World TT.

In 2009 he stayed with Columbia and won 9 races.
Races of note were: 1st Gent - Wevelgem, a 1st two 2nd and a third in the Giro, 1st/6th in the Norwegian National TT/RR, 4th in Monte Paschi Eroica, 2 wins in the Tour of Poland, the Eneco overall including two wins two 2nds and two thirds.


This year he is ranked 4th overall on CQ ranking and 3rd on the UCI rankings. He was 105th and 15th respectively in 2008.

He has ridden 61 race days this year with efficiency scores of 13 and 23 for points/km and points/race days.

frenchfighter

Add stage 4 of the Tour of Britain to that list!

EBH EBH EBH

andyp

For the love of god. :roll:

alanmcn1

Cross Post alert!!!

Another fine example of just how crap the forum is becoming

all show no go

Oh well, I guess I don't have to bother watching the highlights on TV now.

EDIT: I see that half of the thread has been moved just as I was posting. Apologies to all those concerned although the comment still stands with reference to stage 5

frenchfighter

all show no go wrote:

Oh well, I guess I don't have to bother watching the highlights on TV now.

Photo above is for STAGE 4. Today is Stage 5.

dave_1

frenchfighter wrote:

all show no go wrote:

Oh well, I guess I don't have to bother watching the highlights on TV now.

Photo above is for STAGE 4. Today is Stage 5.

why do you mount the stage winner's pic on your prof after every race? :?

frenchfighter

Add stage 3 and stage 5 of the Tour of Britain to that outstanding palamares.

frenchfighter

Add stage 6 to that and likely the overall. What an amazing guy. It is all too easy.

Larry Hickmott

The Prodigy

To be fair he isn't being challenged to any great extent is he? Still he is doing whats necessary.

teagar

The Prodigy wrote:

To be fair he isn't being challenged to any great extent is he? Still he is doing whats necessary.

Can only beat what they put in front of you after all.

frenchfighter

I read an interview with him recently and he didn't want to talk about the reasons for leaving Columbia and joining Sky. Does anyone know why? There is the issue of 2.5m / 3years...

In the interview he also said he was looking forward to challenging Cavendish in the sprints!

frenchfighter

“I’ll get to hear more about my season plans this week, but I will certainly do the Classics (Flanders, Ghent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix), the Tour de France and all the races in between."

Nettavisen.no.

maltiv

frenchfighter wrote:

I read an interview with him recently and he didn't want to talk about the reasons for leaving Columbia and joining Sky. Does anyone know why? There is the issue of 2.5m / 3years...

In the interview he also said he was looking forward to challenging Cavendish in the sprints!

He was a bit annoyed by the fact that the team forced him to do stuff like leading out Cavendish while he himself could've won the points jersey in giro if he would've had a free role (in stage 10 you could see him pulling in the front of the peleton while wearing the points jersey...), and also it annoyed him a fair lot that he had to leadout Greipel in the sprints in Tour de Pologne, while he himself had a fairly good shot at winning overall and was in much better shape. He said that he came to his conclusion of leaving the team in stage 4 of Tour de Pologne when he was leading out Greipel for 600 meters or so and Greipel couldn't even get past him. That's when he realized that he had no future in Columbia when they were so determined to only work for Cav and Greipel in every race they were present in, no matter the conditions.

In addition, Team Sky agreed to also add two other Norwegians to the team: a good friend of him (Lars Petter Nordhaug) as well as veteran Kurt Asle Arvesen, which definitely is a huge plus for him.

He claims that money was not important, and while I've heard that while Team Sky offered him quite a lot, Columbia countered with offering him the same amount of money, but he still preferred sky.

PinkBianchi

frenchfighter

Wiggins' view:

“Everyone knows that Edvald is the most talented rider in cycling right now,” said an impressed Wiggins to the website VG.no. “He is able to do exactly as he wants. He’s the team’s future and if he stays here, he can win all the races he can. He will be the big name in cycling over the next ten years. It’s almost scary to think about what he can achieve in ten years, by which time he’ll be 32 years old.”

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/2761/ ... cling.aspx

Stone Glider

What a talented rider. He may prove to be the shrewdest signing for Sky. He is more likely to deliver the much-trumpeted "Tour winner if five years" target than others on the roster.

Having EBH, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador in their pomp; the next few years will be a true golden age.