Paris - Nice 2014 *Spoilers*

Paulie W

Pross wrote:

Paulie W wrote:

Geraint takes yellow by 5

Ah goody. First Welshman to lead P-N?

Out by two just 3 seconds!

ddraver

TailWindHome wrote:

Paulie W wrote:

Geraint takes yellow by 5

Clinic to implode in 3...2...1....

So just to offset the "he's come from no where...

2004 1st Junior Paris–Roubaix
1st Scratch Race, Junior World Track Championships

2005
1st Scratch Race, National Track Championships

2006
1st Overall Flèche du Sud
1st Points classification
1st Under-21 classification
1st Stage 2
3rd Points Race, Commonwealth Games
3rd National Road Race Championships

2007
1st Team pursuit, World Track Championships

2008
1st Team pursuit, Olympic Games
1st Team pursuit, World Track Championships
1st Smithfield Nocturne 2009
1st Individual pursuit, National Track Championships
5th Coppa Bernocchi
6th Overall Tour of Britain

2010
1st National Road Race Championships
1st Stage 1 (TTT) Tour of Qatar
3rd National Time Trial Championships
Tour de France Held Young Riders Jersey from Stages 3–6

2011
1st Overall Bayern-Rundfahrt
2nd National Road Race Championships
2nd Dwars door Vlaanderen
6th Classica Sarda
10th Tour of Flanders

Tour de France
Held Young Riders Jersey from Stages 1–7
Combativity award Stage 12
1st Points classification Tour of Britain

2012
1st Team pursuit, Olympic Games
World Track Championships 1st Team pursuit
2nd Madison (with Ben Swift)
1st Prologue Tour de Romandie

2013
2nd Overall Bayern-Rundfahrt
3rd Overall Tour Down Under
1st Stage 2
1st Sprints classification
Most aggressive rider award, Stage 6
3rd Team time trial, Road World Championships
4th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
4th E3 Harelbeke
10th Overall Tour of Qatar

2014
8th Overall Tour Down Under

blazing_saddles

frenchfighter wrote:

Great class from Slagter as he crosses the line.

Respect for him for making the decisive move and hanging on. Respect to Geraint for bridging and relaying like a titan.

Shame on the other riders especially Nibali - he should have always been in the mix.

Enjoyed the last 50ks.

Nibali tried to bridge but excellent marking from Sky shut him down.
Much cat and mouse in that chase group, which is what I describe as panache with subtlety.

frenchfighter

Blazing Saddles wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Great class from Slagter as he crosses the line.

Respect for him for making the decisive move and hanging on. Respect to Geraint for bridging and relaying like a titan.

Shame on the other riders especially Nibali - he should have always been in the mix.

Enjoyed the last 50ks.

Nibali tried to bridge but excellent marking from Sky shut him down.
Much cat and mouse in that chase group, which is what I describe as panache with subtlety.

:roll:

frenchfighter wrote:

Nibali finally makes a move...should have done it a long time ago.

He gets a 20m gap before a Sky rider drags the whole G2 up to his wheel :roll:

Paulie W

frenchfighter wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Great class from Slagter as he crosses the line.

Respect for him for making the decisive move and hanging on. Respect to Geraint for bridging and relaying like a titan.

Shame on the other riders especially Nibali - he should have always been in the mix.

Enjoyed the last 50ks.

Nibali tried to bridge but excellent marking from Sky shut him down.
Much cat and mouse in that chase group, which is what I describe as panache with subtlety.

:roll:

frenchfighter wrote:

Nibali finally makes a move...should have done it a long time ago.

He gets a 20m gap before a Sky rider drags the whole G2 up to his wheel :roll:

Nibs has a few goes in the last 10k but when he was caught no-one really wanted to work.

blazing_saddles

Good, so we agree. He did try.
Not sure where that long time before could have been.

Richmond Racer

oh FFS I had to take a call and missed all but the last 3km

*sulks*


EDIT: reading back through the posts to get idea of what happened - big thanks to Frenchie especially

frenchfighter

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Good, so we agree. He did try.
Not sure where that long time before could have been.

On the climb maybe given he is a climber? Attacking on a fast, flat, open run in is useless.

above_the_cows

Am now catching the last 50k on Eurosport. My PTP pick out the back already.

Looking forward to watching this now.

blazing_saddles

frenchfighter wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Good, so we agree. He did try.
Not sure where that long time before could have been.

On the climb maybe given he is a climber? Attacking on a fast, flat, open run in is useless.

Waiting for the Fayence stage probably.
Longer, medium difficulty climb, sharp descent, followed by a couple of kms of around 7%.
Phoney war, today. Look at Betancur mucking about.

greeny12

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Phoney war, today. Look at Betancur mucking about.

Even though he's my PTP pick for GC and today's stage, I couldn't help but snigger when he attacked and then was almost immediately stopped in his tracks on the vertiginous inside line of that hairpin. He should have read the Inner Ring preview this morning:

"The profile says the ascension reaches 25% but not if riders avoid the inside of the hairpin bends."

rayjay

The main contenders thought it would all come together once over the last climb.

I wonder how many did a recon?

That descent was quite technical and being in a group going down was a disadvantage.

Quite exciting, but would have been better if we had seen some attacks on the early part of the last climb from Nibali and co.

My man Chavenel not having a good tour so Far.

frenchfighter

Richmond Racer

Pleased for Slagter - he's a proper talent - and very happy for G

tailwindhome

ddraver wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

Paulie W wrote:

Geraint takes yellow by 5

Clinic to implode in 3...2...1....

So just to offset the "he's come from no where...

False alarm - OPQS won a TTT.

tailwindhome

1 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 18:14:25
2 John Degenkolb (Ger) Team Giant-Shimano 0:00:03
3 Tom Jelte Slagter (Ned) Garmin Sharp 0:00:04
4 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:08
5 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:12
6 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin-Pro Cycling Team 0:00:15
7 Carlos Alberto Betancur Gomez (Col) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:17
8 Loads of people including Nibali and Costa 0:00:19

frenchfighter

from yday:

frenchfighter

Crankbrother

Just finished watching this as recorded earlier ... Now that was racing, absolutely brilliant ...

Thomas done more work pulling to the finish but worth it to give them both something to ride for to keep it going ...

Excellent entertainment ... even better than the weekends racing in Italy ...

joelsim

rayjay wrote:

The main contenders thought it would all come together once over the last climb.

I wonder how many did a recon?

That descent was quite technical and being in a group going down was a disadvantage.

Quite exciting, but would have been better if we had seen some attacks on the early part of the last climb from Nibali and co.

My man Chavenel not having a good tour so Far.

Chava hasn't shown anything for a couple of years to be fair.

Macaloon

TailWindHome wrote:

1 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 18:14:25
2 John Degenkolb (Ger) Team Giant-Shimano 0:00:03
3 Tom Jelte Slagter (Ned) Garmin Sharp 0:00:04
4 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:08
5 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:12
6 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin-Pro Cycling Team 0:00:15
7 Carlos Alberto Betancur Gomez (Col) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:17
8 Loads of people including Nibali and Costa 0:00:19

Quality ride by Degenkolb. Stage/GC riders had to slaughter themselves to distance a 'sprinter'. Excellent variety in the top 10. potential for a few belters in forthcoming stages.

andyp

Joelsim wrote:

Chava hasn't shown anything for a couple of years to be fair.

Do you actually watch any racing?

iainf72

andyp wrote:

Joelsim wrote:

Chava hasn't shown anything for a couple of years to be fair.

Do you actually watch any racing?

Maybe he was thinking of Seb? :P

joelsim

iainf72 wrote:

andyp wrote:

Joelsim wrote:

Chava hasn't shown anything for a couple of years to be fair.

Do you actually watch any racing?

Maybe he was thinking of Seb? :P

I watch every race I can, and tbh Sylvain has flattered to underwhelm pretty much every time.

I'm doing pretty well in the road.cc fantasy league (3rd in the BR league) so I can't be that bad at judgement. It's fair to say Chavanel (either of them) don't ever get picked in my team. That's after 37 stages/classics so far in 2014.

rayjay

Last years results for Mr C
1st MaillotMundial.PNG World Team Time Trial Championships1st MaillotFra.PNG National Time Trial Championships1st Jersey white.svg Overall Three Days of De Panne 1st Stage 3b (ITT)2nd National Road Race Championships3rd Chrono des Nations4th Milan – San Remo4th Brabantse Pijl5th Overall Paris–Nice 1st Jersey green.svg Points classification1st Stage 66th Overall Eneco Tour 1st Stage 5 (ITT)6th E3 Harelbeke7th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad8th Grand Prix de Wallonie

Its not to bad and he can be very dangerous at times and not always had the best of luck.

I'm letting my heart rule my head by opting for Mr C , I do realise that.But it makes the PTP a bit more interesting if a few of us don't go for the obvious contenders.

So far things have not gone so well for Mr C , crash and bike change etc . I will stick with him.

stanislav

Chavanels record over the last couple of years relies on time trials,giving him several small stage race wins and a couple of nationals.Pretty good record.
On the other hand,One RR win in 3years.

joelsim

stanislav wrote:

Chavanels record over the last couple of years relies on time trials,giving him several small stage race wins and a couple of nationals.Pretty good record.
On the other hand,One RR win in 3years.

I agree. Take his undoubted TT ability out of the equation and give or take 1 or 2 decent results, he has been consistently average for a big name.

andyp

Joelsim wrote:

I watch every race I can, and tbh Sylvain has flattered to underwhelm pretty much every time.

I'm doing pretty well in the road.cc fantasy league (3rd in the BR league) so I can't be that bad at judgement. It's fair to say Chavanel (either of them) don't ever get picked in my team. That's after 37 stages/classics so far in 2014.

With a record as impressive as this, how come a WT team hasn't been on the phone to recruit you as their tactically savvy DS?

Chavanel rides for OPQS, alongside the likes of Boonen, Cavendish and Terpstra, and gets to lead the team once in a blue moon. He was 5th overall with a stage win at Paris-Nice last year, was just off the podium at MSR, won the 3 Days of De Panne and was consistently in the top ten of the cobbled semi-classics. I'd say that was a decent return for a rider who has never been prolific.

rick_chasey

I was surprised it wasn't more organised after the final climb.

Hence my Degenkolb PTP pick.

stanislav

Maybe the hard chasing back on took its toll today and hopefully he can bounce back .An on form chavanel is good to watch,even if he doesn't win much.