tom dumoulin – Fendrien

Belated Giro review…

June 6, 2022 by James Warrener, posted in Blog, News, racing

My holiday had an inconvenient side effect of taking me away from wifi and 4g for the final weekend of the 2022 Giro D’Italia.

I had left for the solitude of a boat on the Norfolk broads with Richard Carapaz of Ineos looking the likely winner in Verona.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

The race had started back on 6th May in Hungary which put on its best sights and weather for the arrival of the race. A year or so late due to Covid, of course.

Mathieu van der Poel did his thing avoiding a tumbling Caleb Ewan to get the first pink jersey before Simon Yates shocked the peloton in the next days time trial.

The Brits were 2 from 3 in the Hungarian stages as Mark Cavendish kept the “will he won’t he?” Tour de France narrative going by outsprinting his rivals in Balantonfured. The debate is still raging as that was the high point for Cav with no other stages wins. He did make the finish though and has taken that form into the most recent Belgian semi classics.

Stage 4 had the first mountain finish of the race and Leonard Kamna showed his class by taking the win on Mount Etna. Juan Pedro Lopez of Trek took the leaders pink jersey at this point and despite being a relative newcomer to the top table of world cycling was able to hang on for 9 days.

As we journeyed up the West coast for a few days Arnaud Demare put Cavendish, Ewan et al. in their place with back to back wins. This was enough to win the points jersey at the end of the race.

A couple of midi montagne stages followed with typically swashbuckling breakaway wins from Koen Bouwman of Jumbo (with a massive assist from Tom Dumoulin) and Thomas De Gendt.

De Gendt won in the way only he can, dangling off the front in a group that was pretty dysfunctional but just about had enough time to win it.

A sign of things to come was shown on stage 9 with Australian Jai Hindley winning the showpiece finish on Blockhaus. He would stay within a few seconds of the race lead until the final weekend.

Jesi is a place I know so it was great to see more barriers broken down by Biniam Girmay. Let’s savour his win for now and hope the eye injury he got post stage won’t affect him long term.

After no stage wins in 10 so far, the home nation of Italy got a pair on consecutive days with Alberto Dainese winning a sprint before Stefano Oldani showed his Etna breakaway was no fluke with a brilliant win in the port city of Genoa.

Demare and Yates won more stages as Lopez finally conceded the leaders jersey to Carapaz.

The race settled into the mountainous final week with more breaks winning stages. Santi Buitrago was the standout with a thrilling counter attack after crashing on a downhill.

Perennial trier Dries DeBondt showed his ‘new De Gendt‘ credentials as we headed into the key final stages.

All eyes were on the Marmolada stage where Allesandro Covi crossed the line first to save the race from a UAE Team Emirates perspective. The drama was behind though with team mate Kamna dropping back from the winning break to set a fierce pace for Hindley.

It was too much for the pink jersey and Carapaz was dropped for good seeing a late in the race new leader in the Aussie.

The final time trial was a lap of honour for Hindley who put the hurt of losing on the last day 2 years ago behind him. It was a great win and well deserved.

Rnk	Prev	▼▲	Rider	Team	UCI	Pnt	Time Bonus	Time
1	1	–	HINDLEY Jai	BORA – hansgrohe	850	400	21″	86:31:14
2	2	–	CARAPAZ Richard	INEOS Grenadiers	680	290	14″	1:18
3	3	–	LANDA Mikel	Bahrain – Victorious	575	240		3:24
4	4	–	NIBALI Vincenzo	Astana Qazaqstan Team	460	220		9:02
5	5	–	BILBAO Pello	Bahrain – Victorious	380	200	4″	9:14
6	6	–	HIRT Jan	Intermarché – Wanty – Gobert Matériaux	320	190	15″	9:28
7	7	–	BUCHMANN Emanuel	BORA – hansgrohe	260	180		13:19
8	8	–	POZZOVIVO Domenico	Intermarché – Wanty – Gobert Matériaux	220	170		17:29
9	10	▲1	CARTHY Hugh	EF Education-EasyPost	180	160		17:54
10	9	▼1	LÓPEZ Juan Pedro	Trek – Segafredo	140	150	6″	18:40

from Procyclingstats.com

‘Chasing Rainbows’ – 2020 World Cycling Championships…

September 28, 2020 by James Warrener, posted in Blog, News, racing

The last minute, re-arranged World Cycling Championships were very good considering all of the stress and alterations to the venue in the run up.

Naturally it was a shame not to see U23 competitions and the team time trial (especially seeing as how controversial it was when it came in). But the events we did get to see where entertaining and with deserving winners.

Rnk	Rider	Team	UCI	Pnt	Avg	Time
1	VAN DER BREGGEN Anna	Netherlands	350	100	47.157	40:20
2	REUSSER Marlen	Switzerland	250	70	46.867	0:15
3	VAN DIJK Ellen	Netherlands	200	40	46.561	0:31
4	BRENNAUER Lisa	Germany	150	30	46.296	0:45
5	BROWN Grace	Australia	125	25	45.998	1:01
6	NEBEN Amber	United States	100	20	45.648	1:20
7	NORSGAARD Emma Cecilie	Denmark	85	15	45.612	1:22
8	KRÖGER Mieke	Germany	70	10	45.448	1:31
9	STEPHENS Lauren	United States	60	9	45.232	1:43
10	BUSSI Vittoria	Italy	50	8	45.178	1:46

Anna Van Der Breggen was a narrow winner of the Womens TT with Marlen Reusser at only 15 seconds and Ellen Van Dyke only a second away from a 30 second blanket being able to be thrown over the podium.

Rnk	Rider	Team	UCI	Pnt	Time
1	VAN DER BREGGEN Anna	Netherlands	600	200	4:09:57
2	VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek	Netherlands	475	170	1:20
3	LONGO BORGHINI Elisa	Italy	400	140	,,
4	VOS Marianne	Netherlands	325	130	2:01
5	LIPPERT Liane	Germany	275	120	,,
6	DEIGNAN Elizabeth	Great Britain	225	110	,,
7	NIEWIADOMA Katarzyna	Poland	175	100	,,
8	LUDWIG Cecilie Uttrup	Denmark	150	90	2:41
9	BRENNAUER Lisa	Germany	125	80	3:08
10	REUSSER Marlen	Switzerland	100	70	,

The road race was less close with Van Der Breggen doing the double. Special mention must go to her team mate and rival Annamiek Van Vleuten who came home for a silver medal despite recently suffering a fracture of her wrist.

As with the womens events, the mens were dominated by the big names of the sport with Fillipo Ganna winning the time trial ahead of Wout Van Aert (who bagged a pair of silver medals) and Stefan Kung who had left the Tour de France early to prepare for this event.

The weather was unpredictable with howling wind and cloud closing in and pulling out all through the event. At one point a cloud burst looked inevitable and this would have given an advantage to the early starters. But it didn’t materialise.

It was interesting to see that despite a pretty bland circuit and shortened distance the riders made the event and that was exactly what the championships needed to be successful.

Rnk	Rider	Team	UCI	Pnt	Avg	Time
1	GANNA Filippo	Italy	350	250	52.981	35:54
2	VAN AERT Wout	Belgium	250	190	52.349	0:26
3	KÜNG Stefan	Switzerland	200	140	52.277	0:29
4	THOMAS Geraint	Great Britain	150	110	52.086	0:37
5	DENNIS Rohan	Australia	125	100	52.038	0:39
6	ASGREEN Kasper	Denmark	100	90	51.849	0:47
7	CAVAGNA Rémi	France	85	80	51.826	0:48
8	CAMPENAERTS Victor	Belgium	70	70	51.732	0:52
9	DOWSETT Alex	Great Britain	60	60	51.405	1:06
10	DUMOULIN Tom	Netherlands	50	50	51.221	1:14

The final event of the weekend was the mens road race which I settled down to watch with a beer after 80km of hard, windy riding of my own Sunday morning.

The breakaway were kept at a suitable arms length going into the latter stages of the race before Tadej Pogacar rocketed out of the front of the pack with a lap and a half to go.

He managed to get a good distance before fading, but it was a clear plan to soften the race up for his team mate Primoz Roglic.

Whether Roglic didn’t feel too great I don’t know. But he didn’t seem capable of getting out of the wheels when the likes of Tom Dumoulin and Greg Van Avermaet went off up the road.

The attack that did stick came from Julian Alaphillippe who went clear on the penultimate climb before following the Pogacar blueprint from previous laps and digging in on the plateau and rolling section of road.

He then made good on the decent into the Formula 1 circuit before stretching his narrow lead in the final kilometer as the chasers started to disfunction and settle for the lower places.

Rnk	Rider	Team	UCI	Pnt	Time
1	ALAPHILIPPE Julian	France	600	350	6:38:34
2	VAN AERT Wout	Belgium	475	260	0:24
3	HIRSCHI Marc	Switzerland	400	190	,,
4	KWIATKOWSKI Michał	Poland	325	150	,,
5	FUGLSANG Jakob	Denmark	275	130	,,
6	ROGLIČ Primož	Slovenia	225	110	,,
7	MATTHEWS Michael	Australia	175	100	0:53
8	VALVERDE Alejandro	Spain	150	90	,,
9	SCHACHMANN Maximilian	Germany	125	80	,,
10	CARUSO Damiano	Italy	100	70	,,

Van Aert came home second as previously mentioned with man of the month Marc Hirschi finishing off the podium places.

We now have a really short break before the Eneco Tour this week, Ardennes Classics on Wednesday and Sunday and the Giro starting Saturday.

Bring it on!

Tour ’20 – Stages 20 and 21 – Roglic folds under pressure from Pogacar

September 21, 2020January 25, 2021 by James Warrener, posted in Blog, News, racing

Regular readers of this website will remember that my preview of this years race was based around my memories of 1989. Something that hindsight has proved to be good punditry!

There was little sign of what happened on stage 20 coming to pass, even as the two main protagonists, Tadej Pogacar and yellow jersey Primoz Roglic warmed up ahead of the start of their time trials.

But Pogacar was gaining time from the start and at the first unofficial GPS tracking check was already 12 seconds closer to his Slovenian counterpart.

This fast start from his opponent seemed to freak Roglic out and he was starting to fold before our very eyes.

As they both started to climb the Planch des Belles Filles and swapped bikes there was very little to choose between them on GC time. This was pheomenal as Pogacar had had to go a minute quicker to that point to get back level.

Once the guy in 2nd had overhauled the erstwhile yellow jersey to take the race lead he kept that pace up and stretched out almost another minute which was enough to leave him a comfortable winner in GC.

Maybe it wasn’t as close as the 1989 finish as I led you to believe then!

The pictures of Roglic struggling up the 20% gradient to the finish line with his face all sunken in and his crash helmet wonky to the point of looking comical was sad to see.

He rolled alone over the finish line before Tom Dumoulin and Wout Van Aert tried to comfort him. Just along the road from this sad sight Pogacar also has his head in his hands, but in disbelief and joy.

I feel a mighty amount of sympathy for Roglic to lose in this way and for him to go to bed without his yellow jersey, but with a broken heart. It was wretched for him and I wonder where he goes from here.

It says a lot about him as a man though, that he congratulated the man who beat him so soundly and that he was front and centre riding into Paris on Sunday. A much lesser man would have hid.

The final stage was less about drinking booze on the run in to Paris, another feature of this Covid world. Sam Bennett was the winner proving that his green jersey was thoroughly deserved (as if we doubted him!) and that he was the fastest man of the race.

Sorry Caleb and Wout!

So that’s it for the 2020 Tour de France, thanks very much for sticking with my coverage of the race. I really hoped you enjoyed reading how I saw it, please tell your friends and buy a Beers of Belgium CC jersey (using the store password of “FENDRIEN” ahead of the classics !

Here is the final top 10 on GC from www.procyclingstats.com

Rnk	Rider	Team	Time
1	POGAČAR Tadej	UAE-Team Emirates	87:20:05
2	ROGLIČ Primož	Team Jumbo-Visma	0:59
3	DOOR Richie	Trek – Segafredo	3:30
4	LANDA Mikel	Bahrain – McLaren	5:58
5	MAS Enric	Movistar Team	6:07
6	LÓPEZ Miguel Ángel	Astana Pro Team	6:47
7	DUMOULIN Tom	Team Jumbo-Visma	7:48
8	URÁN Rigoberto	EF Pro Cycling	8:02
9	YATES Adam	Mitchelton-Scott	9:25
10	CARUSO Damiano	Bahrain – McLaren	14:03

The Dutch are coming

August 9, 2016 by James Warrener, posted in Uncategorized

Its been a while in coming, but the Dutch are coming back.

As a kid I grew up watching John-Paul Van Poppel dominate sprints whilst the twins, Gert-Jan Theunisse and Steven Rooks soared through the mountains.

Greg LeMond won the most exciting Tour in history in 1989 but one of the best stages for me was the mountain time trial to Orcieres Merlette where Rook won.

It was in part down to those two that Alp D’Huez was christened the “Dutch Mountain”.

Despite a few false dawns recently the golden era seems to be returning.

We had Tom Dumoulin going close in the Vuelta last season before an equally late race collapse by Steven Kruijswijk in the Giro. Bauke Mollema was up there in the Tour de France and despite also faltering in the final days the trend was still up.

I think we will see a grand Tour winner flying the horizontal tricolour before we do that of a Frenchman, but it will be close.

The old country’s are coming back into cycling rapidly and we had better watch out.