General race thread 2021 **spoilers**

Macy0161

Obviously assumes no performance clauses in Froomes contract. Only watched the highlights this morning, but was surprised how early he was tailed off. At that point, it was looking like a sprint!

retalivity

Roche didn't sign on for the TT today

EDIT: Dan losing a minute to a lot of the other GC guys

dastardly00

Nico was deemed a close contact to a staff member who tested positive for Covid-19

https://twitter.com/TeamDSM/status/1374332169598947335

breezy1985

Serious list of sprinters in Brussels-De Panne today.
Sam Bennett, Fernando Gaviria, Pascal Ackermann and Arnaud Demare along with Andre Greipel, Elia Viviani, Giacomo Nizzolo, Nacer Bouhanni, Jasper Philipsen and Sonny Colbrelli.

dastardly00

The finish at the Tour de Catalunya today should be exciting also - 11 km categorised climb up to the summit at 2,125 m. Hopefully Dan can put in a good performance. And it will be interesting to see who from Ineos will come out on top... Porte, Carapaz, Adam Yates or Thomas

retalivity

Paris-Roubaix 2021 cancelled according to L'Equipe

De Bhál

breezy1985 wrote: »

Serious list of sprinters in Brussels-De Panne today.
Sam Bennett, Fernando Gaviria, Pascal Ackermann and Arnaud Demare along with Andre Greipel, Elia Viviani, Giacomo Nizzolo, Nacer Bouhanni, Jasper Philipsen and Sonny Colbrelli.

Into final 5k - big sprint coming up

retalivity

Kicking off in volta catalunya as well, old man valverde away up the road

De Bhál

textbook

dastardly00

Nice one Sam

De Bhál

nearly thought Morkov was leaving it too late to get out of the way

breezy1985

breezy1985 wrote: »

Serious list of sprinters in Brussels-De Panne today.
Sam Bennett, Fernando Gaviria, Pascal Ackermann and Arnaud Demare along with Andre Greipel, Elia Viviani, Giacomo Nizzolo, Nacer Bouhanni, Jasper Philipsen and Sonny Colbrelli.

Sorry Brugge not Brussels. Doesn't matter either way Sam took it easy in the end despite a nervy few seconds where it looked like he was stuck behind his lead out.

Busy run in for the commissars too as there was riders on paths all over the place

dastardly00

Very impressive so far from Adam Yates

dastardly00

Good performance from Dan - 8th, only 36 seconds behind Yates.

EDIT - it seems that it was Dan's team mate Mike Woods who was 8th

retalivity

Didn't realise the ridiculous team Ineos have in Catalunya - Yates, Thomas, Porte, Carapaz & Dennis

mr spuckler

De Bhál wrote: »

nearly thought Morkov was leaving it too late to get out of the way

He said there was a headwind in the final so waited as long as possible to start his sprint.

Funny comment as well from him again referencing the fact that he only focuses on his own sprint, doesn't worry what anyone else is doing.

Video of finale below.

https://twitter.com/sporza_koers/status/1374748906953842690

His first world tour one day race win I think he said too at the finish.

Macy0161

Hopefully he can retain the form for Sunday and get over the Kemmelberg!

dastardly00

[Deleted User] wrote: »

His first world tour one day race win I think he said too at the finish.

I heard the commentary team say that as well and I thought that surely they were wrong... but come to think about it, there are not that many World Tour level one-day races that suit out-and-out sprinters.

37 starts -
https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider.php?xseason=&sort=rnk&race=&km1=&zkm1=&pkm1=equal&limit=100&offset=0&topx=&ztopx=&ptopx=smallerorequal&type=8&continent=&pnts=&zpnts=&ppnts=equal&level=wt&rnk=&zrnk=&prnk=equal&exclude_tt=0&exclude_tt=1&racedate=&zracedate=&pracedate=equal&filter=Filter&id=sam-bennett&p=results

breezy1985

dastardly00 wrote: »

I heard the commentary team say that as well and I thought that surely they were wrong... but come to think about it, there are not that many World Tour level one-day races that suit out-and-out sprinters.

37 starts -
https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider.php?xseason=&sort=rnk&race=&km1=&zkm1=&pkm1=equal&limit=100&offset=0&topx=&ztopx=&ptopx=smallerorequal&type=8&continent=&pnts=&zpnts=&ppnts=equal&level=wt&rnk=&zrnk=&prnk=equal&exclude_tt=0&exclude_tt=1&racedate=&zracedate=&pracedate=equal&filter=Filter&id=sam-bennett&p=results

Would have been pulling for Sagan for a fair few as well I assume

CrowdedHouse

Poor aul Eddie in the wars again

https://twitter.com/sticky_bottle/status/1374762096693542914?s=20

Dodge

[Deleted User] wrote: »

His first world tour one day race win I think he said too at the finish.

Defo his first ever world tour win (not stage). Since the introduction of the world tour Dan Martin is the only Irish cyclist to win one. The last being Lombardy in 2015

at1withmyself

You could easily mixed it up with Froome too 😉

dastardly00 wrote: »

Good performance from Dan - 8th, only 36 seconds behind Yates.

EDIT - it seems that it was Dan's team mate Mike Woods who was 8th

retalivity

at1withmyself wrote: »

You could easily mixed it up with Froome too ��

45	 MARTIN Dan	Israel Start-Up Nation			4:45
46	 DOMBROWSKI Joe	UAE-Team Emirates			4:55
47	 ZWIEHOFF Ben	BORA - hansgrohe			5:15
48	 NYCH Artem	Gazprom - RusVelo			5:19
49	 VALTER Attila	Groupama - FDJ				5:34
50	 BRITTON Rob	Rally Cycling				5:43
51	 FROOME Chris	Israel Start-Up Nation			,,

Dan only finished 1min ahead of Froome which is surprising as Froome sat up with 10km to go

mr spuckler

The overhead of Sam's win today is even better - the gap was huge compared to how it looked from the other angle!

https://twitter.com/Cyclingtimenews/status/1374788984061186056

breezy1985

mr spuckler wrote: »

The overhead of Sam's win today is even better - the gap was huge compared to how it looked from the other angle!

https://twitter.com/Cyclingtimenews/status/1374788984061186056

Some distance between him and that lad Bora bet their chips on

dahat

Ackerman has been really disappointing for me this year, looks well off the pace & has failed to quicken in any sprint he has been led into.

Viviani and Gavaria look even worse. One hasn't won a race since 2019 the other a credible one since the 2019 Giro. Morkov finished 8th ahead of Vivani today in 8th place despite having sat up to celebrate before Sam even crossed the line.

EDIT: If Sam doesn't re-sign with DQS he should retire because life after them as a sprinter doesn't look good.

dublin49

I saw a list recently of the top 20 earners in peleton and Sam wasnt on it and Vivani was.Could this be correct or do they just not know what hes on?

dastardly00

dublin49 wrote: »

I saw a list recently of the top 20 earners in peleton and Sam wasnt on it and Vivani was.Could this be correct or do they just not know what hes on?

It's hard to know how accurate these lists are. But I'm not surprised Sam isn't on it because (i) Sam wanted to leave Bora so negotiating a super high wage might not have been his top priority; (ii) Patrick Lefevere is known for not paying his rider's the highest salaries amongst the peloton; and (iii) Sam was unproven on the very biggest stage (i.e. Tour de France) before signing for DQS.

That salary list is for basic pay, but I'm assume Sam has a very good win bonus clause in his contract And he'll probably be in the top-20 list when his next contract is renewed.

Viviani's salary is probably so high because when he signed a contract to join Cofidis, he coming on the back of winning stages in all three Grand Tours when he was with DQS. His next contract will probably be a fraction of his current salary. It's a similar story with Gaviria. He had great results with Quick-Step and then he signed for UAE for big bucks.