(electronic beeping)
- Coming up today Liege-Bastogne-Liege
rounds out the spring classic season
and produces two very worthy winners,
even if one of them has a slightly squeaky bum moment
with six kilometers to go.
We also have Fleche Wallone,
a confirmation of talent at the Tour of the Alps
and a couple of notable retirements.
And, for something completely different,
Rasputitsa gravel race from Vermont.
Three, two, one, that was the countdown
for Jakob Fuglsang over the Ardennes week,
with third at Amstel, second at Fleche
and finally the win at Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
That was bettered though by Annemiek van Vleuten
of Mitchelton-Scott, who was second, second
and first in those same races.
Sadly, we didn't get to see that win live,
more on that a bit later.
For Fuglsang it was his first monument victory
and a just reward for what has been a stellar season so far
and by far his best form in one day races.
He's finished four one day races this season
and never finished off the podium,
but the thorn in his side has been Julian Alaphilippe.
Yesterday though, it looked to be one race too far
for Alaphilippe, who wasn't quite the rider
that we've come to expect for the rest of the season.
His team rode perfectly, but on the final climb,
when Fuglsang went, he just didn't have the power to follow.
According to Mikkel Conde on Twitter,
Alaphilippe had seen him coming,
speaking to Danish reporter Sanne Jakobsen,
Fuglsang said, "At one point before Redoute,
"Alaphilippe was next to me and he knew
"that he didn't have it today, he told me,
"I hope you win today."
What a gracious thing to say,
especially given their small spat at the Amstel Gold race.
It did make me wonder though, why Deceuninck QuickStep
were riding full gasp at Alaphilippe,
all the way in to La Redoute.
But at the same time, it was almost a tactical coup,
everyone was waiting for Alaphilippe to attack,
it didn't happen on Redoute,
it didn't happen on the Cote des Forges
and it didn't happen on the last climb of the day,
the Roche-aux-Faucons, we all know now why.
But had Fuglsang not taken the initiative there,
Alaphlipppe may have been able to sit in
and get a result, even when he wasn't at 100%.
Maybe Fuglsang thought he was bluffing,
regardless, Fuglsang winning the final spring monument
can only mean one thing,
close your ears, it's the Astana rap.
- # We are the only team, who wore blue before,
# all the other blue teams, it's better to ignore.
# Our leaders of the gang, this is Jakob Fuglsang.
(electronic music)
- Let's hope that no other team decides
that rapping is the recipe for success.
Bora-Hansgrohe took the other two spots on the podium,
Davide Formolo was unable to stay with Fuglsang
when he went clear, but he managed
to stay away from the chasers,
to take his best result in a monument,
while Max Schachmann won the sprint for third.
For me, the other two highlights were this,
where Ion Izagirre decided he'd had enough
of racing for the day and appeared
to find a local house for an early shower.
And this, EF Education first, Michael Woods,
with one legwarmer and not the other, it's a good look.
Now, whilst the men's race was expected to ignite early,
given the route change and the flatter finish it didn't.
But the women's race did,
that was where Annemiek van Vleuten made her move,
never to be seen again
or even at the time if you weren't there.
ASO quite rightly came in for a large amount of criticism
when they announced that they wouldn't be showing
the women's La Fleche Wallone or Liege-Bastogne-Liege live.
The fact that they made the effort
to create the women's Liege just three years ago,
makes it even stranger that they would then choose
not even to make the effort to show it.
Especially when you look at the viewing figures
quoted here on Twitter by Daam Van Reeth,
which shows that the women's Amstel Gold race
was watched by 1.2 million people
in the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Flanders alone.
Regardless, van Vleuten's ride was a dominant one,
she'd already carved out a 30 second lead
by the top of La Redoute and that continued to increase
throughout her solo escape.
By the end it was one minute and 39 seconds
over Floortje Mackaij who came through for second.
While a jubilant Demi Vollering of Parkhotel Valkenburg
won the sprint for third, to make it an all Dutch podium.
But there can be only one GCN rider of the week,
Annemiek van Vleuten, second in Amstel,
second in Fleche and the winner yesterday.
This year her only competitive outings
have been seven one day races
and she's not finished outside the top seven
and at 36 she's showing the rest how it's done.
With that victory she now has quite a commanding lead
over Marianne Vos in the UCI Women's Word Tour rankings.
We'd also give some special mentions to Lizzy Deignan,
who finished seventh yesterday
in what is just her third race back after giving birth.
And Annika Langvad, a mountain biker, who at 35
has competed in her first four World Tour races this year,
finishing second, third and 14th, not too shabby.
That third place incidentally on Wednesday's Fleche Wallone,
where she finished behind her team mate Anna van der Breggen
who took her fifth win in a row,
up the wall that is the Mur de Huy.
In the men's Fleche Wallone we saw some pretty nasty crashes
Ion Izagirre along with team Sky's Eddie Dunbar here
and then a few kilometers later, Roman Kreuziger
and Domenico Pozzovivo came off on a central reservation.
Pozzovivo's crash looked particularly nasty,
he didn't break any bones, but the facial trauma
unfortunately was enough to prevent him from riding Liege.
Despite some dangerous looking long-range attacks,
we end up with the inevitable group fight up the Mur de Huy
and in many ways the inevitable winner.
Fuglsang made him work hard for it,
but Alaphilippe took his second win on the trot.
One of the revelations of the day though,
was 22 year old Bjorg Lambrecht who finished fourth.
Such was the effort he put in,
that the Lotto Soudal rider almost collapsed at the top
as this footage from Merin Casteline at VTM Nieuws shows,
that man went very deep indeed.
The big stage race last week was the Tour of the Alps,
a five day race in Austria and Italy,
formerly known as the Giro del Trentino.
There are a number of riders who head there
to prepare for the Giro d'Italia,
amongst them this year Vincenzo Nibali,
fresh from a spell at altitude.
The Italian was on fine form, putting in a heap of attacks
on the climbs, but he came up against
a talented couple of riders from Team Sky.
Tao Geoghegan Hart took his first pro win on the opening day
from a group sprint of around 20, whilst the following day,
21 year old Pavel Sivakov did exactly the same,
riding away from Jan Hirt on the final climb to Schenna
and taking the leader's jersey
from his team mate in the process.
And it would be a lead that he would never relinquish,
despite the best efforts of Nibali and Rafal Majka.
The Russian was also helped by the most super
of super domestiques that you are ever likely to see,
none other than Chris Froome.
Along with Geoghegan Hart who also won stage four,
they dealt with everything that was thrown at them,
Sivakov becoming the second youngest,
overall winner of the race.
Also impressing was Fausto Masnada,
who took his first two wins in Europe
on stages three and five, both of them solo,
watch out for him at the Giro.
Last week also saw a couple of high profile retirements,
first up, Jeremy Powers, JPow has been a legend
within US cyclocross, not only amassing over 90 UCI wins,
but also actively encouraging
and bringing others into the sport.
Also, the outpouring of love on social media
upon his announcement, from the general public
and fellow professional riders was really quite incredible.
This tweet from Tao Geoghegan Hart
I think sums up the response perfectly.
And as you'll see at the end of that tweet,
he'll be joining us as a US based presenter
at the start of June, which we're all over the moon about,
so big welcomes to Jeremy.
Also announcing his impending retirement is Davide Rebellin,
he's best known for three things,
winning Amstel Fleche and Liege in 2004,
serving a ban for doping after testing positive
at the Beijing Olympic Games and finally,
for continuing to compete at a high level well into his 40s.
To put that into context, according to Ammatti Pyoraily
on Twitter, 209 of the current 477 World Tour riders
were not even born when Rebellin turned pro.
His last race will be the Italian Championships,
not long before his 48th birthday,
let's hope it hasn't been a hasty decision.
And now for something completely different,
the Rasputitsa gravel race in Vermont
is according to the organizers, a psychotic,
40 mile, drop to your knees and cry sufferfest.
This year, 17 year old Magdeleine Vallieres
took out the women's race from two big names
from the world of cyclocross and graveling.
And Maghalie Rochette who was second
and Alison Tetrick who was third.
Lars Boom was also on the start line, he came home in sixth,
Raphael Auclair took the win, with another 17 year old,
Magnus Sheffield second and Bruno Langlois
rounding out the podium.
If you've got an interesting or unusual event
that you think the world should see
here on the GCN Racing News show,
why not leave it in the comments section below,
the quirkier the better.
Next week we'll be back with the Tour de Romandie,
the Eschborn-Frankfurt and the Tour de Yorkshire,
which features the likes of Froome,
Van Avermaet, Cavendish and Kittel.
While a great women's field includes the likes
of Van Vleuten, Deignan, Van de Breggan and Marianne Vos.
Head over to GCN's Facebook page for live coverage
in North America of Frankfurt and Yorkshire
and also for highlights of Romandie.
That's all for this week, I'll leave you
with this spectacular video of Si,
riding the North Coast 500 with round the world legend
Mark Beaumont, it's well worth a watch.