Hola!!
Welcome back to the GCN Racing News Show.
This week, the Vuelta kicks off with two different leaders in two days, we’ve got the resumption
of the Deutschland Tour, plus the GP Plouay, the Bretagne Classic, and a glimpse into the
future with the Tour de l’Avenir and the Junior Tour of Wales.
The final grand tour of the season, the Tour of Spain, kicked off on Saturday with an 8km
individual time trial on the streets of Malaga.
Pre race favourite Rohan Dennis blasted round the course to take the victory by a clear
6 seconds from Michal Kwiatkowski of Team Sky.
Dylan Van Baarle had been in the hot seat for most of the evening but was eventually
bettered by Nelson Oliveira, Kwiatkowski, European Time Trial Champion Victor Campenaerts,
and finally Dennis in his Australian Champions skinsuit.
Not so true to form the following day was Richie Porte - he had started the race as
the bookmakers favourite, but lost close to a minute to his teammate on the opening day,
and then thirteen minutes on day 2, and with that, all chances of the overall classification.
Porte clearly isn’t in the form that many had expected and is simply there to prepare
for the World Championships and to try to take a stage win in the final week.
With Porte on stage 2 was Rohan Dennis, they were amongst a number of riders to suffer
in the heat - Sagan was dropped, Lars Boom visited a roadside fan’s campervan toilet,
finishing inside the time limit by just 4 seconds after pebble dashing that, whilst
Nibali, Adam Yates, Dan Martin and Ilnur Zakarin all lost significant chunks of time.
How hot and hard was that first stage?
Here’s Ben King to tell you……
4.9kg’s - 11lbs - that is a hell of a lot of fluid to lose in a single stage.
NOT suffering up front was Alejandro Valverde - the 38 year old timed his sprint to perfection
to get the better of Michal Kwiatkowski, although the consistency of being runner up for two
days in succession did reward the Polish champion with the leader’s red jersey, which he’ll
wear on stage 3 today.
Don’t forget that you can catch highlights AND analysis of all the stages over on our
Facebook page, so make sure you check that out if you haven’t done so already.
The Deutschland Deine Tour, or the Tour of Germany, made a return last week after a 10
year gap - the 4 day event produced some really exciting racing, and saw the return to competition
of Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas.
Day one finished with a sprint, Jose Alvaro Hodge timing his sprint to perfection and
getting the better of a very disappointed German Champion, Pascal Ackermann.
The following three days, though, saw some particularly aggressive stages.
Max Schachmann got the better of Matej Mohoric on day 2, but it was the Slovenian Champion
who reigned supreme the following day, in front of a very disappointed Nils Pollitt,
who in turn had his redemption on the 4th and final day, taking his first ever pro win
in a sprint from a reduced group.
That was enough to see him rise to 2nd in the overall GC, but the winner was Mohoric,
who added the title to the BinkBanck Tour from just a week ago.
It was yet another impressive ride from the 23 year old who is having by far his best
season to date, and the icing on the cake for him is the fact that he’s now GCN’s
Rider of the week.
Over to France now for the GP Plouay, or the Bretagne Classic as they’re calling the
men’s race now.
A notoriously tough one day classic which struck fear into the heart of Ryan Mullen.
His tweet prior to the race was clearly written with a sense of fear.
And, post race, it was easy to see why - Alex Dowsett had a normalised power of 338w for
6 hours and 20 minutes, and that was to finish 42nd on the day, over a minute behind race
winner Oliver Naesen.
The former Belgian champion was the best of a strong three man group and outpsrinted Michael
Valgren and Tim Wellens to the line.
The women’s race marked the end of a dominant period for Marianne Vos, who was bettered
on the day by 27 year old Amy Pieters of Boels Dolmans.
Pieters proved fastest of a 15 woman group that contested the final, to take her 2nd
individual worldtour success of the year.
For Vos, 2nd place not only marked her first defeat for some time, but also the end of
her road season.
She will now take a short break before embarking on a full cyclocross season that will start
on September 23rd in Waterloo over in the USA.
The Tour de l‘Avenir literally translates to the Tour of the future - this mini Tour
de France is generally an indication of future greatness, with recent winners including the
likes of Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, Bauke Mollema and Esteban Chaves.
And so, the name you’ll all, no doubt, be hearing a lot more in the future is Tadej
Pogačar - a name I really need some help in pronouncing so please let me know in the
comments section below.
The Slovenian didn’t win a stage, but consistency in the final few days in the mountains saw
him take the overall win.
Pogacar has already finished 4th in his home tour this year behind fellow countryman Primoz
Roglic, and will ride for the next two years with UAE Team Emirates.
Pre race favourite Ivan Ramira Sosa was thwarted by the team time trial, in which the Colombian
team lost over a minute and a half, but did manage to win stage 7.
That, despite Brandon McNulty raising his arms in, what turned out to be, a premature
celebration, something I’m sure he won’t be repeating again.
Next up, a quick look at the Junior Tour of Wales.
This was in fact my first ever road race - previous winners include Dan Martin, Roger Hammond,
Johan Van Summeren, Eddie Dunbar, and Matt Stephens, twice!
And so, like the Tour de l’Avenir, it’s a pretty good sign of future success.
As we record this there is still one stage remaining, but, currently in the race lead
is 1st year Junior Leo Hayter, 2 seconds in front of junior cyclo cross world champion
Ben Tulett.
Hayter won the traditional opening stage up the Tumble, and it is on that climb that the
race will conclude later today.
And finally the Schaal Sels in Belgium wound up in a bunch sprint, won by Timothy Dupont
in what was a 1-2 for Wanty Groupe Gobert.
Actually before we finish - a pretty conclusive result in last week’s poll - 94% of you
think that Matteo Trentin’s European Champions kit is hot!
He’s my pick for a hot Vuelta a Espana stage today so we’ll see how he gets on.
That’s all for this week - next week we’ll be back with the action from the Vuelta,
plus the Boels Ladies Tour, the Brussels Cycling Classic and the first day of the Tour of Britain,
which sees both Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas participating for Team Sky.
I’ll see you then.
In the meantime, meet Ed Pratt - a man who has just finished riding around the globe,
on a unicycle.
Si met him as he completed his journey, and you can find that video here…...