We’re back with the GCN Racing News Show.
It’s been another big week in the World of professional racing.
The second of the season’s five monuments took place yesterday in the form of the Tour
of Flanders, we shall be focussing on that, but we’ll also be dipping into the GP Miguel
Indurain, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, and the Volta Limburg Classic.
For me it's the most exciting period of racing for the year.
The cobbled classics week, which we are currently celebrating with a whole host of related content
here on GCN, kicked off on Sunday with the Ronde, and the Belgians go mad for it for
a whole week leading up to the race.
The Two Hundred and sixty four kilometres, described by debutant Vincenzo Nibali, as
six hours of stress and concentration, took the men's race from the start in Antwerp to
the finish in Oudenaarde, over the famous flemish bergs and kasseien.
It took a full seventy kilometers of constant attacking for the early eleven rider breakaway
to finally establish itself.
They gained a maximum advantage of only around five minutes, leaving them little hope of
making it deep into the race.
For many of the favourites, the biggest obstacle appeared to be trying to stay upright.
Michael Valgren crashed hard, so did Sep Vanmarcke and Oliver Naesen, twice each.
The twitchiness of the peloton combined with wet, slippery roads made for a particularly
nervous race.
The first big move came with just over fifty kilometres remaining.
Dutch duo of Dylan Van Baarle and Sebastian Langeveld, along with Danish Duo Mads Pedersen
and Magnus Cort Nielson, launched an attack from what remained of the bunch, and soon
caught what remained of the breakaway.
They soon built up a fourty second advantage, and with a distinct lack of domestiques left
to work behind, it was a dangerous move.
The crunch point of the race, though, came just over the top of the Kruisbergen out of
Ronse with twenty seven kilometres to go An initial acceleration by Zdenek Stybar was
countered by Milan Sanremo winner Vincenzo Nibali, and for a fleeting moment you just
wondered whether the shark would pull off the impossible for a second time.
However, the dream was shattered as he was caught and dropped by Niki Terpstra.
The momentary indecisiveness of the remaining favourites, coupled with the fact that Quickstep
teammates Gilbert and Stybar were constantly there to chase down attacks and dent morale,
meant that Terpstra soon gained a significant advantage.
And with the form he is on, that’s not something you can afford to give him.
He caught and dropped Langeveld, Van Baarle and Pedersen on the steepest section of the
Kwaremont, and with a forty second advantage over the top of the final climb of the Paterberg,
the race was his to lose.
And that is certainly not something he was going to let happen - despite Sagan’s best
efforts, initially on his own over the Paterberg and then eventually with the rest of the favourites,
they weren’t able to make a dent into the advantage of Terpstra, who took his maiden
win at the race, to add to his Paris Roubaix title from four years ago.
Terpstra, incidentally, is the first Dutch winner since Adrie Van Der Poel, father of
Mathieu, some thirty two years ago.
And if you’re wondering how Mathieu’s arch nemesis Wout Van Aert got on, the answer
is well, very well.
In his first ever monument he came 9th, and just looked pretty sublime throughout, particularly
on the climbs.
That said, he was beaten by an even younger rider, Mads Pedersen, who will shall be talking
about a little later.
The women’s event both started and finished in the town of Oudenaarde.
For them, it was one hundred and fifty three kilometres on the cards.
Not a whole lot happened for the first fifty kilometres or so, apart from a solo effort
by Natalie Van Gogh, and in fact the first big splits were caused by a huge pile-up which
came on the run in to the Muur Van Geraardsbergen.
Just like the men’s race, though, the decisive action came on the ascent of the Kruisbergen,
or at least just over it, with twenty seven kilometres to go.
Some strong riding on the front by Amy Pieters had strung the group out, and Anna Van Der
Breggen was there to take full advantage.
Van Der Breggen just looks on another level this year, even by her own high standards,
and her advantage quickly grew.
In fact, already by the Kwarmont she had eeked out a one minute lead, and at that point the
race was done and dusted.
Behind, Kasia Niewiadoma was particularly aggressive over the final climbs, but two
chasing groups merged inside the final kilometre, and it was Amy Pieters who took the sprint
ahead of Annemiek Van Vleuten, making it an all Dutch podium and the perfect weekend for
the Dutch all round.
The women’s worldtour will return in two weeks time with the Amstel Gold Race.
And, since we’re talking about the WorldTour, we should probably give you an update on the
rankings. Van Der Breggen has propelled herself up to second, just behind her Boels Dolmans
teammate Amy Pieters, whilst Peter Sagan’s 6th position was enough to give him the lead
in the men’s, ahead of Alejandro Valverde and Tiesj Benoot.
In terms of our rider of the week, we’ve got plenty of choice.
Annamiek Van Vleuten who, according to her twitter feed, finished third with a dislocated
shoulder, Oliver Naesen who finished 11th despite two bad crashes, Vanmarcke who finished
13th after a similar amount of bad luck, our two solo winners, or Michael Valgren for his
impressive 4th place after another high speed crash.
However, our rider of the week is Mads the beast Pedersen.
After being away in a trio for the last 50km’s of the race, ALMOST hanging on to Terpstra
when he thundered past on the Kemmelberg, and then holding a group of the strongest
classics riders in the world at bay, he took 2nd place, in his debut at the race no less.
And he’s just 21!
According to Cafe Roubaix, he is the youngest rider in the last four decades to finish on
the podium of the Tour of Flanders, whilst Veloropa shows us how that performance compares
to some previous greats, such as Freddy Maertens who also finished 2nd on his debut, 45 years
ago, and Rik Van Steenbergen who won at his first try in 1944.
That is a mightily impressive ride, and more than deserving in my book of our rider of
the week award.
OK, moving on, or in some ways moving backwards, there was another semi classic, or warm up
race, in the form of Dwars Door Vlaanderen, last Wednesday.
Some atrocious weather conditions greeted the riders on the day, the action may have
been hot but the riders were anything but.
There was an impressive show of strength and impressive tactical riding by Yves Lampaert
in the men’s race He outwitted a five man group in the closing kilometres to make it
back to back wins for him at the race.
You have to take your tip off to QuickStep, though.
This year at the big Belgian one day races they have won all but one, and they came close
there too with Elia Viviani a bitterly disappointed 2nd at Gent Wevelgem.
One of the big stories of the race was just how competent Alejandro Valverde was, making
all the major splits and at one point looking good for the win.
Both he and teammate Quintana had taken part in order to get experience on the cobbles
prior to this year’s Tour de France.
Should a featherweight climber like Valverde be able to compete with the big guns over
the cobbles?
No not really.
Would we have been surprised if he’d won?
No not really.
We had another all Dutch podium in the women’s event.
Ellen Van Dijk was one of the few to be relishing the conditions, and when she attacked with
7km’s to go, she never looked book, and nobody ever saw her again.
The ever consistent Amy Pieters was 2nd, with Floortje Mackaij third.`
Meanwhile, down in Spain, Alejandro Valverde has been up to his usual tricks, i.e. winning.
In some ways it was a shame to see him skip the Tour of Flanders, he had been considering
that, but nevertheless he did race somewhere and took his 9th win of the year.
The Spaniard made his move on the Alto de Muru, the final climb of the race.
Carlos Verona was initially with him, and although eventually dropped, the Mitchelton
Scott rider did hold on for second place.
And finally for this week it’s the Volta Limburg Classic up in the Netherlands, where,
surprisingly, there wasn’t a Dutch winner.
Jan Tratnik, winner of the TT at the Coppi e Bartali race just a week ago, narrowly missing
a fall, but his breakaway companion Oscar Riesebeek wasn’t so lucky.
Check out Team Roompot’s twitter account for the photo - thankfully he was alright.
Tratnik was able to go on to take his second win in the space of a week.
Well, that’s it for this week, next week we’ll be reporting on the Tour of Basque
Country - one of hardest week long races on the calendar, so spare a thought for the likes
of Michal Kwiatkowski and Vincenzo Nibali who will start that race the day after finishing
the Tour of Flanders - that is hardcore.
We will also, of course, be looking mainly at Paris Roubaix, the hell of the north, so
make sure you join us next week for that.
In the meantime there will be loads more cobbled content coming up on GCN leading up to that
race, including a recon of the final 100km’s and a tyre pressure test over the Carrefour
de l’Arbre - I wouldn’t recommend 100 psi, it’s…………….well it’s painful.
Before all of that, though, make sure you let us know if these are the hardest five
climbs in Flanders.