Great ride by Durbridge in E3 - He can definitely finish top 10 in RVV - Good ride by A.Yates to finish 5th in the Queen stage of Catalonia - Great ride by Impey to win stage 6 of Catalonia from a very reduced peleton - Team Sky were destroyed early in the stage and lost 26 minutes.
Valverde wins the final stage of Catalonia and the GC after attacking with D.Martin with 2kms to go - A dominant tour by Valverde and a good effort by A.Yates for 4th in GC and Verona finishing 8th in GC.
Fantastic effort by Keukeliere to lose a close sprint finish to Van Avermaat in Gent Werelgem - Keukeliere destroyed the lead group reducing it from 14 to 5 by drilling it for about 3km with around 20kms to go - Then Keukeliere and Van Aevermaat clipped off with 10kms to go and rode to the finish.
Back to Gent-Werelgem - Also excellent rides by Mezgec, Docker and Juul-Jensen who were in the main peleton - At least Ewan finished the race 7m and 30s behind, after finding the climbing part too difficult - My observations are Ewan is decent on cobbles but few races outside PR, don’t feature climbing - Docker was an excellent ride as he suffered a puncture when the final began - Worrying that Cort was a DNF.
Early call for RVV - Think Gilbert is a near certainty - Apparently Chaves is riding Fleche Wallone and probably LBL - Orica think Chaves is a big show at FW.
Gilbert and Durbridge blitz the field in stage 1 of Panne - Gibert broke away right near the top of the second ascent of the Muuy and won the stage by 17 seconds from Durbridge. They will fight out the GC - Orica went in with a team of 6 after Cort’s late withdrawal, and then Juul-Jensen fell and DNF.
Saw Edmondson skip up the Muuy first time - Started seeing how some see him as a long term prospect for RVV - A suitable replacement for Juul-Jensen on Sunday if he’s injured.
Currently watching stage 2 which should end up one for the sprinters.
Belgian Kristoff Allegaert likely to reach Sydney tomorrow to win Indian Pacific Wheel Race, 14 days after starting from Fremantle. That’s average of 400 km a day, self supported.
Briton Mike Hall, 180 km behind, likely to reach Sydney tomorrow as well.
I’d be exhausted doing 400 km a day solo in a car for 14 days.
Durbridge wins the TT in Panne - Most exciting result was Edmondson in 6th place only 9 seconds behind - Edmondson has been the revelation of the week - Can ride on cobbled and get up bergs and can TT - Good times ahead.
Chavez withdraws from Pais Vasco with a lingering knee injury.
Apparently not set to return for 4 to 6 weeks - So if he is not right for the Tour of Yorkshire or Romandie, there is not much around in May until Dauphine and Suisse in June - Have to think he’s TDF participation is in doubt.
Holy ####. That’s terrible. Expect there will be a lot of controversy about the race now, as he was making social media posts about how exhausted he was, and riding to/past the point where he couldn’t see or process what was in front of him.
The only decision that could be made - There are other similar races throughout the world, but there needs to be strict protocols in place, regarding minimum sleep requirements per day etc. Have been following the race online and its clear some riders have not been resting nearly enough.
Hard to think about road racing after today’s tragedy, however, the show must go on.
Sunday, we have the 2nd monument of the year. Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders)
The 3 clear favourites have to be Sagan, GVA and Gilbert (who’s being a revelation on the cobbles - BMC didn’t allow him to ride many of these events previously).
Other than that you can’t rule out previous winners Kristoff & Boonen, form riders like Durbridge and Keukeleire, any one of the Quickstep supporting cast.
