The Pro Cycling Thread

Power 6th is a great result in a tough race. Looks like he is back.

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Anyone know why there doesn’t seem to be any Aussie riders at the world track championships?

Cam Meyer won his 9th WC gold medal in the points race.

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Great race, SB. Lousy conditions. Benoot was great but I was looking forward to Wout and Bardet fighting it out in the finish.

Also every year the cameras don’t work through the alleyways in the finish. And they never think to fix it.

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To think Power was added the day before as a replacement for Juul Jensen after it was decided it was logistically impossible to get him to the start line for PN - Really Power should have finished 5th after he carried Visconti for the last 30km - Hopefully the team has confidence in him and we see him riding either Catalunya or Pais Vasco - Start of PN today and Chaves is flying - Artigianato today with A.Yates one of the favourites, while Power and Haig are backing up from Strade.

The ride of the day was by Lucy Kennedy - Working for Spratt and Williams during the race - Carried the small peleton for the last 30km after Van De Breggen and Longo Borgini skipped away - And got grabbed on the line for 4th - Beast of a performance in her first ever WT race - This augurs well for the future.

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Forgot to add that Power was the only MS rider to finish Strade Bianche - And Durbridge crashed again - Can’t take Durbridge to TDF.

Mohoric slips the field on the descent to win Artigianto by three seconds from Canola with the bunch 10 seconds behind - MS rode hard at the front to try to break up the field on the second last ascent - Unfortunately, A.Yates punctured before the second last climb so that plan went out the window, while Impey struggled to get up the climbs.

Demare wins Stage 1 of PN in a deceptive photo finish from G.Izagirre and LaPorte - Finish was a 2 km climb at 5.5% and then a straight cobbled finish of 800 metres - It was a very much slow motion finish - Trentin was a disappointing 8th, with S.Yates, Chaves and Kreuziger close behind - MS is keeping their GC options open. Stage 2 and should favor the sprinters.

Tour of Suisse announced their parcours - It’s a brutal edition featuring lots of climbing with a 25km TTT and a 34km ITT to bookmark the route - Would love Haig or Power to ride for GC.

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And Hivert wins stage three from Leon-Sanchez and Di-Gregorio - What could have been a sprint finish was destroyed by Alaphalippe attacking on the final 3 Cat climb with 20kms to go - Kreuziger and Chaves were strong on the climb and in fact Kreuziger picked up bonus seconds on the last climb - The first three broke clear after the descent and Kreuziger half went with the group and then pulled back to the peleton - Tactical mistake by MS as Leon Sanchez got 38 seconds on the stage and will be hard to beat - Unfortunately S.Yates is struggling for form.

Tomorrow is the ITT and the stage winner is hard to predict - TA begins with a TTT - GC could be over after day one as Sky should dominate this stage - MS has a good engine room with Durbridge,Impey, Hepburn and Bauer - Gotta hope Mezgec, Yates and Ewan can contribute.

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BMC win the TTT at TA, MS only 4 sec down, Sky a further 6 seconds back.
Poels wins the ITT at PN, both Chaves and Yates had pretty good runs.

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A well thought out performance in the TA TTT - It was an out and back course with the back part into a headwind - MS used their smaller guys like Ewan, Mezgec in the front half of the course and the Durbridge, Hepburn, Impey in the back half - The TTT in the TDF is crucial and this is a similar team that will be rolled out in July - Would like to see Ewan win a stage and there is a chance he could get to the finish of one of the punchy stages - A.Yates is in good form and is a chance to podium

Was genuinely surprised by the ITT of S.Yates who may be finding his form - It’s good for MS to have two cards to play, though the ITT of Kreuziger was disappointing - Anyway confident Chaves will win a stage.

Disastrous day for MS - Finishing circuits at TA were sketchy and unfortunately A.Yates was caught behind a crash with 6km to go and lost about a minute on GC, while Ewan was disappointing in the sprint finishing 11th - At least A.Yates can go for stages. Kittel defeated Sagan and Nizzolo.

Unfortunately in the last km of stage 5 of PN, Chaves went over a drunken Katusha rider and had a heavy crash - He eventually limped over the line around 11 minutes back - Injury update to come - S.Yates finished in the peleton which finished s seconds behind the two breakaway riders in Cousins and Politt.

Looks life Chaves may off have got off better than expected to be sore and sorry - Stage 6 of PN is lumpy - Expect attacks at some stage from MS - And it may be Kreuziger.

Stage three of TA - A long 239 Km stage which I believe will be more of a GC Day.

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And A.YAtes just finishes to catch Roglic in Stage 3 of TA. He would be in the leader’s jersey if not for the crash in stage 2. Today is the Queen stage which could go to breakaway.

And Moinard continues the French run of success in Stage 6 of PN. S.Yates was super strong attacking three times on the final climb. Yates and Chaves are in fine form and should have a chance in todays queen stage if its not cut short by inclement.weather.

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And S.Yates wins stage 7 of PN and goes into the Yellow jersey - Kreuziger split the yellow group with a stinging acceleration with 5.5km to go - Yates and J.Izagirre attacked with 4.2kms to go and Yates was strongest in the final km - Somehow Chaves had a shocking day losing 14 minutes - Stage 8 is an explosive, mountainous 110km, so there will be attacks but MS have the squad to protect Yates.

And Landa outsprints Majka, Bennett and Aru to win stage 4 of TA - Thomas got a mechanical in the last km when in a good position - Caruso leads Kwiatkovski and Kelderman - Stage 5 is a classics type stage and think Impey can feature.

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Simon Yates can’t hang on to the lead at PN, Soler wins the stage and GC by 4 seconds.

Adam Yates wins at TA though.

Frankie was looking for his old mate

Found an alternative.

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PN was disappointing in the sense that Yates had the wrong riders with him at the finish - He needed Kreuziger or Chaves for the final climb - Chaves finished out of the time limit, while somethig happened to Kreuziger between the third last climb and the second last climb so I am wondering if he crashed or suffered a mechanical - Juul-Jensen and particularly Trentin who pulled until the final climb - Soler had escaped on the second last climb so both MS and Bahrain were chasing - On the final climb one Azagirre attacked which meant Yates had to lead the peleton up the climb - About halfway up the climb Yates pulled over and the remaining GC contenders attacked dropping Yates - Yates was able to catch them on the descent and he missed yellow by four seconds - Had either Chaves or Kreuziger on the final climb and they would have paced Yates and of course ate into the lead of Soler - It was a lucky victory by Soler who wasn’t in the strongest four riders in the race.

A.Yates was a class above in TA - He was set up beautifully by the team, attacked early on the 3.8km climb and then soloed to victory on the 4km descent - Don’t believe the nuffies who say he was allowed to go ahead because he was down on GC - Lutsenko and Thomas went with his first attack, but then couldn’t hold his wheel - finally it’s disappointing that EWan DNF when the team was built around him.

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Ewan has been dreadfully disappointing this season.