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Spring Classics Cycling Season
The Spring Classics season is underway in Belgium. It kicked off with Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde and a win by Quick-Step's Italian sprinter Viviani on Wednesday, then rolled into E3 Harelbeke today.
E3 Harelbeke
E3 is usually a good indicator for Flanders, hitting a few of the classic hills like the Paterberg and Oude Kwaremont. After being held up by a train crossing, a major crash took out a lot of favourites like Sagan and Vanmarcke and saw QuickStep drop the hammer. At one point late in the race they had three riders up the road, but Lampaert was hit by a falling piano after trying to hold teammate Terpstra's wheel, and Gilbert was unable to bridge up to the leading duo. (Not sure what the team orders were from the car, but it sure looked like they were working to keep him off.)
Anyway, Gilbert fell back to a small group of strongmen that include his podium mates from last year, Naesen and GVA. While that group was unable to work together, Terpstra showed his class and ground out the win by some 20 seconds. His teammate Gilbert recovered from his earlier effort to take the sprint for second, followed by Greg Van Avaermet, who must have been exhausted from the eight seconds that he accidentally spent "in the wind" at the front of the group some 60 kilometers earlier. (Context: GVA almost never rides in front, content to draft off Sagan or whoever else might be considered a favourite.)
Gent-Wevelgem
Gent-Wevelgem, which adds another 50k or so of distance, is next on the calendar this Sunday. GVA won here last year, so will be looking to repeat, but I have a feeling that Gent comes down to a sprint - Cipo won this race once, so it's certainly possible for a pure sprinter to handle this course - and the teams have loaded up for it. Watch for Colbrelli (Bahrain), Viviani (QuickStep), Demare (FDJ), Kittel (Katusha), Matthews (Sunweb) or O'Doull (Sky), or a sneak attack from Moscon (Sky) (who looked good today) or Matteo Trentin (Mitchellton). It looks like Mark Cavendish is on the start list for Dimension Data, which just seems cruel after his MSR crash.
Comments
I am not a QS fan, but found myself rooting for Terpstra to hang on that last 20k.
I hope Sagan is still building his form and playing some mind games with his rivals but I worry perhaps this year might be the “baby weight” effect. San Remo wasn’t a surprise - I didn’t think he had a chance to get away since he would be so heavily marked. But yesterday it was a little surprising to see him dropped more than once.
Edited to add names, since I held off on spoilers earlier.
Onto Dwars
BRING IT
ETA - talking about today's Dwars door Vlaanderen. And another surprise, Sep Vanmarcke was close.
DS: "OK, so we're all clear - we'll keep it together for as long as possible, then we'll let Philippe do his thing, for the glory of Belgium."
Phil Gilbert: "Boys, I'm honoured to go to battle with all of you. We will win, then share the spoils of victory."
(Général chatt
er of approval, etc)
(FX: Toilet flushes in background)
(Terpstra enters, drying hands.)
Niki Terpstra: "Sorry, did I miss anything important?"
So my list of probable winners: Terpstra, GVA, Moscon, Degenkolb, Oss, Hayman, Keukeleire, Stannard.
You have to expect QuickStep to be a favourite here, with Gilbert, Stybar and Terpstra on the team. If Terpstra wins, he goes on a very short list of riders who have done the Flanders-Roubaix double, with Boonen and Cancellara being the most recent ones.
GVA won last year, and BMC has a good team, but he's been just short a few times this year. Maybe he has timed his peak perfectly. Maybe he'll win the sprint for fourth
Looking at the other teams, Sky looks monstrous, with Moscon, Rowe, Stannard supported by Knees and Doull. Also worth noting is that before GThomas turned into a one-week tour contender, he was a top 10 Belgian Classics finisher for about five years. This might be more than a scouting trip for him. (Remember that Nibali basically won the 2014 TdF on the cobbles, after C**** F****
dropped his inhalercrashed out, and they are back in the race this year.)Oliver Naesen is an outlier. He's a legit contender for this race, but I'm not sold on his knee having healed from a recent crash, and he's just had trouble staying upright this spring.
Trek, Mitchelton-Scott, and Bora all have multiple possible winners (or past winners) on their rosters. I still don't think this is Sagan's race. He'll probably win tonnes again this year, but probably not this weekend.
One last thing: I hope the organizers and DSs have all checked the train schedules.
*Any of these names can be interchanged with someone else, as it's PR, and that's just what happens every year.
The story of the last wet Paris-Roubaix, in the words of eight who survived
As for who wins, no clue - this race is a toss up. Would love to see Oss get up the road and hold on, but have a feeling QS will be on the podium one way or another. Perhaps they all sell out for Gilbert with Stybar as a back up since Gilbert has been unreal in his support for Terpstra's two wins so far.