stage 1 =
In a tactical good race, Finals scored points with a 14th place.
stage 2 =
A good stage for not-favourite
Tafi, he finished as
5th. His helper Judd finished as 24th.
stage 3 =
No riders for this stage. Fagan was the teamcaptain, with some phantasy and 3 excellent final stages he might score a few GC points.
But probably this was whisfull thinking. ( after 7 stages Fagan is 54th on 10:30" )
stage 4 =
Great race of
Fagan with an excellent result ;
7th. His best result ever in a pure mountain stage.
stage 5 =
Tafi was 5th favorite, and in hinside I was not satisfied about his tactics, that could have been better.
And not satisfied at all that helper Judd was not good enough to be in s4 with Tafi. Anyway, the result is not good, but also not bad ;
4th.
stage 6 =
Very surprising to me that Tafi could score points in this hill-sprint stage, he finished as 21st. in a free role.
stage 7 =
Well, if Tafi can score points in stage 6, he might do it also in a flat sprint stage because his hills skills are low.
This time as teamcaptain, but due to the hard storm and the lack of good helpers it resulted in a place outside the points.
No problem, almost never he scored points in another sprint stage than a mountain-sprint stage, his speciality.
So far it is going fine in the Vuelta ( a bit as expected ) ; after 7 stages a total of
491 points.
But stage 5 was dissapointing, and before the Vuelta stage 5 and stage 8 were the only chances of a real top stage result or victory.
Fagan has the CFF record for the upcoming stage 8, but that was in season 1 and now he is not even one of the favourites.
But he can challenge 2 favourites, so he has a chance to get an excellent result.
Tafi is the current nr 9 GC, but his cobbleskill is 9 and he has low dh-and hill-skills, so he will drop many places and for sure no GC points.
But the GC was not a goal. For stage 8 it will be Fagan, and for stages 9 and 10 it will be Takács.
