Season 16

[Vos]

stage 3 Giro ;
10º  Beck
30º  Roman ( helper ) on 0:24"

I expected that helper Roman, with 5 EP in s5, could finish on 0:00" as well.
He did a good job because he was together with Beck in the s4 front peleton of 64, but an unexpected drop in s5.
Maybe this is a little mistake, because Roman is still hoping to score a few extra GC points.
And maybe these 24 sec. unnecessary loss do not matter, and my estimation before this Giro is right, that he is not a top GC rider.

This makes the strategic choice easier to go for my hills specialists in stage 5.
Roman will be the teamcaptain for the first time in stage 6 to the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland.
After that it will be more clear if he still has a chance to get a decent GC result.
As it seems now, most likely Roman will get free roles too in hills stages 7 and 10. But fun to have a "GC contender" aside in this Giro.

[Zatarra]

Argghh... the only chance for KvdG to score nice GC points in the Giro is by making a difference in the pure hill stages. Yet, what happens in the first hills stage? I forget to give my riders roles, so all start in free role. Damn it.

One less stage to make the difference, but still we hope to finish top10. It will be tough, especially with the TT on the program as well, but first KvdG's favourite stage of them all. Even Ruup is among the favourites, so hopefully I don't blow this... 

[Vos]

stage 4 Giro ;
29º  Roman  on 0:56"
stage 5 Giro ;
7º Kluivert
23º  Rubiera ( helper )
A decent result, but not a good race, because Rubiera dropped already in semi-flat section 3.

Also Roman ( in a free role ) dropped in s3, and he finished as 54º on 1:13" what is also a decent result due to his not good hills GV.
At the moment he is 13ºGC on 2:13" behind GC leader Pires ( FrançaiseDesJeux ).
Pires has fierce competition right now ; Menke on 0:06", Fuertes on 0:18" and Blix on 0:19"

Far behind these top Giro contenders ; Roman has to compete for a top20 GC place because of the not favorable Giro schedule.
For example 2 more hills stages to go where he gets free roles again. Also he does not like the flat-TT and the sprint stage.
Probably Roman his GC depends on the upcoming stage 6 to the Gotthard Pass, where he will be the teamcaptain for the first time.
Hopefully there are some top20 GC rivals who are not very suited for this stage with a final cobble-climb-section.

[Aurora Australis]

Amazingly my 23yo flat-TTer with some natural climb ability scored points in the Giro Climb-TT stage 4.  Of course they're all here for stage 9, where the 23-year-olds will be at close to maximum health (95?) so they'll be able to properly test themselves.

371   Kirk Clinton   23
372   Christian Pocock   23
373   Nobby Licuria   23
374   Kirk Workman   28
375   Richard Levin   34

[Vos]

so hopefully I don't blow this... 

Great stage victory of van der Goor, well done Zatarra ! 

stage 6 Giro ; 
23º  Roman  on 0:57"
Ups, Roman was the only in this race who finished with a dissapointment icon.
And justified, because ( to my surprise ) he could not follow the s1 peleton of 106 ( ! ).
Also unexpectedly he could not return in s4 so he started the final climb with 0:29" behind the s4 front group of 34.
Somehow I forgot to give Beck a helpers role who was with Roman in s4. I guess this was a stage full of mistakes and bad luck.
It even caused that Romand dropped 2 places ; now 15ºGC on 2:52"

The "positive" aspect of this stage 6 is that the battle of the Australian championship is exciting now. 
Zatarra comes really close in the 1A ranking, just 373 points less than the famous 14 times Australian champion SPORTLIFE.
Luckily Roman is still far ahead in the GC compared to van der Goor ; the difference is a reassuring 0:03"  

[Zatarra]

Haha, it was a very terrifying race for me. Ruup (number 5 favourite) could not follow the peloton in s1 either. Luckily KvdG managed to stay in the first group without any help during the cobbles and the hills and as a miracle Ruup managed to close the gap to the first peloton in three sections, so somewhere in s4 they finally got together again, just in time for the final climb on cobbles.

I'm very happy with the win! Now I hope KvdG can take some time back in the hills as well. My team is strong for the hills, so hopefully at least one of the helper's is good enough to do some good work.

And indeed, the Australian championship is very exciting as of now, but I have the feeling my boys will somewhat let go after the Giro. Hopefully KvdG can at least survive the coming TT to finish higher in the GC than Roman .

[Vos]

Roman gets 2 free roles in both hills stages ; his current 15ºGC place is not worth fighting for. He should be happy if can finish top20 GC.
So it is up to my 2 hills specialists to score some more Giro points.
And maybe just like your team, I have many gaps in the selections after this Giro, so the Australian battle can still be very interesting and exciting.

[Vos]

stage 7 Giro ;
11º  Rubiera
15º  Kluivert ( helper )
So far a bad tactical season ; again a failure, this time in section 2 where Rubiera (5th  favorite) could not follow helper Kluivert.
Surprising to me, perhaps the extreme low experience of Rubiera caused it.
Too bad ; if Rubiera could have stayed in the wheel of Kluivert, the SPORTLIFE-teamcaptain had a real chance to get a victory,
because Kluivert escaped in s4 together with just one other cyclist.
At the moment it is uncertain who will get the teamcaptain role in hills stage 10,
both previous Giro hills stages went wrong, but Kluivert ( 7º stage 5 ) did better as teamcaptain than Rubiera ( now 11º ).

Free role GC contender Roman finished as 66º on 1:15" and dropped one place ; now 16ºGC on 3:05"
It is really close in the margin of the GC ; the nr 12º is just 0:09" ahead, and the nr 19º is just 0:05" behind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The SEASON 17 CALENDAR is published. 
Grrrrrrr, no suited mountain TT stage for Oscar Smith, the nr 1 in the TT Dream Team. Hopefully there will be a suited NT climb time trial.
And many other remarkable things in the season 17 schedule, that is not good for my climbers ;

Giro = just 1 mountain stage with 3 mountain sections, and 1 stage with a cobble-mountain-finish.
Vuelta = also a total of just 4 mountain sections, and just 1 stage that finishes on a mountain top.
Tirreno = just 1 mountain section in a pure flat-mountain stage.
Catalunya = just 2 mountain sections in a MMFHH stage, so no mountain top finish.
Itzulia = 7 mountain sections, but also no mountain s5 finish.
Dauphiné = just 2 mountain sections in a climb-sprint stage.
Also in the Tour de France there are less mountains than in this season, and just 2 stages with mountain s5, including a FFFFM stage.

The both WC races we have seen many times in recent seasons ; both are again in Portugal ( short semi-hills TT + hills race 254,1km ).

It seems to me that hills specialists like this season 17 calendar the most. Maybe also the hill-sprinters are happy with this schedule.

[Zatarra]

I had the same feeling about season 17 concerning the hillers and hillsprinters.

My cobblehiller were crying. This is a very bad and boring calendar. Also, too many TT in the tours for KvdG. Maybe the Tour de France Will be interesting, but then he might have to miss the stage in the Giro that he won yesterday evening...

[kirin]

About S17 calendar, every small Tour has one TT, my GC riders are not happy with that 

[Vos]

After a good sprint stage 8 ( despite no help, 51º on 1:12" ) and after the flat TT stage 9 ( 59º on 2:29" ),
Roman moved up to 10ºGC on 3:43"

My both hills specialists do not like the too much flat in hills stage 10 and therefore no top result, and Kluivert dropped 1 in form.
So a change of plan ; now Roman will be the final-stage-teamcaptain to try to get a decent GC result ( and drops just a few places ).

[Vos]

The battle for Giro victory is extreme exciting with 1 more stage to go : 

1Lazare Pires   29   FrançaiseDesJeux   0: 00"   
2    Aksel Blix   29   Aspigarri   0: 04"   
3    Aleksandr Menke   29   FaltososDeChigre   0: 08"   
- - - - - - - - - -
4    Raul Fuertes   29   TeamEuroscalt   0: 24"   
5    Henriks Valdmanis   26   KunTeam   2: 41"   

[Vos]

stage 10 Giro ;
23º  Kluivert ( free role )
27º  Rubiera ( free role )
- - - - -
54º  Roman  on 1:05"
Maybe one of the hills specialists should have been a masterhelper, but I had no faith in a good helper's tactic of one of them,
and Beck already was a good helper in flat sections 2 and 3.
But maybe this was a little mistake that costed Roman one or two places in the final GC. For the total team points, it did not matter much.
And very good of Roman that ( to my surprise ) he could finish top 10 GC despite 3x leader roles, 4x free roles and 1x helpers role.

The final top 3 GC finished extreme close ;
in the final stage Menke did just a few seconds better than his rivals, and he moved up 2 GC places and won the Giro !
  FINAL TOP 20 GC =
1Aleksandr Menke   29   FaltososDeChigre   0: 00"   
2    Lazare Pires   29   FrançaiseDesJeux   0: 03"   
3    Aksel Blix   29   Aspigarri   0: 07"   
- - - - - - - - - -
4    Raul Fuertes   29   TeamEuroscalt   0: 54"   
5    Henriks Valdmanis   26   KunTeam   2: 44"   
6    Carles Verdugo   25   FlyEaglesFly   3: 24"   
7    Lars Panizzolo   27   LOSRAYOSDELARRY   3: 32"   
8    Reinis Melderis   29   Kelme4ever   3: 39"   
9    Jarno Voisin   29   CuencaTeam   3: 42"   
10    Jaime Roman   32   SPORTLIFE   3: 46"   
- - - - - - - - - -
11    John Footman   32   CC_Porco_Jones   4: 00"   
12    Armen Gritsal   29   JGMTeam   4: 00"   
13    Adao Baiao   30   ProCyclingTeam10   4: 20"   
14    Franz Doll   27   Innioraths   4: 22"   
15    Bendegúz Csécs   27   Spitz   4: 34"   
16    Leandro Povoa   29   BlackHole   4: 45"   
17    Kasper van der Goor   26   Zatarra   5: 06"   
18    Mazim Pugovkin   30   IKIBASQUE   5: 31"   
19    Richard Rogers   33   Facha_Bartolo   5: 32"   
20    Brent Holmquist   29   TeamSerfin   5: 47"   

[Zatarra]

Although KvdG got a light bulb in the last stage with an extremely good result for a 6*(!) hiller (some perfect domestique roles of Ruup and Bettencourt. The helper's role of Aavik failed (he would have been the best helper). Still disappointed with the end result. KvdG lost a lot of time in the TT. That was expected beforehand. However, the amount of time he lost in the mountainstages was disappointing and in the first hill stage and the last sprint stage (stage the tactics failed as well. I think, with better tactics, KvdG would have scored a top10 here. Unfortunately that is not the case.

Still happy with the stage win of KvdG and the lightbulb in the last stage also was a highlight.

Onto the Dauphiné. I don't expect miracles from Morken.

[Vos]

   selection SPORTLIFE

61 Roman ( 32 ), tour
62 Macannazi ( 25 ), climb
63 Lebrun ( 31 ), sprint
64 Millan ( 32 ), TT
65 Beck ( 29 ), allround helper

Good luck everyone !