ASO have announced the route for the Critérium du Dauphiné in June. The race is a concentrated version of the Tour de France and this year’s edition is no exception. If the upcoming Paris-Nice has an experimental route, this is a more traditional course that will offer selective racing ahead of the Tour de France.
Sunday’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne race had a decisive moment when the Belkin and Omega Pharma-Quick Step teams drove the pace on an exposed section. The bunch split in the crosswinds and as the two teams, plus Yves Lampaert (Topsport Vlaanderen), Johan Vansummeren (Garmin-Sharp) and briefly Michael Vingerling (Team 3M) rode away.
Then came a moment when the leaders entered a cobbled road and hopped across to the dirt path beside the road. Some seemed to hesitate, others didn’t – perhaps it was hard to find a suitable point to cross from the road to the path? But this switch was in breach of a new UCI rule and the whole group should have been disqualified from the race.
Ian Stannard (Team Sky) launches his sprint with 300 metres to go. It’s a long range effort but just enough to distance Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) by a few metres and take an advantage which he can keep to the line. This was the moment the race was won.
It was a thrilling race that was worth a winter’s hibernation with outcome that wasn’t certain until Stannard’s cheeks puffed in relief as he beat Van Avermaet by a wheel.
Sunday’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne is a fine race in its own right but tends to be seen as a revenge race where riders can make amends for mistakes and misfortune from Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. If revenge is a dish best served cold things got too literal last year as the race was snowed off. Now it’s back and offers the sprinters a chance to stand on the podium.
The spring classics start this weekend with the double-header of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday followed by Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday. No more Arabian nights in five star hotels and applying sun lotion, now it’s time to charge down farm tracks and apply a coating of mud.
Here’s a preview of the race with route info, the contenders, as well as the weather and TV timings.
In Belgium there’s no need to look for flowers and buds on the trees or listen out for birdsong to tell spring is coming. Instead there are flashes of green sidewalls and the sound of Rodania. As the spring classics approach, so the annual rituals repeat themselves.
This week teams are out riding the route of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. It’s a media event itself with photographers out to snap the scene and reports of who rode where make the TV news and newspapers. Spring is here.
It’s a quiet week before the weekend storm of cobbles starting with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday. This micro break gives a moment to look at the team victory rankings and see who’s had a good start to the season.
If you think it’s too early to count, think again. We’ve had 70 days of racing this year and that’s one eighth of the way through the season.
A Problem Many Teams Would Like to Have
With the classics season coming up Omega Pharma-Quick Step look like the team with all the right cards to play with aces like Tom Boonen, Niki Terpstra, Mark Cavendish and Zdeněk Štybar and pack of able support riders.
But there’s a problem here as the team has so many top riders it can be hard to manage them all. Do you race the big names regularly or rest them from time to time? Who gets to be team leader? With all this in mind guest writer Whit Yost, a former directeur sportif, takes a look at the options for OPQS.
All sponsors get a message of thanks, a way to express gratitude for their support and a means to explain what their ad is about. Coinciding with the start of the Chinese New Year, February’s sponsor is the SCP Grand Fondo in China, an event that’s open to all and wants to welcome foreign entrants.
Talk about a long weekend, i’s been an instructive and busy two days of racing. Chris Froome and Alberto Contador both won, the same for André Greipel and Mark Cavendish along with Carlos Betancur and Michał Kwiatkowski, Alejandro Valverde, Amaël Moinard and Moreno Hofland. Almost all big names, Moinard is a big helper and Hofland a future sprinting prospect.
Froome’s result was expected but it marked Contador’s first win in over a year and a chance to revive the El Pistolero victory salute. Is he back to being a forced to be reckoned with? It’s too soon to tell but it’s a start. Unlike poor Andy Schleck who was invisible in the Tour of Oman, he might yet come good but you feel for his supporters who must wait.