Tag: Team Sky

Tour de France 2015: Stage 9 Preview

Stage 9 (TTT): Vannes › Plumelec – 28km

Alexis Vuillermoz’s hilltop victory on Stage 8 heralded a stretch of important days for the GC riders at the 2015 Tour de France. Next up: a 28km team time trial.

The road from Vannes to Plumelec is quite an interesting one as team time trial courses go, with three uncategorized (but still significant) climbs in the profile. The last of them has a 6% gradient for nearly 2km. Uphill finishes are uncommon for team time trials, so it’s going to be interesting to see how the teams handle the intriguing route, especially after a brutal first week that threw bad weather, rough terrain, and harsh climbs at the peloton.

Still, tired as the riders are, the flat and downhill stretches on this course are likely to be taken quite fast, as there aren’t many twists and turns to slow down the teams on their way.

BMC is the heavy favorite to win this stage. They are the reigning world champions in the discipline, with four of those six worlds-winning riders on the BMC roster at the Tour. The rolling parcours should not trouble them too much, as most of the riders are capable climbers as well. With the yellow jersey well within Tejay van Garderen’s grasp, motivation will be high for BMC, and they’ll also have the advantage of a late start thanks his current third-place position on the GC leaderboard.

It would be a surprise for anyone else to win this stage, but Team Sky has a shot. The black and blue squad was less-than-stellar in the team time trial at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, but the stakes are much higher here (and Sky is more motivated to succeed on the sport’s biggest stage), and the riders making up the squad certainly don’t lack for chrono talent. The parcours should suit them well, as Sky is packing probably the best lineup of climbing ability in the Tour de France.

Movistar also has a chance at victory, with Adriano Malori and Alex Dowsett leading the team and plenty of other time trial talents on the squad as well. Alejandro Valverde may be known for his explosive climbing legs but he’s no slouch against the clock, and even Nairo Quintana can put in a good TT when there are hills involved.

Astana is the third team that I see having a chance at besting top favorite BMC. A similar lineup of Astana riders went second to BMC in the team time trial at the Dauphiné, and the importance of this race should have them motivated to ride at a very high level.

Etixx-Quick-Step, lacking Tony Martin, will have a much harder time vying for the win here than they would have with him leading the way—that said, don’t be surprised if they still put in a good ride. There is still some TT-ing talent on the roster. Tinkoff-Saxo has put in a few strong TTTs so far this year but they are lacking some of their stronger riders against the clock for this test. Katusha is in the same boat, but in a much more extreme fashion—Joaquim Rodríguez could lose a big chunk of time on this stage, as Katusha, despite delivering a few impressive team time trial successes this season, is down in numbers, and they left most of their strong TT talents at home anyway.

VeloHuman Stage 9 Favorites

1. BMC | 2. Sky | 3. Movistar

With a rest day on tap following Stage 9, the next stage preview will be up on Monday—in the meantime, be sure to check out the Recon Ride podcast, which will publish a new episode previewing the next week of racing not long after Sunday’s TTT!

-Dane Cash

July 11, 2015
Transfer Season 2014: The Peloton’s Most Improved Teams

With November in full swing, most of the high-profile moves of the 2014 transfer season have been completed. As always, some teams took advantage of the open market to make considerable upgrades to their rosters, while others did not take steps to improve, or worse, saw talented riders leave and failed to replace them. Only time will tell which of the many newsworthy signings will be success stories and which will go down as major missteps. Still, several squads stand out as having positioned themselves nicely for future success with their additions this fall. Some teams have improved by adding big-name stars, and others have solidified their rosters by signing multiple solid contributors that should fit into new roles nicely.

One of the peloton’s highest-profile teams landed the highest-profile addition of the offseason. Tinkoff-Saxo signed Peter Sagan after several months of rumors, immediately making a squad already full of GC-style talent suddenly a danger in the classics and sprints. Given the opportunity to pick up one of the sport’s most electrifying young stars, Oleg Tinkoff was resolute in his pursuit of Sagan. The decision made by the Slovakian to ride for Tinkoff-Saxo does comes with a question mark or two: he never had enough support at Cannondale, and while the Bjarne Riis outfit he joins for 2015 is obviously packed with talent for mountain stages in Grand Tours, its supporting cast for the classics and sprints does not stand out quite as much in the peloton. It remains to be seen how effective they can be in closing down the late attacks that so often derail Sagan’s hopes. Meanwhile, in terms of overall transfer season wins and losses, Tinkoff-Saxo did lose Nicolas Roche, but new signing Robert Kiserlovski, who notched a Grand Tour Top 10 this year at the Giro, should fill his absence nicely.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s loss of Nicolas Roche was Team Sky’s gain. A frustrating 2014 inspired the British squad to pull out all the stops this transfer season, and that meant adding proven Grand Tour Top 10 riders Nicolas Roche and Leopold Konig, both of whom should provide the team with deluxe domestique power in the Tour de France as well as options for overall contention in the Giro and Vuelta. Wouter Poels is another strong signing—the Dutch all-rounder took a big step forward this season and will provide Sky with both a capable challenger in the hilly classics and one-week races and a proven domestique (his support was an integral part of Rigoberto Uran’s podium performance in the 2014 Giro) for the Grand Tours. The influx of GC talent should more than make up for the loss of Dario Cataldo, who is headed to Astana for 2015. Sky also picked up a major talent for the sprints in Elia Viviani. The 25-year-old Italian was erratic this season but he has flashed remarkable top speed on occasion (he bested Mark Cavendish in two stages of the Tour of Turkey) and there is still time for him to develop. Team Sky’s more GC-oriented signings got a bit more press this transfer season, but Viviani is the new addition most likely to rack up the victories in 2015. The signing of Viviani, along with the rise of Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas as Classics protagonists and Ben Swift as a fast finisher for the intermediate stages, will soften the impact that the exit of Edvald Boasson Hagen will have on the team’s stage-hunting and one-day racing ambitions, an impact Sky did not seem too concerned with anyway; they were in no rush to re-sign the Norwegian after a pair of lackluster seasons.

A change of scenery could be just what Edvald Boasson Hagen needs, and he’ll get it at MTN-Qhubeka. The South African outfit added a stable of fast-finishing talents looking for a fresh start: in addition to EBH (who still has plenty of room to grow), they also signed Matt Goss, Tyler Farrar, and Theo Bos, among others. Goss, despite his lack of recent results, only just turned 28, and a change of pace could get him back on track in the sprints. Farrar may never beat Mark Cavendish in a one-on-one sprint battle again, but he is still capable of contesting flat profiles at the WorldTour level and he still has plenty of ability in the classics (he was 2nd in Dwars door Vlaanderen and Scheldeprijs this season, and 8th at the E3 Harelbeke). Theo Bos had a very successful 2014, winning races on three different continents, and should continue to deliver for his new team. MTN-Qhubeka may only be a Pro Continental Squad, but their transfer season talent haul was among the biggest in the whole pro scene.

Fellow Pro Conti outfit Cofidis made a big splash of their own, but rather than loading up on multiple speedsters, they focused almost all of their attention on a single powerhouse sprinter. Nacer Bouhanni’s decision to drop to a second division squad after winning five Grand Tour stages and the Giro points jersey this season is unconventional to say the least, but apparently FDJ only had room for one star sprinter (Arnaud Demare), leaving Bouhanni looking for a new ride. He still wanted to be with a French outfit, and Cofidis will likely get invited to the races he’s targeting, so it does make some sense for the young sprinting mega-talent. For Cofidis, it’s a coup; after several seasons in the middle of the Pro Continental pack, they now have a star capable of consistently challenging for victories in some of cycling’s biggest events.

Trek Factory Racing was another team that boosted their stock significantly with the addition of one rider: Bauke Mollema. Mollema didn’t have quite the 2014 that many expected, but he’s a consistent Grand Tour Top 10 rider (with Top 5 potential) who is also adept at shorter stage races and one-day classics. Andy Schleck’s retirement was big news but Trek had been without an elite GC talent for some time, and Mollema provides that ability, more than making up for the loss of Robert Kiserlovski.

Team BMC gets the final mention among transfer season winners. Their signings were not as flashy as Team Sky’s or Tinkoff-Saxo’s, and they are jettisoning quite a few riders to boot, but in additions like Damiano Caruso, Jempy Drucker, and Alessandro De Marchi, BMC was able to pick up several bright talents just hitting their prime. Caruso (a surprise Top 10 in the Vuelta) provides the team’s GC ambitions with a much needed injection of youthful talent, Drucker adds firepower to the Classics lineup, and De Marchi brings his elite stagehunting talents and a potential for stage race KoM jerseys to the table. These all come in addition to rising star all-rounder Rohan Dennis, who arrived as a midseason transfer. BMC may not have grabbed many big headlines this fall, but they filled several needs and that will help them improve across the board in 2015.

A year from now, it will undoubtedly be easier to evaluate the 2014 transfer season, but at the very least, the teams that have made the investments in riders like Leopold Konig and Alessandro De Marchi have put themselves in strong positions to succeed next year. The new transfers will have their chances to prove themselves soon; riders are returning to training after end-of-season vacations, and the start of the 2015 road season proper will arrive before long.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Sum_of_Marc.

November 13, 2014
Ben Swift Optimistic about Form, Targeting GP Ouest-France, Tour of Britain, and World Championships

After ending his 2013 campaign early to undergo surgery to fix a painful shoulder injury, Team Sky’s Ben Swift is back to his best in 2014. Following a strong spring and early summer, he took a break from racing, and then returned to competition at the beginning of this month with a few goals for the late-season calendar in mind. With one of those goals, Plouay’s GP Ouest-France, only two days away, he talked to VeloHuman about his season so far, his current form, and his expectations for the next few weeks of racing.

Swift started the year off very well; among several strong results, he contested a sprint finish after nearly 300 kilometers to land a podium place in Milano-Sanremo, and took a win at the Vuelta al País Vasco in a stage with some serious climbing challenges before the finish. With those results, Swift showed that he had not just recovered, but that he was feeling quite good and continuing to develop an already versatile skillset. For Swift, the success was directly attributable to his newly repaired shoulder, which has also given him a major morale boost.

“Last year and the years before, having that injury, you just can’t get the training that you need,” he explained to VH. “Morale’s not good and every time it hurts . . . you just can’t get the work done and you end up just getting yourself into a hole. So we made the call at the end of last year to finish really early and just get it fixed, and give myself a lot of time, and it seems to have worked. And once you get that confidence back really, I think that was another big thing, to prove not only to myself, but to everybody, that I could be at that level again, where I showed that I could be. So it was good to get that confidence back and that morale back.”

Swift put in more race mileage in May and June, riding in the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de Suisse and then landing a runner-up performance at the British National Championship Road Race. After Nationals, he took some time off to rest and recover for a few late-season goals. His return since then has had ups and downs: crashes marred his first race back, the Tour de Pologne, but days after leaving Poland he landed a 2nd-place finish in the RideLondon Classic. Last weekend’s Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg was his next target, but Swift wasn’t able to put in the performance he’d hoped for. Despite that, he is currently optimistic about his upcoming objectives.

“Tour of Poland . . . obviously that didn’t go too well, two crashes and a puncture. But I came good again in the RideLondon. And then I had a really heavy training block after RideLondon and before Hamburg. I was obviously expecting a lot more for myself in Hamburg, but I’m hoping it was just a bad day,” he said. “I haven’t had too many bad days this year. That was one of the first ones where I’ve been a protected rider and just had nothing. It was like, do one effort and that was it, I’m fatigued. So hopefully it was just a bit of training fatigue. I had a nice week in Nice this week with my soigneur, so hopefully in Plouay we can turn things around. But in the long term I’m not too worried. It would be nice to get a good result in Plouay and show that the legs are coming back but if not, I’ll just keep going easy and try to make the most out of Tour of Britain.”

Sunday’s GP Ouest-France in Plouay does have the sort of profile that would seem to suit the talents of Swift and his teammates, which has him feeling good about the opportunity to try for a top result.

“We’ve got Edvald [Boasson Hagen] starting to improve a hell of a lot now. He’s come into some really good form, so I can see it being myself and Edvald being sort of joint leaders for it. They’re quite interesting races these two, Hamburg and Plouay. You’ve got a lot of people that are quite fatigued from the Tour and some that are starting to wind down for the season, so you’ve got a real mix of riders. It’s just about making the most of these opportunities, and I think that with Edvald and the rest of the guys, we’ve got a strong team and I think there’s a lot of motivation inside the team,” he said.

Though the startlist is not yet set in stone, Swift identified Simon Gerrans and Alexander Kristoff as likely rivals and riders worth watching at the GP Ouest-France. After his trip to Plouay, Swift has his sights set on the Tour of Britain, a race in which he’s already taken a stage victory (back in 2009).

“Hopefuly I’ll go into it fresh. I’ll be chasing stage wins, that’s for sure, I’ll try and make it at least one stage win there, and then it’s the final push for the World Championships,” he said.

Hilly but with a flat finish, the profile for the World Championship Road Race in Ponferrada, Spain certainly looks like one that might fit Swift’s skillset. Having done some recon of the course already, he does see opportunity, but acknowledges that it will be a hard race to predict.

“It’s quite an interesting [parcours]. I think it’s open to a lot of scenarios really. It just depends on the race, how it develops as it goes along. I don’t think the climbs are that hard on their own but when they’re combined, then towards the end of the race it’s going to be a bit of a different story. So it’s going to be interesting, and it’s all about saving as much energy as possible, I reckon,” he said.

He is particularly excited about the growing number of British riders who could find this type of challenge to their liking.

“If I saw this sort of profile in a stage race, I’d be really excited for it. It’s something that, I think, as a nation, we haven’t really had any out-and-out riders for it. But obviously this year, we’ve had the Yateses [twins Adam and Simon Yates] step up really well. Pete Kennaugh, it’s a perfect course for him. I think we’ll have a lot of cards to play,” Swift said.

The World Championships may yet be a few weeks off, but with 229 kilometers of racing and plenty of climbs along the way, Sunday’s GP Ouest-France will offer an indication of where Swift is in terms of form. If he’s able to return to return to the level that saw him landing consistently impressive results in the spring and early summer, he’ll have a few good opportunities to add to his palmarès before the season comes to a close.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Marc.

August 29, 2014
Vuelta a España 2014: Stage 1 Preview

Stage 1 (TTT): Jerez de la Frontera › Jerez de la Frontera – 12.6 km

The 2014 Vuelta a España gets underway with a short, flat team time trial in Jerez de la Frontera. At only 12.6 kilometers, the route shouldn’t see any massive time gaps between teams, but motivation to put in a strong ride will still be high; in this Vuelta, which seems likely to be hotly contested, every second will count, and the GC riders will want to get off to a strong start. Moreover, several teams are packing some serious chrono talent and will have their sights set on showing off their ability against the clock in the opening stage of the race.

One such team looks to be the top favorite for this TTT. Fabian Cancellara headlines a powerful Trek squad loaded with talent that also includes Jesse Sergeant, Kristof Vandewalle, and Bob Jungels. That’s a lot of firepower. They’re a little light on cumulative experience with so much youth in the team, but this is a goal for Trek and they have the talent to go for the win.

OPQS should contend for stage victory as well. They will be led by World Champ Tony Martin and the team will be driven to put Rigoberto Uran, suddenly a top-notch chrono rider in his own right, into a good position on GC.

Sky has a number of workhorse time trialists to help place Chris Froome (obviously a stellar time trialist himself) into a good spot on the leaderboard on the first stage, and it would be a surprise to see anything other than a great performance from them on Stage 1.

BMC and Movistar are also well-staffed for a race against the clock and could be in the mix for stage honors. Orica-GreenEdge is without a number of their stronger time trialists in this Vuelta, but Brett Lancaster, Cam Meyer, and Michael Matthews (very fast in a short time trial) should give them a shot at a good result.

While they aren’t on the same level as Trek, Giant-Shimano could surprise some people on Stage 1. They have several young chrono talents in Lawson Craddock, Chad Haga, and Tobias Ludvigsson that will be able to drive a high pace on the stage. Cannondale is another team that could outperform expectations; a shorter time trial like this suits a number of their riders.

VeloHuman Stage Favorites

1. Trek Factory Racing | 2. Omega Pharma – Quick-Step | 3. Team Sky

Be sure follow @VeloHuman on Twitter for live commentary of this and every stage of the 2014 Vuelta a España! The next preview will be up after the conclusion of Stage 1, so stay tuned. In case you missed it, the overall race preview can be found here.

-Dane Cash

August 22, 2014