Great race by Stuyven. He definitely owes SKA a beer, though.

Pretty much this. Though Ineos pulling for so much of the climb certainly reduced opportunity for attacking. If nothing else, less real estate available to attack and make it stick.

That said, Ewan rode impressively. Wellens fell off first, despite getting quite a bit of draft

MvdP's positioning may have costed him. Had to surge from quite a ways back to close the initial gap to WvA and Alaphilippe.


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Free lifetime supply of chocolates from Suyven's confectionery

Well I gotta east my words, it sure worked out well for Trek without Pederson.
Very impressive ride by Ewan, I wonder if Bennett would have been there as well without his long chase earlier.
And yeah no doubt Having Ewan there helped Stuyvan, but you gotta take your shot and he did while everyone else looked at each other so he is a very deserving winner

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Well I’m wondering how Trek can keep this wonderful year going for them; quite impressive

Yeah, same here about Trek.

Ewan understandably calling out his team a bit in interviews for not getting a teammate over the Poggio. I'm not certain what happened to Wellens and Gilbert, who were surprisingly far down, and must have come off on the Cipressa.

Wellens tried like hell to get a gap on the Poggio, then popped hard.

Gotta say, Ineos wasn't going to be dictated to. They really shut down the expected trio finish.

Except Ineos gained nothing in return. Had Ganna not pulled pull, Pidcock would have covered attacks on the Poggio but would have been able to sit-on on the flat.

If that break would haven been reeled comes back, Ganna could then attack. Alternatively, have hi. lead out for Kwiatkowski in the sprint.

Then again, all couch seat MMQBing

I agree about Ineos, they got nothing but that is how they race, I like it because I dont like them, so I love to see them do stupid stuff like dictate the race and not finish anything to show for it.
I bet Syuyvan likes it as well.

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I still think you are likely right with that assessment.

I think Bora's poor tactics with Schachmann in the final screwed Sagan out of a podium place today. Also the Poggio record still stands. It looks like 10 or 11 riders went 5m51 (maybe 52), so 6-7 seconds off of the pace. Still crazy fast and high level in the group.

I submit that Ineos had as much of a chance drilling it as they did, and hoping Kwiat and/or Pidcock would still be in the mix in a larger finish group. Stuyven's move screwed that particular pooch. Racing happens. Who knows? What else do you do with a guy like Ganna in that situation?

More than that, it's nice to see others get some big wins.

McNulty wrote:

I submit that Ineos had as much of a chance drilling it as they did, and hoping Kwiat and/or Pidcock would still be in the mix in a larger finish group. Stuyven's move screwed that particular pooch

I thought Pidcock's post-race interview was a little glib given he and Kwiat failed to capitalize on all that effort by Ganna.

"Then I thought I’d try a little attack on the descent to see if they’d give me a gap but I didn’t really know where I was going! So that didn’t really work so well. I was a bit too far forward going into the final and the line came up on me fast, but overall I'm happy. It’s a good result to take into the cobbled Classics."

I'm a little annoyed if I'm Ganna. I'm not sure I'd have joked in the media about getting lost on the descent.

Probably a poor choice of words from Pidders. I think Ganna could have actually faired decently, though he shared afterward that he was sick at the end and after T-A, but had negative PCR tests so he raced and contributed the best he could.

Crazy. He didn’t feel well, so he rode 295k before taking a 2k long pull at 600 watts. I wish my bad days were like that.

One thing I thought was interesting was that it seemed like everyone who did T-A this week looked pretty flat. Last week The big 3 were quickly opening up big gaps and today the attacks looked pretty unimpressive.

How Ewan survives a LFF and MvdP attack is beyond me. Last year at the Tour he and his support crew were holding down something like 4 out of the last 5 places in the Tour and Ewan was still nowhere in the sprint on the last day. He isn’t one of the sprinter you typically see making the finish on the lumpy days in a Tour

Good point about Tirreno. In hindsight it looks like the big 3 might have gone too deep there.

Agreed. That performance was insane and without any precedence from him.

Carl Spackler wrote:

Good point about Tirreno. In hindsight it looks like the big 3 might have gone too deep there.

I actually thought (and he admitted as much) that WvA did not looked overcooked, but merely was marked out by everyone and made a poor choice in the cat and mouse of that. MvdP put up his race file. Pretty cool to look at the data and see the moment Ala went (same spot as last year) and Mathieu's response. Its also neat to see how damn easy this race is until all hell breaks loose.

https://t.co/jPaQ91mmBB?amp=1

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/volta-a-catalunya/2021/gc/startlist


Loaded.
This should be entertaining.

Ineos has a TdF squad there. This should be a fun week.

I was all over the road trying to catch glimpses yesterday. Thoroughly enjoyed watching it last night.

I think this is right read. And Trek was on it. They sent Conci out and he helped drive the break hard. Hung tough. While it wasn't fastest MSR ever, it sure was a blistering pace for Tractor/Martens/Leysen to bring it back. Then they sat it knowing Ineos was likely going to drive the final climbs.

Stuyven said 8 out of 10 times that move doesn't stick. But yesterday was the well thought out 20%.

And regarding that pace, even more impressive watching the overhead replay and seeing Sagan charging up their to 4th. While hearts wish otherwise, heads know the rest of the old guard (Nibali, Gilbert, even GvA) likely out of magic.

And Sepp has leadership—let’s hope he can take it to them. Would also be nice to see Sagan hit form and be full speed for the Ronde in just two week’s time.

Watching that again, so many things had to go just right for that to work. SkA's death pull. Pidcock not making the bridge attempt. Schachmann messing up by bringing Matthews on his bridge attempt, forcing him to sit up. Stuyven's clever (but possibly unintentional) body language that made it look like he was sitting up at times. And then Stuyven's truly impressive final kick.

He obviously is still coming back to form and I assume didn't have it in the legs this year based on getting gapped slightly on the Poggio, but I thought Sagan had a real chance to make a move like Trek ultimately pulled off from 2-3K out. It's probably the only time in a long time he wasn't a marked man and the big three were all watching each other and the pocket rocket. If they could have coordinated a little better (and if he had the legs) to counter off a Schachmann attack I think the group hesitates just enough to let him have a shot at riding solo to the line.


In any event, Sagan was there and looked very quick at the line. Makes the upcoming 1 day classics all the more exciting - maybe this Sagan guy will be permitted to race with the "big three"!


As for all the commentary on the big three looking flat, come on - they were all in the final selection sprinting for the line. WVA was on the podium. Ewan's presence made it an absolute mess and in the end they all finished within seconds of each other. MvdP tried to sprint from Milan and ultimately it was too far, however based on the gap to Jasper and how close they came in the end, his timing for the launch was probably just about right to win it had he been able to hold it after 300K. Seems like he and Wout sprinted from about that far out at Flanders.


I think everyone was on spectacular form - Jasper simply (not simply at all actually) won the race.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

I will believe Jumbo plans to turn Sepp into a GC guy when they do something about his horrible TT position. I think it was 2 years ago that they had Dan Bingham fix Van Aert. They need to make the same investment in Sepp if he is ever going to challenge in any race with a TT

I’d even argue is not that hard on the last 2 climbs aside from having almost 300k on the legs by then. But the Cipressa and Poggio aren’t as long or steep climbs. What makes it really fun and grueling is the insane pace those teams are putting up there.

Deserved win for Longo Borghini today. She didn't have as many SD Worx girls against her as there was in Strade Bianche.

Louis :-)