Velominati Super Prestige: Gent – Wevelgem 2016
Deinze – Wevelgem really but Gent sounds correct, like Het Volk. Last year’s windy wet edition was a pretty awesome race except Luca Paolini won it wearing tights (FFS!?) and maybe high on Italian marching powder. Riders were leaning into the wind and being blown off the road. It was awesome to watch maybe not so awesome to race.
Tony Martin will be lining up as he prepares for a Spring Classics campaign. If you have Ronde van Vlaanderen dreams you best ride this and see how the gun prep has gone. Tomeke, Faboo, it should be a proper battle.
Here is the start list and it is impressive. Let us hope the Belgian weather is true to form. The prize list is equally impressive and after that weird Milan-Sanremo finish, no VSP savants are crushing it yet. So do some stretches, limber up, if you need to unload some bad choices (H. Haussler), get those out of your system now before the real races begin.
To review:
[vsp_results id=”39316″/]
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Busy cutting off the tops of all my cycling socks and almost forgot to pick.
We’ll be needing VSP echelons, I hear. If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the gutter.
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Much sporting going on! Champions League, Classics, B-Ball college, hard to keep up!
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Take two!
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needed to add Bouhanni to the sprinters
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More changes…probably pointless…like my results…I hope it’s a day for the sprinters, or I’m screwed!
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Well I’ve been busy sewing old cuffs onto my newer socks to extend them up. And I’m with Brett here, except for the Heiny call, done that too many times already. I’m thinking some real sprinter will win this. And I’m putting Zabel in because I can. No idea if he can even finish much less sprint.
Or Ian Stannard will just lay waste to everyone and I’ll have nothing again.
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Kristoff out due to illness, and a change of heart to favour the sprinters over the rouleurs, results in a total rewrite of my choices
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Swapping in Stannard to go it alone and Che to clean up the bunch. Chucking Zabel in for Heiny too, Gianni is onto something there (at least that Heiny has had it).
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Damn it, I’m changing again. Coquard will remember to throw his bike, not his arms first.
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Updated…
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Stannard’
s oot
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Drunken regrets
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Fuck you Kristoff. This shit’s hard enough without last minute scratchings.
99k to go and Gaviria not in contact with the front of the race; I think it unlikely he’ll make the finish at the front!
@dinosaurJR
Yeah — some are arguing that him leaving Catalonya early and then riding GW before that race finished was questionable. Leaving stage races to avoid the mountains is very low, in my opinion.
@brett
Whew! That was fucking close, Mate as Standard threw in the towel with sickness right before the start. The Gods were with you on that change!
@Harminator
Yeah, with GVA on Friday, last minute DNS of favorites is hard on the heart and there should be a rule. The brief shot of him on a berg on Friday and he was making a face that I recognize all too well in my trips up any 5% grade; a bad prognostic sign.
The bunch seems to have whittled down a fair bit already
Weather’s better than I expected. I was seeing rain and 20mph winds when I looked at the forecast yesterday, so maybe this IS one for the sprinters. Was expecting a bunch of echelons already.
WTF?! Well’ard isnt starting?
God damn it! Im up at the cabin for Easter vacation with limited access to t’internet and that totally blew past me.
What happens now? Does my nr 2 become my tip for winner, my third become second?
Does everything remain status quo and I forfeit the chance at 7 points?
Or do I just pull a boohooani and climb off because the mountains are too hard?
@Buck Rogers
Stannard didn’t start!?! Noooooooooooo, etc.
@brett
any chance that wasn’t an accident to ensure a Belgie won the day after Brussels?
@LawnCzar
The bunch still isn’t huge now that the 2 groups have come back together, it’s a shame Dimension Data didn’t have any help, otherwise that split that got up to about a minute could have stuck.
And Jens Debusschere crashed out Into a ditch. 10% grade face.
@xyxax
given the way his left leg was kinda planted on the ground with him moving around it, I wonder whether something may have broken…hope he’s ok.
Stannard didn’t start? WTF? Doesn’t he know about the VSP and his responsibilities? I don’t care about non-VSP events, but come on. Hasn’t he seen the prizes at stake?
@wiscot
Noooooooo.
Not to change the subject, but is Pierre Latour the next great French hope? He looked terrific on that final climb at the Critérium Internationale. Got swallowed up by Pinot at the end, but he multiple of rings deep into the V for most of that final climb. Brave stuff. And only 22. So it’s only a two-day event, but finishing second overall looks good on the palmares.
Sagan, Cancellara, Vanmarcke and Kuznetsov fill in for Kristoff.
Winning Break? Me thinks so!
@Kevin
I’m thinking so — I’ve got three of the four in my picks, but then again I think most other folk do, too!
@LawnCzar
Watching those 3 keep the Etixx boys at bay is impressive. Kuznetsov is dead weight and the blue of Etixx just looks slow.
Well, 3 out of 5 isn’t so bad. If only I could get the order right….