Tommy loves the Taaienberg foto:Sporza.be
The real Velominati VSP will not begin until La Primavera. Het Volk will be a one-off warm up for the big show, no points, just some bragging rights and a V-musette. All that time wasted watching “racing” in Qatar and Oman (sorry @ChrisO) will not be in vain. Every contender for Het Volk can still find some middle eastern wind driven sand in his shoes and all the riders who want to win the Ronde will be in Gent. Those who get shelled off the hellingen too soon will know they have their work cut out for them to make the Ronde start.
This race starts and ends in Ghent; 198 km of cold, wind, rain, climbs and cobbles. The weather may not suck for this Saturday but that’s OK, the wind and rain is being banked for Paris-Roubaix. A start list is here.
With equal doses of cobbles and climbs, Het Volk is the opening of the season for us who love the Spring Classics. Up until ten years ago, Belgians won this race, almost exclusively. Ten years ago no one was racing in Dubai as preparation. The Belgians were out there, in Belgium, armed with embrocation and the big ring, killing themselves all winter to come out strong when the bell was rung. The bell will be rung on Saturday, round one.
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View Comments
@Gianni
Strong indeed and a very cool head to stick to his own plan when reeling in the attacks.
Terpstra's sprint was poor considering he'd had a free ride for the last 3km.
Things are looking good, first Contrador and Froome beat the shit out of each other in the Portuguese mountains and now the Spring Classics kick of with a cracker.
@Chris
Didn't Stannard come close to winning Milano-Sanremo during that nasty edition? He would be a worthy winner of that this year. He and G. Thomas are my boys on Sky these days. And Kennaugh for his white socks, of course.
@Gianni
He did although from memory he was a bit fucked and didn't really contend the final sprint. Sky are looking good with Stannard, Thomas (picked up a GC win last week) and Wiggo not to mention the likes of Eisel and Rowe. Could this be there year when they come good for the classics. They have had some great moments stage racing but they've been pretty underwhelming in the Northern races.
@Chris
"When they all started attacking me it wasn’t a great feeling. When Boonen went I was thinking ‘right, what do I do here?’ I knew if I rode him back I’d get attacked. I paced myself back a little bit. I could feel the wheel behind was trying hard to stay with me. So I felt like it was going pretty good and then I just took my chance."
D.e.l.g.a.d.o.
Like, new baby. My daughter is having a sleep over. I'm working on the weekend. Logged on to cyclingnews and asked myself, "What? Racing? For reals?" DELGADO.
Wow.
@Gianni
What I don't get is why Terpstra let Stannard get behind him in the last k? Even if he pulls a trackstand, just stop as well, the only bloke who's gonna catch up to you is Tommeke, so the team still wins...
@Gianni
I don't think so Gianni.
LBL was two against one, not three. And the one was Gilbert, who at the time was unstoppable, with a superb classics pedigree.
This was three to one, and while Stannard isn't chopped liver, he's on the level of Vandenbergh but not Terpstra or Boonen.
Yes LBL was lame but it somehow seemed inevitable - it was really that nothing happened, except the Schlecks let Gilbert ride over them.
This was incredible, both for the succession of tactical cock-ups and for who was committing them, plus the excitement of seeing Stannard pull it off.
@ChrisO
I think Etixx didn't have much of a choice but to fuck it up royally. Stannard owes Sep and Greg a pint for making the trio work so hard because by the time they were clear, all of them were way too fucked to attack and counter-attack.
If Etixx had been caught, they would've gained Stybar but left to contend with Vanmarke and Van Avermaet. Very risky, and losing to either would've been very embarrassing. So they worked hard, and had to hold off on attacking Stannard.
Basically, without that furious chase, they would've been able to tire him out earlier. The way things turned out, he had an armchair ride to 5km out, instead of fighting to survive those 35km that preceded. Plus, remember he's a former Pursuit rider - that counts as "can sprint" here on the road.
The final 5k were full of cock-ups, and Stannard rode masterfully - but I don't think they had much of a chance of beating him. He was just far fresher. Even before the 5k point, Tommeke had troubles hanging on, they were on fumes.
P.S The Schlecks at least tried to attack on the climbing before the finish. Too bad it was against SuperGilbert.
Absolutely brilliant way to start the classics. I hope this is just a taste of whats to come!
K-B-K today isn't it... not much pressure on Cav then !
What was I thinking having not a single Quickstep Ettix in my picks - major brain malfunction on this one. Same mistake won't happen again.