Road Cycling
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I see George is back doing what he does best, part of a near perfect team performance to set up Pog for stage and GC wins at Vuelta a Andalucia.
Hit the road straight after getting off the plane and has been strong on the hills.
I doubt we'll ever see stage or tour wins now from George. He is set to do this one job and he is very good at it (and gets paid handsomely for it).
Have to say that UAE are using him better than TJV did. TJV seemed to want him to get team position ranking alongside his main job while UAE seem happy for him to go hard setting Pog up then cruise to the finish with no expectation.
Anyway Pog wins the 5 day tour and George at 22nd
Sam Gaze was also riding this tour and came in 65th (46mins down).Meanwhile other teams targeted the Volta ao Algarve at the same time (probably due to the different race composition with an ITT to finish. Ineos were to the fore for this and Pidcock lost the lead losing a lot of time on the TT. Martinez took the GC win.
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@Crucial It will be interesting to see which Grand Tour(s) George rides this year. UAE has added Adam Yates and Jay Vine to their squad so they've got a shitload of firepower.
They seem to like the NZers though - with George, Finn Fisher-Black and now Michael Vink in the squad.
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@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
@Crucial It will be interesting to see which Grand Tour(s) George rides this year. UAE has added Adam Yates and Jay Vine to their squad so they've got a shitload of firepower.
They seem to like the NZers though - with George, Finn Fisher-Black and now Michael Vink in the squad.
@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
@Crucial It will be interesting to see which Grand Tour(s) George rides this year. UAE has added Adam Yates and Jay Vine to their squad so they've got a shitload of firepower.
They seem to like the NZers though - with George, Finn Fisher-Black and now Michael Vink in the squad.
Until he got Covid, George was doing a great job support Pog in TdF. As soon as he wasn't there Pog had no show. George is also an experienced TdF rider and knows the routines.
Previous years he has been given a chance at other Tours but I think he is well settled in as Pogs key climbing support rider now and that is where priority will go.
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@Crucial I think (hope) that might be the way they go as well. Though they're spoiled for choice with potential support riders.
Right now, I'd probably pick something close to Pog, with Yates as a back-up option, Majka, George, Soler, Vine, Trentin and another big munter or two.
Leave Almeida, Ayuso and others with the Giro - but, when you look at who's available even that will be a formidable team - Hirschi, McNulty, Ulissi, Covi, Polanc, Grosschartner, Formolo, Wellens...
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@gt12 I’m not reading too much into this. They’re both at different stages of their training. Pogacar is building towards MSR in a week or so and then Flanders.
Will concede he’s looking v sharp already though. The early Monuments are going to be epic with VdP and Van Aert smashing each other and Tadej waiting in the wings to take advantage.
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Heading into my favourite part of the season, the spring classics. And what a classic Milan San Remo we saw on Saturday with Van der Poel’s incredible surge and descent on the Poggio besting Pogacar, Van Aert and an very impressive Pippo Ganna. The remaining classics are shaping up to be quite tasty.
In other news, come on down Laurence Pithie …
Cholet - Pays de la Loire: New Zealander Pithie wins first race of career
Perez and Manzin complete podium from bunch sprint
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Finn Fisher-Black wins Stage 1 of the Giro di Sicilia. Well done that man.
George finished 9th - 8 seconds back from Finn. Two rolling stages and a mountain stage to come - either George or Rafal Majka will be UAE's main hope in the GC.
Fisher Black takes first pro win in Sicilia - UAE team Emirates
The first UAE World Tour cycling team
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@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
Finn still has the Leader's jersey after three stages.
UAE has Finn, Diego Ulissi, Majka and George all in the top 20 and within 18 seconds of the lead.
Dunno whether Finn can get over the climbs on tonight's stage - probably doubtful.
If UAE stick together he could play tag along
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Finn ends up fourth in the GC - same time as Albanese in third, but misses out on countback.
Interestingly, it looks like UAE rode for Finn on the final day, but disturbingly, no sign of George in the latter stages - Majka and Ulissi were with him - and then just Majka.
Maybe they used up George on the first climb, but he's not really fired a shot (in terms of contending for anything) since the start of the year.
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Annoyingly, Sky doesn't appear to have any coverage of the Giro.
Remco was leading earlier, but he had to pull out with Covid. It's eventually come down to a three-way race between Geraint Thomas, Jaio Almeida and Primoz Roglic.
Roglic in some trouble last night on Stage 16, but Kuss helped him save the day.
Right now Thomas leads Almeida by 18 seconds and Roglic by 29 seconds. Still another mountain stage and a time trial to come, so could be anyone's.
Last 5km last night.
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If you’re in the UK it’s on C4 and S4C
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The Giro website showed Sky as being the coverage for NZ but have since removed it. I messaged Sky and got the usual “we don’t have the rights” which is standard code for “we wanted to pay fuck all”.
Mrs C subscribed to GCN for one month. Quite a good price for the amount of coverage. As Sky don’t have rights GCN isn’t geoblocked for NZ for Giro. -
Overnight a mountainous stage and Almeida the loser - Roglic and Thomas able to drop him and Thomas able to cover Roglic (and work with him to hurt Almeida), which he will be very pleased with. Almeida now 10 seconds behind Roglic and 39 seconds adrift of Thomas.
Huge mountain stage tonight followed by a time trial.
Thibault Pinot captured the KOM jersey, but just pipped for a stage win in his final Giro.
