Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
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2022 Tour de France | 2023 Giro d'Italia
Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth. - Horace
Bill & Carol McGann's book The Story of the Tour de France, Vol 1: 1903 - 1975 is available in print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
Current racing:
- August 26 - Sept 17: Vuelta a España
- Sept 3 - 10: Tour of Britain
Upcoming racing:
- September 8: GP de Quebec
Latest completed racing:
- Sept 3: Bretagne Classic - Ouest France
- August 23 - 27: Renewi Tour
- August 22 - 25: Tour Poitou-Charentes en Nouvelle Aquitaine
- August 9 - 20: Volta a Portugal
- August 17 - 20: Arctic Race of Norway
- August 20: Bemer Cyclassics
- August 15 - 19: Tour of Denmark
- August 15 - 19: Vuelta a Burgos
We posted the race organizer's report with the results.
Here's the Vuelta report from stage winner Filippo Ganna's Team INEOS Grenadiers:
Filippo Ganna stormed to the win in La Vuelta’s stage 10 time trial. The success marks the Italian’s seventh Grand Tour stage victory, and his first in the Spanish three-week race.
Filippo Ganna on his stage-winning ride. Sirotti photo
Ganna started early in the day, and set a rapid time, averaging 56km/h on a flat course around Valladolid.
As the field rolled in, it was clear that the GC men would prove to be the toughest test. But Ganna’s time would prove impossible to beat, with few coming within one minute of the two-time world champion.
Jonathan Castroviejo also put in a solid ride, finishing twelfth on the day, with Geraint Thomas rounding out the top 20, despite a brief mechanical issue.
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Here's the Vuelta report from Remco Evenpoel's Team Soudal Quick-Step:
Valladolid, the former capital of Habsburg Spain and the city where Miguel de Cervantes lived when his magnum opus “Don Quijote” was published in 1605, welcomed the peloton Tuesday afternoon, as the Spanish Grand Tour resumed after a rainy but well-deserved rest day. An almost flat individual time trial, held over 25.8 kilometers, promised to deliver the biggest gaps of the race, and Remco Evenepoel was keen on taking advantage of this opportunity.
Evenepoel wearing lots of rainbows. Sirotti photo
The World Champion, wearing his new rainbow jersey for the first time, had a new Specialized bike for the occasion, and produced a solid effort that helped him conclude the ITT with a time of 27:55, only 16 seconds behind winner Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers). Runner-up on the stage as one of the only two riders to go under the 28-minute barrier meant that Evenepoel made an important jump on the general classification, where he now sits third.
“It’s a mixed feeling. I didn’t have my best day out there and after ten minutes I had a difficult moment, and I think that’s where I lost the time trial. After that, I managed to increase the speed and match Ganna’s time, while gaining seconds on the others. On the plus side, I extended my advantage over the other GC guys, which is an encouraging thing at the start of this second week. We’ll soon arrive in the high mountains and I hope to keep the momentum of last weekend”, explained Remco after his eighth Grand Tour stag finish.
The general classification remains condensed ahead of the uphill finish on Laguna Negra, five of the pre-race favourites being in the space of one minute. Evenepoel remains the highest-ranked of these, only 69 seconds behind the red jersey.
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And here's the Vuelta report from UAE team Emiraes:
Three UAE Team Emirates cyclists entered the top-10 of stage 10 of the Vuelta Espana and in the general classification of the Spanish race.
In the standing of the ITT of 25,8 km on a flat course, led by Filippo Ganna (Ineos-Grenadiers), João Almeida was +50”, Juan Ayuso, 7th +1’11” and Marc Soler 8th +1’12”.
Juan Ayuso on his Vuelta TT ride. Sirotti photo
These results leave the Emirati trio standing high in the general classification with 2nd place (Soler, + 26” from the red jersey Sepp Kuss), 6th position (Almeida, + 2’16”) and 8th place (Ayuso, +2’25”).
Almeida: “I was good, I succeeded in doing a good effort, so I am happy and I could take time on the other contenders.
"Tomorrow we will face another hard day, not super tough but it will be necessary to be up there and be vigilant. We’ll focus the attention on the next stages until stage 13 with the summit arrival on the Tourmalet, it will be important to save energy until that point”.
Tomorrow’s stage will start from Lerma and it will end, after 163,2 km, at the summit arrival of La Laguna Negra, with a final climb of 6,5 km at 6,7%.
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We posted the race organizer's report with the results.
Here's the report from stage winner Olav Kooij's Team Jumbo-Visma:
Olav Kooij has won the third stage of the Tour of Britain with a strong performance. It was the third stage win this week for the 21-year-old sprinter of Team Jumbo-Visma. He was also the fastest in the first two stages.
"It was another great team performance”, Kooij said after his third win in Great Britain. "We have gained a lot of confidence from the first two days before. Today, we showed again that we can finish it off. That's great.”
Olav Kooij wins stage three.
While the bunch sprints in the first two stages seemed to be a copy of each other, today’s stage was different. "This was more of an uphill finish. Even though it seemed like we got to the front a little too early, thanks to the skills of riders like Edo and Wout, I was perfectly guided to the finish line.”
The win in Beverley, England, was the Dutch top sprinter's tenth individual victory of the season. The season tally for Team Jumbo-Visma now stands at 55 victories.
Sportive director Merijn Zeeman was proud to have achieved one of the team's main goals: "Victories for Olav are an important goal for us this season. With his tenth individual victory today, he has achieved the goal we set as a team before this cycling year.”
"Olav is one of the biggest talents on the WorldTour. He is having a fantastic season. It is extraordinary that Olav is showing all this at such a young age”, the sportive director continued. "Olav is an incredible talent. We are very proud of him. We help him as much as we can, as we did this week with a super strong team in Great Britain. We will be seeing a lot of Olav in the future.”
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