The Official Website of the UCI Pro Series Stage Race, held in the Alps between Italy and Austria, through Tirol, Südtirol and Trentino (April 18-22, 2022)
TV signal was perfect today, thank them for fixing or replacing their system.
There was no race on the major climbs of the day. After those climbs, Ciccone🇮🇹’s team was not interested in riding after the breakaway more than needed for GC, so Picnic pulled the peloton; everyone was waiting for the circuit and its climb.
In the first passage, Décathlon had Prudhomme🇫🇷 pulled the peloton at high speed, breaking into small pieces. But when he stopped pulling, 500 m or bit more from the top, no leader rode or attacked. In the descent that wasn’t lead by anyone, and the flat that lead to the finish line, almost everyone came back together.
In the second passage, it took a little while to speed up again, but there were several attack attempts. The two Decathlon leaders were riding rather awkwardly: when the young Seixas🇫🇷 looked like he was trying to go away, Gall🇦🇹 rode behind him, and vice versa… Then Storer (🇦🇺 Tudor) attacked and wasn’t followed. At the top, Storer passed alone, then a group of the 3, all distinctive jerseys (the 2 Decathlon and Ciccone for Lidl-Trek), and, catching up with them, another group of 3 which included Bardet (🇫🇷 Picnic).
In the downhill, the group of now 6 riders kept on not pushing; then Decathlon acted strangely again. Everyone knows that Gall has trouble descending; yet Seixas took the lead, not to ensure a medium pace that his teammate could follow while not losing time over Storer, but to ride down full speed, with only 2 riders following him, including Ciccone but not Gall!
On the flat, no one was really pushing, so the first two groups of 3 and soon a third one including Bardet’s Picnic teammate Poole🇬🇧 regrouped. On a section supposedly against a lone rider, Storer’s advance had grown: 20s, 30s, 40s. When (I don’t remember how it went exactly, in which order, etc.) Poole and Seixas pulled, it was too late.
Storer finished 40 seconds before the group of 9, lead by Poole for Bardet in the end, but whose sprint was won by Seixas despite his earlier efforts, before Bardet.
Storer leads general classification by those same 40 seconds, which isn’t bad on a 5 days race. Of course, given the nature of the stages in this race, he may blow up in any climb and if he has no more teammate with him then, drown completely. Today, Stork🇩🇪 was the only Picnic survivor in the end (he came first first in the next group 20 seconds behind the leaders’ group), but as I said in the beginning, the others teammates had been working earlier.
After the period of classics, this race sometimes serves as a good reminder that when climbers and Grands Tours riders are involved, race tactics can be extremely passive and wait-and-see, in case we have forgotten it. 😄
As a French, it is also the only stage race that our greatest multi-millionaire GT riders/climbers from the last 15 years have a chance to win. 🤣
TV signal was perfect today, thank them for fixing or replacing their system.
There was no race on the major climbs of the day. After those climbs, Ciccone🇮🇹’s team was not interested in riding after the breakaway more than needed for GC, so Picnic pulled the peloton; everyone was waiting for the circuit and its climb.
In the first passage, Décathlon had Prudhomme🇫🇷 pulled the peloton at high speed, breaking into small pieces. But when he stopped pulling, 500 m or bit more from the top, no leader rode or attacked. In the descent that wasn’t lead by anyone, and the flat that lead to the finish line, almost everyone came back together.
In the second passage, it took a little while to speed up again, but there were several attack attempts. The two Decathlon leaders were riding rather awkwardly: when the young Seixas🇫🇷 looked like he was trying to go away, Gall🇦🇹 rode behind him, and vice versa… Then Storer (🇦🇺 Tudor) attacked and wasn’t followed. At the top, Storer passed alone, then a group of the 3, all distinctive jerseys (the 2 Decathlon and Ciccone for Lidl-Trek), and, catching up with them, another group of 3 which included Bardet (🇫🇷 Picnic).
In the downhill, the group of now 6 riders kept on not pushing; then Decathlon acted strangely again. Everyone knows that Gall has trouble descending; yet Seixas took the lead, not to ensure a medium pace that his teammate could follow while not losing time over Storer, but to ride down full speed, with only 2 riders following him, including Ciccone but not Gall!
On the flat, no one was really pushing, so the first two groups of 3 and soon a third one including Bardet’s Picnic teammate Poole🇬🇧 regrouped. On a section supposedly against a lone rider, Storer’s advance had grown: 20s, 30s, 40s. When (I don’t remember how it went exactly, in which order, etc.) Poole and Seixas pulled, it was too late.
Storer finished 40 seconds before the group of 9, lead by Poole for Bardet in the end, but whose sprint was won by Seixas despite his earlier efforts, before Bardet.
Storer leads general classification by those same 40 seconds, which isn’t bad on a 5 days race. Of course, given the nature of the stages in this race, he may blow up in any climb and if he has no more teammate with him then, drown completely. Today, Stork🇩🇪 was the only Picnic survivor in the end (he came first first in the next group 20 seconds behind the leaders’ group), but as I said in the beginning, the others teammates had been working earlier.
Every year I think to myself ‘I should watch tour of the alps!’ - but I never do 🤷
After the period of classics, this race sometimes serves as a good reminder that when climbers and Grands Tours riders are involved, race tactics can be extremely passive and wait-and-see, in case we have forgotten it. 😄
As a French, it is also the only stage race that our greatest multi-millionaire GT riders/climbers from the last 15 years have a chance to win. 🤣