Category: Stage races
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The latest on Greg Van Avermaet and his trident
After winning Tirreno-Adriatico, Greg Van Avermaet also did what looked like a guitar-playing mime with The Sea Master Trophy. If that is indeed what that was meant to be then Greg Van Avermaet has almost certainly never played a guitar. Alternatively, it could just be that he’s really bad at celebrating with trophies having always…
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Born winner Greg Van Avermaet wins Tirreno-Adriatico
That Greg Van Avermaet, eh? He just can’t stop winning. Born winner. Always said so. Sticking with his new ploy of pitting himself against the even bigger bridesmaid that is Peter Sagan, Van Avermaet pipped the Slovakian to Tirreno-Adriatico by a single second. On his way to the win, he also took stage six. Not…
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Geraint Thomas lasts the week at Paris-Nice
Without wishing to dumb down too much, cycling is to a great extent about tiredness. Tiredness is what makes a three-week Grand Tour different from three one-week races with gaps in between. Geraint Thomas won Paris-Nice by the colossal margin of four seconds. He was 11 seconds faster than second-placed Alberto Contador in the prologue…
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Snow stopped play at Paris-Nice – Race to the Sun still some way from its destination
I had hoped to give you some sort of Paris-Nice state-of-play update after today’s stage. I wanted to set the scene for the second half of the race by highlighting which protagonists were still in the hunt for the overall win. Unfortunately, it’s all rather more open than it should be after they abandoned what…
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Geraint Thomas awkwardly dismounts the fence ahead of Paris-Nice
Paris-Nice starts on Sunday. Technically, other WorldTour races have already been and gone, so I’ll be diplomatic and call it the first major European stage race of the season. Last year, Paris-Nice had a bit of a limp start list. It’s actually not wildly different this year in terms of names, but if the consonants…
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Kittel v Cavendish – head-to-head record
Almost as if he wanted me to expand on my half-baked ramble from earlier in the week, Marcel Kittel again beat Mark Cavendish in a sprint finish at the Tour of Dubai. The win also means he won the race as a whole, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about how…
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Why the Tour of Dubai isn’t perhaps the most exciting race of the season
It’s pretty obvious. I mean look at it. Marcel Kittel won stage one, putting an end to a long run of not winning races and an almost equally long run of not finishing races. He beat Mark Cavendish into second place, giving us an early slice of an insanely easy-to-bake narrative pie. As an added…
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Tour Down Under 2016 recap
‘Who’s in form?’ we asked, a touch rhetorically, ahead of this year’s Tour Down Under. We concluded that the most likely answer was ‘a bunch of Australians’. It wasn’t the most specific race prediction, but we think you’ll agree it was pretty accurate. Caleb Ewan, an Aussie, won stage one. Jay McCarthy, an Aussie, won…
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Tour Down Under 2016 – is anyone in any kind of form whatsoever?
For most of us, our main task at this time of year is overriding the thermostat so that the heating comes on a bit earlier. However, for professional road cyclists, the season begins with the Tour Down Under. Personally, I struggle to stay out on the bike for more than an hour or so at…
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A massively overdue report on the Tour of Britain
Report’s maybe not the word – although I did go and stand on Gun Hill for a bit, a hundred yards or so away from where Mark Cavendish rode into a parked car and in so doing finished his season. I must say, uphill and into a headwind, the Manxman did well to injure himself.…