Tag: Greg Van Avermaet
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Greg Van Avermaet exploits curt climbs, cobbles and crash avoidance | The 2018 Tour de France week one recap
Yellow jersey contenders Green jersey contenders Week one recap Week two recap Final week recap Week one is best divided into the green story and the yellow story. Let’s deal with the green story first (because that’s the order I arbitrarily put them into in that previous sentence). The green story (the points classification) The…
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Greg Van Avermaet is King of Spring
If you’re accustomed to the cautious watchfulness of the Tour de France, the relentless violence of Paris-Roubaix can be a bit of an eye-opener. In July, commentators can spend three weeks discussing which mountain stage will see an attack from one of the favourites and some years the answer turns out to be ‘none of…
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Greg Van Avermaet cobbles together a decent start to the spring
Welcome to the next exciting instalment of Greg Van Avermaet’s Fighting Talk. After winning E3 Harelbeke on Friday, the Olympic champion was effusive, offering, “I’m happy things are not so bad,” as his verdict on the race. The Belgian followed that up with victory in Gent-Wevelgem too. Having also won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad a few…
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Michal Kwiatkowski’s back!
As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. Michal Kwiatkowski hasn’t had a spectacularly successful time at Team Sky thus far. In 2014, at what was then Omega Pharma-Quick Step, he won Strade Bianche and became world champion and finished on the podium in La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege – all big races.…
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Greg Van Avermaet’s only the Olympic champion
At the start of this year, you’d have had Greg Van Avermaet down as a nailed-on certainty for an Olympic silver medal. Or maybe fourth, actually – that’s the Olympic version of just missing out. But things change. Van Avermaet won the Omloop. He won a stage of Tirreno-Adriatico and then got to play air…
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Steve Cummings’ wins are better than everyone else’s
They are. They just are. I don’t need to justify that statement. It’s just manifestly true. Steve Cummings’ Tour de France stage win last year when he soared past Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet as if they were standing still is Exhibit A, but he’s ploughed through plenty more of the alphabet since then. He…
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Vincenzo Nibali, Mr Popular, cheers up the peloton by losing a load of time
Vincenzo Nibali is, by many accounts, not the most popular rider in the peloton. It’s the general air of thinking he’s somehow better than everyone else that people seem to object to. Maybe he’s misunderstood. It’s rumoured that team-mate and fellow Italian Fabio Aru would be quite far back in the queue were the Sicilian…
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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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Greg Van Avermaet has found a way to win bike races
We’ve been here before. Greg Van Avermaet has found a way to win bike races. By ensuring that his main rival at the finish is Peter Sagan, he raises the distinct possibility that he might be out-bridesmaided. I actually missed Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in the end because I was busy writing about cycling. Apparently, the…