Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne 2012

Cavendish wins in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/kuurne-brussel-kuurne-2012/results)
Mark Cavendish claimed a straightforward victory in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, delivered to the line perfectly by his Sky teammates.

Resplendent in his world champion's jersey, the Manxman took victory by a decisive margin over FDJ-BigMat rider Yauheni Hutarovich. Vacansoleil-DCM's Kenny Van Hummel was two lengths back in third, while world under 23 champion Arnaud Démare (FDJ-BigMat) was a fine fourth.

Cavendish had suffered with illness earlier in the race, but his Sky team set about bringing the race back together for a bunch finish on the flat run-in to the finish in Kuurne. In the finishing straight, CJ Sutton piloted Cavendish to victory.

“After the cobbles I told CJ that I didn’t feel so good,” Cavendish said afterwards. “Once we took control it got better although I was still vomiting. It’s incredible. I don’t know if I can take any credit for this win. The whole day they looked after me. I was never in the win and always in the front of the peloton. It’s a great win.”

Coming into the final kilometre, the stage appeared set for a duel between Cavendish and his great rival André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) but the German found himself boxed in and faded in the final meters, finishing tenth.

“At 300m from the finish line I was confident that I could not lose the sprint. Then Van Hummel swerved from right to left and there was no more space for me. I should’ve gone earlier,” a clearly disappointed Greipel said.

A fast start

In a quick and nervous first hour at 50km/h no attacks proved successful. After a collective stop at a railway crossing a group powered away.

Seven riders made the day's early breakaway: Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), Niko Eeckhout (An Post-Sean Kelly), Jérôme Baugnies (Team Netapp), Koen Barbé (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony), Gilles Devillers (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony), Justin Van Hoecke (Wallonie Bruxelles-Credit Agricole) and Julien Fouchard (Cofidis, le credit en ligne).

At the fourth climb of the day the seven had a gap of four minutes on a peloton led by the Sky team. By the time they reached the Oude Kwaremont, the gap was down to three minutes. Van Avermaet set the pace up front, dropping all his companions except for 41 year-old Eeckhout. At the top of the long cobbled helling another half a minute was whittled off the gap thanks to the efforts from Maarten Wynants (Rabobank) at the front of the peloton.

The selective climb caused some damage and the peloton split in several groups. A first group of about twenty-five riders including fast men Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Barracuda) and John Degenkolb (Project 1t4i) quickly picked up half a minute on a sprinter-studded peloton where Lotto-Belisol did the work.

With seventy kilometers to go Eeckhout and Van Avermaet were re-joined by Barbé, Fouchard and Baugnies. They had 1:30 on the Boonen group, with the peloton trailing by fifty more seconds, but efforts from the Vancansoleil-DCM team, Lotto-Belisol and Europcar closed first the gap to the Boonen group, and then the fate of the seven up front was sealed.

Eeckhout’s effort

As his group was being brought back, Eeckhout attacked and was followed by Wouter Mol (Vacancoleil-DCM), and was later joined by Aliaksandr Kuchynski (Katusha), Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Jimmy Engoulvent (Saur-Sojasun), Jan Ghyselinck (Cofidis) and Sébastien Delfosse (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony).

With Sky content to let a group dangle just within their reach, the new escape quickly picked up half a minute at 40km from the finish line. When approaching the finish line a first time, having two more local circuits of 16km ahead of them, the gap ran up to a minute.

The Sky train was in full control, however, and one lap later half a minute was gone from that gap. At 10km from the finish line there were only 10 seconds left and a bunch sprint seemed unavoidable.

Once more it was Eeckhout who was the last man standing, having attacked his companions as the peloton was nipping on their heels, and had a brief foray with a Engoulvent before the high pace of the Sky-led group sped past.

With four men ahead of Cavendish, Sky hurtled into the finishing chute at such a pace that no rider stood a chance at coming around the world champion. Only Hutarovich could get close to his wheel, while Van Hummel looked glued to the tarmac as he struggled over the final meters to claim third.

Full Results

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Mark Cavendish (GBr) Sky Procycling	4:27:30
2	Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) FDJ-Big Mat
3	Kenny Robert Van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
4	Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat
5	Alexander Serebryakov (Rus) Team Type 1 - Sanofi
6	Tom Veelers (Ned) Project 1t4i
7	Sébastien Chavanel (Fra) Team Europcar
8	Stefan Van Dijk (Ned) Accent Jobs - Willems Veranda's
9	Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha Team
10	André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Belisol Team

Where were Thor and Gilbert?

With two great sprinters added to their team this year, you'd think BMC would have been able to pull off a win, or at least a podium spot...wrong!! Even with Philipe Gilbert and Thor Hushovd riding in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, BMC's best placed position was Greg Van Avermaet in 5th. What happened???

BMC falls short at Omloop Het Nieuwblad

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bmc-falls-short-at-omloop-het-nieuwblad)

They may have one of the biggest budgets and the some of the sport's most decorated and accomplished Classics riders but BMC proved that racing doesn't always go to plan after their performance in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad fizzled out following a promising start.

The team lined up with arguably their strongest Classics line-up - only George Hincapie was missing - as Philippe Gilbert, Thor Hushovd, Greg Van Avermaet and Alessandro Ballan took to the start in Ghent.

The opening half of the race went to plan. The team's leaders were kept out of trouble by able domestiques, while rival squad, Omega-Pharma, did the majority of the work on the front of the bunch.

However, the team's race began to unravel on the Taaienberg. Gilbert lacked form and positioning, finding himself isolated before a puncture effectively ended his chances of wining a third title in the race.

At the front of the race, Thor Hushovd made the split and looked set to contest the win but the 2010 world champion cracked along with Matti Breschel (Rabobank) on the Paddestraat with 30 kilometres to go.

"I was happy that I was there with the best riders when we went fast. I just had a bad moment on the Paddestraat but I don't know what happened. Suddenly I was dropped but I felt strong and that's important," Hushovd told Cyclingnews.

"I had confidence that I was strong enough to be there in the final. Like I said I had that bad moment and suddenly I lost the power. When things like that happen it's just over for such a hard race."

BMC did eventually rally, leading the chase from behind and Van Avermaet secured 5th place in the bunch sprint for 4th.

For the likes of Hushovd and Gilbert, bigger tests are on the horizon and the team will surely chalk up today's race as a learning experience. For second year professional Taylor Phinney it was exactly that. The American rode on the front for the first 70 kilometres and finished his first semi-classic in 44th place.

"It didn't work out 100 per cent," added Hushovd. It's the first race together and I think today the Taaienberg was the main place to be in the front and we missed a couple of guys to really be in the final with two or three but we'll work on that for future races."

Hushovd will skip Sunday's Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and venture home before starting next month's Paris-Nice.

Gilbert: I didn't have the legs

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gilbert-i-didnt-have-the-legs)

Philippe Gilbert’s first appearance on Belgian roads as a BMC rider ended in disappointment as he was unable to make an impact at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday.

While he admitted that he didn’t have the legs to compete for the win, Gilbert believed that a lack of information about the gap to the winning break frustrated BMC’s efforts to bring the race back together in the finale.

Twice a winner of the Omloop, Gilbert’s hopes of adding a third triumph disappeared at the foot of the Taaienberg. When winner Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda) and Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) hit the front, Gilbert was poorly placed in the heart of the peloton, and a subsequent puncture on the Eikenberg definitively ended his challenge. He went on to finish 41 seconds down in 31st.

“I wasn’t in the race,” Gilbert told dhnet.be. “I was there without being there. I didn’t have good legs. I was always fifteen or twenty places too far back and in these conditions, you can get caught up in a crash or puncture…”

While his teammate Thor Hushovd had initially succeeded in following the winning move sparked by Vanmarcke and Boonen, Gilbert complained that information was hard to come by in the absence of radio earpieces.

The BMC riders in the peloton were unaware that Hushovd had been dropped from the lead group, and they only began to organise their pursuit inside the final 15 kilometres.

“Racing without earpieces doesn’t bother me, but it’s not normal not to have any information,” he said. “I only saw the chalkboard once and it was only with 15km to go that John Lelangue was able to fill us in and tell us that Thor had been dropped.

“At that moment we started to ride, but it was too late, we knew that it was only for 4th place. In the end, Greg [Van Avermaet] was 5th, which isn’t bad, like the fact that there were five of us in that group.”

Spring Classics...Opening this Weekend!!!

Boonen eager to perform well in Omloop

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boonen-eager-to-perform-well-in-omloop)
Saturday's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad - formerly Omloop Het Volk and Ghent-Ghent - marks the traditional opening race of the Spring Classics season. After building up their form in the Middle East a part of the peloton now hits the cobbles and hellingen for the first time this season.

At the Omega Pharma-QuickStep press conference in Kortrijk, Belgium the team's leader Tom Boonen showed up an hour late due to a traffic jam. Meanwhile co-leader Sylvain Chavanel entertained the press with his view on the opening weekend but when tv-crews suddenly entered the hotel he realized it was time to leave the room.

"I'll make some space for le grand," Chavanel smiled. Boonen entered, apologizing for the delay. "Sorry everybody... my apologies," Boonen said, taking a seat and started talking about the season so far and his view on the Omloop.

"I've done three stage races already and this doesn't really feel like the first day at school. It's a new start for our team. Two important days are coming up and we'll see how we fare on these roads. I feel some nerves but in a positive way. There's no need to worry. The birds start to sing, the spring is in the country so the most beautiful time of the year is coming up," Boonen said.

Being a local hero Boonen once again is among the top favorites for the win at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad even though he somehow never won the race. "It's the only Spring Classic that I didn't win even though I can win it. Why? Because if you peak to this one then it's harder to be good at the other Classics. I've always been the top favorite and other riders were able to exploit that in their favor," Boonen said.

Boonen didn't want to talk about the other favorites. "Some riders who I expect for the Spring Classics aren't here yet. I usually wait after this weekend before I talk about other riders and I'll stick to that," Boonen said.

After going through a rough year in 2011 the now 31-year-old "Tornado Tom" has already claimed four victories this season and seemed more motivated than ever to finally claim a win in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. "It's easier to be eager when you're good. Compared to other years I'm without physical sores which helps on the mental front. I have no excuses if I'm not good," Boonen said.

"This race is important in Flanders. I've only returned recently to Belgium but when we're arriving in Ghent with the bus it'll be exciting; the first race in Belgium. Of course I go for the win because otherwise I'd be better doing a training camp this week. I hope that I can win. I worked hard for it. If I can prepare without problems then I'm always a candidate in these races."

The years are flying by and some new names have popped up in recent years which means Boonen no longer seems the strongest man on the cobbles. "You don't always have to be the best to win a race but if all goes according to plan then I'll be as good as in my best years," Boonen said.

The newly-formed Omega Pharma-QuickStep team has been flying high so far this season. The Belgian team has collected the most victory flowers of all teams, topping the list of team victories with 12 wins. For the first time in a few years the team doesn't seem to count on Boonen alone to deliver the goods.

"Last year we came into a downward spiral. I'm used to being at the start with a lot of pressure on my shoulder but last year Sylvain [Chavanel] had back sores while I struggled with my knee. Now everything has been fallen into its place. There are no worries and that makes it easier. This year there was a schwung from day 1.

"We've kept the right people from the three teams. The biggest change is that some new guys joined the team who can work hard," Boonen said. "The team has been flying so far and I know that all the guys who're here for the Omloop are ready for it. We've got some guys who can pull off some work so we can handle some battles."

One day after the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad there's always the re-match at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne for those who disappointed on Saturday. "I've done it about 11 times so... I've won it three or four times [two times: 2007 & 2009]. I'm always motivated although it's a bit harder if you went flat out in the Omloop and if there's foul weather in Kuurne."