2019 Le Samyn, Tue 5th March, 198.4km (1.1)

[Flamin]

Le Samyn, the opener of the road season in Wallonie.

Official start at 12.15 CET (finish around 17.00 CET) and live on Sporza and Eurosport from 15.00 CET.

Usually a great race. Wind (4-5 bft) and rain highly likely.

2018 top-10:

1 TERPSTRA Niki (Quick-Step Floors) 4:47:48
2 GILBERT Philippe (Quick-Step Floors) 0:24
3 GAUDIN Damien (Direct Energie) 0:46
4 PETIT Adrien (Direct Energie) 1:18
5 BAGDONAS Gediminas (AG2R La Mondiale)
6 KIRSCH Alex (WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic) 1:21
7 JARRIER Benoît (Team Fortuneo - Samsic) 1:59
8 DENZ Nico (AG2R La Mondiale)
9 BACKAERT Frederik (Wanty - Groupe Gobert)
10 PICHOT Alexandre (Direct Energie) 2:02

Previous winners:

2017 Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
2016 Niki Terpstra
2015 Kris Boeckmans
2014 Maxime Vantomme
2013 Alexey Tsatevich
2012 Arnaud Démare
2011 Dominic Klemme
2010 Jens Keukeleire
2009 Wouter Weylandt

Startlist

Link to the route and roadbook

 

[Flamin]

Terpstra vs Quick Step vs Keukeleire I guess.

 

[ecw445]

This is Senechal's to win with Quick Step making him their leader, it's contract year and he has way too many top 10s already with no wins

 

[tobydawq]

Asgreen was better than Sénéchal in Kuurne and I think he could be their guy for tomorrow.

 

[LaFlorecita]

I also think Senechal should be their leader. Has a good sprint and on Sunday still sprinted to 6th after doing much of the early work for the team. However to say it's his race to win is a step too far for me.

 

[Flamin]

Re:

Asgreen was better than Sénéchal in Kuurne and I think he could be their guy for tomorrow.

Maybe Sénéchal was just a bit further back on Kwaremont, like Jungels. We'll see tomorrow if Asgreen is/was better, but apart from those two there's also Cavagna.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

This is Senechal's to win with Quick Step making him their leader, it's contract year and he has way too many top 10s already with no wins

And how do you know he's not gunning for that glorious competition?

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

Asgreen was better than Sénéchal in Kuurne and I think he could be their guy for tomorrow.

Maybe Sénéchal was just a bit further back on Kwaremont, like Jungels. We'll see tomorrow if Asgreen is/was better, but apart from those two there's also Cavagna.

Asgreen was also much, much better than Jungels in that race. Pure tactics that he didn't win

No of course, that's true. Though, Asgreen did actually close the gap to the Lampaert-Naesen-Stannard-Stybar group when it was going hard on the Kwaremont.

 

[Robert5091]

Interesting to see how all the minor teams do - will all try to get in the break? Could be a fun few first km's.

 

[Wvv]

If Lars Boom still wants to play his part in spring classics, here's his ticket to get back into a proper flow.

Wonder how guys like Claeys, Capiot, Backaert, Vliegen, Gerts, Planckaert will perform here. I'd also like an interesting result by De Bock or Six, but that'll be hard.

 

[postmanhat]

This has become one of my favourite races of the year. Planckaert looked lively at omloop so I'm hoping he can go well. The relative weakness of the DQS team this year will hopefully make it even more aggresively raced

 

[Frankschleck]

I believe Direct Energy have the best team with Tersptra, Petit and Gaudin. All of them winning candidates. Direct Energy accualty have a pretty solid cobblestone team, of course not as good quckstep, but when on a good day Petit and Gaudin can be in the good end of Roubaix as well.

 

[MartinGT]

Niki looked string the other day, surly it's his?

 

[Robert5091]

Niki looked string the other day, surly it's his?

"looked string" ? A new ultra-thin look?

 

[Hugo Koblet]

The dead-eyed Dutchman will take this one.

 

[RedheadDane]

Niki looked string the other day, surly it's his?

"looked string" ? A new ultra-thin look?

That sounds bad... looking like a string in a possibly rather windy race...

 

[search]

Re:

I believe Direct Energy have the best team with Tersptra, Petit and Gaudin. All of them winning candidates. Direct Energy accualty have a pretty solid cobblestone team, of course not as good quckstep, but when on a good day Petit and Gaudin can be in the good end of Roubaix as well.

Petit usually prefers good weather though, and the new (cobbled) climb doesn't really play into their hands as well, I'd think.

But sure, both are very strong guys, and the field is not particularly deep, so there may still be a chance.

 

[Flamin]

Keukeleire is a non-starter apparently.

 

[MartinGT]

String :lol: :lol:

That's pants about Keukeleire not starting.

Looking forward to seeing how some of the SwiftCarbon guys go. Some of them live locally to myself so interested to see how they go.

 

[search]

Re:

Keukeleire is a non-starter apparently.

yeah, couldn't find anything about it, but he was a late replacement (for Benoot) in Kuurne, so I'd guess that's the reason why he gets a day off

 

[Flamin]

Re: Re:

Keukeleire is a non-starter apparently.

yeah, couldn't find anything about it, but he was a late replacement (for Benoot) in Kuurne, so I'd guess that's the reason why he gets a day off

That's probably it.

Btw, looks like it will be a dry edition after all.

 

[BalearicBeats]

Re: Re:

Keukeleire is a non-starter apparently.

yeah, couldn't find anything about it, but he was a late replacement (for Benoot) in Kuurne, so I'd guess that's the reason why he gets a day off

That's probably it.

Btw, looks like it will be a dry edition after all.

I'd expect there to still be some wet and muddy patches at least. It just rained here but I'm 100 km away so that's no guarantee.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

If Lars Boom still wants to play his part in spring classics, here's his ticket to get back into a proper flow.

Wonder how guys like Claeys, Capiot, Backaert, Vliegen, Gerts, Planckaert will perform here. I'd also like an interesting result by De Bock or Six, but that'll be hard.

Lars Boom, haha. Good one I don't see him amount to anything in the top classics. But yeah, for this race he might be good enough now.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

Wonder how guys like Claeys, Capiot, Backaert, Vliegen, Gerts, Planckaert will perform here. I'd also like an interesting result by De Bock or Six, but that'll be hard.

This has become one of my favourite races of the year. Planckaert looked lively at omloop so I'm hoping he can go well. The relative weakness of the DQS team this year will hopefully make it even more aggresively raced

I'm assuming you mean Baptiste, but could be fun if either Edward or Emiel - or both - actually does better.
The Battle of the Brothers is on!

 

[Robert5091]

No new asphalt here!