Criterium du Dauphine 2014: Stage 3, Ambert - Le Teil 194 km

[Netserk]

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Arndt wins without even sprinting out of the saddle.. Boeckmans was close tho

Demare blocked

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

Another Giant rider to win a bunch sprint

So happy for Arndt!

Kittel
Degenkolb
Mezgec
Janse van Rensburg
Ahlstrand
Sinkeldam
Arndt
Veelers

It's amazing how many great sprinters one team can have.

 

[Netserk]

Bouhanni would've owned that sprint.

 

[Jagartrott]

Who designs these finals? Looks like they *wanted* riders to fall. And those parked cars with 2 km to go - FdJ nearly hit those.

 

[shalgo]

Cimolai came from way back in that sprint. With better positioning he might have won it.

 

[dicanio_michael]

Looks like almost every Giant rider knows how to sprint

Messman messed up again

 

[johnymax]

No Kittel, no Degenkolb, no Mezgec, no problem for Giant-Shimano.

 

[RedheadDane]

So happy for Arndt!

Kittel
Degenkolb
Mezgec
Janse van Rensburg
Ahlstrand
Sinkeldam
Arndt
Veelers

It's amazing how many great sprinters one team can have.

Yeah! As the Danish Eurosport guys put it: you can (almost) always expect them to participate in a sprint.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

29 21 Alberto CONTADOR TINKOFF-SAXO 00:00:00
30 1 Christopher FROOME TEAM SKY 00:00:00

Contador beats Froome, guess it's 2-1 for Froome now

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Nice flat finale with attacks. Great sprint too.

 

[murali]

what a sprint!!!!!


and thank god that forum is still working. i just hope all stages end like this.

 

[murali]

A totally close contest.

1-2, 3-4, 5-6(hidden) were all close.

 

[Red Rick]

29 21 Alberto CONTADOR TINKOFF-SAXO 00:00:00
30 1 Christopher FROOME TEAM SKY 00:00:00

Contador beats Froome, guess it's 2-1 for Froome now

I want to see the foto finish between those two

 

[christopherrowe]

My predicted top ten, and how they actually finished.

Arnaud Démare | FDJ.fr | 8th at s.t. as winner
Giacomo Nizzolo | Trek Factory Racing | DNF
Thor Hushovd | BMC Racing Team | 162nd at +16"48"
Julien Simon | Cofidis, Credit Solutions | 13th at s.t.
Leigh Howard | Orica GreenEdge | 160th at +16'48"
Ramunas Navardauskas | Garmin Sharp | 86th at s.t.
Gianni Meersman | Omega Pharma - Quickstep | 9th at s.t.
Marco Marcato | Cannondale | 10th at s.t.
Yannik Martinez | Team Europcar | 4th at s.t.
William Bonnet | FDJ.fr | 34th at s.t.

Note that I included no Giant Shimano riders at all in my prognostication. I also screwed up my research, thinking that Bonnet was Démare's usual last lead out man, but apparently it's Mikaël Delage (or at least it was today), who came 11th.

I predicted Thor would go third. He came in third from last!

So, four of my predicted ten actually finished in the top ten. I'm getting worse at this!

Edit to add a general news postscript: Apparently they fixed whatever bug was preventing us from using diacritic marks in our spelling.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Good too see Porte contributing a bit to Sky's train coming over Col de la Mure today.

Not exactly Ax 3, but its a start.

 

[GuyIncognito]

No Kittel, no Degenkolb, no Mezgec, no problem for Giant-Shimano.

Arndt has actually disappointed quite a bit in his results as a pro so far.
He was expected to become a pretty good sprinter right away

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

If you see how little sprinters are really here. You wonder why Belkin didn't bring Hofland.. or was he not fit from the bad fall in California?

 

[Dazed and Confused]

If you see how little sprinters are really here. You wonder why Belkin didn't bring Hofland.. or was he not fit from the bad fall in California?

Still out of service I think.

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

Arndt has actually disappointed quite a bit in his results as a pro so far.
He was expected to become a pretty good sprinter right away

No, not really?

Arndt was good at sprinting as U23 rider but not in a dominating way you could expect him to win World Tour races (unlike Démare or Coquard) while also demonstrating ITT skills. He snatched a UCI win in his first pro season, now a World Tour win in his second - not disappointing at all for me.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Yeah Arndt was just below/comparable to Hofland/Van Poppel/Wippert at U23 level. Now he's won a WT stage already. That's great actually

 

[Dazed and Confused]

The sprint:

Message to Demare: I think Bouhanni would have grabbed the win today.


More pics here: http://www.steephill.tv/2014/criterium-du-dauphine-libere/photos/stage-03/

 

[christopherrowe]

Message to Demare: I think Bouhanni would have grabbed the win today.

I just watched this again and I think you're right. Thinking back to what I've seen of Bouhanni this year (which is more or less just the Giro), he seems to be better able to act as a free agent sans organized train. He also finds and follows lines through the crowd that seem kind of crazy at times, which I suppose is part and parcel of being a sprinter.

As for your message, surely Arnaud knows that he's not posting wins of the same quality as Nacer's and that he has a ways to go yet. The weird thing is that Marc Madiot apparently doesn't know it. I understand there might be personality issues (with a sprinter? is it possible?), but I don't understand why a French team wouldn't want to schedule and program their riders in such a way so as to maximize chances for glory in July. And while he's got a way to go himself, Bouhanni simply seems like he would have been the better choice for that than Démare. At least to go by the results they've each posted over the last twelve months of racing.

 

[jaylew]

I understand there might be personality issues (with a sprinter? is it possible?)

Yeah, to say the least. I'm not sure but this has probably been posted somewhere at some point.

http://www.cyclingquotes.com/news/demare_bouhanni_and_i_cannot_coexist/

Sounds like Démare has more of a problem with Bouhanni than the other way around

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I just watched this again and I think you're right. Thinking back to what I've seen of Bouhanni this year (which is more or less just the Giro), he seems to be better able to act as a free agent sans organized train. He also finds and follows lines through the crowd that seem kind of crazy at times, which I suppose is part and parcel of being a sprinter.

As for your message, surely Arnaud knows that he's not posting wins of the same quality as Nacer's and that he has a ways to go yet. The weird thing is that Marc Madiot apparently doesn't know it. I understand there might be personality issues (with a sprinter? is it possible?), but I don't understand why a French team wouldn't want to schedule and program their riders in such a way so as to maximize chances for glory in July. And while he's got a way to go himself, Bouhanni simply seems like he would have been the better choice for that than Démare. At least to go by the results they've each posted over the last twelve months of racing.

There are some good stages for Demare at the tour, harder, more difficult than simple flat routes. Good stages for Bouhanni as well, but hes up against some serious competition (as is Demare of course). Ideally both should go imo, but we are talking ambitious guys with egos who wants to form their careers now. It will be interesting to see if Madiot handles the situation better than say... Brailsford.