In your opinion, what is THE 'official' season opening race?

[Christian]

Last year I would have said Tour of California, but this year Paris-Nice

 

[ScottyMuser]

true opening? Ormloop KBK weekend for me too.
How people can be saying anyone other than Aussies/Greipel take the race seven semi-seriously is beyond me. And greipel only takes it seriously as his team mate cav isn't there, so its one of the few times he can actually win something.
Someone earlier was mentioning it being a sprinters race, and the best sprinters going, which couldn't really be more wrong. As I said above, if Greipel was at a different team he wouldn't go, and beyond him the next best sprinters are probably henderson/sutton (both Antipodeans so their by default really), and neither of them are close to being in the top 10 - no bennati/chicci/ale-jet/cav/barbie/thor/tommy b/kenny VH/ferrar/oscarito/etc etc
ToQ and Oman have stronger line ups, and they are still warm ups ...

 

[titan_90]

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

 

[Michele]

Agreed..!!

 

[KazakhNeRider]

IMHO Paris-Nice (as a stage race) and Omloop Het Volk (as Classics) - they are the real starts of new season, all races before are just training. But it is not an original opinion as I notced

 

[595RED]

Grand Prix la Marseillaise

Greg Johnson needs to back up to the teams bus and check again if there was one from Frenchies Cofidis. In his article about Endura racing he quotes "The French rider has spent the last two seasons at ProTour outfit Cofidis, which closed its doors at the end of 2009.

Following the GP Marseillaise today Sammy Dumoulin (Cofidis) definetly snaggs third place.

 

[Tornado Tom]

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad