skidmark said:De Panne gives my my first unequivocally good result of the season, with Gaviria 2nd, Bouhanni 4th (finally doing something!), Halvorsen 6th and Nizzolo 9th. That's 288 for those guys plus some finishing points (could have been more if Theuns, Barbier etc contested the sprint, but then again other guys in the crash could have taken top spots).
Catalunya, not so much. Zakarin looks good and is on the low end of 'really popular picks', but two of my potential game-changers (ie. not too popular with lots of potential) on my team are Lambrecht and O'Connor. The latter seems cursed this year, and the former seems puzzlingly lacking form. I need them to perform at some point, and the season is marching on.
What else is coming up? I've got no one in Coppi e Bartali, only really Zakarin left in Catalunya unless Bauhaus gets a stage, and what else?
E3
Alberto Bettiol
Edward Theuns
Baptiste Planckaert
Tom Van Asbroeck
Lars Boom
Well, not that inspiring. Bettiol looks in good form and this race suits him more than anyone else here... dunno what to expect. Boom's DNF today happened before the big crashes so I dunno what's up with that, but hopefully he's in shape for a respectable showing.
Loire Atlantique
Rudy Barbier
oooookay. Darn. Is Coquard in hiding after not getting selected for the Tour? The second Loire race has an incomplete start list, but I see Bouhanni's name there so I'll keep my fingers crossed that I get a few more guys. Barbier at least can be a consistently good finisher if he's the main guy on the team.
Gent-Wevelgem
Giacomo Nizzolo
Kristoffer Halvorsen
Edward Theuns
Fernando Gaviria
Mathieu van der Poel
Baptiste Planckaert
Lars Boom
It will be interesting to see how vdP fares in his first race with the big boys. Yes he won the nationals last year and podiumed the European championships, but in terms of a field this big with this much quality, this is new. I have good hopes for him in a reduced sprint. If it comes down to a big sprint, Gaviria has a good chance, and while I'd love to see rare pick Nizzolo pick up some points, I'm concerned he's relegated to help for EBH.
If I can manage a few more results this week and keep moving up the charts, I'll be happy. Then I'll just have to hope for Ben Swift and Fabio Aru to make quick recoveries, for Cavendish and Chaves to get back into racing form soon, for Felline and Meintjes and several other riders who have done nothing to fix whatever's wrong, and... oh boy, it's a long road.
Tigerion said:Good news mitigated by Durbridge's crash, seemed to be in real good form going into the classics and is now going to miss them all.Was hoping for some good profit from one of my rarer picks
Yep.MADRAZO said:Good thing only 6 guys have Adam Yates, He looks like he could well be the best expensive pick this year and be quite important.
MADRAZO said:Good thing only 6 guys have Adam Yates, He looks like he could well be the best expensive pick this year and be quite important. With Simons explosion last year and the identical-twin-thing many others besides me must have been very tempted to go with him this year, for instance instead of boring and fragile Porte, but in the end luckily not many took the gamble on the genes and gambled on Porte not getting ill or crashing all the time instead. What were we thinking...
fauniera said:Yep.MADRAZO said:Good thing only 6 guys have Adam Yates, He looks like he could well be the best expensive pick this year and be quite important.
Nicosix (1) Nibali, EBH, Kelderman, Trentin; no Aru
Googolplex (3) Ewan, Nibali, Gaviria, Zakarin
Blues in the bottle (4) Porte, Ewan, Gaviria, Küng
Object (6) Porte, Nibali, Gaviria, MvdP, Zakarin
Carlo Algatrensig (21) Landa, Kelderman, Gaviria, Zakarin, Barguil, Bouhanni
AlyKaptan (56) Groenewegen, Mas, Nibali, Gaviria, van Aert, Zakarin
Rough week indeedKoronin said:I can say I am a huge mistake with my team.