Talossan Cycling Association Tour: Utrecht -> Madrid 2022

[Sir Lüc]

Valcürïăs happily the most consistent team.

..until today! Valcürïăs is the sixth of seven TCAT team to secure a daily points lead, with their riders finishing in second (M. Lopez), third (Roglič) and fourth (Almeida) place. The stage winner is again Richard Carapaz, which boosts Gordon Hiatus Support Team and Kinetic Racing to second and third place.

Carapaz was part of a breakaway including other TCAT rider Mads Pedersen, who grabbed intermediate sprint points before dropping away. The breakaway did eventually get caught, except for Carapaz himself, who won by just 8" over Lopez and Roglič. The loser of the day is GC leader Remco Evenepoel, just 8th, who fell apart on the last climb and let Roglič claw back all of the time he had gained in Tuesday's ITT.

As for the TCAT standings, KIN is capping off a great second week (+1915 points since Tuesday, second best) by completing their fightback from fifth to second place. CJO falls to third as a result.

Standings after Stage 14:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 4877 (+571)
2. Kinetic Racing - 4144 (+532)
3. Naziun Cjovani - 4037 (+373)
4. Els Gagnheirs - 3834 (+384)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 3694 (+378)
6. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 3587 (+434)
7. Valcürïăs - 2832 (+581)

[Glüc]

Tomorrow we end on both the longest climb and the highest summit of the Vuelta, the 19.1 kilometers to the Alto Hoya de la Mora. Could be the most exciting stage of this edition. If Evenepoel gets in trouble again it could cost him the red jersey...

[Glüc]

3,5 km to go. Hup Arensman!!

[Glüc]

Arensman (BdC) wins "queen stage", but Velociposse get the highest score.

An impressive feat by Arensman today, winning the stage after being in a breakaway all day, together with Pedersen (GHS, KIN, GNH, BDC), Hindley (VFL, BDC), Carapaz (GHS, KIN), Dennis (GHS, GNH), Meintjes (GHS), McNulty (KIN), Masnada (GNH) and Mäder (VAL). Halfway through the very long final climb he attacked from an already greatly reduced group soloing for 6 km to arrive first at the finish, before Mas (VFL, GNH) and M. Lopez (VAL) who were the winners in the group of favourites. Roglic also managed to gain some time on Evenepoel, who had been struggling a lot yesterday. He didn't completely break however, keeping the losses limited and a lead in the GC of 1'34". Loser of the day was Kelderman (BdC) who fell early in the stage and couldn't keep up with the favourites in the end.

All this combined made a great result for the Velociposse who scored the most points and came close to overtaking Gagnheirs for the fourth place in the overall standing. No changes the overall ranking today, nor any major changes in the top of the GC, but we did get a sense of which riders still have something to gain, and which riders would prefer to be in Madrid already.

Standings after Stage 14:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 5138 (+261)
2. Kinetic Racing - 4456 (+312)
3. Naziun Cjovani - 4421 (+384)
4. Els Gagnheirs - 4192 (+358)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 4187 (+493)
6. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 4062 (+475)
7. Valcürïăs - 3271 (+439)

Madrid is still a week away however, and the riders are in need of a rest day. On Tuesday we get one final stage in Andalusia, riding from the coastal town of Sanlucar de Barrameda to the Sevilla suburb of Tomares. (Sevilla of course is known as the setting of El Taloçait d'Isiviglha, a Talossan classic). The stage itself will maybe be less interesting than its surroundings. It will likely turn out to be a mass sprint again, which should provide a good opportunity for Els Gagnheirs, although Naziun Cjovani will put their hopes on Groves again.

[Glüc]

Virtual standing update! (differences compared to last week's update)

Expected Final Classification points after stage 15:
1. CJO - 1440 (+180)
2. GHS - 1290 (-130)
3. VFL - 1280 (-150)
4. KIN - 1230 (+200)
5. VAL - 1165 (+275)
6. BDC - 1020 (+75)
7. GNH - 960 (-110)

Expected Daily Classification points after stage 15:
1. KIN - 636
2. GNH - 534
3. GHS - 522
4. CJO - 516
5. VAL - 474
6. VFL - 468
7. BDC - 450

Total virtual standing after stage 15:
(Actual + Expected Final + Expected Daily)
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team - 6950 (+2064)
2. Naziun Cjovani - 6377 (+1902)
3. Kinetic Racing - 6322 (+2112)
4. Velociposse Florencia - 5935 (+1255)
5. Els Gagnheirs - 5686 (+1191)
6. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 5532 (+1759)
7. Valcürïăs - 4910 (+2050)

Kinetic Racing had the strongest week overall, despite never getting the most points in a stage, they still had mostly strong stage results and held on well in the classifications too. GHST lost Yates and saw Hart drop quite a bit in the standing, but this was compensated by some really strong stage results, including wins by Carapaz and Meintjes. They are a very clear favourite at this stage. The main problem for Kinetic is that whenever they do well, GHST also seems to do well, which makes it hard to gain many points on them.

Naziun Cjovani could also still hope for a second victory, particularly if Roglic beats Evenepoel in the end and Groves gets a couple more strong results in the sprint.

On the other end, Valcürias actually had a decent week, mostly due to the results of M. Lopez. They are still in last place, both in the actual standing and the virtual standing, but there may still be some hope of not ending up with the red lantern if either BdC or Gagnheirs has a poor last week.

[Sir Lüc]

Welcome to the third and last week of TCAT 2: Vuelta Edition!

So, stage 16. Largely a boring, flat affair, with a two man breakaway without TCAT involvement, the curveballs all came at the end: potential stage winner Kaden Groves (CJO) got a puncture, and just under 3 km from the end so did red jersey Remco Evenepoel (GHS,KIN,CJO) - just as Primoz Roglic (CJO,VFL,VAL) tried a surprise attack in a 5 man dash including Mads Pedersen (GHS,KIN,GNH,BDC) and Pascal Ackermann (GNH,VFL). More surprises followed as Pedersen attacked after the last bend and a scrambling Roglic fell just 150m from the line!

Pedersen got a second stage win and Ackermann a second place, which translate in Gagnheirs winning the day by quite some margin, and also snatching third place from Naziun Cjovani. Luckily for Evenepoel, the 3km rule means his time will be neutralised to the same time as the main peloton, so no harm done.

Standings after Stage 16:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 5455 (+317)
2. Kinetic Racing - 4788 (+332)
3. Els Gagnheirs - 4703 (+511)
4. Naziun Cjovani - 4497 (+76)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 4455 (+268)
6. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 4380 (+318)
7. Valcürïăs - 3370 (+99)

Tomorrow's menu, as per Vuelta's website: "a leg-breaker stage, with constant ups and downs, that is sure to be affected by the Extremadura heat. It will be a golden opportunity for a breakaway. The final [2nd cat.] climb up Tentudía is not excessively difficult, but it is unlikely to end in a sprint (not even for a reduced peloton) and will not be conducive to creating any big differences among the favourites. Those who manage to escape will have to work really hard."

[Audrada Roibeardet]

Just heard Roglic is out. This should be interesting.

[Glüc]

Abandono Roglic!

For the second time this edition Valcürïăs scored the most points, mostly due to the work of Mäder, who was the first TCAT rider across the finishline today. And yet, it is a bitter midevening for the team, as they will have to continue this edition without Primoz Roglic, whose fall yesterday made him unable to start the stage today. A devastating blow to any hope the Valkyries may have had of not ending last this season.

It is deeply unfortunate for Roglic, who had been getting better as the tour progressed as has been gaining time on Evenepoel in the last two mountain stages, and was clearly looking to win take over the red jersey. Instead, Evenepoel, who had been struggling in the last couple of stages, suddenly is a lot more secure in his jersey and is now again the heavy favourite to win the event. Of course, it's not over yet, as the withdrawal of Roglic will also boost the chances of Enric Mas, who is 2 minutes behind on Evenepoel, but appears to be in better form after 2,5 weeks.

The departure is also devastating to Naziun Cjovani, who saw their chances of a repeat victory washed away and Velociposse Florencia, who are headed for a bottom-3 finish. Meanwhile, GHST is looking increasingly certain to win the event with the only realistic competition left coming from Kinetic Racing, who are now securely in second place and gained a bit on GHST today.

Standings after Stage 17:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 5455 (+113)
2. Kinetic Racing - 4788 (+130)
3. Els Gagnheirs - 4703 (+147)
4. Naziun Cjovani - 4497 (+77)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 4455 (+90)
6. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 4380 (+125)
7. Valcürïăs - 3370 (+172)

Tomorrow we remain in Extremadura, deep in the Spanish inland. The stage (Trujillo -> Alto de Piornal) is a mountain stage, with one 2nd category and two 1st category climbs. Not the most challenging stage this edition, but the chances for the remaining competition to get ahead of Evenepoel (GHS, KIN, CJO) are running out. With Roglic gone, eyes will be on Mas (VFL, GNH) to show that he can be one to do it.

[Sir Lüc]

Today: Remco Evenepoel finally gets his stage win (excluding last Monday's ITT); Kinetic Racing is the seventh and last team to get a daily points lead; and, sadly, polkadot jersey wearer Jay Vine abandons due to an incident early on.

Evenepoel (GHS,KIN,CJO) - cruelly, Glüc would say - snatches victory from the hands of Jumbo-Visma's Robert Gesink by just two seconds, catching him together with Enric Mas with metres to go. Gesink had been part of a rather large breakaway of 42 riders, including TCAT's Carapaz (GHS,KIN), Geoghegan Hart (GHS), Masnada (GNH), Owsian (VFL), Bol (CJO) and Mader (VAL) - GC contender Joao Almeida (VAL,GNH,BDC) somewhat forced the peloton to keep close (5'ish) to an otherwise leaderless breakaway by riding one minute ahead, and this likely facilitated the decision by Evenepoel & co. not to let the breakaway contest the win.

Good performances by Evenepoel, O'Connor and new polkadot wearer Carapaz translate in a first daily points lead for Kinetic, who outscore overall leaders GHST for the fourth time in a row to thin their lead even further. Further back, the race for fourth cannot get any tighter with just 47 points separating Naziun Cjovani and 6th placed BdC.

Standings after Stage 18:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 5965 (+395)
2. Kinetic Racing - 5408 (+490)
3. Els Gagnheirs - 5215 (+365)
4. Naziun Cjovani - 4952 (+378)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 4936 (+391)
6. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 4905 (+400)
7. Valcürïăs - 3799 (+257)

Tomorrow, the stage consists in two laps of the 2nd category climb Puerto del Piélago beginning and ending in Talavera de la Reina. Should be short and intense, but not very conducive to any major final bids for the red jersey.

[Glüc]

McNulty tries to score for Kinetic Racing, but doesn't succeed.

The gap between GHST and Kinetic Racing is looking increasingly insurmountable. McNulty (KIN) was in the attack today, looking for a stagewin and to bring his team back in the race for the overall victory. He didn't succeed however, as the peloton caught up with him before the second summit of the day and the stage ended in another mass sprint. Pedersen (GHS, KIN, GNH, BDC) proved again that he is the fastest this edition, and got his third stage win. GHST won the day in the end, because aside from Pedersen, Van Baarle also scored well. The Pedersen win was also good news for BdC who jumped to fourth place in the standings.

Standings after Stage 19:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 6344 (+381)
2. Kinetic Racing - 5777 (+369)
3. Els Gagnheirs - 5530 (+315)
4. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 5213 (+308)
5. Naziun Cjovani - 5000 (+48)
6. Velociposse Florencia - 4993 (+57)
7. Valcürïăs - 3927 (+128)

Tomorrow is decision day. Evenepoel, Carapaz, and GHST are in a very strong position in the general, king of the mountains, and team classification respectively. Tomorrow is realistically the last opportunity for anyone to change that. All eyes will be on Mas in particular, who is looking strong, but could not find a way to break Evenepoel on thursday. Mas will need to attack early tomorrow, but it's very much an uphill battle for him.

The stage itself provides plenty of opportunity for anyone looking to shake things up, starting in Moralzarzal, just to the northwest of Madrid, and starting almost immediately with the first climb of Puerto de Navacerrada (1st category). After that we get another four summits, ending again at the ski resort of Puerta de Navacerrada.

[Glüc]

Quick update on the virtual standing:

If all the individual rankings stay the same over the next two days the teams would get the following end of tour points:

GHS 1390
KIN 1330
GNH 1210
BDC 1010
VFL 940
CJO 890
VAL 805

The effect of Roglic dropping out is massive as the bottom three teams were all on course to score at least 500 points more before he crashed.

Together with the daily classification points and the current standings this gives the following virtual standing:

1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 7920
2. Kinetic Racing - 7325
3. Els Gagnheirs - 6930
4. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 6371
5. Velociposse Florencia - 6047
6. Naziun Cjovani - 5986
7. Valcürïăs - 4840

Something quite spectacular needs to happen this weekend for GHST to not win or Valcürïas to not end 7th, and the biggest part of that needs to happen tomorrow, because there wont be much room for a change in the standings on saturday.

We do still have a close race for second (between Kinetic and Gagnheirs) and fourth/fifth (between BdC, Velociposse and Cjovani).
Kinetic Racing does seem favoured to become second, though they should be wary to not lose any terrain tomorrow, as Gagnheirs may have the edge on the final sprintstage on sunday because of Ackermann. The withdrawal of Roglic means BdC now seems favoured to take fourth place. However the differences are small enough that anything can still happen.

[Sir Lüc]

And so decision day draws to a close, with a third stage win for Richard Carapaz (GHS,KIN). A trio including Carapaz, Higuita (GNH) and Meintjes (GHS) broke away on the penultimate climb, to take the KOM points and the intermediate sprint, only to splinter apart on the last climb as Meintjes first, Higuita second were reeled in by the pursuers, led by the usual group of GC leaders.

Carapaz held on to win his third stage of this Vuelta, followed by an attacking Thymen Arensman (BDC) in front of the rest of the chasers rounding out the top 10. Dropped from the lead, Carlos Rodriguez, who loses two places in the GC to the benefit of Arensman and Joao Almeida (BDC,GNH,VAL).

The predicted attack by Enric Mas did not come after all -- Remco Evenepoel is all but assured to win the 2022 Vuelta a España, his 2 minutes lead likely to stay intact as we head to our sub-100km, flat-as-a-pancake final stage. Richard Carapaz wins the polkadot jersey, and Mads Pedersen the points classification - both with three stage wins to their name after a kinda underwhelming first week, in different ways.

As per TCAT, it's another GHST daily win, Louis Meintjes's seventh place providing the points to make the difference over Kinetic and our many shared riders. It's not all over yet, though: the race for 5th place should come down to the wire, and particularly Cjovani, Gagnheirs and Velociposse have the chance to put a final mark on TCAT 2 with sprinters such as Pedersen, Groves and Ackermann.

Standings after Stage 20:
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 6952 (+608)
2. Kinetic Racing - 6319 (+542)
3. Els Gagnheirs - 5928 (+398)
4. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 5676 (+463)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 5316 (+323)
6. Naziun Cjovani - 5217 (+217)
7. Valcürïăs - 4138 (+211)

[Glüc]

Cant do the full update now, so that will have to wait for tomorrow. Sorry :(

In short,

* TCAT made it to Madrid

* Another sprint, another Gagnheirs win

* Gordon Hiatus Support Team now officially confirmed as the winner of this TCAT!

Full update, scores, final standings tomorrow.

[Glüc]

Apologies for the delay.

As expected the final stage was a low pace slow affair, with lots of photo ops and celebrating by Evenepoel (general classification winner, red jersey), Pedersen (points classification winner, green jersey), Carapaz (king of the mountains winner, blue polkadot jersey) and the rest of the Gordon Hiatus Support Team.  Plapp (GNH) bravely tried to stay ahead of the peloton in the final rounds and managed to hold on for an impressively long time, but the peloton caught him and we did get the traditional mass sprint. Pedersen (GHS, KIN, GNH, BDC) was the first TCAT rider across the finish again, followed by Ackermann (GNH, VFL), resulting in the most points going to Els Gagnheirs.

Standing after all 21 stages (without final classification points):
1. Gordon Hiatus Support Team 7235 (+283)
2. Kinetic Racing - 6631 (+312)
3. Els Gagnheirs - 6406 (+478)
4. Banqeu da Cézembre OneFiftyZero - 5941 (+265)
5. Velociposse Florencia - 5565 (+249)
6. Naziun Cjovani - 5392 (+175)
7. Valcürïăs - 4217 (+79)

[Glüc]

In seventh place:

Valcürïăs (VAL, Benito)
5062 points
Team leader: @Vitxalmour

Team of the day: 2 times

Stage Wins: 1 (Roglic 1x)
Best General Classification (Red): 4th (M. Lopez)
Best Points Classification (Green): 13th (M. Lopez)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Blue Polkadot): 8th (M. Lopez)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): 3rd (Almeida)

Team:
Roglic 1549 [abandono: stage 17]
M. Lopez 1357
Almeida 1248
Cavagna 326
Mäder 321
Diaz 95
Adria 89 [abandono: stage 8]
Cabedo 47
Cimolai 30

Stage points	2787
Daily GC points	833	Final GC points	750	Overall GC points	1583
Daily PC points	36	Final PC points	0	Overall PC points	36
Daily KOM points	17	Final KOM points	15	Overall KOM points	32
Intermediate Sprint points	16
Summit points	60
Breakaway points	60
Daily assist points	408	Final assist points	80	Total assist points	488
Total daily points	4217	Total final classification points	845	Total points	5062

Valcürïăs went for a linguistics based strategy, being the only team not to spend the full allocated budget on riders. This was a risky strategy that led to some interesting choices. Sadly, it did not pay off. The strong performance of Miguel Angel Lopez kept some hope alive of the Valkyries not ending last, but the very unfortunate crash of Primoz Roglic, who was in strong form and looked like the main contender for the victory in the general classification if he hadn't been forced to withdraw, put an end to that hope.