2023 Talossan Cycling Association Tour - Leg 1: Ortona -> Roma

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Nooooooooooooooo

[Glüc]

Stage 8 Terni -> Fossombrone

Quite a stunning performance by Ben Healy (BDC) yesterday, winning the stage after soloing on the first climb of the day after being in a breakaway group for most of the stage with several others, including Warren Barguil (DED), who also did well.

Behind them in the group of gc favourites a lot happened as well. On the last climb it was Roglic (VFL/CFA) who attacked and Evenepoel did not manage to keep up! Only Thomas (GNH/KIN) and Geoghegan Hart (GHS) managed to follow until the end, with Evenepoel (CHX/GHS/MCB/BDC/DED), Almeida (CHX/GNH/VFL/PTM/BDC/DED), and several others losing 15 seconds or more.

Evenepoel is still leading the main contenders for the Maglia Rosa, and will probably extend that lead today, but is looking a bit shaky.

The luck of BdC doesn't seem to end as they again scored the most points due to Healy's win. Dead Last also did well, coming in second with the points of Barguil and moving away from last place in the standings.

Looking ahead however, this stage also brought good news for the Velociraptors and Cézembre Fieschă, whose main GC man is clearly back in the race for the Maglia Rosa.

Standings after Stage 8:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu de Cézembre Pterodactyls (BDC)	3499	+374
2nd	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	2878	+122
3rd	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2263	+117
4th	(=)	Els Averatxeirs (ATX)	2195	+115
5th	(=)	Maritiimi-Maxhestic Els Gagnheirs (GNH)	2151	+140
6th	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	2070	+154
7th	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	1979	+151
8th	(=)	Kinetic Racing (KIN)	1900	+113
9th	(+2)	Dead Last (DED)	1885	+303
10th	(-1)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	1849	+179
11th	(-1)	Cézembre Fieschă (CFA)	1707	+118

Today, the TCAT riders literally cross the Rubicon, albeit from the wrong side. It's another individual time trial and long enough for there to be significant differences made in the gc. Evenepoel in particular will be looking to strike back after a difficult showing yesterday. Outside of the GC riders, who will all be looking for a good result, Küng (ATX/CHX/GNH/PTM/GHS/MCB/DED) is a potential favourite for the stagewin. Ganna would have been too, had he not contracted covid.

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Group photo of the Cézembre Fieschā team


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Audrada Roibeardet]

I think the Triple Crown (and probably the whole season) is slowly fading away for Kinetic.

Learn from my mistakes, kiddos. Do your research, scout the field, read the previews and you might stand a chance.

Still enjoying every minute of this, though.

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 9 Savignano sul Rubicone -> Cesena (ITT)

Very long individual time trial on the menu today. Remco Evenepoel (CHX/GHS/MCB/BDC/DED), winner of the inaugural ITT, was expected to potentially do even better than that in terms of time gained from his direct GC contenders. On the other hand, he had a pretty torrid week after that, crashing on a couple of occasions, most notably in stage 6 after a collision with a dog, and losing time to Primož Roglič in the first real attack among GC contenders yesterday.

Well, Evenepoel did win and snatch the GC lead back, but just barely - just one second quicker than Geraint Thomas (GNH/KIN) and two seconds quicker than Tao Geoghegan Hart (GHS), over 35km/22mi of road. A further two seconds back, ITT specialist Stefan Küng (ATX/CHX/GNH/PTM/GHS/MCB/DED).

Maglia rosa at the start, non-TCAT Andreas Leknessund, was never supposed to do well and was basically guaranteed to lose the jersey, but he still managed a pretty respectable P19, which is enough to stay in the top 5 of the GC. Also not doing well, Almeida (CHX/GNH/VFL/PTM/BDC/DED), who is undoubtedly the biggest loser of the day.

(stopped writing here)



Standings after Stage 9:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu de Cézembre Pterodactyls (BDC)	3958	+459
2nd	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	3383	+505
3rd	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2971	+708
4th	(+3)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	2695	+716
5th	(=)	Maritiimi-Maxhestic Els Gagnheirs (GNH)	2679	+528
6th	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	2585	+515
7th	(-3)	Els Averatxeirs (ATX)	2527	+332
8th	(+1)	Dead Last (DED)	2440	+555
9th	(+1)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	2199	+350
10th	(-2)	Kinetic Racing (KIN)	2192	+292
11th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschă (CFA)	1948	+241

[Sir Lüc]

Right, "stopped writing here" on the post above is how far I got writing the update before reading on Twitter that Remco Evenepoel has tested positive for Covid-19 and will be leaving Giro.

Rip to all Evenepoel teams :(

[Glüc]

Holy Macaroni!

Anyone thinking this was over in any way was speaking too soon.

Five teams just got decapitated.

Including BdC

I was finally gonna win one :(

[Glüc]

So far it's not the Averatxheirs but Port Maxhestic that seems to be the most average team (although the teams are quite similar). I noticed they don't really get mentioned in the updates a lot (sorry Ian), but I guess that is because they seem to be pretty consistently around 6th place every stage so far.

That's probably because my only strategy when picking the team was to avoid the really high-cost cyclists so I wouldn't be toast if they were injured or performed poorly. That may have resulted in me picking mostly very average team members.

Well this is suddenly looking like a pretty solid strategy...

[Glüc]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

:( :( :(

[Glüc]

So Els Gagnheirs are currently the highest ranked team who didn't throw 26 credits away on Evenepoel (the top 4 all had him). I wonder how the wine is tasting...

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I am a humble and quiet man, not given to boasting or celebrating a turn of fortune.

[Tric’hard Lenxheir]

So I take it there is no way to replace riders who are no longer participating?

[Tric’hard Lenxheir]

Does anyone know if Stefan Küng also tested positive for Covid? I see he did not start either.

[Glüc]

So I take it there is no way to replace riders who are no longer participating?

I'm afraid so.

Velogames does run a second competition (stage hunter league), which starts out from the same 9 riders you picked for classic, but where you can make up to 9 transfers. I'm actually thinking of having a go at that now. However this does not count for TCAT, which is just based on the classic ranking.

So yeah, bad luck I'm afraid :(

Thankfully there's always the next leg, where everyone can select a new team again...

[Glüc]

Does anyone know if Stefan Küng also tested positive for Covid? I see he did not start either.

Oof. Today is a rest day but apparently Küng won't be starting tomorrow either. Not covid. Apparently he just withdrew because he's was only there for the time trials and now wants to rest. No regard for his TCAT teams :(

[Tric’hard Lenxheir]

Does anyone know if Stefan Küng also tested positive for Covid? I see he did not start either.

Oof. Today is a rest day but apparently Küng won't be starting tomorrow either. Not covid. Apparently he just withdrew because he's was only there for the time trials and now wants to rest. No regard for his TCAT teams :(

They are out to get me, two of my top three points guys are out LOL

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

Does anyone know if Stefan Küng also tested positive for Covid? I see he did not start either.

Oof. Today is a rest day but apparently Küng won't be starting tomorrow either. Not covid. Apparently he just withdrew because he's was only there for the time trials and now wants to rest. No regard for his TCAT teams :(

How inconsiderate!

[Glüc]

Today was a rest day. I was going to do a full dive into classifications and virtual standings maybe, but I didn't really got around for you.

I did want to share this:

IF the classification standings remain as they are right now (spoiler: they won't), this is how many extra points each team would get from the final rankings after the final stage:

Gagnheirs - 1400
Velociposse - 1250
BdC - 1180
Port Maxhestic - 1110
Fiescha - 1090
Kinetic - 990
GHST - 980
Averatxeirs - 920
Dead Last - 800
Cyclohexane - 760
Copacabana Boys - 620

Something to keep in mind when interpreting the standings. Of course a lot will change between now and then. I'll try to give a fuller summary of the situation in the various classification standings if I have some more time.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

This edition has really been a roller coaster, emotionally.

[Glüc]

As for the Evenepoel situation, this will obviously have a big impact. All of this has already been mentioned here or in the discord, but to give a quick summary:

Evenepoel would maybe have scored another ca. 2000 points in the final 1,5 week (including final points). These points will now go elsewhere, especially to other GC contenders.

As a result this is especially good news for non-Evenepoel that spent lots of points on riders like Thomas, Roglic or Geoghegan Hart, and especially bad news for Evenepoel teams that spent many points elsewhere.

Either way it will take a while for the effect of this, whatever it is, to become noticeable as the next three stages aren't necessarily GC territory, because there isn't enough climbing to make a difference. After that, starting on friday, we go into the mountains, and then, well, brace yourselves...

Tomorrow however will likely just be another good day for the sprint teams. The stage begins with a fair amount of climbing, but then the final half is mostly flat as we move into northern Tuscany.