Talossan Cycling Association Tour Season 3 Leg 3 Lisboa -> Madrid

[Glüc]

Stage 10 Ponteareas -> Baiona

Today's stage was maybe not too interesting in TCAT terms as all TCAT riders missed out on the break once in was formed. However, Narvaez (VFL) was the first TCAT rider across the finish, followed by Küng (PTM) and Bennett (VFL). As a result the Velociposse scored the most points for the second time in a row.

They may end up having good chances to improve their position if they continue this way, especially as Yates is back in the race now and also being one of the teams not to suffer from Almeida abandoning, although there was bad news for them, Naziun Cjovani and Cyclohexane today as Ciccone did not start after being involved in a crash on sunday.

Port Maxhestic also had a good day, and retake the lead in the competition.


Standings after stage 10:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(+1)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	3244	+153
2nd	(-1)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	3217	+90
3rd	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	2839	+90
4th	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	2746	+263
5th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	2335	+126
6th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2101	+99
7th	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2077	+96
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	1774	+88
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	1722	+82

Tomorrow should be another good day for the break. The hilly terrain seems suited for punchy types.

[Glüc]

As a side note, none of us dared pick Wout van Aert this time. Understandable because of the high cost and relatively few sprint opportunities. However, it clearly was a mistake, as he just keeps winning and scoring points.

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 11 Padron -> Padron

A banger of a stage to watch, with multiple attacks and large breakaways forming and disbanding; unfortunately not very high scoring for any of the TCAT teams, save for Velociposse, who place Narvaez in fourth and Bennett in twelfth to once again top the daily scores. Bennett also rises to tenth in GC, a fifth Velociposse rider to occupy the top ten at the moment, which if it stands should prove quite fruitful especially after End of Tour points get added at the end. GHST can also be happy about Berrade, fifth today. No other team reached triple digits, despite Cjovani's Bystrom finishing eighteenth.

Velociposse therefore continues its upwards march, taking third place with the front two firmly in their sights. No other movement otherwise due to the very small amount of points scored (curiously the standings currently feature four duos each only a bunch of points apart, except for Dead Last dead in the middle.)

Not worth any points but important to note, O'Connor lost around 40 seconds from the rest of the GC contenders, meaning his lead from Roglic is now 3:16. Not really the kind of stage where this was supposed to happen, which may be an issue for the Australian rider in the harder stages that are to come. (Then again O'Connor did struggle and lose time in stage 8 only to immediately bounce back in stage 9 as Roglic struggled instead)

Standings after stage 11:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	3318	+74
2nd	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	3307	+90
3rd	(+1)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	3045	+299
4th	(-1)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	3032	+193
5th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	2421	+86
6th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2182	+81
7th	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2171	+94
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	1867	+93
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	1801	+79

Tomorrow, a hilly approach to a category 1 summit finish. Another breakaway perhaps, which may have a chance - look then for punchy climbers without GC ambitions to have a crack at it - or may get caught by the GC contenders if they decide they want to attack to put time on one another.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

The posse is on the podium, baby!

[Tric'hard Lenxheir]

I believe I'm down to 5 riders, I fully expect to live up to my team name this round LOL

[Sir Lüc]

Brief scoring update for stage 12 - BDC's Pedro Castrillo wins as part of a ten man breakaway that again included Jhonatan Narvaez (VFL). Peloton of GC contenders ends up controlling each other, so no time differences to report.

Matthias Skjelmose (GHS/PTM) wins the peloton sprint for 11th, with Gall, O'Connor, Mas, Carapaz, Rodriguez and Roglic also in lower top 20 positions, meaning there's a smattering of stage points for everyone at least. The Tavulairs of course lead the day, with Velociposse also scoring well and closing in on second place. The top 4 keeps pulling away from the rest; with nine stages to go, this could well go down to a BDC vs VFL stand-off, with PTM and GHST in supporting positions.

Standings after stage 12:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(+1)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	3695	+388
2nd	(-1)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	3480	+162
3rd	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	3345	+300
4th	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	3195	+163
5th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	2555	+134
6th	(+1)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2275	+104
7th	(-1)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2266	+84
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	1962	+95
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	1894	+93

Today, another category 1 summit finish, but the approach is much hillier, with three lower category climbs beforehand. Definitely more breakaway chances, but also more chances that some of the GC contenders may try and tire out the others before attacking on the final climb.

[Sir Lüc]

Brief supplement: I think the most interesting thing about the upcoming four-team shootout for the win (or rather, as I suspect, BDC vs VFL and PTM vs GHS) is that BDC and VFL share no riders, which makes for a very spicy Roglic/O'Connor/Landa vs Yates/Rodriguez/Mas rivalry. The seemingly higher strength of the BDC trio is compounded by the three abandons - the Tavulairs definitely needed the Castrillo win. VFL on the contrary has very impressive riders still, with Bennett, Lipowitz and Narvaez certainly on track to score more on the mountains (Bittner a definite shoutout too, but he has mostly exhausted his usefulness.) VFL's oomph is compensated by BDC's 300ish advantage in points and, if things stand as present, a bigger prize in end of tour points.

Meanwhile, GHS/PTM share Carapaz and Skjelmose, which means the race for third might go down to Roglic vs Mas in this case as well, in which case maybe Roglic has the upper hand unless he crashes as usual. In this case too GHS has had issues with del Toro and Campenaerts not doing much as of yet, though Berrade has been a highlight, while PTM has one of the "under-the-radar" best picks of TCAT in Stefan Küng. Definitely hard to judge who will come out on top here too. In this case too PTM has the "GC rider disadvantage" but an advantage of 300ish points so far, though Roglic should net GHST more end of tour points.

Very spicy!

[Glüc]

Stage 13 Lugo -> Puerto de Ancares

Another low scoring stage, due to a break without many TCAT riders. The only TCAT riders represented were Bizkarra (CFA/CJO), Le Berre (BDC), Campenaerts (GHS/CHX), Asgreen, and Groves (both PTM). Bizkarra was the first TCAT rider across the line, followed by Le Berre, resulting in BDC getting the most points and very slightly increasing their lead.

Far more interesting however, was what happened behind them in the GC favourites group. For the GC favourites the race only really started at the final (very steep) climb. O'Connor (BDC) has been struggling on this terrain before and again he had to drop when Roglic increased the pace. Mas (VFL/PTM) was able to follow longer but in the end was not able to keep up with Roglic and also lost seconds on Landa (BDC/MCB), who is inching ever closer to the podium. Carapaz (GHS/CHX/PTM) finished just ahead of Mas, whereas Yates (VFL/CFA/CJO/CHX) struggled and lost quite a bit of time. The real story was the time lost by O'Connor however. For a while it looked really bad for him, but he somewhat recovered at the end, still losing nearly 2 minutes on Roglic, more than halving his lead. It seems increasingly likely O'Connor is going to lose the red jersey to Roglic soon, perhaps this weekend already.

For now the general classification looks like this:

0 O'Connor (BDC)
+1'21" Roglic (DED/GHS/CFA/BDC/CJO/MCB)
+3'01" Mas (VFL/PTM)
+3'13" Carapaz (GHS/CHX/PTM)
+3'20" Landa (BDC/MCB)
+4'12" Carlos Rodriguez(VFL)
+4'29" Lipowitz (VFL)
+4'42" Gall (DED)
+5'17" Yates (VFL/CFA/CJO/CHX)
+5'24" Skjelmose (GHS/PTM)
+6'29" Bennett (VFL)

Standings after stage 13:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	3890	+195
2nd	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	3628	+148
3rd	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	3458	+113
4th	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	3313	+118
5th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	2654	+99
6th	(+1)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2445	+179
7th	(-1)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2395	+120
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	2151	+189
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	1977	+83

Tomorrow a stage somewhat similar to today, but with two important differences: the final climb is much longer but much less steep and we do get a downhill finish. This stage might be a bit more suited for O'Connor to hang on, but Roglic is looking in better form, so he will surely try to gain time again. If O'Connor breaks again it seems very plausible Roglic will be wearing red on sunday.

[Glüc]

Somewhat unexpectedly (to me anyway) the gradient on the final climb wasn't steep enough to shake off most of the peloton, and none of the climbers increased the pace enough that it would. If there were any gaps at the top of the climb, they weren't enough to prevent coming back in the descent, so at the finish we just got a bunch sprint.

Not for the first time, Groves (PTM) showed he was the fastest in a relatively underwhelming sprint field, winning the stage and scoring a much needed with for Port Maxhestic in their race for the podium. Vacek (GHS/BDC) and Canal (CJO) managed to get 4th and 10th respectively.

Standings after stage 14:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	4119	+229
2nd	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	3938	+310
3rd	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	3585	+127
4th	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	3580	+267
5th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	2737	+83
6th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2514	+69
7th	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2507	+112
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	2296	+145
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	2098	+121

No chance the same happens today however, as the final climb (after the peloton has already passed three other summits) is a lot steeper with percentages over 15% towards the end. There is no hiding for any GC contender today. The strongest climber is gonna win, and so far that hasn't been the man in red, I have a sense that jersey might swap riders today.

[Glüc]

Quickly posting sunday score. Might do combined update maybe?

Standings after stage 15:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	4739	+620
2nd	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	4432	+494
3rd	(+1)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	4002	+422
4th	(-1)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	3989	+404
5th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	3022	+285
6th	(+1)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	2867	+360
7th	(-1)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2762	+248
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	2533	+237
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	2312	+214

[Glüc]

Standings after stage 16:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	4903	+164
2nd	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	4677	+245
3rd	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	4366	+364
4th	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4193	+204
5th	(+1)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	3166	+299
6th	(-1)	Dead Last (DED)	3155	+133
7th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	2884	+122
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	2807	+274
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	2592	+280

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

Heck yeah MCB clawing our way up the ranks like a hungry ghoul!

[Glüc]

Triple update!

Sunday we got a break including Küng (PTM), Armirail (MCB/PTM), and Castrillo (BDC). Of those only Castrillo remained in the break for the final, very difficult climb. It seemed unlikely that he would be able to keep his advantage, but somehow he pulled it off and won the stage.

Monday was the third and final rest day

Yesterday was a bit easier but again with an uphill summit. The break included Del Toro (GHS/CJO/MCB/CHX), who finished in 6th place.

Both days Mas (VFL/PTM) was looking pretty good, with he and Roglic (DED/GHS/CFA/BDC/CJO/MCB) taking time of O'Connor on both days. Somehow O'Connor managed to hold on to the red jersey, helped by the fact Roglic got a time penalty on sunday. However, his lead on Roglic has shrunk to a mere 5 seconds. Seconds that he is surely going to lose in the itt on sunday, but more likely even before that.

Carapaz (GHS/CHX/PTM) (7th and 10th) and Skjelmose (GHS/PTM) (6th and 12th) also did well on both days, with the latter jumping from 11th to 8th in gc. Landa (BDC/MCB) and Rodriguez (VFL) weren't quite as impressive, but did gain on O'Connor. Lipowitz (VFL) was strong on sunday, but fell behind on tuesday, dropping to 9th in GC.

Today was a day for the sprinters, with Groves (PTM) taking first place again, followed by Bittner (VFL) and Braet (CFA). Campenaerts (GHS/CHX) and Le Berre (BDC) also finished top 10.

BDC scored the most points on sunday, due to the Castrillo win, but lost ground compared the other top-4 teams both today and yesterday. GHST was the strongest yesterday because of the performance by Del Toro. The Velociposse beat Port Maxhestic by a single point today, because besides Bittner, Narvaez scored points as well.

The Cabana Boys meanwhile haven't lost a single rider yet. Results by Del Toro, Roglic and Landa caused them to improve their standing.


Standings after stage 17:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	5083	+180
2nd	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	4976	+299
3rd	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	4557	+191
4th	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4493	+300
5th	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	3250	+84
6th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	3222	+67
7th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	3096	+212
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	2891	+84
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	2761	+169

Tomorrow is a bit on an intermediate stage, including a 2nd and 1st category climb, but these are well before the finish, so while a breakaway victory seems likely it is not at all guaranteed.


Looking further ahead, the contest is far from decided. End of Tour points could be decisive. BdC does seem to have the advantage there, with the current 1,2 and 5 in gc.However, O'Connor will likely drop in the standing. He also has probably the worst TT of the entire top 10. Will he be able to hang on to the podium?

Port Maxhestic is close behind. For end of tour points they currently hold 3,4 and 8, but Mas is looking in very good shape at the moment and Skjelmose has a good chance of gaining in the TT, where PTM as a whole is likely to do well. Furthermore Groves will score points for leading PC and will hope for another sprint tomorrow.

GHST currently hold 2,4 and 8 in GC. Roglic seems likely to be the overall winner and again Skjelmose should do well in the final ITT. They probably need more than that to overtake the others however, as they are . Perhaps another strong performance by Del Toro or Carapaz on friday or saturday.

Velociposse Florencia hold 3,7,9, and 11 in GC, which doesn't give as much end of tour points if it stays, but offers a lot of chances to improve or score more stage points. They also have fewer withdrawals than the other three with Bennett, Bittner, Narvaez potentially scoring even more stage points.

So overall BdC is the favourite, but Port Maxhestic is still very much in the race and VFL and GHST also still have some outside chance of taking the victory.

[Glüc]

Lüc is travelling atm, so you'll have to do with me for updates... and I'm lazy, so probably gonna do a double update again.

I can already say GHST had a very good day yesterday

Standings after stage 18:

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Tavulairs (BDC)	5399	+316
2nd	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	5147	+171
3rd	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	5004	+447
4th	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4731	+238
5th	(=)	Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	3463	+213
6th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	3289	+67
7th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	3147	+51
8th	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	2949	+58
9th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	2949	+188

[Glüc]

Spoiler: Roglic takes over red jersey and GHST has another very strong day.