Minor Races Thread 2015 - [SPOILERS]

[raindog]

yes, just watched the finish - pretty easy win really

 

[User169]

Amstel Gold coming up. I'm off to Maastricht tomorrow evening - will probably have a squizz at the race as it heads out of town.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

If you look down the history of winners of the Ardennes races, you'll see a whole litany of known cheats and dopers: Rebellin, Schumacher, Di Luca, Vinokourov, Riis, and many, many more. These races seem to be ones for which doping has conferred a particular advantage....

 

[rich p]

If you look down the history of winners of the Ardennes races, you'll see a whole litany of known cheats and dopers: Rebellin, Schumacher, Di Luca, Vinokourov, Riis, and many, many more. These races seem to be ones for which doping has conferred a particular advantage....

Good point - looking back at the past 20 years I can only see Pip Gilbert as not having a whiff of doping.
Even he's been questioned after his stellar year.

 

[raindog]

Even he's been questioned after his stellar year.

I like Gilbert, but as time goes by that "year" seems more and more bizarre.
A bit like Voeckler and Rolland in the 2011 TdeF

 

[rich p]

I like Gilbert, but as time goes by that "year" seems more and more bizarre.
A bit like Voeckler and Rolland in the 2011 TdeF

I like him too and I give him the benefit of the doubt that he took his eye off the ball, had a decent amount of money, got married (I think) and struggled to get re-motivated.
But I sound naïve when I write it!

 

[Crackle]

I like Gilbert, but as time goes by that "year" seems more and more bizarre.
A bit like Voeckler and Rolland in the 2011 TdeF

Alternatively, you could argue that an exceptional year, rather than continuous solid performances is more natural, understandable. It's just our jaundiced view which makes for squint eyed scrutiny.

 

[Hont]

If you look down the history of winners of all professional cycling races, you'll see a whole litany of known cheats and dopers.....

FTFY :-)

These races seem to be ones for which doping has conferred a particular advantage....

Maybe, but given that Cadel Evans, Dan Martin and Gilbert (see above) have done well in the Ardennes classics, they also look to be races where clean riders can actually do OK.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Maybe, but given that Cadel Evans, Dan Martin and Gilbert (see above) have done well in the Ardennes classics, they also look to be races where clean riders can actually do OK.

More recently, yes. And I don't think it's necessarily 'all races' or at least not in quite the same way: we seem to have a clear correlation between the success of some of the most egregious (and unrepentant) offenders and these particular races - up until the point where cycling started to sort itself out...

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Tro-Bro Léon won by Alexandre Geniez (FDJ), with Benoit Jarrier 2nd and Florian Senechal 3rd

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Pierre Rolland (Europcar) takes the final stage and the overall in the Veulta a Castilla y Léon, ahead of Benat Intxausti and Igor Anton (both of Movistar)... I have to say, though, that this race seems to be declining in terms of the field it attracts.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Gregor Bole and Maciej Paterski make it a 1-2 for CCC Sprandi-Polkowice in stage 1 of Tour of Croatia.

Croatia looks nice.

http://www.tourofcroatia.com/

 

[Apollonius]

I am a bit puzzled by the Eurosport decision to cover Tour of Croatia rather than Trentino. I suspect there is a big sell from the Croatian Tourist Board. Still, Croatia looks nice and it is quite interesting to see this level of racing.

 

[smutchin]

I suspect there is a big sell from the Croatian Tourist Board.

I haven't been following either race closely but I did notice the number of "Come to sunny Croatia" ads during coverage of Amstel Gold at the weekend - just as for the last couple of years there have been lots of "Come to sunny Poland" ads in July/August.

 

[MisterStan]

I can't speak for Croatia, but Poland is lovely during the summer - Krakow particularly so.