Richie Porte, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Tinkoff-Saxo: Five things we learnt last week
Lessons from Catalunya, E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem
By Matt Westby
Last Updated: 30/03/15 5:34pm
Last week produced some compelling action in both stage races and the classics.
Here are five things we learnt…
Richie Porte can win the Giro d’Italia
The Australian has been in outstanding form all season – placing second at the Tour Down Under, fourth at the Volta ao Algarve, first at Paris-Nice and winning three mountain-top finishes along the way – but it wasn’t until his victory at the Volta a Catalunya that we had concrete proof he can win the Giro d’Italia in May.
Porte topped the general classification with a well-rounded display, beating Alejandro Valverde despite the Spaniard winning three stages, but more crucially, he out-performed Alberto Contador, who is likely to be his main rival at the Giro. Only seven seconds separated the pair by the end of the race, but those seven seconds were all taken on the race’s only summit finish, on stage four. Contador initially dropped Porte with an attack, but the Team Sky rider fought his way back to the Spaniard and then distanced him in the final 1km with an attack of his own. Contador has looked far from his best in recent weeks, and with only six weeks to go until the start of the Giro, it appears he has ground to make up.
Chris Froome has work to do to get back in shape
While Porte was flourishing up at the head of the peloton in Catalunya, team-mate Froome was regularly being dropped off the back. He lost an eye-opening 28 minutes on stage four’s summit finish and ended the race 45 minutes down on Porte overall.
The easy assumption to make would be that Froome was still suffering from the after-effects of illness earlier in March, which forced him to miss Tirreno-Adriatico. However, a tweet from Froome the day after stage four, which said “my health is good but my racing legs are still MIA”, appeared to be an admission that he is simply out of shape. Froome added that there was “no reason to worry” and while that is true given the Tour de France is still more than three months away, there is equally no escaping the fact that 45 minutes’ worth of form needs to be made up and much hard work lies ahead.
Geraint Thomas is favourite for the Tour of Flanders
That Porte wasn’t even Team Sky’s best rider of the week underlines the brilliance of the rides produced by Geraint Thomas at the classics. The Welshman went into the week on the back of a relentless but ultimately fruitless performance at Milan-San Remo and he continued that form with two stellar displays at E3 Harelbeke, which he won, and Gent-Wevelgem, in which he finished third.
He looked so strong and superior to his rivals in both races that he is surely now the favourite to win the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. Peter Sagan and Zdenek Stybar couldn’t match him at E3 Harelbeke, Sep Vanmarcke and Stijn Vandenbergh were left behind by Thomas at Gent-Wevelgem, and crucially, Fabian Cancellara, who won the Tour of Flanders in 2013 and 2014, has been ruled out after breaking two vertebrae at E3 Harelbeke. Only Niki Terpstra looks in any sort of condition to challenge Thomas.
Peter Sagan’s classics campaign is crumbling
Sagan has endured a torrid season so far and it appeared to reach its nadir on Friday and Sunday. He formed a leading trio at E3 Harelbeke with Thomas and Stybar and looked to be in with a strong chance of a second victory in a row at the race, but then Thomas attacked 4.3km out and while Stybar gave chase, Sagan could offer no response. He cracked completely after being left behind and ended up finishing well down in 30th.
Then, at a wind-battered Gent-Wevelgem, he barely even attempted to join the lead group and admitted afterwards that it had been a “very tough race”. Sagan usually has little trouble in making it into the lead group and is not often put off by bad weather, so the sight of him putting up so timid a fight suggested his form and confidence are both in the trough and that his prospects of winning one of the remaining classics look slim.
Tinkoff-Saxo are in turmoil
On the road both Sagan and Contador are out of sorts and off the road team manager Bjarne Riis has been given the boot. Tinkoff-Saxo are in turmoil.
Maybe that sounds an extreme assessment, but compare them to Team Sky and Etixx – Quick-Step, the peloton’s other two powerhouses. Team Sky have 16 wins to their name already this season, including four stage-race victories, Etixx – Quick-Step have 18 wins, but Tinkoff-Saxo have just two. And Team Sky and Etixx – Quick-Step are steady ships behind the scenes.
Tinkoff-Saxo owner Oleg Tinkov invested heavily in new riders – not least Sagan – and sports directors over the winter and big things were expected of the Russian squad, so their 2015 so far cannot be viewed as anything other than a disaster.
