What used to be the Tour du Haut-Var was split in 2 races a few years ago, each local official wanting the name of his départment to appear in the title of the race(s). Now the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes, which remained a 2-day race, is down to a one-day race too.
For foreigners: both départements border the Mediterranean sea; Alpes-Maritimes is where the city of Nice stands, Var is between it and Marseille.
7 WT are engaged on both races: Astana, Bahrain, Cofidis, Decathlon, GFDJ, Lidl-Trek, Lotto-Intermarché and Picnic. They don't seem to bring big names, which are/will be busy on other races. There will also be 5 big PT and Polti, as well as 4 French and 1 Swiss Contis. Again, there will be the same teams on both races.
Costiou🇫🇷, Hirschi🇨🇭 and a fair number of Italian🇮🇹 riders are expected.
On Saturday, we have the Var classic. Last year, everything was played on the final wall, but this year the profile is different: the end is flat but the main course is more hilly.
I notice it will be the first race of Quinn Simmons🇺🇸, which may well like the terrain, but I don't know whether he is any good on a first racing day.
On Sunday will be the Tour des Alpes Maritimes. It is more mountainous than the Var, but in this time of the year, it is safer to stay relatively close the coast, thus the climbs do not go over an altitude of 750 m.
The finish is not on top of a climb, but when you zoom on the last 'flat' 25 km, they look strangely rolling, with a succession of tiny walls going up and down and not a bit of actual flat. And the last mile is uphill as well.
Perhaps someone will attack in the beginning of the long Côte de Gourdon (where the line was last year, and L. Martinez🇫🇷, Scaroni🇮🇹 and Buitrago🇨🇴 battled for victory), but that's 45 km from the line this year; otherwise after its descent in the hills of the last 25 km I guess. I would have liked to see Healy🇮🇪 on that terrain (it would also have been a good rehearsal for him before starting his year on the Drôme-Ardèche next week-end), but EF is not coming.
Here I notice the first racing day of Victor Lafay🇫🇷 under the colours of Unibet.
4 Comments
Deschanel2017@lemmings.world · 1 pts · 204d
I couldn't watch it because the bloody public service TV who was supposed to broadcast it never broadcasted it. 🤬 So I will have to wait tonight to watch it on a pirate site...
Yesterday, they claimed they were 'broadcasting' only over Internet and not on one of their regular TV channels because there were the Olympics, except that they do not broadcast the Olympics on the channel they use for cycling... And today they announced the race on a regular TV channel but it never showed up.
This year, they gave all the "Coupe de France" races to a private (free) channel, yet they cannot be arsed to announce and broadcast properly the rare races on which they still spend money to produce.
Deschanel2017@lemmings.world · 1 pts · 203d
And that was a pity, for it was some good racing yesterday, the complete opposite of the Var race the day before. The last 50-60 km were ridden like a good classic, I'd say.
There was an attempt on the 'flat' before the Gourdon climb by 4 riders who managed to break away after a few failures. One of them, Chamberlain (🇦🇺 Décathlon) tried to avoid the climb by staying on the valley road 😆 instead of turning right towards Gourdon. He was soon caught up as they had never created much of a gap, a strong pursuit lead by Asatan made sure of it.
Meanwhile, Barguil (🇫🇷 Picnic) managed to crash inside the peloton in the beginning of the climb, in a weird manner: it looked like his bike was 20 yards up the road compared to the location he was lying, like the bike had kept on climbing, carried away by other riders. Broken collarbone, apparently? Another rider went to the ground at the same time.
Strangely, attacks didn't happen in the first, hardest part of the climb (BTW, it was ridden in the opposite direction from last year). The main, decisive attack was by L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrain) with 3 other riders: Brenner (🇩🇪 Tudor), Costiou (🇫🇷 FDJ) and A. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Decathlon). Q. Simmons (🇺🇸 Lidl-Trek) had caught up the previous attempt, but when he tried to join this group just a few dozen yards before the front of the peloton, he blew up and then couldn't even stay with the first group of the peloton.
L. Martinez🇫🇷 and Brenner🇩🇪 were pushing too hard for the other two which were dropped after a while.
Their gap never grew much, perhaps 45 seconds top (?). At no point did they fool around, but the pursuit group behind them wasn't either. They did the climb, the descent, and the following 25 km (I slept trough some of this part) of rolling terrain ahead, but they were caught by the small group of chaser something like 1 mile from the line. They still managed to finish 4^th^ and 5^th^ and Brenner even attempted an attack from that group: they were really going strong on that Sunday.
Lapeira (🇫🇷 Decathlon) managed to attack and beat Scaroni (🇮🇹 Astana), followed a surprisingly reborn S. Carr (🇬🇧 Cofidis) (well, I think –but I ain't sure–, that he wasn't participating in the chase) and the aforementioned Brenner🇩🇪.
Champoussin (🇫🇷 Astana) worked hard for Scaroni🇮🇹 but he had the strange idea to finish his work by an attack which may have taken part in Scaroni🇮🇹's defeat.
I note that A. Mifsud (🇲🇹🇫🇷 Polti) was once more in that group for victory. He's really having a good early season! Same for the Conti rider A. Mariault (🇫🇷 CIC)!
FDJ had been active earlier in the day, but in the end, only Costiou🇫🇷 managed to stay in the group and finish 6^th^. See, even him was dropped by the 🇫🇷🇩🇪 duo in the climb, and in the finish again, despite those two guys having ridden 40 km alone ahead. G. Martin🇫🇷 is still out of shape.
Hirshi (🇨🇭 Tudor) didn't do well, pretty much like Q. Simmons🇺🇸, perhaps without even attempting like the American.
Deschanel2017@lemmings.world · 1 pts · 205d
Hearing interviews, it appears that there is not much to expect from this race, as even small Conti teams announce that they will ride for their tier-5 sprinter.
Deschanel2017@lemmings.world · 1 pts · 205d
Indeed it was a non-race, with everyone waiting for the sprint and the expected conclusion: a big crash in the fences.
The sort-of-favourites for the sprint didn't succeed: no Unibet, no Cofidis in top-10. There are 3 Conti riders (CIC, Nice, Roubaix) in top-6, 2 PT (Total, Tudor) and only 1 WT (Decathlon). Tesson scores a victory after a couple of rather difficult years.
First FDJ rider comes in 21^st^ place...