Sunday, April 22, 2012

Leige-Bastoyne_Leige : The Race ?

Eurosport is available to my neighbour , so that is how I saw the last 60km of the “ Luttich-Bastogne-Luttich “ today . Rarely go to the one day races since all those involved are so busy , you are interrupting them if you strike up a conversation . Certainly riding the route in it’s entirety would be out of the question since the distances are about my limit and usually point to point allowing little chance of a short cut when kicked off the course . 20km to the finish the race is compact and then Nibali makes a run for it ! There is a largish group with one thing , mostly , in common , they all have numbers ending with 1 ! My impression was that these were the team leaders , people like Cunego and Voekler , etc . As time passed and the kilos were eaten up by Nibali , these guys started pfaffing around , wasting time , looking at each other . So the distance disappeared and the deficit grew , finally Inglinsky decided to make a run . As the kilos dropped below 8km to go , Eurosport was still showing 43sec deficit , then the deficit disappeared and the race continued . All of a sudden we see a shot over the shoulder of Inglinsky of Nibali in the distance . He is not 43 sec behind , in fact in very little time he is up with Nibali , who sits up for a moment to see what is about to happen . Well that short pause obviously upset Vincenzo’s rhythm because as soon as Maxim stepped on the gas Vincenzo was unable to find the energy to contest the last kilometre ! Looking at Twitter I see a few tweets which caused me to wonder what was really going on at the “ meeting ” those other Racers were holding whilst first Nibali then Inglinsky were securing their Podium positions ? Jon Vaughters said : Congrats to Maxim Iglinsky. Can't say I saw that coming. He's been a good one day rider for a few years now tho. Garmin-Barracuda said : Congrats to the argyle -- @DanMartin86 5th @ryder_hesjedal 9th & @alex_howes covering attacks! #LBL Ryder Hesjedal said : Great work by the whole team today. We had a plan and everyone delivered perfectly! Great way to close out the Classics! Cervelo said : Great riding by @Ride_Argyle at #Liege! @DanMartin86 5th @ryder_hesjedal 9th & revelation @alex_howes once again animating the race! To have finished in these positions Dan and Ryder must have been involved in the “ parlay ” ? What are they and Jonathon discussing now ? Perfection for me would have been a group sprint and then ALL would have seen a far different result ! Tweet from Steep hill : 14 Big Photos of the attack, finish and podium of Liège-Bastogne-Liège; http://bit.ly/IJqSKl (Nibali not happy on the podium) Guess Vincenzo is asking himself what more he could have done ? He reminds me of Leisel , the Aussie Swimmer , who displayed sour grapes on the Athens 2004 Olympic Medal Podium ! Vincenzo you did good , better perhaps than you planned ! Remember Eric Zabel sitting up on the San Remo finish line , allowing Oscar Freire to take the win by a nose ?
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