Preview: Women's Tour of Flanders
by Monty. on Apr 4, 2010 3:55 AM EDT
in Women's Cycling
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PrintItaly? Been there, done it. That’s so like yesterday’s race. Next Podium Café Spring Break 2010 moves over the Alps, and will be joined by among others the girls from Michela Fanini on their Northern Europe Tour. Twelve days, five races and today’s Tuesday, so where exactly are we? Donovan knows the answer to that one. OK, sorry, no more cheesey music, I promise. But while some will be spending this Sunday standing by the side of the road with plates of moules, cones of fries topped with mayonnaise, and polystyrene cups of steaming hot soup, 26 teams of six will instead be flogging their guts out on the nine bergs and more than eleven km of cobbles that make up the Vlaanderens Mooiste Vrouwen.
via rvv.be
The course is 139k long and is pretty much the same as the business half of the men’s RVV, just skipping the long run out to the sea, Den Ast, and the climbs between the Knokteberg and the Eikenberg (so that’s no Paterberg, no Koppenberg and no chance to get a helicopter shot of yourself passing the Taaienberg mushroom). If you want to see more on the individual climbs then as ever check out this wonderful section of the organisers’ website. Actually there’s a lot more worth looking at on that site. Including top tens for every year that the race has been run (Ok, that’s only back as far as 2004), and race reports for all you masters of Google translate.
via rvv.be
Those old top tens make interesting reading, because if you check them against the start list for this year’s race then you see that around 80% are coming back for another try. That makes predicting a winner an awful lot harder as there are probably around thirty riders who could take this, flukes excepted. Marianne Vos has never managed better than third, which surely is the sign of an open race. Most teams seem to be sticking with the line-up they had at Alfredo Binda or tweaking it slightly to accommodate returnees from the US and from the track of Copenhagen. HTC-Columbia have the past two winners on their team in Ina Teutenberg and Judith Arndt. Cervelo counter with Kirsten Wild and two time winner Mirjam Melchers van Poppel. Vos may not yet have won here, and she loses Andrea Bosman to the Leontien.nl team, but she should have support right to the end from Loes Gunnewijk who has three top ten places in her own palmares. Gauss-RDZ-Ormu have three possible contenders in Giorgia Bronzini, Edita Pucinskaite and Martine Bras, while Bronzini’s old team Safi-Pasta Zara will be looking to their new sprint discovery Inga Cilvinaite. Ruth Corset takes her first step towards becoming a fan of Dan by pulling on the Tibco jersey for the first time, although PdC’s Chicago chapter will probably instead be cheering on her teammate Devon Haskell. Grace Verbeke will probably again be the leader of Lotto, although if Rochelle Gilmore can hang on until the end she may have a good outside chance. Nicole Cooke, the fourth of the past winners taking part, may find that just as in Italy she suffers from a lack of team support, especially if HTC-Columbia and Cervelo once again try to make it tough from the start.
TV coverage may be tough to find this weekend. Some people have been debating whether the top men's races should be encouraged to simultaneously run a women's race on the same day. And while the infrastructure in the form of road closures, barriers, fancy podiums and media centres awash with free snacks may seem tempting, the disadvantage is that all the camera bikes are likely to be following Tommeke, Cancellara and co., and the best that we can hope for here is that they remember to switch on the fixed cameras on the finish line ready to catch the sprint. Or that PdC's roving reporters show how good citizens' journalism can be.
My prediction? Teutenberg, Wild, Vos for the 1,2,3.
Bumped because I don't think we'll get enough pictures to fill a live thread, although team PdC is right now heading to the start in Oudenaarde.
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I hope to catch it online :-) Go lotto ladies
"the rest was over 30. And that doesn't mean old and useless, but experienced and with the stamina"
Jens! Voigt, Crit Intl Interview, 2009
Well played Monty, well played
It seems Monty managed to miss one little detail. Fortunately I managed to hack Santa’s computer to bring you a little glimpse of the future. Behold the Sunday podium. Remember you saw it here first (it looks a lot like another race but it’s really the RvV 2010 podium):
Pfft
Any Swede worth his lingonberries would have photoshopped a becco in there somewhere.
If someone twitters without any followers
does it still count? Does no-one want to listen to what TeamESGL93 has to say?
When I first found it
they’d been going for a month with no followers or following
Haaghoek
gotta find that. Hasn’t it been considered the equivalent of a climb? Anyway, nasty cobbles in there. I agree, if it were Saturday I would be happier so I could concentrate on it.
"The only pain I got time for is the pain I put on fools who don't know what time it is." Edvald Boasson Hagen
by Chris Fontecchio on Mar 31, 2010 5:12 AM EDT reply actions
Should be fab :-)
here’s the HTC-Columbia press release, it has a couple good quotes. They also won the race the past two years. Crazy strong, those girls.
San Luis Obispo, CA – 31st March 2010 – After wins by Judith Arndt in 2008 and Ina-Yoko Teutenberg in 2009, HTC-Columbia will be aiming for nothing short of a third straight victory in the Tour of Flanders in Belgium this Sunday.
Rated women’s cycling’s toughest Classic, the 119.3-kilometre World Cup race is shaped by its nine steep cobbled climbs and often made even tougher by poor weather. Arndt was forced to miss last year’s race after breaking her collarbone, but returns this April to join Teutenberg and an exceptionally strong HTC-Columbia line-up.
“I think I’m in good shape and I’m feeling pretty confident, even if you’re always a bit nervous about your first big European race of the season,” Teutenberg said. With six wins already this season in the USA, the HTC-Columbia pro says so far her year has been a success. “The fields were more competitive than last year, but the races went well all the same, which is a good sign. With Judith back and also Noemi [Cantele], we’ve got a very strong lineup for Flanders, and we’re ready for all kinds of different situations, too. Flanders is a race which you take kilometre by kilometre. You have to see what kind of weather there is, because Flanders is so difficult and the weather changes things a lot.”
“We’re definitely in the position of being the favorites with our line-up, and since we’ve won it two years in a row, even more so,” adds HTC-Columbia sports director Ronny Lauke. “I don’t think that makes it more complicated. Having so many good riders just gives us more options and makes it more difficult for the other teams to figure out who we are going to be racing for. That’s an advantage. In any case, our goal remains the same – we want to win Flanders for a third consecutive year.”
HTC-Columbia women’s team for Tour of Flanders: Judith Arndt (Ger); Noemi Cantele (Ita); Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Ger); Ellen Van Dijk (Hol) ; Linda Villumsen (NZ), Adrie Visser (Hol).
Fan of Dan...Team TIBCO Brooke Miller
..is looking forward to Flanders. I interviewed Brooke at Redlands about Flanders…here’s what she said:
“It is my favorite race of all time. It was the first race I did in Europe in 2007. I hit the deck in the final sprint and landed in 6th place. It was such an epic race. It’s historic, it’s burly, it’s hard, it’s grueling, it doesn’t do great for little waifs who go flying up hill and humiliate me (laughs). It’s just just Flanders….gritty, raw and so much fun!”
One of the things I love about Brooke….is that she races full on and is a very intelligent rider. (She olds a PhD in biology!)
…and as a Fan of Dan…she has a bit of the F.O.D. luck going for her (grin)
Note on Amber Rais of Kuota Speed Kueens
..though she is on the start list…she has not yet fully recovered from her Qatar crash and will not be starting.
Darn….I was hoping to read about Amber’s Flanders adventure.
And a couple more changes
Amber Neben tweeted that she’s riding this. I don’t know whether she’s still speaking to the people at Noris or if she’s on the USA team. And Suzie Godart of Fenixs won’t be there.
Neben's riding...
…but on a borrowed bike – according to her twitter, her bike got lost somewhere en route…
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 3, 2010 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions
I guess that right now
she’s dealing with the Belgian version of Larry, Curly and Moe (link to a blog piece by Bridie on SBS – anyone who wants to see grown men poking each other should wait until Stijn hits the streets). Is Manel Lacambra Shemp? Or Curly Joe?
(and Hi to a new face – I hope this weekend’s coverage doesn’t seem to cliquey. Things should get back to normal soon)
If you're interested
there’s still half an hour or so to enter cycling fever’s World Cup compo. Just pick who yo think the top 12 will be today, that’s all.
I'm going Pucinskaite, Teutenberg, Cooke
…then seven Aussie chickie babes!!!
errrr....am i supposed to sign this??
Grace Verbeke wins it...
… according to Liz Hatch’s twitter.
So, a Belgian winning for a Belgian team in Flanders? That’s a lot of Belgian pride!
(Hi Monty!)
although..
cycling news says Adrie Visser (Ned) HTC-Columbia 2ND..
I like bikes!!!
Bec*
by Bec on Apr 4, 2010 8:46 AM EDT up reply actions
1 Grace Verbeke (Bel) Lotto Ladies Team
2 Marianne Vos (Ned) Nederland Bloeit
3 Kirsten Wild (Ned) Cervelo TestTeam
I like bikes!!!
Bec*
wonder what happened to Visser then?
I hate scouring the net trying to find results! Not helped by the RVV site going down!
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 4, 2010 9:08 AM EDT up reply actions
agreed..frustrating!
I think she got caught by the chase bunch, Verbeke held on..
I like bikes!!!
Bec*
by Bec on Apr 4, 2010 9:14 AM EDT up reply actions
L'Equipe have the top ten up
1. Grace Verbeke (BEL), les 119 km en 3 h 09’27
2. Marianne Vos (HOL) à 3"
3. Kirsten Wild (HOL) 3"
4. Emma Johansson (SUE) 3"
5. Adrie Visser (HOL) 3"
6. Chantal Blaak (HOL) 3"
7. Noemi Cantele (ITA) 3"
8. Judith Arndt (ALL) 3"
9. Regina Bruins (HOL) 8"
10. Annemiek Van Vleuten (HOL) 51"
(you can probably work out some of the minor placings from the World Cup points they print here)
And let’s hope this helps Lotto to find a bit more sponsorship. They couldn’t have chosen a better race to win.
Marianne Vos crashed
because a pedestrian stepped out in front of her, apparently.
I’m wincing imagining how much it must hurt, being run over by Marianne!
Cycling News has the full results here
I want to see a photo of the person who stepped out!
Deep, deep tyre indentations, if there’s any justice!
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 5, 2010 9:02 AM EDT up reply actions
Using her team name as a caption
because not only does it mean ‘blossoms’ but also ‘bleeds’ (informal/dialect).
Nice find
let’s hope that they show a bit more next year
Well, if a Belgian winning for a Belgian team in a Belgian race doesn't encourage them to
then I guess nothing will!
Although having a little clip of the race means it must’ve been filmed, which means there’s more out there that I’m not seeing! Curses!
(Still wish Marianne had some of those teenytiny cows, tractors & broccoli on her shirt – missed opportunity!)
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 5, 2010 8:35 AM EDT up reply actions
This is the first year...
I’ve seen anything more than the finish on video, even on the Sporza. So I’m not sure they’ve ever had motos on the course with the women. I’m desperately hoping this is the start of a new trend. Even if they only give us 8 minutes for now, having race footage would be sooo huge. We can hope, anyway.
There's a nice piece up
on Vicki Whitelaw’s blog about Flanders. Well she talks about the Trofeo Binda and Dottignies a bit too, but there’s not quite the same excitement.
Eurosport are showing a half hour slot on the race on Weds
Wednesday 21st, 11-11.30pm, straight after their highlights programme on Fleche Wallone. This must be the first time i’ve seen women’s cycling on E/sport, apart from Track and the Road World Champs
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