E3 Harelbeke & Gent – Wevelgem ’14: Race Summaries

 

Yeah, I’m doing two summaries at once. It’s a bit late, too. Sorry. I’ve been busy.

Well, sort of. I spent today at the beach. Uni’s tough.

Also, I have no cobbled classics-looking photos, so you’ll have to make do with this charming chap looking at some bare-branched trees. It was the best I could manage. I’m not in England at the moment, so moody non-hilly photos are tricky. Flanders and Roubaix are imminent, so I’ll try to up my game before then.

Anyway, E3 and Gent – Wevelgem occur over a 60-hour space, so it’s reasonably fair to treat them as a pair, given that basically the same people are riding them. They are, however, subtly different. If you’ve read the previews, you’ll know how, but if you haven’t… well, go and bloody well do so. In short, E3 is less conducive to large group finishes than Wevelgem, as the climbs are closer to the end.

E3 Harelbeke
As ever, classics are a subtle art, and if you don’t manage to watch them live (which I didn’t), they can be pretty darn confusing. What I know for sure is that Sky’s Geraint Thomas didn’t let his Paris – Nice struggles get to him, and flaunted his versatility by attacking on the famous cobbled Oude Kwaremont climb. Peter Sagan had the legs to go with him, and the OPQS (who else) pair of Stijn Vandenbergh and Niki Terpstra joined.

And that was pretty much that. With Tom Boonen sitting pretty behind in a group of seventeen, life was always going to be tough for the chasers with such a strong quartet up front. By my calculations, of those seventeen riders, only ten were likely to be committed to a chase, though one of them was Fabian Cancellara. Of those ten, none can really sprint, at least compared to others in the group, and a few were the only representatives from their teams, so probably wouldn’t have felt the need to shoulder the burden anyway. In the end, Belkin’s Sep Vanmarcke and Lotto’s Tony Gallopin (strong stuff from him) did ping off the group to finish fifth and sixth, but couldn’t get anywhere near the leaders.

It’s with those leaders that all the interest naturally lay. OPQS were obviously going to try and exploit their advantage, and Vandenbergh attacked twice inside the final kilometre, with the second opening up the endgame. It was a clever, but inevitable second jump by the Belgian, who tried and (just) failed to use a traffic island to his advantage. Thomas battled on to his wheel, with Sagan battling even harder onto his. The wheel-finding exhaustion clearly had a domino effect as Niki Terpstra had to go full gas just to hold on to Sagan’s not insignificant slipstream.

Thomas’s only shot was to go early, and in chasing Vandenbergh down, he’d opened up his sprint. Sagan clearly had the legs to match it though, and was around Thomas in no time. As the British rider tied up, Terpstra nicked second.

Gent – Wevelgem
Sagan would’ve fancied his chances just as much the following Sunday, but had names like Andre Greipel to worry about.

After a lot of ‘meh’ riding, an interesting move got going just outside of 20km to go, consisting of BMC’s active Silvan Dillier, Trek’s Stijn Devolder and Movistar’s surprisingly classics-savvy Andrey Amador, who’s from Costa Rica. Respect. And, at  10km to go, they had 35 seconds. More respect.

Still, there were enough teams chasing in the group behind (a group of c.75 riders – compare that with E3: see what I mean about the difference?) for the break’s chances to be slim, though their cause was helped by a crash at 8.5km to go which took out both Greipel and Garmin’s Tyler Farrar. The TV coverage, poetically, had managed to get a camera in Lotto’s team car for the day, and captured a remarkably understated reaction to the big German’s tumble: a clipboard ended up in a footwell, and that was it.

Meanwhile, the crash appeared to earn the break a handful of extra seconds (about six), but the advantage began steadily dropping. Still, 19 seconds at 4km to go isn’t half bad for a group of three. Inside of 2km the game was clearly up for the break, and under the flamme rouge, they were put out of their misery.

The sprint that followed was… complicated. Lampre were the only folks to get a proper leadout going, but Davide Cimolai’s solo effort for Sacha Modolo just wasn’t up to par (Modolo placed 25th). Still, it was the springboard for the finishing moves, as San Remo winner Alexander Kristoff popped out from alongside Modolo in an effort to take a surprise early jump on the competition. His compatriotThor Hushovd had his wheel, but clearly lacked his physical thuggery of days gone by, and was pretty much happy-slapped from Kristoff’s wheel by Sagan. As Kristoff accelerates, with Sagan in tow, Giant-Shimano’s John Degenkolb, who’s having one of those seasons, sees that Lampre’s effort is bogging, and jumps onto Sagan’s wheel. As Sagan breaks from Kristoff’s wheel, Degenkolb correctly opts to follow him and not the Norwegian, before burning him in the drag race to the line, pulling FDJ’s Arnaud Demare, who probably hit the best top speed of the sprinters, with him for second place. Sagan took third.

Degenkolb’s win demonstrated the importance of position in the sprint, as did everyone else’s failure in ending up lodged behind Lampre’s doomed effort. OPQS had good numbers in the bunch, and positioned Tom Boonen fairly well, but just didn’t quite make it close enough to the front. Luck plays a role, there’s no denying it.

What Flanders/Roubaix inferences can we draw? Well, Sagan looks good for starters, as does Geraint Thomas. Chipping clear of the likes of Boonen and Cancellara over a vital Flandrian climb, and staying clear of the latter, is no mean feat. If the small chasing group at E3 is anything to go by, the cream has risen to the top just in time, and it should be an epic battle. Both Cancellara and Boonen, notably, kept their powder dry, and they remain the favourites for Flanders, with Sagan probably on at the best odds. The winner will surely be one of those three. As for Roubaix, it’s hard, once again, to look past Cancellara and Boonen, but that race is law unto itself, as are its fans – who singlehandedly ruined OPQS’s race last year.

One big piece of news is Ian Stannard’s injury. The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner will miss both Flanders and Roubaix, and I for one am gutted – his form was building brilliantly for both.

Race Winners:
E3 Harelbeke – Peter Sagan
Gent-Wevelgem – John Degenkolb