Archiv für den Tag: 30. Januar 2024

Alula Tour Etappe 1

Al Manshiya Train Station – Al Manshiya Train Station – 149Km
A bunched sprint was expect at the end of stage 1 and that’s exactly what happened on the opening day of the AlUla Tour. In a hectic final straight with a lot of candidates to victory, Casper Van Uden (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL) proved to be the fastest. The young Dutchman only just captures his first major success by beating compatriot Dylan Groenewegen (Team Jayco AlUla) and Belgium’s Tim Merlier (Soudal Quickstep). Thanks to his victory, Van Uden takes command of the general classification and will be wearing the green jersey for tomorrow’s stage 2.

STAGE CLASSIFICATION

1 VAN UDEN Casper NED Team dsm-firmenich PostNL 03:18:55
2 GROENEWEGEN Dylan NED Team Jayco-AlUla 00:00
3 MERLIER Tim BEL Soudal Quick-Step 00:00
4 WÆRENSKJOLD Søren NOR Uno-X Mobility 00:00
5 RAJOVIC Dusan SRB Bahrain Victorious 00:00
6 DE KLEIJN Arvid NED Tudor Pro Cycling Team 00:00
7 MALUCELLI Matteo ITA JCL Team UKYO 00:00
8 MOLANO Sebastian COL UAE Team Emirates 00:00
9 SYRITSA Gleb RUS Astana Qazaqstan Team 00:00
10 CIMOLAI Davide ITA Movistar Team 00:00
11 MOSCHETTI Matteo ITA Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team 00:00
12 KOCH Jonas GER BORA-hansgrohe 00:00
13 TESSON Jason FRA TotalEnergies 00:00
14 OLIVEIRA Rui POR UAE Team Emirates 00:00
15 MARTÍN Gotzon ESP Euskaltel-Euskadi 00:00
16 BRAMBILLA Gianluca ITA Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team 00:00
17 MULUBRHAN Henok ERI Astana Qazaqstan Team 00:00
18 PASQUALON Andrea ITA Bahrain Victorious 00:00
19 KUDUS Merhawi ERI Terengganu Cycling Team 00:00
20 LOPEZ DE ABETXUKO Andoni ESP Euskaltel-Euskadi 00:00

Paris-Roubaix et Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift : team selection

The organisers of Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift have selected the teams for the 4th edition, Saturday, April 6th.

In accordance with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) regulations, the fifteen UCI Women’s WorldTeams automatically entered are:

AG Insurance – Soudal Team (Bel)
Canyon / / SRAM Racing (Ger)
Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team (Ger)
FDJ – Suez (Fra)
Fenix – Deceuninck (Bel)
Human Powered Health (Usa)
Lidl-Trek (Usa)
Liv-AlUla-Jayco (Aus)
Movistar Team (Esp)
Roland (Sui)
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL (Ned)
Team SD Worx-Pro Time (Ned)
Team Visma | Lease a Bike (Ned)
UAE Team ADQ (Uae)
Uno-X Mobility (Nor)

Furthermore, the best 2023 UCI Women’s Continental teams will participate by right in Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift :

Cofidis (Fra)

The organisers have invited the following teams:

Arkéa-B&B Hôtels Women (Fra)
EF Education-Cannondale (Usa)
LifePlus Wahoo (Gbr)
St Michel – Mavic – Auber 93 (Fra)
Team Coop-Repsol (Nor)
Team Komugi-Grand Est (Fra)
Volkerwessel Women’s Pro Cycling Team (Ned)
Winspace (Fra)

PARIS-ROUBAIX: TEAM SELECTION

The organisers of Paris-Roubaix have selected the teams for the 121th edition, Sunday, April 7th.

In accordance with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rules, the eighteen UCI WorldTeams are invited:

Alpecin-Deceuninck (Bel)
Arkéa-B&B Hôtels (Fra)
Astana Qazaqstan Team (Kaz)
Bahrain Victorious (Brn)
Bora-Hansgrohe (All)
Cofidis (Fra)
Décathlon Ag2r La Mondiale Team (Fra)
EF Education-Easypost (Usa)
Groupama-FDJ (Fra)
Ineos Grenadiers (Gbr)
Intermarché-Wanty (Bel)
Lidl-Trek (Usa)
Movistar Team (Esp)
Soudal Quick-Step (Bel)
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL (Ned)
Team Jayco AlUla (Aus)
Team Visma | Lease a Bike (Ned)
UAE Team Emirates (Uae)

Furthermore, the three highest ranked UCI ProTeams in 2023 will participate by right in Paris-Roubaix:

Lotto Dstny (Bel)
Israel Premier Tech (Isr)
Uno-X Mobility (Nor)

The organisers have invited the following teams:

Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB (Bel)
Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team (Sui)
Team Flanders-Baloise (Bel)
TotalEnergies (Fra)

2024 ARDENNES CLASSICS:

Key points:
 As a special „treat“ for the 40th finish of La Flèche Wallonne atop the Mur de Huy, the peloton will tackle the brutal ascent of the Chemin des Chapelles on four occasions for the very first time. Another major change to the programme for Wednesday, 17 April is that the women will start in the early afternoon and finish an hour after the men at the end of an extended course (143.5 km).

 The programme for Sunday, 21 April has also been inverted. Remco Evenepoel and his rivals will lead the vanguard to the Ardent City for the 110th edition of Liège–Bastogne–Liège. A while later, the women will follow the same course from Bastogne to Liège (147.6 km), clashing on climbs such as the Côte de Cornémont, which comes between La Redoute and the Côte des Forges.
 25 squads —including four wildcard teams— of seven riders each will make up the 175-strong pelotons of La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, while 144 cyclists representing 24 outfits will get to grips with La Flèche Wallonne Femmes and Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes.

Once a year, the roads of the Province of Liège lead to Huy and Liège and rekindle the fire of the Ardennes classics, a sequence of races that have gone down in cycling history. First raced in 1936 (on a course from Tournai to Liège), La Flèche Wallonne went through a watershed moment in 1985, when it moved its finish line to the summit of the Mur de Huy. The upcoming 88th edition, scheduled for 17 April 2024, will therefore be the 40th time that the race culminates on an ascent that immediately earned a spot among the toughest climbs in pro cycling.

To mark the occasion, the final circuit has been compacted to 31.6 km, with the Côte d’Ereffe and the Mur de Huy as the pièces de résistance. For the first time ever, the riders will have to drag their bicycles up these slopes (1.3 km at an average gradient of 9.6%, peaking at close to 20%, most notably on the Claudy Criquielion turn, named for the first victor on the Mur) an eye-watering four times! The successor to Tadej Pogacar, who clinched his first victory in 2023, will blast across the finish line around 4:30 pm, after 199.1 km of racing from Charleroi, which will host the start of the race for the 30th time.

Minutes after the gripping finale of the men’s race, the stars of La Flèche Wallonne Femmes will embark on their own adventure to tame the Mur too, in keeping with a fine tradition that goes all the way back to 1998. As usual, the women’s race will roll out of the Grand-Place in Huy, but the start of the 28th edition has been moved to 2 pm so that the crowds can give them a wild reception around 6 pm. On their way to the Mur, they will discover new ascents in Gives, Courrière and Évrehailles, coming at the beginning of a course that will be about 15 kilometres longer (143.5 km).

The order of the races will also be switched around on Sunday, 21 April. Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes will start in the early afternoon and draw to a close about an hour and a half after the Old Lady. Remco Evenepoel, eager to join Léon Houa, Eddy Merckx and Moreno Argentin in the ultra-select club of riders who have won the race three times in a row since its inaugural edition in 1892, will face the same climbs that sent him on a trajectory to his second triumph in 2023, including the detour to Cornémont, just after La Redoute, where he left Tom Pidcock in the dust.

Heading out from Bastogne, the women’s peloton will follow the very same route to Quai des Ardennes: a 147.6 km roller coaster peppered with nine climbs, starting with the Côte de Saint-Roch and also featuring the Wanne–Stockeu–Haute-Levée triptych before the Côte de La Roche-aux-Faucons, the last major challenge of the day. At the end of the adventure, glory awaits in the Ardent City.

ALULA TOUR 2024 : BETWEEN MOUNTAINS AND DESERT, SUBSTANTIAL MENU FOR THE RIDERS

Key points:
• The 2024 edition of the AlUla Tour will take place from 30 January to 3 February 2024 over five stages in the heart of the historic and mountainous region of AlUla, giving the puncheurs-grimpeurs and sprinters a chance to express themselves.
• The route, around the historic site of AlUla, will take the riders through several exceptional sites such as AlManshiyah train station, the Sharaan nature reserve and Hegra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The AlUla Tour (formerly the Saudi Tour) is living up to its new name, with five stages contested in the AlUla region, a tourist destination with a rich historical heritage and timeless landscapes. The unprecedented start at the foot of the Hegra tombs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008, promises a grandiose visual spectacle that the riders in the international peloton will not soon forget.

Early season races in the Middle East have often been favourable for sprinters, and Dylan Groenewegen will be keen on winning once again in the Saudi desert and wear the jersey of his Jayco-AlUla team with pride. The climbers and puncheurs will also be out in force, with Simon Yates, who finished fourth in the last Tour de France, expected to liven up the mountain stage. The final stage of the AlUla Tour and the final climb towards Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid promises a fierce battle for the overall classification, with an average gradient of 17% over one kilometer.

Before reaching the end of this fifth and final stage, the riders will have to cover several hundred kilometers through the winding roads of the Saudi desert and mountains. After a first stage promised to the sprinters and a second which could smile to the puncheurs with its bumpy finish leading to the Sharaan nature reserve. The third stage has the potential to shake up the expected scenario with a brand new finish around the AlUla Camel Cup Track. Race director Jean-Marc Marino warns: „With this straight stretch of almost twenty kilometers exposed to the wind, we can expect to see a lot of echelons, as was the case in 2023 during the second stage“.

The fourth leg, from Hegra to Maraya, is a small-scale reflection of Saudi Arabia. A site steeped in history as the starting point, combined with the modernity of Maraya, a cultural space made up of mirrors offering a unique perception of the neighbouring desert landscape, as the finishing point.

The stages of the AlUla Tour 2024 :
1st stage, Tuesday 30 January: AlManshiyah Train Station – AlManshiyah Train Station, 149.1 km
2nd stage, Wednesday 31 January: Winter Park – Sharaan Nature Reserve, 199.1 km
3rd stage, Thursday 1 February: AlUla International Airport – AlUla Camel Cup Track, 170.6 km
4th stage, Friday 2 February: Hegra – Maraya, 142.2 km
5th stage, Saturday 3 February: AlUla Old Town – Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid, 150.2 km

18 teams selected

Nine UCI WorldTeams
Astana Qazaqstan Team (Kaz)
Bahrain Victorious (Brn)
Bora-Hansgrohe (Ger)
Cofidis (Fra)
Movistar Team (Esp)
Team Jayco AlUla (Aus)
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL (Ned)
Soudal Quick-Step (Bel)
UAE Team Emirates (Uae)

Five UCI ProTeams
Euskaltel – Euskadi (Esp)
Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team (Sui)
TotalEnergies (Fra)
Tudor Pro Cycling Team (Sui)
Uno-X Mobility (Nor)

These 13 teams will be joined by four others
JCL Team Ukyo (Jap)
Roojai Insurance (Thai)
Terengganu Cycling Team (Mas)
Saudi National Team (Sau)

Statement zur Partnerschaft mit Red Bull

Das Joint Venture zwischen Red Bull und der Betreibergesellschaft von Team Manager Ralph Denk kann wie geplant umgesetzt werden. Die österreichische Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde hat keine Einwände zur angestrebten Partnerschaft bei BORA – hansgrohe. Weitere Details zur Partnerschaft werden im Laufe der Saison vorgestellt.

Ralph Denk, Team Manager von BORA – hansgrohe: „Mit der heutigen Entscheidung haben wir eine wichtige Hürde genommen. Jetzt steht das Fundament unserer Partnerschaft mit Red Bull ganz offiziell. Das ist das grüne Licht, auf das wir gewartet haben, um uns die Formalitäten und vielen einzelnen Bausteine der Zusammenarbeit vorzunehmen.“

„Jeder im Radsport weiß, wie wichtig die Vorbereitung und Grundlagen für den Erfolg sind. Also gehen wir jetzt auch diesen Schritt mit der nötigen Ruhe an. Die weiteren Details unserer Partnerschaft werden wir im Verlauf der Saison vorstellen.“


Plomi Foto

Dani Martínez ist neuer kolumbianischer Zeitfahrmeister

Erstes Rennen – erster Sieg. Daniel Felipe Martínez hat sein Debüt für BORA – hansgrohe gleich für einen Erfolg genutzt und gewinnt souverän die kolumbianischen Zeitfahrmeisterschaften. Nach 2019, 2020 und 2022 ist es bereits der vierte Titel für den 27-jährigen Neuzugang.

Dani Martínez meisterte den Kurs über 41,8 Kilometer in knapp 54 Minuten und verwies alle Konkurrenten mit einem Minutenabstand auf die Plätze. Damit bleibt es für den gerade eingeweihten
Zeitfahranzug bei einem einzigen Rennen. Bereits beim nächsten Zeitfahren –voraussichtlich bei der Volta ao Algarve, die er im letzten Jahr gewann– tritt Martínez im kolumbianischen Meister-Design an.

Ergebnis
01 D. Martínez 0:54:02

02 B. Rivera +1:38
03 R. Contreras +1:56