Key talking points from the first classics of the year
Monday 2 March 2015 15:30, UK
The classics started this weekend and delivered plenty of action-packed racing.
Here, were the key talking points…
We knew before this past weekend that Ian Stannard was an outstanding classics rider, but the manner in which he mugged Etixx – Quick-Step trio Tom Boonen, Niki Terpstra and Stijn Vandenbergh to win Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday suggested he must now be regarded in the top tier of one-day specialists.
Granted, the Team Sky rider was by far the freshest of the leading quartet going into the decisive final 5km after the Quick-Step trio had been forced to ride hard to fend off a chase group, but still, to shut down two attacks – first from Terpstra and then from Boonen – before attacking himself and then producing a winning sprint was a remarkable display of strength and tactical control.
The mood in the Team Sky hotel after Stannard’s win on Saturday evening was no doubt euphoric, but one man who might who might have been quaffing champagne with slightly less vigour than everyone else was Sir Bradley Wiggins, whose claims to leading Team Sky at Paris-Roubaix have surely been weakened by his team-mate’s remarkable performance.
The British squad do not do sentiment, even in Wiggins’ case (look at his omission from the Tour de France team last summer), so the fact that Paris-Roubaix is his final race for the team will matter little if Stannard arrives at the start line with a better chance of winning. Even if they begin the race as co-leaders (Geraint Thomas could also be in the equation), Stannard’s performance on Saturday would suggest it is more likely than not that he will be in the final group at Paris-Roubaix, so Wiggins will have to match that and then prove he is the better bet to go for the win.
Although impressive, Mark Cavendish’s early-season wins at the Tour de San Luis, Dubai Tour and Clasica de Almeria came in smaller races and against fields missing the likes of Marcel Kittel, Alexander Kristoff and Andre Greipel. They hinted he was in good form, but where he stood in the bigger picture of marquee races later in the season, such as Milan-San Remo and the Tour de France, was less clear.
However, his fine victory at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday, in which he comprehensively defeated the in-form Kristoff, confirmed that Cavendish is indeed going well and looks in a good position to challenge for victory at Milan-San Remo on March 22. The fact he also safely negotiated the race’s climbs – even making it into a brief breakaway group that formed after the short but steep Oude Kwaremont – suggested he has the legs to conquer the climbs of Milan-San Remo without issue.
Watching Cavendish round Kristoff to claim victory at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, it was easy to miss the remarkable late recovery produced by Team Sky’s Elia Viviani, who finished third. The Italian was miles back with 800m to go, completely detached from his rivals, but over the next 500m he managed to tag back on to Cavendish’s wheel to put himself in the picture for the final sprint.
By then, his prior exertions had deprived him of his top-end speed, so he was ultimately unable to overhaul Cavendish at the death, but it was difficult not to wonder if he might have won had he been on the Manxman’s wheel right from the start. It was an impressive display from Viviani, who appears close to a breakthrough big win.
Lizzie Armitstead doesn’t see herself as a sprinter but this weekend she once again proved that fast finishing is becoming one of her most potent weapons. Having already won two bunch sprints on the way to overall victory at the Ladies’ Tour of Qatar last month, the Boels-Dolmans rider triumphed in another at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, although on this occasion it was only good enough for third place given that Anna van der Breggen and Ellen van Dijk had earlier broken away and hung on to the finish.
Armitstead was pipped into second and third place in sprints on numerous occasions in 2014, but the early signs this year suggest they could well be converted into wins in 2015.
