The Cycliste Moderne, April 16, 2006

The Amstel Gold Race Recap

Sunday was the 41st Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands. Amstel Gold Race marks the end of the flat classics and the beginning of the mountainous classics ridden largely in the Ardennes with Amstel Gold Race taking place in the Dutch portion of the Ardennes in the region around Maastricht, Fleche Wallone taking place midweek in and around Huy, Belgium and next Sunday’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege finishing the spring classic season. Cycling.tv has all three races live this week, so I got up this morning, not quite as early as last week and watched the final 50km of the race through the Limburg region of the Netherlands along the Belgian and German borders.

As it is the only classic in the Netherlands, Amstel Gold Race has special significance to Dutch riders and in specific to Dutch sponsors. As a result, Rabobank was expected to be strong today as they have each of the last seven years when they managed to put a rider on the podium. Rabobank’s Michael Boogerd beat Lance Armstrong to win in 1999, and the team won again in 2001 when Erik Dekker again outlasted Lance Armstrong. Since then, Boogerd has finished second three consecutive years.

The Amstel Gold Race has 31 climbs including three trips up the Cauberg in Valkenburg where the race finishes. The Dutch climbs are short but steep with many averaging over 15% including some over 20%. Even with those types of climbs, it is not uncommon for the race to finish with a sprint up the final kilometer to the summit of the Cauberg from the valley floor in Valkenburg.

That did not happen today as the peleton rode aggressively and Rabobank rode defensively. Rabobank spent much of the day at the front controlling the pace of the race to set up Boogerd, Dekker or Spaniard Oscar Friere for the victory. In the end, even though the team managed to close down a dangerous late break with Quick.Step’s Paolo Bettini in it, it was not able to control late attacks. T-Mobile’s Steffan Wessamann was probably the strongest rider today but did not ride very tactically and although he animated the race late in the day, he found himself out of position and reacting to the final attack with 10km to go when Team CSC’s Franck Schleck, the national champion of Luxembourg, quickly rode away from the peleton managing to open an insurmountable thirty second lead within a couple of kilometers. When Wessamann finally attacked, it was too late and Team CSC had their second classic victory in a row.

Team CSC had ridden a perfect race and had two men in the final break with Dutch rider Karsten Kroon well positioned to counterattack if Schleck fell short. In the end, Rabobank failed to get the race back together but Boogerd managed to follow Wessamann across the finish to complete the podium.

Why Team Tactics Matter #1

Sunday showed once again that if you are going to try to control a race, then you better keep it controlled or you will end up with almost nothing to show for it. After Milram rode at the front most of the day at Milan-San Remo to try and control the race, the team found itself at the end of the race with just two riders, Petacchi and Zabel, contesting the finish. While both are strong riders, Petacchi needed more of a leadout than he got as he just fell short of chasing down Quick.Step’s Filippo Pozzato.

Rabobank did the same thing today. Although most of the rest of the peleton was willing to let the early break get a big gap, Rabobank tried to control the race and ended up expending too much energy to be able to keep the race together for its leaders at the end. Rabobank failed in its home race because it rode like it was afraid of losing, which is exactly what happened.

With the larger budgets and larger rosters that ProTour teams have today, there is much more depth in the peleton than ever before. Most of the ProTour teams are now able to have a classics team for the flat classics in Flanders and an essentially different team for the hilly classics later in April. As such, all the top teams come with a full complement of strong riders, something that did not typically happen under the old racing calendar.

Why Team Tactics Matter #2

Although Steffan Wessamann was clearly one of the strongest riders today, he probably lost because of poor tactical awareness. T-Mobile managed to place four riders in the top 21 with three in the top 10 on the day. Wessamann attacked repeatedly and put in a really big attack with about 40km to go. He had teammates in the chase. However, he had to settle for second place on the day. Why? Because he was significantly stronger than his teammates and his late attacks put his teammates under too much pressure to make them be of any assistance late in the race. When Schleck finally attacked, Wessamann found himself essentially alone as neither Serguei Ivanov nor Patrik Sinkewitz could match his pace at that point. They all had good results, but Wessamann’s early attacks and his teammates inability to counterattack thereafter made second place the best that he could do on the day.

Hincapie Update

George Hincapie of Discovery Channel returned to the United States for medical treatment after his hard crash last Sunday at Paris-Roubaix. Throughout the week there were various conflicting reports as to whether he would or would not need surgery. It now appears that he did not break anything, but instead separated his shoulder and surgery will not be needed. It is expected that Hincapie will be back on the bike in a couple of weeks and the injury should not affect his Tour de France preparation.

It is interesting to see the volume of letters to the various cycling websites who are once again calling on Hincapie to move to a different team because of the failure of his bike’s steerer tube. Hincapie has become great rider, however, two men are responsible for that greatness: Lance Armstrong and Johann Buyneel. As we have discussed before, any rider who wins Paris-Roubaix has to be strong and incredibly lucky. Hincapie is fairly strong but he has not had the luck that was truly needed to win the race.