De Panne - 9am

[Alkworld]

Hello everybody and welcome to the race thread of the early morning edition of De Panne 2012. I'm hoping for a nice competition and it looks good already right now. Team Alkworld will most likely be there with the following line-up:
1)
2) Eliseo Alberto
3) Tupac Amaru
4) Joaquin Camacho
5) Romulo Gallegos
6) Francisco deMiranda
7) Antonio Narino
8) Miguel Otero
9) Oscar Romero

The position of captain is still open, but we have two options in mind.

[team fl]

FL also here with a waaaay too expensive team, but well, end of march and it seems our team's future riders don't want to train anyway, so maybe the last chance to present a strong line-up:

x1 Nathaniel Biedermann, not the real leader, but as far as I don't know yet, we just do it alphabetically
x2 Fred Colon, old and fuzzy
x3 Tony Hassler, always angry (especially about the training losers!!!)
x4 Niels Hörnö, who stopped training with 23, son of a bitch!!!
x5 Harry Hole, who stopped training in the middle of 23, asshole!!!
x6 Stefan "King" Küng, maybe the leader
x7 Wesley Lichtenkiesel, not much to say about him
x8 Jean Ollé Ollé, who left out two times sprint with 22, bastard!!!
x9 Gaudenz Taverna, who is fearfully looking at stage 1 and Ruhrgebiet's timetrialist

[Alkworld]

The position of captain is still open, but we have two options in mind.

Cervantes it is. Sabato was complaining about the lack of support by the manager and disappeared. We still hope he'll be back in Belgium on Sunday, where he's supposed to finish 2nd behind Otero.

[team fl]

GW Alk, but damn it. First no connection, then surprisingly I have to leave, 10 km before the finish line, and before I can set the sprint. Well, bad luck, whatever. My love life has to be wonderful

[Alkworld]

GW Alk, but damn it. First no connection, then surprisingly I have to leave, 10 km before the finish line, and before I can set the sprint. Well, bad luck, whatever. My love life has to be wonderful

That's too bad. With the Todea block and Otero being still very strong, nobody would have gotten very far probably and Cervantes would have loved to follow the attacks of the King
Anyway, looks like we have a tour with a lot of action, for sure more than some were hoping for. But having this tour in the middle of all the other Belgian races led to a lot of riders still having good form. GC should be now decided between Cervantes, Kozlov (both with strong teams) and Buch (without any real help). So let's see what today's stage will be like

[team fl]

Yeah, King Küng did it! Stage (100th race win for Team FL!!!) and yellow, maybe even for another (half) stage. In a very curious race he showed his strength against the indisposed sprinter teams. Anyway, Cervantes still the main favorite for the GC, followed by Kozlov who is also currently wearing the white jersey. the mountain classement is already fixed, congrats to Jeancloude Mazzi from TUTTIFRUTTI. The team classement depends mainly on the final time trial, although it also looks good for Team FL.

[Alkworld]

Today's race is a good candidate for the title of weirdest finish ever. After the big split in the middle of the race (which was pretty weird itself mostly because of the infamous 9****), the sprinter teams were working well together at first, then almost stopped, then continued again just to give up totally after the classic group was caught again. After some chaos during the last 20 km and still few sprinters working but attacking, a group finally got through (which itself wasn't weird after all) giving the King finally another win in Belgium after a somehow disappointing week . Anyway, Cervantes is pretty happy with the result as yellow is in reach and green is almost safe already.

[team fl]

Last day, two half stages. First a sprint royal with a stage win for Playboy, finally. Much more interesting was the TT. It was won by the best time trialist of course, but that was secondary. Kozlov came dangerously close to Cervantes who would not have won the GC and the points classement without the two intermediaries yesterday. So, well done by Alkworld, but Kozlov left with the youth classement at least. In the fight for the last podium place, King Küng, Todea and Njiminen were only seperated by seconds. Finally, it was the bigger Kwalität that decided, of course in favour of Küng. Team FL also won the Team classement that supports this. Finally, the facts:

General classement:

01. 00:00 Miguel Cervantes (Alkworld)
02. 00:07 Aleksander Koslov (Moscow Team Pro)
03. 01:06 Stefan Küng (Team FL)
04. 01:08 Caius Todea (Petit Singe)
05. 01:13 Boris Njiminen (Team Suessem)
06. 01:15 Thomas Buch (ornyorny
07. 01:26 Marco Beduschi (TUTTFRUTTI)
08. 01:39 Kai Schwarenberg (RC Bad Hersfeld)
09. 01:51 Denis Marconato (VeloPiemonte)
10. 02:16 Max Schattenstein (RC Bad Hersfeld)

Points classement:

- Miguel Cervantes (Alkworld)

Mountain classement:

- Jeancloude Mazzi (TUTTIFRUTTI)

Youth classement:

- Aleksander Kozlov (Moscow Team Pro)

Team classement:

- Team FL

Stage wins by team:

1- Alkworld
1- Die Playboys
1- Team FL
1- Team Ruhrgebiet

Stage wins by rider:

1- Miguel Cervantes (Alkworld)
1- Stefan Küng (Team FL)
1- Nils Ove Grundtvik (Die Playboys)
1- Tjark Eemsdam (Team Ruhrgebiet)

[Robyklebt]

Not sure it's the facts! Hugo is thinking about lodging an official complaint...

Ape happy enough with the 3 days... 1 day all as excpected, was hoping to be able to attack a bit more, force Alk to work harder, but he was too good in anticipating all the time.
Second stage, well.... that damn Alk gave me ideas, killed myself with changing helpers, only to be dropped at the Kemmelberg without pavé.. .bah. Form? Mine MSR, should be no secret.. could be. Stupid Markku... then mistimed the attacks with Leibundgut... should have gone earlier or wait for Mehlhorn, not good, but ok.
Then today all as expected really, MS, Playboys won, Markku beats Ecker which makes him happy, but we actually want more than that.
TT, place 4 in the GC for Todea.. not bad.
Finally ok stage race for us, no win, couldn't provoke FL, mmh, why was it ok??? Ah, enjoyed insulting ornyorny... that was fun.