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Will be there with:

Jaroslaw Marczynski
Carlos Acuna
Luis Ibarra
Rui Pereira
Paulo Garces
Darko Bodul
Daniele Nef
Artura Parra
Felipe Diaz

good luck everyone

Team FL will decide on Wednesday if Tirreno is worth a try... The only think I like about it so far is the starting times. Anyway, IF Team FL will participate, it will be a quest for Mr. Lampe I guess.

Team Liquigas will join this race with the following line up:

Paquito Ortiz
Matias Delgado
Predrag Zivkovic
Miguel Perez
Milan Kovacevic
Vito Calabrese
Krasimir Tonev
Andres Vlelazquez
Wouter Mathijssen

Goal is one place on GC Podium for Paquito

And I thought you wanted to repeat the outstanding performance of 2015

This year is more for classics. So Would be fine to have Paquito 2nd overall.

You're the master of understatement, Liquigas. Maybe a classic rider like a Leupold or a Habermacher with a nice TT skill (and of course climbers with 70+ TT) could be dangerous for Paquito, but in general, Mr. Ortiz is one of the main favourites for the GC win as far as I see it. From the current group, only Marcel Jung from Oméga Team could be a threat for him out of the classic riders faction. But his team does not look very experienced...

Anyway, my line up will be the following, if I don't panic out of Tirenno 2 min before it starts:

x1 Breyten Breytenbach
x2 Hassan Dif
x3 Iwan Franko
x4 Carlos Lampe
x5 Bambang Megaranto
x6 Otto Ospelt
x7 Elwyn Oxley
x8 Amartya Sen
x9 Carlos Tejeday

Goal will be to win everything, as usual.

Favourtie check:

General classement:

***** Paquito Ortiz (Liquigas-CND)
**** Marwan Abdoul (Squeeze), Marcel Jung (Oméga Team),
*** ...
** Another climber or classic rider
* a suprise rider

Points classement:

*** Elwyn Oxley (Team FL)
** Javi Karanka (Atletico Lula)
* Arturo Kinch (SV Furpach)

Mountain classement:

*** the one who wants it
** another rider
* a surprise rider

Youth classement:

*** Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)
** Carlos Lampe (Team FL), Vincenzo Rogati (Squeeze)
* Whayne Wilson (SV Furpach)

Team classement:

*** Liquigas-CND
** SV Furpach
* Team Kazi Blocks, Team FL

What an interesting TTT it was. Well, Squeeze won it as expected and now has a nice advantage for the GK for Rogati (also white) and Aboul. But instead of Oméga Team, that had a rough start into the TTT, it is Furpach on 2nd place, but already 37 secs behind the winner team. While LIquigas-CND with Paquito Ortiz started very well, the team seemed to went too fast early and hence lost lots of good secs in the final third of the stage. So the Classement of the GC-relevant riders looks like this after the TTT:

01. 00:00 Vincenzo Rogati (Squeeze)
02. 00:00 Marwan Aboul (Squeeze)
03. 00:37 Roberto Cossu (SV Furpach)
04. 00:37 Edwin Vasquez (SV Furpach)
05. 00:46 Marcel Jung (Oméga Team)
06. 00:57 Jan Jagielski (Mercatone-uno)
07. 01:09 Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)
08. 01:14 Paquito Ortiz (Liquigas-CND)
09. 01:17 Carlos Lampe (Team FL)
10. 01:32 Michal Kreuziger (celteam)

it will be an interesting fight for GC and white. Everyone has a chance this tour.

Thanks to Alkworld, Breytenbach won stage 2, while the roles in the classements haven't changed that much. Still Squeeze in pole position, followed by SV Furpach, Oméga Team and Liquigas-CND. Today was a very boring stage 3 for the first half of it, but a very fast second half, when Liquigas, Mercatone-uno and partly SV Furpach tried to get back time from Antonio Rico who won the stage with more than three and a half minutes in front of the main group (from a max of over 16 min, when the peloton woke up). So he's now in yellow and leading in the points classement, 3 min in front of the main favourites. In between him and the main group, lonly Juan Morientes from Ateltico Lula got second. And guess who one in the main group behind the early escape winner. Right, as usual, Team FL with Elwyn Oxely. Anyway, nice to see that he still has the speed in the finish. in the GC, it looks like this before the week-end with two very decisive stages (only GC-relevant riders and Rico as leader at least until tomorrow):

01. 00:00 Antonio Rico (Oméga Team)
02. 02:35 Vincenzo Rogati (Squeeze)
03. 02:37 Marwan Aboul (Squeeze)
04. 02:45 Edwin Vasquez (SV Furpach)
05. 03:06 Breyten Breytenbach (Team FL)
06. 03:08 Roberto Cossu (SV Furpach)
06. 03:23 Marcel Jung (Oméga Team)
07. 03:28 Jan Jagielski (Mercatone-uno)
08. 03:28 Michal Kreuziger (celteam)
09. 03:44 Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)
10. 03:44 Paquito Ortiz (Liquigas-CND)
11. 03:48 Carlos Lampe (Team FL)

An exciting weekend it was. Squeeze was off the whole time and should be out of the GC discussion by now.

But first things first. On Saturday, Team FL expected a lot of action, but nothing much happened. First move was done around 90 km before the finish line, when Atletico Lula attacked. Because the peloton reacted quickly, everthiny went down to the last hill, where SV Furpach rode hard and tried a move with Vasquez and Cossu. Behind him, other teams were interested and worked together to catch the front group which was achieved succesfully until the finish line. In a sprint of the decimated main group, Oxley from Team FL won and took over green from his team mate Breytenbach. For other classements, nothing changed much, and Rico from Oméga Team still wearing yellow, although losing some time. Squeeze still there too.

Well, if not on Sunday and the big mountain stage, when else should something happen. And contrary to Saturday, the action began soon and intensively. While a group tried its luck it were Mercatone-uno for Jagielski and Liquigas-CND for Ortiz who dictated the tempo in the peloton. Esp. Ortiz had two goals: gaining as much time as possible on Rico and leaving Aboul and Rogati from Squeeze as much behind as possible, maybe even going for the stage win. That worked well with a hard pace and a good split at Montelago. But then again, SV Furpach was in a good position too with Vasquez and esp. Cossu. And as the final result showed, it was enough for Cossu to gain yellow. Second in GC now though, and stage winner because Jagielski couldn't keep up, is Ortiz, only 11 secs behind the SV Furpach rider. Should be possible to overtake him in the final ITT. Behind Ortiz, Lampe from Team FL finished second while Jagielski seemed to have some technical problems and only finished third although being the best climber in the group, nominally. Cossu now also has a shot at green, having the same amount of points as Oxely. Lampe is in White but could be overtaken by Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks) who is the slightly better time trialist. The only classement that is sealed is the mountain classement, in which Daniele Nef from Team Kazi Blocks is leading uncatchable, even mathematically. Anyway, the GC looks like this before the last two stages:

01. 00:00 Roberto Cossu (SV Furpach)
02. 00:11 Paquito Ortiz (Liquigas-CND)
03. 00:20 Jan Jagielski (Mercatone-uno)
04. 00:33 Carlos Lampe (Team FL)
05. 00:44 Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)
06. 01:19 Edwin Vasquez (SV Furpach)
07. 02:02 Douglas Maicon (Mercatone-uno)
08. 02:13 Michal Kreuziger (celteam)
09. 02:36 Vincenzo Rogati (Squeeze)
10. 03:21 Antonio Rico (Oméga Team)

Finally we are close to the last stage (10 KM of flat TT).
The GC classament before last stage looks as follows:

01. 00:00 Roberto Cossu (SV Furpach)
02. 00:17 Paquito Ortiz (Liquigas-CND)
03. 00:26 Jan Jagielski (Mercatone-uno)
04. 00:39 Carlos Lampe (Team FL)
05. 00:50 Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)

I dont see any change of position between the above 5 riders after tomorrows TT.
Team Liquigas-CND has already accomplished the mission in Tirreno 2016 (2nd position in the GC).

So we have still two fights going on: for yellow and for white. for yellow Cossu has to defend 17 secs agains Ortiz and for white, Lampe has to defend 11 secs against Marczynski, both against better time trialists. So a lot will depend on form and chance. Already decided is the mountain classement, won by Daniele Nef, Team Kazi Blocks, and the points classement, won by Elwyn Oxley (Team FL), although that is not sure yet mathematically. SV Furpach will win the team classement most likely. But it looks like my predictions were pretty good in the beginning

Ohhh, what a surprise !!! Team Liquigas-CND is on fire!

After winning the 5th stage, Paquito Ortiz wins the GC in Tirreno-Adriatico 2016!!!

This is mainly because of the intelligent approach of the team manager.

Marczynski become third in GC and got the white jersey. TTskilzz

Liquigas-CND wrote:Ohhh, what a surprise !!! Team Liquigas-CND is on fire!

After winning the 5th stage, Paquito Ortiz wins the GC in Tirreno-Adriatico 2016!!!

What a surprise!!!

This is mainly because of the intelligent approach of the team manager.

Well, this would be a real surprise

Anyway, final results:

15.03.2016,15 Uhr Tirreno

1. Platz: Paquito Ortiz (Liquigas-CND)
2. Platz: Roberto Cossu (SV Furpach)
3. Platz: Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)

Bergtrikot: Daniele Nef (Team Kazi Blocks)
Sprinttrikot: Elwyn Oxley (Team FL)
Jungfahrertrikot: Jaroslaw Marczynski (Team Kazi Blocks)
Mannschaftswertung: SV Furpach

Looks like I was right about GC winner, PC winner and YC winner. TC winner was my runner-up and mountain jersey was the one who wants it, means I was right there too. Hehe.