Monday, May 14, 2007
Premiere Win of 2007
Its been a hideous season for me so far, after missing the whole winter through a knee injury I started to get going for the start of April, only to contract an illness just before the Circuit des Ardennes which developed into Gastro-Intestinal issues for the Tour du Loire-et-Cher and which dragged on until Bourg-Arbent-Bourg.
So when the team decided I needed to rebuild gently as opposed to my usual 'you must be joking' I took their advice and opted to stay at home and race on the Cote d'Azur. Friday night was Piste, down at Hyeres, with decidedly stiffer opposition in the sprint events (Bourgain, Sireau and the Chinese National Squad) but I started the weekend with 3 wins on the Wood.
Sunday saw me take the start of the GP d'Antibes, an tough race closer to Sophia-Antibolis than to Antibes, which nonetheless included some 1700m climbing in little over 90km. I took off in the early 10man move which by the time the race had reached half distance was whittled down to 4. Not long after this point a series of attacks left myself and Martial Ricci-Poggi (also of AVC Aix) at the head of affairs. We soon tucked 2minutes into the chase pair and 4min into the peloton, decimated by the heat and the circuit.
Being team-mates and both of whom need a win, we decided to race 'a la pedal' in a clean sprint, unfortunately for Martial, im pretty rapid in a small-group sprint and I took out my first Road win in France since the end of 2005.
Next up is the Coupe de France Individual Time Trial where on current form im hoping to grab a good result.
So when the team decided I needed to rebuild gently as opposed to my usual 'you must be joking' I took their advice and opted to stay at home and race on the Cote d'Azur. Friday night was Piste, down at Hyeres, with decidedly stiffer opposition in the sprint events (Bourgain, Sireau and the Chinese National Squad) but I started the weekend with 3 wins on the Wood.
Sunday saw me take the start of the GP d'Antibes, an tough race closer to Sophia-Antibolis than to Antibes, which nonetheless included some 1700m climbing in little over 90km. I took off in the early 10man move which by the time the race had reached half distance was whittled down to 4. Not long after this point a series of attacks left myself and Martial Ricci-Poggi (also of AVC Aix) at the head of affairs. We soon tucked 2minutes into the chase pair and 4min into the peloton, decimated by the heat and the circuit.
Being team-mates and both of whom need a win, we decided to race 'a la pedal' in a clean sprint, unfortunately for Martial, im pretty rapid in a small-group sprint and I took out my first Road win in France since the end of 2005.
Next up is the Coupe de France Individual Time Trial where on current form im hoping to grab a good result.
# posted by PageK @ Monday, May 14, 2007 
