Written by Yuri of Yuri SuperTeam
Preview Volta ao Porto
New Season, same picture on the Streets of Porto. The usual queues in front of the “Livraria Lello”and “Café Majestic”, the full restaurants with the hungry Tourists after a long day searching for the beautiful Landmarks of the City and the impressive seaside in “Foz” that invites us to see the sunset with a glass of wine in the hand.
Busy as usual, Porto has a special uniform today. Yes, the Volta ao Porto sign up is today and the Tour HQ is competing with “Lello” and “Majestic” by having an even bigger queue of Team managers eager to sign up for the Tour. And in just 2 Minutes 15 Team Managers managed to sign in their 6 riders for the Tour while it took less than 2 Hours for them to get 22 registrations leaving last season’s winner and runner up spot still open. 1 hour later and Mr. Damian signed his team and last season winner Claude Vogels meaning | | that we have only 1 spot left which will only be filled in 3 days. Who’s going to get it?
Last season brought us a 4-horse fight between Dmitry Salko, Ferris Parlow, Colin Vogl and Claude Vogels. Dmitry and Colin won’t be joining the fun this season while Ferris moved to a new team meaning that the fight will be open to crown the King of Porto. In total, only 4 riders from last season’s Top9 will be racing this season. In fact, Ferris and Claude are the only riders in the peloton who finished on the Top3 GC before, so at least one rider will be making his debut on the podium.
On the SC the picture is completely different since Teodor Sandberg is the only rider with some experience here (2nd in Season 55). No rider from last season’s Top3 will be joining the fun this season.
This season 4 ex-Top3 YC riders will be racing the Tour, but only Pascoal Baptista will be able to fight for it again. Denis Ha?as (winner in Season 53), Jerry Tuimavave and Uwe Gassner can only aim for the GC.
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| | | | Now the question on everyone’s mind is? Who are the favorites for this season’s edition? Some might say it’s too soon to know since the Top Forms haven’t been revealed, but we decided to give it a try:
Help ( Claude Vogels) - *****
Surprise, surprise, last season’s winner is the Top Favorite. For sure his TF will be useful here.
Sicco ( Uwe Gassner) - *****
Uwe best result here is only an 8th place in 2 participations, but now we think he has a chance, why not?
logoloos ( Ferris Parlow) - ****
Former winner and last season’s 3rd place will now be racing with a new team, will he perform at his best again?
Ello Ello ( Phongsavanh Phanvathvongsack) - ****
A long shot, or the perfect shot? Pho doesn’t seem like the best rider on paper, but with a super strong team behind him he might do well anyway.
Vaduz ( Ksawery Jagodzi?ski) - ****
Just like Pho, Ksawery doesn’t look amazing, and he is not. Still, he will be one of the riders to beat on the TTs, will he hang on on the climbs?
AnnoDomini ( Denis Ha?as) - ***
Former YC winner will try to improve on his 4th place 4 seasons ago. Will he finally jump into the podium? Without TF will be hard.
Bilsky ( Holger Boldsen) - ***
Just like Denis, Holger won’t be in Top Form, but with a strong team behind him, we expect him to perform well anyway. Contender for the final Top9 here!
Willunga Hill ( Jerry Tuimavave) - ***
Jerry has Top Form and finished 4th 3 seasons ago (while seating on 2nd place on the YC). Still, we don’t think he has the right team backing him up. Will he surprise us anyway?
Yuri SuperTeam ( Raimundo Frota) - ***
Raimundo has Top From, a strong team behind him and has a strong Tour pedigree. Still, at the age of 35, he might be just too old to fight for a win. Or is he?
Team Guy ( Josias Marroquín) - ***
Basically, the same as Raimundo, Josias is yet another black horse here.
YCO ( Emrick Quain) - ***
It’s not clear if Emrick will be captain at YCO, but either him or Bud Castleberry will have difficulties to fight for the Top Spots, but if they manage to back each other up, they might be a strong duo with influence on the final Top9 GC.
Lokomotíva Zvolen ( Eduard Pavelka) - ***
Eduard is a similar rider to Pho and Ksawery but won’t be performing that well on the TTs.
royle ( Phil Preston) - ***
Phil is a strong rider and with Toller Péter behind him even more. Problem might be the rest of the team being a step behind. I don’t see him competing with the strong powerhouses up there.
Team WonderDee ( Bengt Granskog) - **
Bengt is strong, Team WonderDee is strong, but are they strong enough? Despite being competitive in both the climbs and TTs, Bengt isn’t the best, so mixing into the Top9 should be considered a victory already.
TD rockets ( Gijsbert Zeydeveld) - **
It’s hard to see who the captain at TD rockets is, but we went ahead and choose Gijsbert for it. Strong team in the climbs, but weak in the TTs and without Top Form.
Kremer, Silver Giant, ekaitz team, Talwin, CK Hymer, Stroopwafel, Silenzio and TeamTVM probably won’t be competing for the GC and will be analyzed on another Article.
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