Written by Ello Ello at 22:05 20/1-2020
Episode 10: Vuelta a Valparaiso
Narrator: Ello Ello have been building towards the season 51 edition of the Vuelta a Valparaiso for the past two seasons, with all ambitions on winning the Youth Classification with Daniel Sammut Castelletti.
*Eve of Race*
Bertus de Keijsere (Director Sportiv): So it’s the eve of the race. We know what to expect since we’ve been here now five times now and I our plan is going to be the same as it’s always been. Before we even came to the tour for the first time, Placido Maciel had scouted out the route to see where time could be won and so from that first attempt we’ve pretty much had the strategy and we’ve always used the same tactics. Daniel is feeling confident, he saw these roads last season and he’s prepared well so we’ve just got to hope we can do it now.
*Day 1 - Morning*
Iancu Raducioiu (two times Valparaiso GC winner): It’s looking like a nice day. We know today is pretty unimportant so it’s going to all be about just getting everyone to the finish in one piece and maybe letting some of the others have a small pop just to keep them happy.
*Day 1 - evening*
Lincoln Hannity (rider, 3rd place in season 50), 71st: So that was a pretty nice ride, nothing really happened, we all got round it in one piece and there weren’t any surprises. I’ve been chatting to Daniel a bit in the build up, letting him know what to expect but he seems pretty confident. Tomorrow it’s a sprint in the morning which we don’t care about and then the first of the 4 proper stages with some hills.
*Day 2 - evening*
Iancu Raducioiu: That was a great day from all the boys. The morning stage was nothing interesting, again we just wanted to all finish but we knew the afternoon stage was important with the hills. And it all worked. The finish here is quite an aggressive short incline and we got Daniel to the bottom with his main rival, Calle and in those final few hundred he followed Storm before sprinting to 6th, ahead of Tijs. This is exactly how we wanted to start and for him to come in just one place behind a rider like Hetland shows the talent we’ve got here.
Narrator: Day 3 will be the teams biggest challenge. Whilst Daniel is better than Tijs on the hilly stages 3 and 6, stages 4 and 5 see the advantage swing the other way. Stage 4 finishes with a really technical descent that has in the past split the peloton by their descending skills whilst stage 5 is one of the toughest stages of any race in the world, this 181km up Uspallata Pass, a 26km long climb up one of Chile’s toughest roads. If Daniel is to win the youth classification it’s today when he will have to prove it.
*Day 3 - morning*
*Some footage of Bertus and Placido Maciel in the team car shouting instructions and giving bottles to the riders, all looking generally hectic, before cutting to a clip of them shouting with excitement as Castelletti finishes 3rd*
Iancu Raducioiu (Stage 4 winner in season 48). That was a super day from Castelletti, I sadly didn’t stay with him till the final mountain but Lincoln and Gyenge were raving about what happened, and how Daniel attacked near the top to take the lead and was only joined by Brent Mockler and Carsten Kronborg before those two sadly outsprinted him so he came 3rd. We’ve got quite a nice gap now to Calle of around 80 seconds so it’s gonna be super important to keep up this afternoon.
*Some more random clips from inside the car but this time it ends nervously as Tijs crosses the line first and they hope Castelletti is close behind*
Lincoln Hannity: It;s one of the hardest climbs I’ve ever done this one, it’s not particularly steep but ever so long, you’re basically solid climbing for over an hour. With about 5km to go I was the last TM standing and I was just trying to set as even a pace as possible for DSC to follow but it was so tough and I fell back in the final few k. From what I’ve heard it got quite animated after that with a few boys attacking and Daniel struggling to respond but luckily whilst he came in behind Tijs the gap is still 40s and we should have the advantage tomorrow so that’s really nice to see.
*Day 4*
*footage of DSC claiming his YC jersey at the end of the tour, with Tijs falling over 3 minutes behind*
Daniel Sammut Castelletti: WOW, just WOW. I don;’t really know what to say. Today just went to well. About half way through there was a big attack on one of the hills and it basically split the peloton in half and when I heard Tijs was 1 minute behind on the road after that I couldn’t contain myself. I hadn’t truly believed I could do it until that point and I just felt this energy which I managed to keep till the end where I managed to sprint to 3rd on the stage, securing myself the jersey and 3rd in the GC. I’m so delighted, I don’t know what happens now, it’s so great.
Bertus de Keijsere: That was pretty special and to finish on the podium and get a wildcard for next season is really important for the team. Valparaiso is somewhere we really love to race and this win means we have the full classification of jerseys now from this race. I think the SC was probably the hardest one to win, but at the same time it was also the easiest. It was hard because we’re a climbing team, we’re not aiming for Sprint Classifications so winning one isn’t easy, but also we didn’t deviate from our plan. At no point did we make a decision purely to increase our chances of winning the SC so it was easy because we didn’t try. I think ultimately the SC point system here needs reorganising because teams shouldn’t be able to win it without actually trying to.
Henri (manager): It’s really nice seeing a rider, who you discovered, trained and mentored claim such a big victory and the first jersey for a Maltese rider ever, we’re not currently sure on our plan for next season yet but this gives us another big option in the team. We’re coming into the final stages of the season now and a few riders are going to be rested over the next few weeks ahead of next year but we’ve carried on scoring. Basa finished 4th in a division 1 race this week which is really nice to see as he’s one of the guys who’s season is almost over now and Daniel has done well today to finish 7th in El Limon to add to his other successes of the week. The next 7 days should be really interesting: Basa will get his final chance of the season in Locarno, where he’s had a mixed bag in recent years. Sadiq will lead the line in Bielsko, looking to make his breakthrough season even better. Brock Moeller will get his first captaincy chance on the Isle of Man which should be interesting to follow and MarcMarc will finally get a chance to show what he can do in Romania after that. I think the big aim now for the rest of the season will likely be Brock dipping his toe into the Don Cup and whilst he won’t be completely fresh he’ll learn a lot there against the big boys of the hill world.
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Comments
Gratz on the jersey!
The show is starting to develop some more feel good vibes now. ;)
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