Meenhorst talks Gippengen

When RoadCycling.co.nz  contacted Alex for the "Where in the world are all the kiwis" article, Alex said, "My next race is probably the biggest race I will do in a while and is a 1.HC in Switzerland called Gippingen. I'm in great form at the moment though so will hopefully do something special."

Alex agreed to provide us with a race report after this big race.  Here is that report plus excerpts from other key teams' reports commenting on some of the tactics of the peloton.

GP Gippengen, 7th June 2009 - Alex Meenhorst's race report

With almost half the season completed now and my first big race been and gone I thought I would share some words on what happened in my first target race of the season.

So far this season we have competed in a variety of races from Swiss National to Pro races in Italy and Europe, however this race was the biggest one on our roster and is only 20km from where I live. It was a 1.HC circuit race that consisted of 10x 19.7km laps and had a couple of nasty hills and very strong winds just to make life a little more difficult, but based on my climbing form lately I was really glad to see some nice hard hills in the race.

For the last 6 years the race has always finished the same way, with the peloton being destroyed over the hills,  the finish resulting in a select group of riders who are left standing. My goal for the race was to make it into this group and see what I can do in the finish but seeing the calibre of riders who have been on the podium the past few years such as Bettini, Ullrich, Nuyens, Kroon and Lovkvist just to name a few, I knew it was going to be hard to keep up with the climbers over the difficult hill.

My form coming into the race had been perfect timing and the weekend before I had pulled off my first good result for the season.

Race day was crazy, the trees were almost touching the ground because they were bending over so far and Nightmares of Southland were coming back into my mind.

The early pace

The pace started off nice and slow.... for about 500 metres before some teams decided it was time to get going but with one of our riders making the break everything for Team Hadimec was great. Ag2r started to set the pace halfway through the race and because of the really strong winds and almost no tailwind on the course the breaks keep on coming back.

Four laps from the finish Ag2r decided to lay it down in a cross wind section and really split the race up, but it quickly came back as too many strong riders were still in the peloton and it was way too far from the finish.

The pace on the hills now started to go up a lot and a few riders were being dropped every lap. My legs didn't feel too great at the start of the race but with 4 laps to go I was feeling awesome. I was making all the splits on the hills and riding over the hills in the top 20 position more often than not.

Great position in the final laps

With 2 laps to go the pace really heated up and with an attack from Heinrich Haussler and Christophe Moreau the peleton broke up big time but with no riders from Silence Lotto in the move it come back with little stress.

The last time up the hill was death but I came into the hill in 10th position on Thor Hushovds wheel so was feeling pretty safe about the situation. By the top of the hill 5 riders had broken away but I managed to make it into the group of 40ish riders and we quickly caught the 5 others.

On the last hill which had very strong cross winds, two riders broke away and established a 15 second gap with 6 km to go.

The finish was down a long fast hill then 3 kilometres of flat. With 2kms to go I was sitting 10th wheel right behind the Cervello Lead out train. My director was pumped and was yelling all kinds of things in my ear.

The 2 riders were still 10 seconds ahead with 1 kilometre to go but we were fast approaching. Without attacking once during the day I was feeling awesome and was pumping myself big time.

The final sprint craziness

Then with 800 meters to go Cervelo just slowed right down and stopped the chase?! WTF! Haussler and Hushovd were both in the middle of our group and not on the lead out train. With this sudden speed drop 20 riders came bombing around me on either side to totally destroy my position and box me in big time.

The sprint stated and I couldn't do anything. I managed to move up a couple of positions with 100 meters to go but it was so chaotic in the bunch I still had to slam on my breaks with 50 meters to go.

After the race I was pretty pissed to say the least and ended up finishing 31st. I had achieved my goal but after being so close to getting a top 10 position I was pretty ripped.

The two riders, one of whom won the Under 23 World champs I did in Germany in 2007, stayed away and won by 2 seconds. Victory went to Milram.

Although we didn't get anyone in the top 10 all and all for our team it was a pretty good race. There were only two continental teams in the race, Hadimec (my team) and one other, all others were Pro tour and Pro continental so the fact we had 4 riders in the front group and only Cervelo and Agritubel had more was great.

Now it's time for a short break, then some endurance training for a couple of weeks to build up for some more big races in July and hopefully through to the world champs in Switzerland this year.

Alex

Cervelo TestTeam's view of the race

The GP Gippingen is one of the most famous one-day-races in Switzerland. Today's edition was a good, hard race, with lots of breakaways, and Cervélo TestTeam riders were involved in just about all of them. Martin Reimer was involved in the breakaway of the day and stayed ahead for almost 50 km.

When the peloton chased his group back there was another breakaway, this time without a member of the Cervélo team. This break away group managed a maximum lead of about 2.5 minutes but together with Lotto, the Team chased them and brought them back before the finale started.

In the finale, the attacks continued and the Team tried to control them but with 3km to go Peter Velits (Milram) and Jan Baekelants (Topsport Vlaanderen) attacked. Cervélo's Serge Pauwels and Marcel Wyss tried bring the duo back but did not get any help from the other teams. Though they finally managed to bring the two riders back to about 15 metres it cost them the victory. Velits won ahead of Baekelants and Haussler finished in third after the lead out from Thor Hushovd.

From Cervelo TestTeam's race report.

Milram's view

At the GP Gippengen, a challenging 19.6km-long course around the town of Gippingen was raced a total of ten times. On the last lap, MILRAM rider Peter Velits attacked out of a reduced bunch of about 40 riders. Only Jan Baekelants of Team Topsport Vlaanderen succeeded in bridging up to the 24-year-old.

At first, the Cervelo TestTeam organised the chasing. But two kilometres off the finish line, the chasers hesitated for a moment until team Agritubel took over the pace making. The two leaders profited of this dissent and were able to take their small lead to the finish. For Peter Velits, this is his first victory since he signed with the German ProTour team in 2008.  

From Milram's race report.

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