Course de la Paix 2014 summary - Under 19 Zone

Sunday 11 May 2014

Course de la Paix 2014 summary

The hardest race of the season have come to an end and it's a good time for summary since we were able to watch most of the biggest names in juniors category in last few days on Czech and German roads.

Magnus Bak Klaris continues the series of win for Denmark in Course de la Paix. They have won fourth edition in a row. In addition young Dane collected same double as Mads Pedersen last year: Paris Roubaix and Course de la Paix. If you win on cobbles and few weeks later on climbs then you have to be a great talent, that's for sure.

Aurelien Paret Peintre, leader of U19Z ranking, have his limits. He's time trial performance was quite poor and that's the only reason he didn't fight for victory in Course de la Paix as he was one of the strongest on the climbs and helped a lot to Rayane Bouhanni during the queen stage.

Rayane Bouhanni is the biggest revelation of the race. He can climb and time trial and can further develop into gc rider (kinda opposite to his brother but Rayane is stil very young so you never know). In juniors there are no massive specializations like in elite but rider who show high skill in every terrain could turn into a great pro. Just look at Magnus Cort Nielsen who won mountain queen stage on Course de la Paix and now he's winning bunch sprints in elite/u23 races or Tao Hart, who's pure climber but a year ago he was one of the best riders on cobbles during Paris Roubaix.

Lennard Kamna missed  great opportunity for a win in Course de la Paix when he didn't escape with the best four on queen stage. I dont know if he was struggling when they attacked or he just missed the move but that cost him overall win or podium at least.

Igor Decraene is not going to be time trial dominator this year as he was already beaten by Barta and track specialist Matthew Gibson. That was the first round of battle for top junior time trialer title and i'm looking forward how it will develop later this season.

Alessandro Fedeli is the guy to watch from Italy. He won Piccola SanRemo this year after solo escape and now he finished 5th in GC of the hardest race in the calendar. 

Next big race is Le Trophée Centre Morbihan (2.Ncup), weekend race in France starts on 24.05.
click here

No comments:

Post a Comment