Tour of Flanders (finally!), Vuelta al Paìs Vasco and more:

Three days after Tour of Flanders, miss Fede has finally found the time to write a post about that race. It was high time, wasn't it?
Actually, the last few days have been pretty tough for me, since one of my relatives had a health problem on Friday evening and since then everything has gone bersek here at my house. Said relative is now feeling fine, but he/she won't be able to come back home from hospital before Easter. The above mentioned health problem, as said, made my whole life go bananas in the last days. I've had problems with studying, I've argued with my best friend (and deskmate) several, several, several times (the last one this morning), I haven't had a decent meal in days and, when I went to book a book (is there any other way to say that in English?) at the local bibliotheque, they told me that said book is available just in 3 Italian cities: Florence, Rome and Genova. Moreover, Berlusconi had his trial put off and Inter lost 3-0 from Milan on Saturday evening. What a shitty period.
Luckily there is cycling that cheers me up a bit in these days. Or, at least, it cheered me up a little as long as I didn't know that Vinokourov won the only stage of Paìs Vasco that I deliberately chose not to watch. Oh, anger.
Vino soloed to victory in front of Freire and, judging by the race report, his victory must have been really good. Too bad that I didn't see it. However, girls of the AAVL, are you ready to raise a virtual toast to our secret favourite rider? Yes? All together: *YAY*! And btw, is there anyone who can invent a victory motto in Kazakhistani out there? It would be great to have an official Khazakistani motto for our anonymous association of Vino's Lovers! Still talking about Paìs Vasco, yesterday stage was won by Kiryienka. He's a tough guy who survived Chernobyl disaster and I'm always happy when he wins. Moreover, I was there when he won the Monte Pora stage of Giro 2008, so I've kept a 'special eye' on him since that rainy dayof May.
Third in yesterday stage was Andy Schleck, while 4th was Chris Anker Sorensen (*YAY*!). Richie Porte instead had a bad day and now he's focusing on winning the TT of Vuelta al Paìs Vasco. Anyway, am I the only one who's shocked by Horner's strength? The guy gets better as he gets older!
Back to the very beginning of this race, the first stage of VPB was won by Joaquim Rodriguez. On that day Leopard Trek worked hardly at the front, but then the Schleck brothers disappearead as soon as the final climb became steep. An useless team effort? A demonstration of weakness? No, not imo, at leasy. Personally, I think that the guys on the team must learn how to ride when they face stage races. And they can't do that at the Tour de France, so why not practising in Vuelta al Paìs Vasco?

Still talking about Leopard, a good news for the team: Daniele Bennati won yesterday stage at Circuit de la Sarthe. After 5 second places, the first victory finally arrived!
Today unfortunately Bello Benna was outsprinted by the young Michel Kreder in the second stage of the race (third was Ravard), but he soon got his revenge by winning this afternoon TT in front of Millar and Zabriskie (how impressive!!).
Circuit de Sarthe also marks the return in the peloton of Davide Viganò (Davide, not Danilo! - and not even Daniele, to say it all :P). Allez Davide!

Scheldeprijs instead was won by Mark Cavendish in front of Galimzyanov and Hutarovich. However, the race saw a terrific crash in its last meters, which saw Farrar and Weylandt as unlucky protagonists. Luckily it seems that none of the riders got broken bones from that scary experience.
Amongst the crashers du jour there were also Tom Boonen, who crashed twice, and De Wilde, who was suffered head/vertebrae injuries.

After talking about these 'minor' races, let's now talk about Her Majesty De Ronde. Nick Nuyens won it and, I must admit it, I was very happy about that.
I understood I had made a mistake by not including Nick in my list of favourites as soon as I saw Saxo Bank pulling hard at the front of the peloton. Bjarne Riis usually doesn't employ his riders when he hasn't got a plan and on Sunday he did have a plan. He wanted to celebrate his 47th birthday (he's just 47?!?) properly, so he asked Nick to bring home a good victory. And Nick did it, in a very good way. He was cunning and smart and, unlike others, he didn't exaggerate. He was cold-minded until the end of the race and that paid off in the end. A great victory for Saxo and a great satisfaction for Bjarne. Btw, am I the only one who found Bjarne's screams in the team car a bit... feminine?
Back to seriousness, second in the race was Chavanel, while Boonen was 4th. This caused a big fight on Italian tv since, one one hand, 2 chronists said that Chavanel had made the wrong move (according to them, he should have done everything to stop the final breakaway and he should have led Boonen in the sprint); on the other hand, the other 2 chronists said that Chavanel had been amazing. I agree with these last two guys, since imo Sylvain was simply great on Sunday. He went on a breakaway with 88 kms to go and I'm sure that, if he hadn't been closed towards the barriers, right now we would be talking about a different Flanders' winner.
Back to the podium, third was Fabian Cancellara, the great disappointed of the day. Fabian attacked on Molenberg (as predictable) with 40 kms to go and the only one who could stay with him was Chavanel. Before Grammont however he lost all his advantage (one minute) because of cramps. This edition of Flanders has been very exciting also because of this kind of things: the favourites all had problems/exaggerated too much and so there was a surprise podium.
Amongst the unpredictable things that happened on Sunday there was the 9th placement of Gilbert. The Belgian looked great, he attacked several times but imo he exaggerated a bit (he made the first attack with about 90 kms to go!).
Also Ballan exaggerated a bit in the finale, since he closed everyone who tried to break free from the little group of the best riders. However, I soon found out that Alessandro was working for Hincapie at that point of the race, so this explains the behaviour of the Italian rider.
As far as the surprises du jour are concerned, I was very impressed by S. Scheirlincx (can anyone pronounciate his surname?) and Geraint Thomas' performances. I knew that Geraint was strong, but I didn't expect him to be that strong! Chapeau to him then!
Looking at the final results, I was surprised also by Hondo (16th) and Rojas (18th).
On to the disappointments, Pozzato was just 38th, while Garmin-Cervélo soon disappeared from the race. Team Leopard (with the exception of Cancellara) didn't look that strong and the second captain of the team, O'Grady, was just 69th.
In the last 50 kms of the race, the only Leopard Trek riders at the front were Cancellara and Posthuma (who followed a tv motorbike and found himself in a field together with many other riders).
On to the 'young guns', Jaroslaw Marycz was 85th, while Oss was 122nd. The Italian was terribly disappointed after the finish-line and he seemed very likely to break into tears. Luckily the journalist who was interviewing him understood his feelings and let him go after exchanging a few words. Oss really needed a hugh in that moment!
The last words of mine about the race are for the riders who got retired. Amongst them there was also poor Kroon, who broke his collarbone. In the 'retired riders' list there were also Weylandt, Nizzolo, Vanmarcke (*Noooooo!*), Malacarne, Blyth, Smukulis, Arvesen, Sagan, Rosseler, M. Iglinskiy (he crashed in the finale), Bole, Spilak and Kluge.
Hopefully they'll all be able to hop on their bikes for Roubaix on Sunday. Unfortunately it seems that Boasson Hagen won't be able to take part in the race, while Hincapie crashed twice during Scheldeprijs and is feeling very sore.

(Pic 1 by Cyclinginside, pic 2 by Bettini)