[UCI World Tour] Amstel Gold Race 2019

Amstel Gold Race

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Predict who is going to win the race; that's all. :)

Race Preview

It's the start of the Ardennes Classics triple: Wednesday La Flèche Wallonne, and next Sunday Liège–Bastogne–Liège.

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Here’s our Terrific Ten for Sunday. We can do worse than start with the last 10 winners:

# Michael Valgreen (Dimension Data and Denmark) 2018:
It’s not been a startling spring for the man who won this and Het Nieuwsblad, last year – was Dimension Data a good choice ?
But he likes this race, he was second in 2016 so. . .

# Philippe Gilbert (Deceuninck - Quick-Step and Belgium) 2017/14/11/10:
You saw Paris-Roubaix as well as I did – there’s plenty of life in the Old Phil yet.
Don’t be surprised if he makes it five.

# Enrico Gasparotto (Dimension Data and Italy) 2016/12:
Too old at 37 year-of-age? As with Valgreen, his spring hasn’t been great but remember that he was third last year and will be another year foxier.

# Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky and Poland) 2015:
On the podiums for The Race to the Sun and The Primavera – ‘nuff said.

# Roman Kreuziger (Dimension Data and Czech) 2013:
Yes, that’s right, Dimension Data have all of the 2018 podium finishers on the squad – he was second, last year. He loves this race and on his day is class.

The other likely lads look like this to us:

# Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step and France)
he’s been winning since San Juan via the Strade Bianche and Primavera; we need say no more.

# Alfredo Bettiol (EF Education First and Italy)
You saw de Ronde, right? The boy can get up them ramps – but there are 35 of them. . .

# Jacob Fuglsang (Astana and Denmark)
strong from day one when he won the mountains in Murcia right up to the recent Basque Country where he should have been on the final podium – and his team is STRONG.

# Michael Matthews (Sunweb and Australia)
two stages in Catalunya and sixth in de Ronde, sounds like a man with good legs to us.

# Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe and Slovakia)
don’t scoff, in the ‘old days’ they used to say that after you’ve recovered from the, ‘biggest bonk of your life’ the form will come – so if you saw the finale of Roubaix. . .

# Max Schachmann (Bora-hansgrohe and Germany)
and if you saw Max’s stage wins in Catalunya and Basque Country then you’ll know there’s more to Bora these days than aforementioned ex-triple World Champion.

# Alejandro Valverde (Movistar and Spain)
for a man who’s won NINE Ardennes classics, it’s surprising he’s never won here, albeit his stats are: 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. Maybe that lovely jersey will make the difference this year?

# Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma and Belgium)
Gilbert apart, this young gentleman was ‘man of the match’ on the road to Roubaix. His class was never in doubt but that was pure grinta on Sunday.

# Mathieu Van Der Poel (Corendon-Circus and The Netherlands)
The Netherlands expects. . . Can he be the first Dutch renner to win since Erik Dekker in 2001? We say, ‘Yes’.
[He won Brabantse Pijl on Wednesday. The Dutch champion was the best in the sprint from a classy group including Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step), Michael Matthews (Sunweb) and last years winner, Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal).]

Giveaway

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