Who needs Froome? This week Sky ran the show
From Sunday to Sunday, Sky won five stages and two titles
While Chris Froome’s first race of the year this week at the Ruta Del Sol elicited social media’s usual graceless taunts of “haters” and “fan boys”, the Brit-under-scrutiny could not fully divert attention from his team’s stellar run of success from Sunday, February 11 to Sunday, February 18.
By the way, Froome was 11th in Sunday’s concluding half-gravel time trial to finish 10th overall. Mikel Landa was 6th in his first showing for Movistar.
Here’s Sky’s week:
Sunday, February 11: Egan Bernal (Colombia) – Colombia Oro y Paz GC
Thursday, February 15: Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland) – Volta ao Algarve Stage 2
Friday, February 16: Geraint Thomas (Great Britain) – Volta ao Algarve Stage 3
Wout Poels (The Netherlands) – Ruta Del Sol Stage 2
Sunday, February 18: David de la Cruz (Spain) – Ruta Del Sol Stage 5
Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland) – Volta ao Algarve Stage 5 and GC
https://twitter.com/wcstats/status/965236300352761856
https://twitter.com/wcstats/status/965268211443879938
It should be noted that Bernal and de la Cruz are new additions to the team, the 21-year-old Colombian signing on from Italian Pro Continental squad Androni-Sidermec-Bottecchia, and the Spaniard coming over from Quick Step. Bernal was 6th in the Tour Down Under and started the month by winning his national time trial title.
Poels finished second to Tim Wellens in the Ruta Del Sol and Thomas placed runner-up to his Polish teammate in the Volta ao Algarve. Earlier in the week, Sky’s double national road champions of Colombia, Sergio Henao, took fourth at the Colombia Oro y Paz.
This all must be frustrating for Sunweb: with Alexander Kristoff (Norway/UAE-Emirates) winning Sunday’s final stage of the Tour of Oman–a race in which Astana ran riot–Sunweb becomes the only WorldTour team without a UCI win in 2018
