The Ardenennes

The Ardennes classics are upon us and marks the time when the cobbled hardmen put up their legs and watch as the punchy attacking climbers come out to play. One exception to this is Alessandro Ballan who, following his sterling performance in the cobbled classics, immediately put himself at the service of Damiano Cunego. It paid off, with Cunego taking the win in a classic that suits him to the ground, making Lampre one of the only teams, short of Quick Step, to be major players in all of the spring classics. In this age of specialization, this is highly impressive and if this trend continues with Cunego's attempted run at the Tour, Lampre could find itself as the most versatile team in the peloton. As the week moves on, with Fleche Wallone coming tomorrow and Liege Bastogne Liege on Sunday, it can be expected to see the top ten from Amstel in the mix again. I will make a few predictions, none of which are adventurous. I had picked Cunego for Amstel, based on his performance at Pais Vasco and he did not disappoint. He will be an obvious favorite for the remaining classics as he will hope to repeat Davide Rebellin's historic treble of 2004. I am a huge Cunego fan and would love to see him achieve the status he deserves. I will also list Thomas Dekker as a favorite for the Fleche. It's the kind of semi-classic that the main favorites for Liege might ride as training while it would represent a major win for Dekker. His 5th place at Amstel shows he's on track and he could benefit from the favorites for Liege hoping to keep their powder dry. For Liege, I will go with Frank Schleck. He will be looking to add this major classic to his palmares and if CSC take the race by the throat the way they did at Lombardy last year, Schleck will be in excellent position to take out La Doyenne. All this hinges on a fair amount of luck as we saw in Lombardy last year. At any rate, expect all of the protagonists from Amstel to be in the mix again and since there are so many candidates on fire at the moment, I feel we are in for some excellent racing.