Well, what a race: it's not often you get a break of four riders, three of whom belong to the same team, one of whom is spitting mad as this is the only Classics race he hasn't already won at least once, and it's the odd man out who wins.
As Andy is no longer racing, I was free to cheer for Team Sky: there was Bernie Bear Eisel, there was Schlecklander pet Luke Rowe ("And God cried out to Luke saying "Luke! Luke!" But Luke never looked, and fell down a hole") (only works if said with northern accent) and there was Wiggo, looking as grumpy as ever, but doing his bit at the front and getting some race miles into his legs at the same time, a very good use of rider/race time. And there was Stannard, who for some unknown reason seems to be called Yogi, wearing dossard number 1, as he won the race last year.
We were watching on a very dodgy stream - at one point the race was overlaid by a tv listing, and the cursor started moving down the channels. We can only imagine the frantic shouting of the bloke doing the stream, yelling at his little sister to put the remote control down and stop fiddling with the tv... but we are grateful to the unknown person, as there was otherwise no tv coverage for us here in the UK.
It seemed to be a fairly typical early-season small Classic: lots and lots of people lining the route, lots of small roads, a line-up of saluting tractors with black flags (what was all that about?), quite a few crashes, some cobbles, a couple of seriously badly-parked cars (why don't they just bump them up onto the pavements?) and a strong Sky presence.
They dominated the first three quarters of the race, then towards the end we had the breakaway...at one point I suggested that the kits were so similar in colour that the Quickstep boys hadn't realised they had a stowaway.
Stannard rode a terrific race - he did everything exactly right, not coming through to do a turn for most of the way, although he did show willing at one point - but only for a short distance.
Then he resisted Quickstep's attempts to get him to wear himself out with chasing down Boonen, and stuck to the Sky philosophy of "I will not speed up and chase you, I will race on at my own pace, thank you very much, and I will catch you up in no time at all. You will then be cooked, and I will sail past you."
This strategy has given Sky two Tour wins in the last three years, which says something for the success of the tactic.
And it worked in this case: as Boonen was overtaken and dropped, Vandenburgh and Terpstra did the expected thing by attacking, but Vandenburgh visibly wilted and dropped off, cooked. Stannard then calmly overtook Teptstra and stormed off for the line. It came down to a sprint for the line, and Stannard was simply the stronger rider on the day, and beat Terpstra for first place.
There was much cheering and flag-waving on the sofa, I can tell you.
So what of today? If things go according to plan, the smarting Quickstep - oh allright, Ettix-Quickstep - will throw their whole team on the front in order to get Cavendish over the line. And what of Sky? Well, they might sit back and laugh all the way to the finish line.. or they might challenge Quickstep again, which will send the Quickstep boss into a total decline.
Best of all would be if a different Sky rider - say, choosing a name at random, Luke Rowe - gets on the back of the Quickstep train, then mugs them at the very last moment.....
