Cedevita started off the race with some breakaway appearances. With no sprinter in the team, Miha Poljanec went on the attack on stage 1. The recently maxed rider grabbed some bonus seconds and some KOM points, but came off 2nd best in both attempts. Still it was an encouraging start. Gaudu continued in the same fashion the next day, by winning the sole KOM sprint. Then came the more important time-trial stage. Michael Christodoulos showed some of his potential by placing 14th, while Izidor Penko and Tadej Pogacar also produced good times.




Cedevita didn't change their approach on the hillier stages. Andrea Zordan was part of the breakaway, winning one of the KOMs before getting caught on the final climb. The big story on the day was the somewhat passive racing on what was meant as the queen stage. As a result 5 Cedevita riders finished in the front group, including Penko and Pogacar who rose to 10th and 16th in the GC.




To make it 4 breakaways from the 4 road stages, it was David Gaudu who joined a strong breakaway group on the final day. The breakaway was caught before the final part of the stage, but Gaudu was able to stay in the front group as attacks splintered the peloton. From there he could help Penko and Pogacar who both held on and surpringly gained time on the riders around them. So in the end Penko finished the race in a mind blowing 7th place overall! His first points of the season, would you believe it?!

Pogacar also scored his best result of the season as he finished 10th. Gaudu's strong ride placed him in 21st. All three also added U25 points. Havard Blikra and Miha Poljanec added minor GC places which was enough to propel Cedevita to winning the team classification!
Not bad for what was once labeled "a one man team".

Goal	Outcome	Rider	Result
Top 40 GC	Success	Izidor Penko	7th
Top 40 GC	Success	Tadej Pogacar	10th
Top 40 GC	Success	David Gaudu	21st

Race score: 11/10

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That's a pretty dope result in Norway! Even more so, doing that in PTHC with those riders is insane! Congrats!

Dope is a good description of the result

I thought I brought a decent squad that if lucky, could maybe score some unexpected points from breakaways. Never did I think we would feature prominently in the GC.

Marko Polanc: We don't have a sprinter for the opening stage so it's all about the GC result for us. Pogacar and Vysna are to be Jose Alarcon's mountain support. We will try to get in the breakaway on stage 1.


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Martin Hvastija: This is largely a race to give experience to our younger riders as well as the first appearance for our stagiares. Rajovic has the freedom to try and sprint for a stage result if possible, otherwise we're looking to get into breakaways.


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The race started with a 6.4 km flat time-trial. Not Jose Alarcon's strength as he lost 42'' to the eventual stage winner. Stage 2 was a bumpy sprint stage that caused a split where all the GC riders lost time, but it meant nothing in the big picture. Stage 3 was very similar, but hilly rated. Alarcon just managed to stay in the main group.

Stage 4 MTT to Mount Fuji was supposed to be Alarcon's main stage. The Venezuelen had a bad day. Only 6th on the stage and lost 1'28'' to eventual winner Quintana. Cedevita sent Zordan in the breakaway the next day. The Italian battled to grab some KOM points and took the pressure off the rest of the team. Attacks then came in the last 10 km. Vysna did a good job protecting Alarcon up to that point, which allowed him to finish 3rd on the stage. He was able to gap some riders in the process and move from 9th to 5th in the GC, in the end fulfilling pre race expectations. Vysna and Zordan added some minor GC points along with Ardila and Evans in the U25 classification.

Goal	Outcome	Rider	Result
Top 5 GC	Success	Jose Alarcon	5th
Top 3 Stage	Success	Jose Alarcon	3rd (Stage 5)

Race score: 7/10

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With the risk of repeating myself, because the likeness between Amador and Alarcon I love to see Alarcondoing well. A shame he had a bad day on stage 4, but it's good he bounced back to finish in top 5 GC.
Congratulations in reaching the race goals!

Very good result in Japan. Love to see you having a much better season and hope it continues to a top half finish at least

The big difference between them is Alarcon's still very good ACC. He seems like he can use it well on some of the hilly stages and it proved crucial in Japan
I probably could've planned him a lot better and he probably won't be a major difference maker in terms of keeping us in PCT. So I kinda have mixed feelings about him in general. He now looks like a "luxury" rider I didn't need.


I wouldn't say "very good". We got a few depth points that I didn't expect which was nice. Alarcon did what he had to do in this type of field, albeit he did it in a different way than I expected
Top half finish looks more and more likely. We might even flirt with promotion at some point, but hard to tell with no ranking updates

Cedevita made an aggressive start to the race. Gasper Katrasnik entered the breakaway late on day 1, but did just enough to grab a point at the only KOM of the day. Without a sprinter the team was concentrated on making it to the finish. Alarcon did so in the winning group, but everyone else got caught behind and lost 2 minutes. Cedevita started with the same strategy on stage 2. Miha Poljanec was in the breakaway this time, allowing the other riders to rest up before the final climb. Cedevita then showed their ambition as Bosnian champion Ivan Siric turned up the pace.




Cedevita finished pacemaking with 5 km of the climb left, which was the signal for Alarcon to attack. Some of the bigger favourites quickly jumped to follow him. Alarcon's attack made a select group of 16 riders. One Lopez attack later left only 11 riders, but then Herklotz countered and blew the race apart. No one could catch the German as he soloed to victory. Alarcon somehow managed to finish 6th, behind the group of favourites, just edging out Penasa. A brilliant result for the Venezuelen mountain goat! Matej Vysna added some solid scoring with 33rd and Tadej Pogacar finished 3rd in the U25 classification.

Goal	Outcome	Rider	Result
Top 15 GC	Success	Jose Alarcon	6th

Race score: 9/10

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This was meant to be a developmental race for Cedevita. The squad was entirely made up of unmaxed riders, including both of this season's stagiares. A breakaway appearance was the modest goal. Santiago Buitrago obliged with that on stage 1 also winning two intermediate sprints. The breakaway was caught with 10 km to go and Cedevita's work for the day was over.

But sprinter outsider Dusan Rajovic had other ideas. He found a good position behind the sprint trains with 1.5 km to go. The Serbian took advantage of the poor organization of others, but still had to start sprinting with 700 m left. He had great legs though, getting closer to the front with each passing meter. In the end he was able to outsprint everyone to the line. A sensational victory for the 24 year old!

Taking the lead in all the classifications, Rajovic wouldn't be able to sprint to a top 10 place in the remaining stage. The team pivoted from breakaways to pacing the peloton. In the end Rajovic still finished 5th in the GC and won the best young rider's jersey. He certainly made the most of this race!

Goal	Outcome	Rider
Breakaway apperance	Success	Santiago Buitrago

Race score: 10/10

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It feels like you are upping the pace now and deliver in a lot of places with all sorts of riders...

True But no worries, we'll slow down pretty soon

Martin Hvastija: We haven't really performed in the flat classics with our sprinterless setup. This is one of our last chances to make it work!


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01.08 - 06.08		Benelux Challenge	2.HC
02.08		Sakartvelo Trophy	C1.2
08.08		Clasica San Sebastian	1.PTHC
10.08		GP Moscow	1.PT

August isn't the busiest month, in fact the four races are basically all in the first 10 days. We participate in the Benelux Challenge for the first time since 2018. Sakartvelo Trophy brought us some success last year and we will try to repeat that again. Also this year we will finally bring Beltran to the Clasica San Sebastian and we have hopes the tough course there will suit him well. The final race is a wildcard appearance at the sprint classic in Moscow.

01.09		Paris Tours	1.PTHC
03.09 - 23.09		Tour of America	C2.1
05.09 - 12.09		Balkans International	2.PTHC
14.09 - 17.09		Euskal Bizikleta	C2.2
26.09		Tour of the Battenkill	1.PTHC
26.09		Rheden GP	1.PTHC
28.09		Milano - Torino	C1.1

September is the month filled with the most RDs. First a debut appearance at the well known Paris Tours classic and then the continental grand tour. First time at the Tour of America which is a race we're all very excited about. Through that same period we will again participate in our home race in the Balkans, always an important one on our calendar since we've been in the PCT division. We also go to Euskal Bizikleta and make it a 3rd trip to the Basque Country this season. We close out the month with the cobbled doubleheader of Rheden and Battenkill, then go to Milano where we won the one day race in 2019.

01.10 - 08.10		Tour du Maroc	2.PTHC
03.10		Japan Cup	1.PTHC
18.10		Giro dell'Emilia	1.HC

This whole last part of the season is filled with many PTHC races and October is no different. We make a 2nd appearance at Tour du Maroc, this time we're bringing a good climber there in Alarcon. Eddy Beltran is then the main man in the last two races, two classics. Japan Cup against some PT competition and the now season closer Giro dell'Emilia. These can often be crucial in the final rankings.


Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita

Marko Polanc: We will do our best to support Alarcon in every stage. But he obviously needs to limit his losses in the opening time-trial and have a good ride on stage 3.


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Great a couple of races in East Java and Ras Tailteann. We'll meet again in Vineyards

Goal	Outcome	Rider
Top 10	Failure	Gasper Katrasnik	16th

Race score: 2/10

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Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	2		Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	2455	120	20,46	3581
2	5		Aker - MOT	2167	101	21,46	3756
3	1		Bralirwa - Stevens	1895	109	17,39	3043
4	10		Carlsberg - Danske Bank	1857	97	19,14	3350
5	4		Binance Cycling	1831	118	15,52	2716
6	9		Cedevita	1823	92	19,82	3469
7	3		Red Bull Zalgiris	1809	124	14,59	2553
8	14		Assa Abloy	1762	116	15,19	2658
9	7		cycleYorkshire	1694	110	15,4	2695
10	20		Polar	1651	96	17,2	3010
11	17		Los Pollos Hermanos	1604	111	14,45	2529
12	13		Duolingo	1532	91	16,84	2947
13	8		Team UBS	1503	109	13,79	2413
14	16		Project: Africa	1486	107	13,89	2431
15	6		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	1467	88	16,67	2917
16	21		Philips - Force India	1386	113	12,27	2147
17	11		Minions	1356	118	11,49	2011
18	15		Sauber Petronas Racing	1317	103	12,79	2238
19	25		Jura - Fiat	1290	109	11,83	2070
20	23		Indosat Ooredoo	1206	99	12,18	2132
21	12		Carrefour - ESPN	1179	105	11,23	1965
22	19		Podium Ambition	1129	92	12,27	2147
23	22		Tryg - Ritter Sport	1114	97	11,48	2009
24	18		Kraftwerk Man Machine	1082	81	13,36	2338
25	26		Voyagin - Bird	953	101	9,44	1652
26	24		Eurosport x GCN	866	98	8,84	1547

We had to wait a while, but ranking update #4 is here. This update spans from late april all the way to the end of june. Many races have been covered during that time and lucky for us many points scored also. We move up from 9th to 6th in the table, increasing our ppRD to almost 20. With that fact we're actually in sight of promotion to PT, but we still remain focused on our sponsor goal of a top 15 finish.

The end of April had us in Wallonie where we had unfinished business from last year. David Gaudu scored his best result of the season with 8th and Eddy Beltran was 12th giving us two very good results. Saber also took his chance by finishing 6th in Veenendaal, while our attacking lineup didn't work in Lisbon. Still a good way to finish the month.

May started for us in Cheshire where we had some mixed results with Saber not sprinting on the flat stages at all. Our debut in Chile was much better. Beltran failed to win it all, but 2nd place stage results yielded 2nd in GC and another points jersey win. Another big scoring race for the Colombian before he departed on his holiday. Alarcon showed his age in Austria as he struggled on back-to-back mountain stages and finished outside the top 10 in GC. Then came the biggest surprise of our season, the Tour of Norway. In a completely unexpected turn of events Izidor Penko and Tadej Pogacar finished 7th and 10th in a PTHC stage race, leading us to winning the team classification. A tremendous way to close out the month of May.

Alarcon got back to work in June and improved his form. 5th place in Japan and then 6th in the very hard Tour of East Java. That brought his scoring back up to a level where we expected it to be. The last race was in Ireland, C2 Ras Tailteann. You can never expect much scoring from mandatory C2 races, but Dusan Rajovic gave us a glimpse of his talent. The Serbian won the opening stage and then held on to 5th in GC while winning the U25 classification. A lean month of racing, but we scored well in each one of them.

Eduard Alexander Beltran		Cedevita	644
Lahcen Saber		Cedevita	303
Jose Alarcon		Cedevita	287
Tadej Pogacar		Cedevita	152
David Gaudu		Cedevita	127
Izidor Penko		Cedevita	98
Dusan Rajovic		Cedevita	54
Havard Blikra		Cedevita	26
Matej Vysna		Cedevita	20
Miha Poljanec		Cedevita	18
Ivan Siric		Cedevita	17
Michael Christodoulos		Cedevita	15
Andres Camilo Ardila		Cedevita	14
Abolfazl Gilanipoor		Cedevita	12
Matic Groselj		Cedevita	9
Andrea Zordan		Cedevita	9
Santiago Buitrago		Cedevita	4
Jefferson Cepeda Hernandez		Cedevita	4
Matija Mestric		Cedevita	3
Juan Pedro Lopez		Cedevita	2
Gasper Katrasnik		Cedevita	2
Goran Antonijevic		Cedevita	2
Alexander Evans		Cedevita	1

Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita

Your team performs really well this season. I especially enjoy the contribution of your young guns!