Eduard Alexander Beltran	Leader		Stepan Kurianov	Domestique
	Aberlardo Ablenado	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique
	Tyron Giogieri	Domestique		Georgios Stavrakakis	Domestique
	Abolfazl Gilanipoor	Domestique		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique

Race goals:

Top 10	Failure	Eduard Alexander Beltran	13th
Top 25	Success	Tyron Giogieri	21st

Race score: 5/10


The race report is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

At least you've brought two riders into the Top 25. My next best rider was Konig in 29th

A first time for everything I guess

	Lahcen Saber	Sprinter		Matija Mestric	Free Role
	Gabriel Marin	Leadout		Matic Groselj	Free Role
	Miha Poljanec	Free Role		Michael Christodoulos	Free Role
	Dusan Rajovic	Free Role		Goran Antonijevic	Free Role

Week 3! Can we make it to the Champs Elysees in Paris?

Stage 15 was the penultimate flat rated stage, but far from flat in the profile. Miha Poljanec was able to make it into the breakaway and the break did survive. The youngster showed his inexperience by chasing the late attacks and launching his sprint too early. So only 10th on the day, but still impressive. Stage 16 was a brave ride by Matic Groselj as he actually recorded some points on a KOM. Stage 19 was the hardest mountain stage of the race and unfortunately the team suffered some casualties. Dusan Rajovic and Goran Antonijevic both finished outside the time limit.




Coming off stage 19 things looked bad for a few of Swisslion's riders on stage 20. Marin and especially Groselj found themselves alone in the mountains. Each doing their best they were both able to make the limit. Off to Paris we go! The last stage was always going to end in a sprint and the team wanted to give Lahcen Saber one last chance to shine. Poljanec even tried to surprise with a late attack in the final lap on the Champs Elysees. In the end the entire team ran out of steam from the tough mountain trek. Saber finished 7th on the stage and that netted him a final 5th in the green jersey competition.




Over what was and still is a difficult season for Swisslion. The team can walk away from this race with some pride and a sense they accomplished something. They were really part of this race and didn't just come along for the ride. Everyone here associated with the team is hoping this will give the riders and staff motivation and confidence to finish out the season strongly.


Race goals:

Stage win(s)	Success	Lahcen Saber	1st (Stage 4)
Breakaway appearances	Success		8 breakaways

Race score: N/A


The race report is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	1		Farfetch Pro Cycling	3257	118	27,6	4830
2	2		Repsol - Netflix	3063	131	23,38	4092
3	3		Mapei	2757	134	20,57	3600
4	5		MOL	2720	123	22,11	3869
5	4		Bakkafrost	2711	132	20,54	3595
6	7		Xero Racing	2593	129	20,1	3518
7	6		Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	2548	131	19,45	3404
8	9		Duolingo	2486	131	18,98	3322
9	8		Polar	2221	121	18,36	3213
10	12		Minions	2068	118	17,53	3068
11	13		DK - SVA Zalgiris	2064	131	15,76	2758
12	10		Podium Ambition	2052	138	14,87	2602
13	11		Berg Cycles	1983	125	15,86	2776
14	14		Desigual	1906	107	17,81	3117
15	15		Valio - Viking Genetics	1852	127	14,58	2552
16	16		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	1825	116	15,73	2753
17	17		Kraftwerk Man Machine	1783	113	15,78	2762
18	18		Andorra Cycling Project	1638	124	13,21	2312
19	20		Swisslion Cycling Team	1524	132	11,55	2021
20	19		Fablok - Chocolate Jacques	1488	103	14,45	2529
21	21		GCN Racing	1484	128	11,59	2028
22	24		Nordstrom - CA Technologies	1429	130	10,99	1923
23	23		Azteca - NBCSN	1351	110	12,28	2149
24	22		Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling	1329	130	10,22	1789
25	25		Aramco DP	1283	127	10,1	1768
26	26		Campari Asahi Procycling	895	114	7,85	1374

Ranking update #4 has been released for the PCT division. Well it hasn't been a spectacular period, but we have actually done solid here. Moving up one spot in the ranking is mostly down to us using more RDs than some others. The gap to our rivals has mostly remained the same as the last update. So what were our results?

Pico Basile didn't offer the points we expected, some of the CT best were there and we couldn't quite compete with them, while Cristobal wasn't really a race where we expected to score in. The big race was in Berlin. Kris Boeckmans finished 5th and Lahcen Saber 12th, which was a big result in a HC race. The biggest points windfall of the period. Another big race followed a day later in Torshavn. This time it was Stepan Kurianov who stepped up to deliver a 5th place finish with a late attack. Saber added another 12th place and both amounted to another decent points haul.

We have expectations of some good stage results from Boeckmans in the Middle East, but we couldn't really find our footing in the sprints. Two of our three climbers did alright on the final mountain stage, to at least take something back home. The 2nd of the two time-trial events, the Celtic Chrono ended up being worse than the one in Windhoek. 11th from Mottin and only 24th from Nepomnyachsniy simply was not good enough. We finished the period with two mountain classics. Tyron Giogieri took advantage of a weaker startlist to finish 5th, his best result of the year. Unfortunately Abolfazl Gilanipoor who was also among the favourites had to work for the Albanian and only finished 15th. Negating any depth result we targeted. The last was in Kenya. Eddy Beltran went there to stretch his legs, before his final part of the season in September. His legs weren't great though as he finished 13th on the day.

So all in all a decent month for the team, but we have to keep this up and we need Eddy Beltran to produce his best form in the late season hilly races!

Kris Boeckmans		Swisslion Cycling Team	456
Eduard Alexander Beltran		Swisslion Cycling Team	354
Lahcen Saber		Swisslion Cycling Team	256
Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy		Swisslion Cycling Team	166
Abolfazl Gilanipoor		Swisslion Cycling Team	108
Tyron Giogieri		Swisslion Cycling Team	52
Stepan Kurianov		Swisslion Cycling Team	38
Aberlardo Ablenado		Swisslion Cycling Team	35
Hugues Mottin		Swisslion Cycling Team	34
Miha Poljanec		Swisslion Cycling Team	12
Georgios Stavrakakis		Swisslion Cycling Team	6
Izidor Penko		Swisslion Cycling Team	3
Matic Groselj		Swisslion Cycling Team	3
Michael Christodoulos		Swisslion Cycling Team	1

Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Swisslion Cycling Team

Still sitting awkwardly close to the relegation zone which is hard to see since barely anyone could have expected Beltran to flop this badly. Really hope that your team can make the turnaround and at least stay in the division.

I suspect that Edy still has a couple of good race days left, especially Balkans has one of the best profiles for him all year long. Not sure where else he will ride but iirc San Sebastian is in the very same band so i suspect he will still have a fair bit of scoring in the remainder of the year.

So despite how close the projected ranking looks i think your team still controls its own fate. But getting additional help e.g. by Fablok barely scoring in the Tour of America would obviously make the situation ever so slightly easier for you...

Having a stinker so far, but I reckon you should be fine in the end, it seems that the Philips stank on Saber is slowly dissipating and he may provide some biggun result towards the end.

Slowly but surely more teams are looking at a "sure" relegation, but so far Swisslion is holding on. I hope you can keep battling until the end, and manage to secure your spot in the PCT. EAB's races will be crucial indeed, it's time for him to finally redeem himself!

Well Balkans is on the menu, that's no secret really But I expect most of the best puncheurs from PT or PCT to be there and we have already seen Beltran's propensity to finish around 30th in these PTHC races. Also his mountain stat has shown to mean diddly-squat in hilly races this year. I guess the potential 8 RDs wasted will at least kill our season at the earliest possible.

Fablok have so many RDs in hand and more dependable riders that I don't even factor them as relegation candidates




Whatever is on Saber is purely down to me putting him in cobbled races Unfortunately his RDs are practically spent, so no big results left I'm afraid.




Only Campari looking at "sure" relegation I think. It is all mostly down to EAB indeed. That's the scary part

It's a fairly busy end of the season for us. We go to Hungary for Macskako Kerekparverseny, then to Spain for the new Clasica San Sebastian. The two more important races though are the new Arab Tour and Ronde van Het Ijsselmeer. Some last chances for our sprinters.



We were in the Tour of Britain last year and it didn't really work for us. We have a different approach this time, hoping for some better success. Balkans International is our one true home race on the calendar. We hope we can show our best form there. The Deutschland Tour will be the first time for the team and literally the last chance for a big sprint result. Battenkill is simply a race we attend due to the PTHC band, we don't have any result expectations for the race. The Tour of Lithuania replaced the Tour of Beijing. We placed 2nd there last year, we will try to go one better this year.



Last month of the season still has some important races for the team. GP Lugano is a hilly race we saw last year. The profile has changed a bit, we hope for the better for us. We will participate for the first time at Bayern Rundfahrt and it's the last chance for our two timetrialers to deliver some results. The season finishes in Italy at the Giro dell'Emelia. It wasn't the final race last year, but we did win it. It's a sponsor goal so we would love to win it again!


Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Swisslion Cycling Team

It's 2019 Beltran time!!

2020 sucks in MG almost as much as it did IRL

	Lahcen Saber	Leader		Goran Antonijevic	Domestique
	Miha Poljanec	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique
	Matija Mestric	Domestique		Georgios Stavrakakis	Domestique
	Stepan Kurianov	Domestique		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique

The race preview is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

	Lahcen Saber	Leader		Goran Antonijevic	Domestique
	Miha Poljanec	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique
	Matija Mestric	Domestique		Georgios Stavrakakis	Domestique
	Stepan Kurianov	Domestique		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique

Macskako Kerekparverseny. That's a mouthful isn't it? The penultimate cobbled race of the year for the team. Not much was expected on this hilly course. As the race developed and lots of long range attacks were going up the road, Swisslion remained largely anonymous, but we found out Lahcen Saber was successfully holding his own with the other favourites. The race completely broke into pieces in the last 10 km. Saber ended up a couple groups behind the front. It was an every man for himself situation on the final cobble section and the Morrocan finished a season's best 12th on the day. The first cobbled race of the year, that the team walks away from it content with what they achieved.




Race goals:

Top 20

Success

Lahcen Saber

12th

Race score: 7/10


The race report is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

	Gabriel Marin	Free Role		Matic Groselj	Free Role
	Izidor Penko	Free Role		Michael Christodoulos	Free Role
	Dusan Rajovic	Free Role		Goran Antonijevic	Free Role
	Matija Mestric	Free Role		Ivan Siric	Free Role

The race preview is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

	Gabriel Marin	Free Role		Matic Groselj	Free Role
	Izidor Penko	Free Role		Michael Christodoulos	Free Role
	Dusan Rajovic	Free Role		Goran Antonijevic	Free Role
	Matija Mestric	Free Role		Ivan Siric	Free Role

Race goals:

Breakaway appearance

Failure

Race score: N/A


The race report is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

Ljubljana - After reporting on the team's uncertain future post Tour de Suisse, we tried to contact general manager Bostjan Mervar during the Tour de France. Mervar didn't want to comment on the search for a new sponsor. But in the weeks after, we were finally able to get in touch with him. This is what he had to say.

Mervar: We have had a very successful Grand Tour. As successful as it can be for a wildcard team. A stage victory and plenty of TV time in the breakaways is all we could have asked for. Unfortunately those performances haven't changed anything in terms of our future. Our present sponsor is still at the exit door and it's true I am working hard to find someone to come in, in order to save this team.

So the team's future remains in doubt. We asked Mervar whether his sponsor search was limited to the Balkan region, but he did not want to comment on that. Whatever happens the team's PCT status going forward will have a major impact on what happens in the future.


The article is quoted from sports newspaper EkipaSN

	Kris Boeckmans	Sprinter		Hugues Mottin	Free Role
	Gabriel Marin	Leadout		Izidor Penko	Domestique
	Miha Poljanec	Domestique		Matic Groselj	Domestique
	Dusan Rajovic	Domestique		Michael Christodoulos	Domestique

The race preview is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

	Lahcen Saber	Leader		Goran Antonijevic	Domestique
	Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique
	Matija Mestric	Domestique		Georgios Stavrakakis	Domestique
	Stepan Kurianov	Domestique		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique

The race preview is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team

	Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy	Leader		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique
	Hugues Mottin	Free Role		Artur Sowinski	Stagiare
	Ivan Siric	Domestique		Kees Duyvesteyn	Stagiare
	Georgios Stavrakakis	Domestique		Jeremy Bellicaud	Stagiare

The race preview is brought to you by Sijaj,
team media sponsor of Swisslion Cycling Team