Lahcen Saber	Free Role		Matija Mestric	Domestique
	Gabriel Marin	Domestique		Matic Groselj	Domestique
	Miha Poljanec	Domestique		Goran Antonijevic	Domestique
	Dusan Rajovic	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique

Race goals:

Top 30

Failure

Miha Poljanec

33rd

Race score: 4/10


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

	Eduard Alexander Beltran	Leader		Michael Christodoulos	Domestique
	Tyron Giogieri	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique
	Matija Mestric	Domestique		Georgius Stavrakakis	Domestique
	Stepan Kurianov	Domestique		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique

The Tour of Beijing, erm I mean Lithuania. This was an important race for Swisslion last year and an important race again as Eduard Alexander Beltran again came into the race as one of the main favourites. Stage 1 was never best suited, but the Colombian did stretch his legs a bit on some of those climbs as he safely finished in the peloton. Rinse and repeat on stage 2, before we saw some action the following day. A strong breakaway proved too hard to control as Beltran did several turns at the front, but all he succeeded in doing was dragging the other favourites with him, en route to a 5th place finish. Not the best tactics. Last stage was the queen stage and with 6 riders on the same time, it was all to play for Swisslion. The crucial action came in the final 5 km as an attack from Slagter was followed by one of the favourites in Buchmann. Beltran risked the others having to chase as things came back together on the final climb.




The final ascent was very steep and although Beltran didn't start quite at the front, he had no problem gradually moving up. By the flamme rouge he was in prime position. From then on he could really put down the power needed as he kept at the front all the way to the finish line. Yes, that's right! Eduard Alexander Beltran won the stage and the race with his arms lifted in the air, finally showing that Colombian NC jersey in all it's glory. He waited all season for this moment and it finally came. The win ultimately confirmed that Swisslion will be in the PCT division next season as well.




Race goals:

Top 3 GC	Success	Eduard Alexander Beltran	1st
Top 3 Stage	Success	Eduard Alexander Beltran	1st (Stage 4)

Race score: 10/10


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

Finally! Beltran made you wait a long time, but at least he chose a nice moment to win, celebrating your team prolonging its stay in the PCT division! Nice 10/10, and lovely picture of EAB winning the stage in his Colombian national jersey (yeah, I know I took it and I am kind of praising myself, but hey, good decision by you to use it )

Finally indeed!

But to be honest I think he just knows renewals are coming soon and he wants to keep his big fat wage

Thanks!!

Hopefully the Kelderman from Lugano also shows up in Emelia

	Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy	Leader		Michael Christodoulos	Domestique
	Aberlardo Ablenado	Free Role		Artur Sowinski	Stagiare
	Hugues Mottin	Free Role		Kees Duyvesteyn	Stagiare
	Matic Groselj	Domestique		Jeremy Bellicaud	Stagiare

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

	Eduard Alexander Beltran	Leader		Matic Groselj	Domestique
	Tyron Giogieri	Domestique		Stepan Kurianov	Domestique
	Dusan Rajovic	Domestique		Georgius Stavrakakis	Domestique
	Matija Mestric	Domestique		Yuriy Natarov	Domestique

The penultimate one day race for Swisslion, GP Lugano. The team achieved 9th place at this race last year, but this year came with Eduard Alexander Beltran looking to aim higher. The race organisers changed the profile of this race from last year. As a result the race wasn't particularly selective with some sprinters making it all the way to the finish. Beltran was well positioned throughout the race, but sprinting is not his best skill. Still somehow mostly due to clever positioning he was able to finish in 5th spot which is a good result. The team though will be considering whether coming here again is worth it.




Race goals:

Top 5

Success

Eduard Alexander Beltran

5th

Race score: 6/10


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

	Eduard Alexander Beltran	Leader		Dusan Rajovic	Domestique
	Aberlardo Ablenado	Domestique		Michael Christodoulos	Domestique
	Tyron Giogieri	Domestique		Goran Antonijevic	Domestique
	Abolfazl Gilanipoor	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique

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

	Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy	Leader		Michael Christodoulos	Domestique
	Aberlardo Ablenado	Free Role		Artur Sowinski	Stagiare
	Hugues Mottin	Free Role		Kees Duyvesteyn	Stagiare
	Matic Groselj	Domestique		Jeremy Bellicaud	Stagiare

Race goals:

Top 15 GC

Failure

Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy

18th

Race score: 4/10


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

	Eduard Alexander Beltran	Leader		Dusan Rajovic	Domestique
	Aberlardo Ablenado	Domestique		Michael Christodoulos	Domestique
	Tyron Giogieri	Domestique		Goran Antonijevic	Domestique
	Abolfazl Gilanipoor	Domestique		Ivan Siric	Domestique

Race goals:

Victory

Failure

Eduard Alexander Beltran

4th

Race score: 4/10


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

Not the end of the season you hoped for, but in general I think it's fair to say that Beltran's end of the season results were hopeful, with the win in Lithuania of course the most important one. Swisslion rightfully remains in PCT, and I believe you'll manage to improve your squad during the transfer season. Looking forward to some sponsor news

October wasn't great but a good two months before that ensured you survive Looking forward to see how you rebuild next season and racing alongside once again in the PCT! I guess more Beltran vs Kelderman battles are inevitable provided they both stay in out teams.

Between Lugano and Emilia, Beltran found solid form at the end of the season and I guess he avoided being outscored by a team mate which would have been a shocker. Hopefully, he'll be reasonable during renewables this time.

Yeah, hopeful. Hopeful as in I hope he doesn't ask for too much money in renewals There was no need for him to go ham in Lithuania and Lugano as we were pretty much safe by then. Meanwhile Emelia was a huge failure when we actually needed a win

Looking forward to fight relegation again next year Stay tuned for the sponsor news



Yeah, August and September were good months for us. Let's see if I can spend a lot money making my team even worse this transfer season also

Gonna be fun to see where both Wilco and Eddy end up



Yeah, I think he easily became our top scorer after getting 200 pts in Lithuania (cough, Beijing, cough) I also hope he'll be "reasonable" during renewals, because he still scored nearly 600 pts less than last year

With our entire team competing across the different national championships we have a lot of results to go through. But before the racing started we already knew two of our riders had won their respective NCs automatically. Those two are Abolfazl Gilanipoor and Ahmet Orken who spent the year on loan at Berg Cycles. Both are double national champions in the road race and time-trial. Congratulations to both of them.

The other results are as followed (including our loan outs, excluding our loan ins):

Rider	Nat.	Nat. Group	RR	TT
Eduard Alexander Beltran			1 (1)	15 (15)
Kees Duyvesteyn			12 (12)	16 (16)
Jeremy Bellicaud			38 (38)	49 (49)
Hugues Mottin			50 (50)	4 (4)
Miha Poljanec			9 (9)	18 (18)
Tadej Pogacar			12 (12)	6 (6)
Izidor Penko			15 (15)	3 (3)
Matic Groselj			20 (20)	1 (1)
Michael Christodoulos			2 (14)	1 (3)
Dusan Rajovic			4 (17)	5 (21)
Goran Antonijevic			5 (18)	3 (9)
Artur Sowinski			15 (15)	17 (17)
Matija Mestric			24 (4)	3 (10)
Aberlardo Ablenado			22 (22)	11 (11)
Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy			DNF	1 (1)
Tyron Giogieri			3 (15)	12 (2)
Ivan Siric			1 (9)	14 (2)
Lahcen Saber			1 (1)	2 (6)
Kris Boeckmans			1 (1)	40 (40)

Riders eligible to wear their national champion jerseys next year are:



Again a big congratulations to all the winners. For many of them we don't know which team they will be riding for next season, but we wish them all the best and hopefully they get a chance to show off their special jersey.


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

Pos	Last		Team	Total
1	2		Farfetch Pro Cycling	4447
2	1		Repsol - Netflix	4191
3	3		Mapei	3963
4	4		Desigual	3795
5	7		Xero Racing	3419
6	8		MOL	3300
7	9		Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	3264
8	5		Kraftwerk Man Machine	3262
9	6		Bakkafrost	3144
10	10		Duolingo	3098
11	11		Polar	3072
12	12		Valio - Viking Genetics	2929
13	16		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	2832
14	13		Minions	2797
15	14		Berg Cycles	2647
16	15		Podium Ambition	2621
17	18		Fablok - Chocolate Jacques	2595
18	17		DK - SVA Zalgiris	2584
19	19		Swisslion Cycling Team	2260
20	21		Andorra Cycling Project	2105
21	20		GCN Racing	2069
22	23		Aramco DP	1976
23	22		Azteca - NBCSN	1900
24	24		Nordstrom - CA Technologies	1828
25	25		Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling	1600
26	26		Campari Asahi Procycling	1331

Skipping update #6 and we are at the final update, the season is over and we have again managed to survive it! We are one place and 50 points worse off compared to last year as we finish the season in 19th.

The last part of the season started in Battenkill where we didn't expect much, but also didn't score zero. After that came our most successful race of the year, the Tour of Lithuania. The first 3 stages were quiet in terms of results, but our leader Eddy Beltran won the final stage and also the GC to go with it. An impressive 200 points over the 4 days. Beltran continued his good form in Lugano where he placed 5th from a sprint finish, his best of the season. Our first appearance at Bayern Rundfahrt was less successful as the mountain stage didn't suit us and Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy finished his season with 18th place overall. The final race was our win goal at Giro dell'Emelia, but we weren't able to repeat last year's heroics. Beltran wasn't at his best and only managed 4th. Not a great way to end the season with another missed race goal, but we were at least happy that our PCT status was assured by then.

Leading our scoring this season was of course Eduard Alexander Beltran, a strong final part of the season somewhat masked his poor start. The reverse goes for Kris Boeckmans who didn't finish great, but had still had a successful season. Lahcen Saber's cobble heavy schedule didn't work for him, but he did have some bright spots during the year. Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy was brought to lead us in the TT races, but in his last season as a leader, he produced very inconsistent results. We will recap all the riders performance later in the off season.

Eduard Alexander Beltran	Swisslion Cycling Team	781
Kris Boeckmans	Swisslion Cycling Team	481
Lahcen Saber	Swisslion Cycling Team	310
Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy	Swisslion Cycling Team	217
Hugues Mottin	Swisslion Cycling Team	127
Abolfazl Gilanipoor	Swisslion Cycling Team	115
Tyron Giogieri	Swisslion Cycling Team	54
Miha Poljanec	Swisslion Cycling Team	46
Aberlardo Ablenado	Swisslion Cycling Team	39
Stepan Kurianov	Swisslion Cycling Team	38
Izidor Penko	Swisslion Cycling Team	33
Matic Groselj	Swisslion Cycling Team	7
Georgios Stavrakakis	Swisslion Cycling Team	6
Gabriel Marin	Swisslion Cycling Team	4
Kees Duyvesteyn	Swisslion Cycling Team	1
Michael Christodoulos	Swisslion Cycling Team	1

We will have further posts about the season and future developments in the coming days, as well as sponsor news. Stay tuned.


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

Balkans International

We highly overestimated ourselves in picking our race goals this season. But let's start with the one that we actually made. Eddy Beltran managed to finish exactly 5th, as he did last year. So we managed to make our goal in our home race. Something that is still well appreciated by our current and future sponsors.

Tour of East Java

We unexpectedly won this race last year, so we thought top 5 is realistic. Well we were very wrong. The top climbers came to play and Beltran simply could not keep up with them. Lesson learned.

Scandinavia Open Road Race

Scandinavia we thought could play to Eddy's strengths in a similar way Pais Vasco did last year. But the "hilly" prologue was not tough enough so Eddy was at the mercy of the top PT puncheurs. The other stages weren't selective enough and without any bonus seconds the end result was what it was. Another lesson learned.

Giro dell'Emelia

Another race that we won last year and we genuinely thought we could win it again. Unfortunately it seems that it just wasn't our day. Obviously every missed goal is a big disappointment, but not even making the podium stung. Especially since we didn't have anything else to ride for at that point in the last race of the year.

PCT Team standings

The mandatory MGUCI goal. We knew this was going to be difficult, but we hoped we could at least fight for it with some luck. Reality is luck or not, we were a long way off the pace.


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

Obviously it's never fun to fail most of your goals, but every year you survive offers renewed potential. Looking forward to facing you in PCT!

I think "renewed potential" is a very good way to phrase it, because we are probably largely dependant on how renewals go for us

Good to have you back in PCT, but I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to facing you. I think your team is much better than mine outside of Beltran. Hopefully we can both survive

Very happy you survived after a strong end of the season! Story now a bit similar to last season, as EAB should go down in wage and from there on you can build a team and try to find some more scoring guys, as declining riders like Boeckmans, Mottin and Nepomn should be scoring less points if you decide to keep them. Sucks that your goals are only 1/5, but I'm looking forward to see what you will do in the transfer season.