Sorry busy IRL so have not been that active lately.
Espana was dissapointing with Fåglum Karlsson 2nd on one stage as best result was hoping Stallaert and KHJ could do better.
Unfortunately neither Van der Poel nor Ballerini were strong enough on the last day to show something. In the end it`s not a lot of points despite 1 win and 1 3rd here as other stage results from my climbers were missing and none of them finishes high in the KoM standing, which was my big hope here.
That said, 17th and 31st in GC is fine and pretty much what their stats suggest. Unfortunately the team lineup saw other and often not the most ideal riders join the break, which I guess did cost me couple points on 2-3 stages. Though it also meant that Toupalik got rewarded a lot in the early stages by wearing 1-2 jerseys plus being high in a 1-2 other rankings. Not the most points in the end but small points also help.
Unfortunately post planning though I went for 2 rather weak GT lineups with my weak lineup. So Olivier, who is supposed to score best in the GC now likely faces an incredible TdF lineup and might even struggle to top10, while here and in the Giro he might have entered the top5 even. Planning mistake clearly by too much just looking on TTs I guess.
Thanks Nemolito for the great coverage of this GT. Always a lot of work to do so but you did a fantastic job, steady reports, good quality.
Congrats first of all to SotD. Lecuisinier slowly grew into a top rider and fully deserved this GT. Tenorio gave him a bit of a fight due to the TTs mainly but in the end couldn`t come that close in the mountains. Same for Kritskiy, who was again very anonymous but has his 2nd GT podium this season.
Behind couple of random names but this is not that unrealistic neither. 2-3 riders suffered from missing out a couple times unfortunately.
roturn wrote:
Unfortunately neither Van der Poel nor Ballerini were strong enough on the last day to show something. In the end it`s not a lot of points despite 1 win and 1 3rd here as other stage results from my climbers were missing and none of them finishes high in the KoM standing, which was my big hope here.
Is that SotD disguising himself as roturn? You held 2 jerseys for 10 days
If there's one thing Croatia can't stand it's managers with unrealistic high race expectations
In the end this was the best GT my team has ridden so far. Reis was again disappointing but that was made up by 7 stage podiums which could not have been expected at all. Of my 8 riders here only my two loanees did not manage to get a stage top 5 and 5 of them even managed at least one podium finish!
Congrats SotD on the very deserved victory!
And finally thank you Nemolito for great quality reports over the last three weeks. I really start to feel like you are our talisman. In the last three of my races with you reporting I did really really well!
Can't wait for the next rankings update we should be far from the relegation zone by now and basically have secured another year in PT already.
Bikex wrote:
If there's one thing Croatia can't stand it's managers with unrealistic high race expectations
Very true. It would be fair enough if it wasn't for the fact of how he moaned in a similar way last season when everyone expected him to win the PT rankings
Big congrats to SotD. Nice reward for the Lecuisinier project. First of many, I expect.
For Gazelle this was an uneventful Vuelta. The team obviously chose to ride for Formolo, joining relatively few breakaways. Apart from two blunders Davide did a great job in many stages and 16th in GC is a good result for him I guess. But overall our scoring here is pretty low. Madrazo will need to step up in the Tour.
