Hopefully Ricco can do well in the Giro, his support looks pretty strong also. With Spilak and Guerao having big races remaining you could be right up there at the end of the season
jph27 wrote:
Nice to see our former patrons doing well.
Hopefully Ricco can do well in the Giro, his support looks pretty strong also. With Spilak and Guerao having big races remaining you could be right up there at the end of the season
Yeah I hope I will be able to be somewhere around 5th this season. Spilak could potentially win the Tour de France, or should atleast podium. Ricco can still get something like 5-6 GC in the Giro, and then Guerao could (but probably wont) win a few stages at the Vuelta. Spilak will only ride the Tour and the Dauphine, so he doesn't have a massive amount of races. The Giro is also Ricco's last race until the Giro di Lombardia - And the Vuelta is with a poor GC setup.
David Boily took a very pleasant stagewin in the Giro, which was set to also get a great GC result, with Riccardo Ricco fighting for 4-5th place in the overall GC. He crashed on stage 18, though. The end.
Welcome to the second Grand Tour of the season. Having recently gotten home from Italy, with a huge dissapointment, after seeing Riccardo Ricco abandoning from our best ever GC position in the race, we are eager to get it out of our system, and look forward.
The Vuelta a España have been our main target for the past three seasons, with Alberto Contador trying to win the race. We haven't managed to do so, but a couple of stagewins, and three times podium in the race makes this one of the teams strongest ever. This time around we have decided to go for a different approach, knowing that we cannot win the race with the numerous strong spanish climbers in the peloton, so we have put a strong effort in trying to get a strong sprinters train in for the race, while giving one of our young climbers a chance to prove himself as a decent GT rider for the future.
Captain: Óscar Guerao
- Óscar is our best card in the race, and he will aim to get as many stagewins as possible. Having had a horrible season this far, we really need to put pressure on him to perform now. Last season he proved that he was a top sprinter, byt clinching several Tour de France stagewins, after having had a miserable Vuelta a España. This time we have decided to go all in for him. We will present his main helpers first.
Sprint lieutenaint: Georgos Tzortzakis
- The greek sprinter, Tzortzakis, will aim to leadout Guerao in the fairly large amounts of flat stages, suited for Óscar. Tzortzakis showed in the Tour of California that he is easily capable of sprinting with the best himself, taking a top 3 on one occassion. Tzortzakis is not only fast, he is also capable of surviving difficult terrains, hence probably being the strongest allround sprinter in the race for us.
Sprint train: Jens Keukeleire
- Jens is another, to-be sprinter in our team. He is also more than decent on the hilly terrains, aswell as being a subtop sprinter in the World Tour. He has been leadout throughout the season, and this is no difference. He lacks a bit of topspeed, so he is set to keep things together and start the sprint from way out, leaving room for Georgos and Óscar to do their thing.
GC leader: Vadim Ratiy
- Vadim hasn't had a single chance to prove himself as a leader for us this season, and in fact this is his first race of the entire season. We are reluctant to guess as to what position he could get, before seeing the startlist, but an estimation could be somewhere around 15th to 20th in the GC. We hope that he will be able to survive the fast, flat stages, aswell as the more hilly ones, which is his disadvantage in the overall. He is a fairly decent climber, and a respectable timetriallist. We believe that the mountains classification could possibly be something for him, if he loses a lot of time early on.
GC lieutenaint: Gianpaolo Caruso
- Gianpaolo did everything right in the Giro setting up Riccardo Ricco for a very nice GC result, but in the end he had to try to gain a few positions himself. In the end he was 26th, despite being far behind at the time of Riccos abandonment. We believe that Caruso could attempt to get a stagewin in the race, or possibly fight for a similar GC position around 25th.
Hilly lieutenaint: David Boily
- David has shown, throughout the season, that he is very strong on the hilly terrains. He took a stagewin in the Giro d'Italia, and we hope he can somehow pull something similar here. He is our best bet at getting a decent young rider into the GC, but we believe that top 40 is probably his max. He will try to get himself into some breakaways, but otherwise he is here to keep things together for Óscar.
Domestique: Blaz Furdi
- Blaz Furdi is yet again here as a helper, and he knows the drill. He is free to attack on a few seperate occassions, otherwise he will be the first to go flatout in the chase of attackers, to keep Guerao's stagewin-chance intact.
Domestique: Gatis Smukulis
- Just like Blaz, Gatis is here to make things go faster in the pack. Smukulis has previously shown, that he is capable of winning stages from the attacks, and if things go his way, we will try to put him into a few breaks, to see what might happen. Like Blaz Furdi, Smukulis is also relatively fast, meaning that he could also take part of an early buildup to the final train for Óscar.
Thoughts on the race profile:
Looking at the race profile it looks relatively flat, for a Vuelta a España. Especially the first two weeks. It is the reason why Óscar Guerao is here to prove himself. We have decided to part the race into 3 bits. One where we believe Óscar could potentially win - We will go flat out for him in those stage, one where Vadim could potentially build some ground for a decent (top 20) GC position. In that part, we will have to make room for Boily and especially Caruso to shine. And finally the 3rd bit, where we have no real chance or ambition to do anything. If things go as planned, we will look to give some leeway for the lesser prominent names in those parts.
Bit 1 includes the stages 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 14 and potentially 15. These are all pinned for Óscar Guerao. Stage 5 should be fairly easy for him to survive, looking a the length of the stage, same goes for stage 7. We are, however, slightly fearful for stage 11, in which we might try to get one of our better climbers into an early break, in order to slow things down a bit in the first half of the race. If Óscar manages to go through that stage, he should be able to compete in all of the 7 stages we have listed as Bit 1.
Bit 2 obviously includes the mountainstages, aswell as the timetrials. That means that the stages 5, 7, 11, 16, 17, 19 and 21 are for Vadim Ratiy. It is those stages where we believe he could gain time on "lesser" riders. We do know that Ratiy struggles a bit on the hilly and fast terrains, though, meaning that we will have to look out for him on the stages 6, 14, 18 and 20 - Also we need to be aware on time gaps in the final sprint of stage 3 and 13, but we believe the gaps there could be minor for Ratiy, as there isn't much difficult in the run-in.
Bit 3 is the stages where we don't have much chance to get anything from our captains, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are free stages for us - as you will notice above, where most of them are already mentioned. It is however stages where we will aim to put in one of the three: Gatis Smukulis, Blaz Furdi or David Boily. The stages are 3, 6, 13, 18 and probably stage 15 aswell to have a two horse game going.
We are here to be noticed, and to try to get as many stageresults as possible. It is not as important for us that Vadim does a top 15 as it is to get Óscar Guerao going.
First, condolences for your horrible Giro crash of Ricco, not sure who cursed you, but i hope it will be better at Vuelta.
Now, what about Guerao, i think it is about time he starts winning this year, right? He should be fine with Georgos and Jens, as your team should be able to create leadouts, hopefully you will not be stopped like sprinters were at Giro most of the time.
I will watch very closely how Ratiy will do in GC, you know, Metinvest is looking for a replacement of aging ukrainian legend.
First, condolences for your horrible Giro crash of Ricco, not sure who cursed you, but i hope it will be better at Vuelta.
Now, what about Guerao, i think it is about time he starts winning this year, right? He should be fine with Georgos and Jens, as your team should be able to create leadouts, hopefully you will not be stopped like sprinters were at Giro most of the time.
I will watch very closely how Ratiy will do in GC, you know, Metinvest is looking for a replacement of aging ukrainian legend.
Thanks. I think the PCM gods cursed me on several occassions. Especially in the history of the Giro
Yes, it is now Óscar Guerao needs to perform. We have put the very best possible circumstances for him to perform under, so we need him to deliver now. If he can't deliver under these circumstances and in his homerace, then time is about up for him.
I too am looking very much forward to see what Ratiy can do here. He was brought in as a helper, but seeing him try on his own on such a big league is quite interesting. Next season, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier is expected to step up, as the teams main helper so Ratiy might be looking to see a chance of himself in another team. We will see about that
Looklng forward to seeing what Boily can do again in the Veulta doubt the is as much suited to him as the giro stages but you never know. Also wondering what plans you have for Tzortzakis next season? just curious since he rode for me last year will you be shopping out Guereo or will you have 2 top sprinters?
Ratiy might be a bit better climber but I hope that Gomez Marchante can stay ahead of him with National bonus.
Don`t know the exact startlist but I guess both will fight for a top15.
jt1109 wrote:
Looklng forward to seeing what Boily can do again in the Veulta doubt the is as much suited to him as the giro stages but you never know. Also wondering what plans you have for Tzortzakis next season? just curious since he rode for me last year will you be shopping out Guereo or will you have 2 top sprinters?
The long term plan is to make Bryan Coquard my main sprinter. He will be 79/81 next season, and will peak in 2016 with 81/83. Until then, the plan is to ride with Óscar Guerao. In the ideal world I can keep Guerao until the end of 2016, where I can sell him, and spend the money on training Coquard.
For the upcoming season the plan is to have a sprinttrain with the following:
This should make my sprint train capable of winning stages in almost every possible flat stagerace.
Our focus is primarily french and greek, so I would probably keep Tzortzakis over Guerao, but as he turns 30 next year - along with peaking - there is no point in training him. I did consider it though, as I could in fact make him the best sprinter in the world and that would be quite cool for a greek rider.
roturn wrote:
Ratiy might be a bit better climber but I hope that Gomez Marchante can stay ahead of him with National bonus.
Don`t know the exact startlist but I guess both will fight for a top15.
Guerao though has to deliver now.
I would assume Gomez Marchante would be better in the long run because of his ability to attack and chase stagewins. Ratiy has got 58 in acceleration so he will have to rely on steady riding to get ahead of Gomez Marchante I think.
Guerao really need to deliver yes. He has been absolutely dreadful this season, and looking at his stats, the amount of money I have poured into him, and his wage it's simply not good enough.
May was a month of both the Giro and the Vuelta, hence there wasn't much else. Except for Tour of California that is...
Our young prodigy, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier had a shot at captaincy here, and he did very well by being 5th in the youth competition and 20th in the GC before the final stage. Much like our normal amount of bad luck, he was caught out on the final, flat stage though, losing as much as 4 minutes. In the GC that costed 8 spots, leaving him in 28th overall, while also dropping another two spots in the youth competition.
Edited by SotD on 26-12-2014 14:45
Just like the Giro d'Italia, we had a very dissapointing Vuelta a España, which never lid up, as Óscar Guerao decided he wasn't going to attempt to win a stage, and once he decided to give up, the race was basically lost. Vadim Ratiy tried to get a decent GC result, but failed only getting 21st, despite being relatively strong on the longer climbs.
The final race of the Vuelta a España was taking place here, while also the warm up towards the Tour de France, Criterium du Dauphine was present. Simon Spilak was sent here to show his presence, and redeem himself from a dissapointing 4th place in the Paris-Nice.
He started out well in the prologue, although losing a bit of time to Taaramae wasn't the best possible start. And that seemed to be a problem all along. The estonian simply wouldn't slip down the ranks, and while Spilak tried and tried, he just couldn't get the gap, so 2nd in the GC was the best result we could get. On stage 3 Spilak did, however, get a stagewin on the way, and the mountains jersey was also secured giving us a bit more points.
There was also a stagerace in switzerland, and while Óscar Guerao did finally manage to win a stage, our captain Vadim Ratiy crashed and lost more than 16 minutes on the first stage, leaving the race almost pointless for us.
