Thanks for all those great reports! They were a joy to read with so many details in it!
Gesink totally deserved winner. He was by far the strongest in the first half of the race and still looked good in the last week and his support looked very strong for most of the time! Congrats alex!
Lecuisinier with a tremendous performance fighting himself towards a surprisingly strong 4th place.
Totally ridiculous race from Tejay van Grotesque. Finishing inside the top ten while adding a couple of stage wins must have been the performance of the season and "slightly" more than the expected amount of points for Mre. Similar strong performances by Lutsenko and Sagan.
Alarcon the most unlucky rider here. After a brilliant Giro bad luck striked heavily and he wasnt his usual self. So sad to watch him during the race.
Koch claiming a top 30 GC in the end is nice but i would have hoped for a lot more attacks of him, Vosekalns and Poljanski - maybe also Smirnovs, Siskevicius & Stoltz. The stage win by Skujins was of course good but i had hoped for more when sending him here. Abandoning just before the final two hill stages really hurt the points outcome which tend me to believe that my team underperformed a bit.
7 finishers however is decently and will propably be the highest number of finishers throughout the GT season.
Cannot wait for the ranking update (although some big points in Strada Appia Antica beforehand) are ofc appreciated as well
Gratz to Gesink and eBuddy for the well-deserved win!
Jaycos performance is overshadowed by Mortons early crash and time losses. Penasa had a few good days in the mountain and could provide help until the final climb, but overall it was a quiet race from him.
Thanks for the once more steady, quality reporting and service to the game, roturn!
Ugh. Was always going to be hard for Guarnieri when the peleton fucks it up. Horrible race for us, and surely no way back from relegation after this showing.
A weird race, with the hills making such a big difference, and some of the puncheurs hanging on to a good place in the GC. Congrats to Gesink anyway, dominant win.
Yes! Finally we join the break and it even succeeds! Nice effort by Hofland to make a very bad Vuelta for Gazelle a little bit better.
In a way the huge success by puncheurs like Van Garderen and Skujins was a nice confirmation that we made a good call sending Ginanni to this race. But it also makes his injury extra sour. Better luck next time I guess.
Big congrats to eBuddy for their first GT win! And thanks to roturn for the great reporting.
Congrats to Alex, nice to see Gesink win and to see an upset here. Happy with the results for us and we should have nabbed some good points there. Thanks very much for the quality reports!
Huge moment for eBuddy and alexkr00, congratulations!
Relief to see Guldhammer safe through that final stage and secure 6th in the overall classification. Add Holst Enger's good sprinting, and we got more than what we came for, which makes me very happy
Also great races for SotD, Roman, Gustavovskiy and obviously Mre, congratulations to all of you as well. Guess it's time to make Becherovka the obvious favourite for the PT crown after this, as I struggle to see how they can be stopped after this. Bewley failing is one option, but that never seems likely.
Last but not least, thank you for amazing reports through the whole Vuelta, roturn. Absolutely fantastic!
Massive congratulations to Alex! And massive congratulations to Avin, for a still very profitable Vuelta even though the result wasn't the one he wanted, to Mre for that ridiculous GC and racing throughout by TVG, and wacko, and anyone else who got a lot out of this. It was a great race to follow from the side lines, really really exciting even if Gesink had that advantage.
Happy to see no changes at all in GC! Congrats Alex, what a dominant win! Not the worst race at all for Metinvest, Prio, Festina, Aker, Pendelton's and Movistar too, so congrats from Bewley's manager to these teams as well!
Becherovka had a really solid race, Velits and Sagan did both well and only thing missing is a fluke breakaway success. Can't wait to see the rankings, but I don't think our position is so great. We will see though, it is quite hard to predict the rankings as a lot of time passed since the last update.
And also big thanks to roturn for such a good coverage from this GT. Really enjoyable reports!
Thanks roturn for amazing work and congrats alex for well deserved win.
Regarding to my team, Keinath´s 13th (+2nd in one stage) seems solid, eventhough being beaten by TVG or Lutsenko is a bit strange in 3 weeks long race.
Tenorio? Terribly underperforming again. According to his stats, he should fight for podium, ffs And one podium place only is also quite ridiculous.
A memorable GT this one. From Gesink's win to TVG going mental.
Congrats to everybody that got something positive out of this race. And many thanks to roturn for the speedy and detailed reports. They were a joy to read.
I just wanted a stage win, so three stage wins and eighth in GC is hard to comprehend. Going to be interesting to see where TVG finishes in the individual rankings at the end of the season now.
Also can't wait to see an updated team standings. A good performance from Abal at the Tour de France and we could possibly complete our top 10 team standings goal, as crazy as they sounded at the beginning of the season.
This has easily been one of the best seasons so far in the programs 5-year history.
Certainly one of the more different Grand Tours in my MG time. Obviously there was all those crashes. We have had those before, so that is part of the game - This time it has been much too excessive though, and it can (and probably will) be career deciding for some of the managers, who might end up relegating, or simply quitting the game altogether. Also it brings a lot of unnecessary fear for the rest when upcoming races are key.
First of all, thanks a lot Roturn for doing this GT. It has been one hell of a job and you have done extremely well to make this even more interesting than it has been from the gameplay. Consistent reporting is one of the best thing, and was what made last season the best ever (obviously me winning made it much much better ). It is just such a joy to open your labtop in the morning and seeing a stage, and then again in the evening before going to sleep. If all season could be like that this would be the best game ever made (IMO).
In terms of my own race here, I am very very pleased with 4th in the GC eventhough it comes with a bit of sour, as beating riders I should never beat because of crashes just isn't fun. I was looking forward to the U25 battle with Tsmoha. It is already a little bit of Man-Game history to have Lachlan Morton vs. Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier. And normally it is a very even match. This would have probably been aswell. I feel like Tsmoha might be the most unlucky here as Morton should easily have made the top 10 aswell as getting atleast 2nd in the U25, and probably 1st. There is a huge amount of points lost in that - Not forgetting the stage points that Lecuisinier also grabbed. I suspect that without the GC there is lost somewhere between 100-200 points, and then obviously 150-250 points is also lost from GC, U25, KOM and what not.
My secondary riders really managed to do horrible here - Not counting Koretzky as he was a main priority (aswell as Coquard). Gougeard tried a few times, OK. Loanie Pavel Potocki did reasonably well also. Well inside top 100 and helping here and there. Marco Haller did absolutely nothing. Was in the sprint train once, just to fall back. And Bryan Coquard struggled - Not because of that, but as a part of that. He was never strong enough alone, and the combo should have brought a lot better than it did. Yuriy Vasyliv and Piter Campero was hugely dissapointing. I expected Vasyliv to be able to finish somewhere around 25-30 because of his decent skill combination, while Campero could be a good last man on the hard mountain stages. Both sucked, while Campero atleast had a few decent stages. Getting in 40-50th region is not good enough.
Because of those riders, specifically, and because other teams with similar riders performed much better, we went from a very secure 3rd in the Team GC to 5th. Before the race that would have been OK. After the race, looking at so many peoples misfortune, not so much. Still acceptable though.
Winning the U25 and getting 6th in the KOM and PTS competitions are very good results though, and 4th in the GC (as mentioned) is obviously much much better than what could have been expected.
A bit congrats to those doing well here. Metinvest through Pluchkin did well, despite not winning, Movistar through Tejay van Garderen had the race of a life time (again after a lucky hilly classic also), Pendleton's through a decent Nibali and a great Lutsenko and obviously eBuddy from Gesink doing absolutely stellar. In my oppinion a well deserved result after having so often seen Gesink underperfom or crash out of contention. And to 1) Finally see him in a GT and 2) Winning it in such a fashion is great!
Thanks to the two wildcard teams, Prio-Porto and Coldeportes for doing such a great job making this race more difficult and interesting. That is exactly what wildcard teams should do - So thumbs up!
Finally a bit of condolences to teams who had a shit race to some degree. Already mentioning Jayco'z, so jumping straight to Pokerstars who had one of the main favorites for the overall GC, but again crashes made the race piss poor. Luckily Keinath stepped up and made for a better show than he have done recently, but here we definately have a case of season determing crash, as also the Giro was not in their favour. My buddies at Gazelle had a shit race also because of Ginanni having to abandon the race. Looking at which riders really performed well, it would be obvious that Ginanni should have been able to win a stage or atleast get several stage podiums. And if climbing like the likes of Koretzky he should have been in the top 30 of the GC (Maybe in top 25) aswell. The same can definately be said for Skujins and Evonik, but luckily he did manage a stage win before the race, and their season have been easily better than anticipated - Probably still inside the top 3 after this race. Red Bull didn't have to say goodbye to Alarcon, but his dreams of another GT podium was quickly gone. It was probably not going to happen anyway with those TT's and hills in the way, but his crash made him falter - And while almost securing the KOM jersey, he decided to sit up when he was needed the most.
Aegon didn't get the amount of points they would have liked, but luckily a bit here in the end with also Olivier and Bennett climbing a bit in the GC towards the end. Aker had another good race, while Guldhammer faded a bit in the end, they also had some strong helpers and a marvellous sprinter in Holst Enger. My friends at Becherovka had a superb race. Velits could have done a step or two better, but that is easily covered by a strong Sagan race, while also Kolar performing pretty well. For Bouygues it all started so well with Roelandts again showing himself in a GT. I can't expect them to be too unhappy with this race where also Kozhatayev did alright. Team BPost had a reasonably quiet race, but Jurgen van den Broeck did what was expected of him, and then a Keukeleire stage win and a Wallays result here in the end must make it a pretty decent race aswell. Grieg put everything on one board and Guarnieri didn't deliver. Rightfully he should have done better, but their team was simply not strong enough to compete for the good stageresults. Neither for the mountains nor the hills, and this can be a heavy burden and a difficult one to recover from. Kenya without Ponzi? Oh why oh why? That would have been 3-4-5 stagewins and a top 10 in the GC. Well the latter was not easy to know, but he should have been here if they wanted to stay safe. I guess Kudus did OK, if looking past those hilly riders that jumped ahead. Nothing spectacular though, and probably a small points harvest, which also make them look very uneven. Nairo Quintana and Ki Ho Choi didn't get what they should from this race, so after a dreadful Giro, Orange again find themselves in quite a relegation pickle I would imagine. Definately not the best of races with also Kennaugh not doing particularly well. RBC came with the hopes of getting some stage luck from Boily or Elissonde I suspect, but instead it was Duchesne who made their race interesting. The others, again from bad luck, underperformed. Team Puma had a distinct "Festina" race, much like we did in the Giro. Some decent riders for attacking, but nothing happening. Bongiorno and Herklotz should have done OK - and did - I guess. But just sitting there waiting for the world to change definately didn't bring many points. Tinkoff had their usual breakaway like team, but with a slightly overperforming Kolesnikov the team seems frozen in their ways. Unfortunately as their was quite some chances for decent breakaways and possibly a KOM jersey. You can't call their performance bad though as Kolesnikov yet again had a GC above par. Finally our usual rivals, Vesuvio. Their GC riders simply did not deliver, while Goos seemed very strong in the first half he managed to run out of energy to finish 23rd almost caught by Kirsch. Nick van der Lijke did well however.
This became quite a long note, but I think you all deserve a mention here after such a different race, and after such a professionel and great performance by Roturn to make this an unforgetful event. Thank you!
Thanks a lot for all your positive feedback regarding the reports. Was nice to write them for the Vuelta.
Even though it was kind of frustrating from my very own point of view. Olivier was definitely underperforming on most mountain stages and even got beaten by Bennett twice. Except for 2 attacks on mountain stages, which then ended in losing time it was a pretty anonymous race by him.
In especially seeing puncheurs on any mountain stage oassing Olivier was pretty tough to see. Still kudos to Van Garderen and co as it was a nice difference to other races.
In the end a top20 which was the aim and top25 with Bennett. So at least goal wise it was a good Vuelta. Seeing how it played out though shows that a lot more would have been possible though.
Groenewegen therefore nicely performed in the sprints and collected nice amount of points in first week hence scoring wise a nice race for me without the big leaders Swift/Keizer/De Bie/Boom.
Had hoped for a few more breakaways tbh but seeing how eBuddy controlled the race, it doesn`t matter really.
Congrats to eBuddy for a sensational Vuelta and their first GT win. Also Prio, I-Gen, Metinvest, Movistar and all the others who had a nice race and sorry to those, that had a mediocre to bad Vuelta. Hopefully better races to come next then.
Roman wrote:
Happy to see no changes at all in GC! Congrats Alex, what a dominant win! Not the worst race at all for Metinvest, Prio, Festina, Aker, Pendelton's and Movistar too, so congrats from Bewley's manager to these teams as well!
Becherovka had a really solid race, Velits and Sagan did both well and only thing missing is a fluke breakaway success. Can't wait to see the rankings, but I don't think our position is so great. We will see though, it is quite hard to predict the rankings as a lot of time passed since the last update.
And also big thanks to roturn for such a good coverage from this GT. Really enjoyable reports!
I think it is safe to say (without me checking) that you are in a very strong position in front. Evonik had you for a while I believe, but after this I think you have a 4-600 points lead. Maybe Metinvest or eBuddy (or Aker) have jumped to 2nd, but I doubt that they are overtaking Evonik by much.
And while hte PT ranking update is soon to come, here already the Vuelta race ranking! (Not sure if I can still post the PT update today and I am busy this weekend. So Monday is more likely then. Same for PCT.
1
eBuddy
1659
2
Metinvest-Dacia
1121
3
Becherovka - Petrof
705
4
Aker - MOT
703
5
Team I-Gen - Festina
693
6
Pendleton's
632
7
Movistar - US Postal
609
8
Pokerstars.com
449
9
Red Bull - Huawei
400
10
Bpost - Vlaanderen
375
11
Bouygues Telecom
365
12
Aegon - Lavazza
338
13
Vesuvio - Accumalux
292
14
Tinkoff Sport Academy
286
15
Orange - KLM Cycling
281
16
Jayco'z Cycling Project
266
17
Evonik - ELKO
257
18
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
222
19
Team Puma - SAP
177
20
Gazelle
151
21
Grieg - Eftel
149
22
RBC Pro Cycling
135
1
Robert Gesink
NED
eBuddy
1428
2
Aleksandr Pluchkin
MOL
Metinvest-Dacia
1023
3
Tejay Van Garderen
USA
Movistar - US Postal
489
4
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
467
5
Peter Velits
SVK
Becherovka - Petrof
405
6
Alexey Lutsenko
KAZ
Pendleton's
314
7
Rasmus Guldhammer
DEN
Aker - MOT
314
8
Jurgen Roelandts
BEL
Bouygues Telecom
259
9
Sondre Holst Enger
NOR
Aker - MOT
255
10
Vincenzo Nibali
ITA
Pendleton's
231
11
Justo Tenorio
ESP
Pokerstars.com
218
12
Peter Sagan
SVK
Becherovka - Petrof
189
13
Mark Cavendish
GBR
Red Bull - Huawei
186
14
Jose Alarcon
VEN
Red Bull - Huawei
157
15
Jurgen Van den Broeck
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
146
Spoiler
16
Nico Keinath
GER
Pokerstars.com
143
17
Nick Van der Lijke
NED
Vesuvio - Accumalux
127
18
Toms Skujins
LAT
Evonik - ELKO
123
19
Peter Kennaugh
GBR
Orange - KLM Cycling
120
20
Dylan Groenewegen
NED
Aegon - Lavazza
114
21
Jens Keukeleire
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
106
22
Sergei Kolesnikov
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
100
23
Daan Olivier
NED
Aegon - Lavazza
98
24
Gianluca Brambilla
ITA
eBuddy
92
25
Clement Koretzky
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
87
26
Merhawi Kudus
ERI
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
81
27
Jelle Wallays
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
78
28
Antoine Duchesne
CAN
RBC Pro Cycling
72
29
Lachlan Morton
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
71
30
Francesco Bongiorno
ITA
Team Puma - SAP
65
31
George Bennett
NZL
Aegon - Lavazza
63
32
Nairo Quintana
COL
Orange - KLM Cycling
63
33
Luke Durbridge
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
61
34
Marc Goos
NED
Vesuvio - Accumalux
61
35
Alex Kirsch
LUX
Vesuvio - Accumalux
55
36
Aleksej Kunshin
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
53
37
Bryan Coquard
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
52
38
Silvio Herklotz
GER
Team Puma - SAP
49
39
Costa Seibeb
NAM
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
49
40
Vegard Stake Laengen
NOR
Aker - MOT
49
41
Jacopo Guarnieri
ITA
Grieg - Eftel
48
42
Moreno Hofland
NED
Gazelle
48
43
Michel Koch
GER
Evonik - ELKO
47
44
Rafel Majka
POL
eBuddy
45
45
Ilnur Zakarin
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
42
46
Davide Formolo
ITA
Gazelle
40
47
Jack Haig
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
38
48
Michael Kolar
SVK
Becherovka - Petrof
38
49
Zakkari Dempster
AUS
Grieg - Eftel
37
50
Nikita Novikov
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
37
51
Ion Izagirre
ESP
Pokerstars.com
34
52
Bernhard Kohl
AUT
Pendleton's
34
53
Michel Kreder
NED
Orange - KLM Cycling
33
54
Bjorn Selander
USA
Movistar - US Postal
33
55
Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev
KAZ
Bouygues Telecom
30
56
Fredrik Strand Galta
NOR
Aker - MOT
29
57
Mwangi Samwel
KEN
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
28
58
Rob Ruijgh
NED
eBuddy
27
59
Piter Campero
BOL
Team I-Gen - Festina
27
60
Andris Smirnovs
LAT
Evonik - ELKO
26
61
Ki Ho Choi
HKG
Orange - KLM Cycling
26
62
Pierre Paolo Penasa
ITA
Jayco'z Cycling Project
25
63
Lahcen Saber
MOR
Jayco'z Cycling Project
24
64
Ricardo Van der Velde
NED
eBuddy
24
65
Yuriy Vasyliv
GER
Team I-Gen - Festina
24
66
Christopher Juul-Jensen
DEN
Grieg - Eftel
23
67
David Rosch
GER
Pendleton's
23
68
Janvier Hadi
RWA
Bouygues Telecom
22
69
Valens Ndayisenga
RWA
Vesuvio - Accumalux
22
70
Tim Kennaugh
GBR
Pendleton's
22
71
Tyron Giogieri
ALB
Becherovka - Petrof
21
72
Andrei Sakalou
BLR
Becherovka - Petrof
21
73
Sigurd Nesset
NOR
Aker - MOT
20
74
Jonathan Castroviejo
ESP
eBuddy
20
75
Bjørn Tore Hoem
NOR
Aker - MOT
20
76
Pavel Potocki
CRO
Team I-Gen - Festina
19
77
Adel Barbari
ALG
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
18
78
Libin Chen
CHN
Red Bull - Huawei
18
79
Christian Meier
CAN
Movistar - US Postal
18
80
Petr Ignatenko
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
18
81
Michael Ford
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
17
82
Jesús Herrada
ESP
Pokerstars.com
17
83
Thomas Degand
BEL
Aegon - Lavazza
17
84
Tim Declerq
BEL
Team Puma - SAP
16
85
Omar Fraile
ESP
Movistar - US Postal
16
86
David Boily
CAN
RBC Pro Cycling
15
87
Evaldas Siskevicius
LTU
Evonik - ELKO
15
88
Blaz Furdi
SLO
Gazelle
15
89
Francis De Greef
BEL
Gazelle
15
90
Jonathan Hivert
FRA
Orange - KLM Cycling
15
91
Estifanos Kebede
ETH
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
15
92
Nicolae Tanovitchii
MOL
Metinvest-Dacia
15
93
Björn Thurau
GER
Aegon - Lavazza
15
94
Pawel Poljanski
POL
Evonik - ELKO
15
95
Andrii Bratashcuk
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
15
96
Irakli Bablidze
GEO
Bouygues Telecom
15
97
George Alexandru Stancu
ROM
eBuddy
15
98
Robbie Squire
USA
Metinvest-Dacia
15
99
Xavier Quevedo
VEN
Movistar - US Postal
15
100
Romain Bardet
FRA
BPost - Vlaanderen
15
101
Matej Vysna
SVK
Becherovka - Petrof
15
102
Jaco Venter
RSA
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
15
103
Gavin Mannion
USA
Bouygues Telecom
15
104
Patrick Konrad
AUT
Gazelle
15
105
Guillaume Levarlet
FRA
Grieg - Eftel
15
106
Timothy Roe
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
15
107
Mathieu La Lavandier
FRA
Bpost - Vlaanderen
15
108
Andris Vosekalns
LAT
Evonik - ELKO
15
109
Anatoliy Sosnitskiy
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
15
110
Volodymyr Dzhus
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
15
111
Maxim Belkov
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
15
112
Konstantin Siutsou
BLR
Red Bull - Huawei
15
113
Benjamin Dyball
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
15
114
Dmitri Grabovski
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
15
115
Thomas Koep
GER
Aegon - Lavazza
15
116
Richard Antonio Carapaz
ECU
Movistar - US Postal
15
117
Tyler Brandt
USA
Movistar - US Postal
15
118
Johannes Heider
GER
Team Puma - SAP
15
119
Igor Boev
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
13
120
Saulo Lay
ESP
Pokerstars.com
11
121
Juan Abenhamar Gallego Martin
ESP
Pokerstars.com
10
122
Pedro Merino Criado
ESP
Vesuvio - Accumalux
10
123
David Tanner
AUS
Grieg - Eftel
10
124
Sakari Lehtinen
FIN
Vesuvio - Accumalux
9
125
Alexis Gougeard
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
9
126
Ramon Sinkeldam
NED
eBuddy
8
127
Marco Minnard
NED
Gazelle
8
128
Morgan Kneisky
FRA
Bouygues Telecom
8
129
Michal Golas
POL
Aker - MOT
8
130
Sascha Weber
GER
Team Puma - SAP
8
131
Jesper Hansen
DEN
Red Bull - Huawei
8
132
Patrick Naud
CAN
RBC Pro Cycling
8
133
Carlos Verona
ESP
Movistar - US Postal
8
134
Tesfom Okbamariam
ERI
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
8
135
Patrick Bercz
GER
Team Puma - SAP
8
136
Maris Bogdanovics
LAT
Evonik - ELKO
8
137
Matthieu Ladagnous
FRA
Pendleton's
8
138
Yannick Stoltz
LUX
Evonik - ELKO
8
139
João Gaspar
BRA
Bouygues Telecom
8
140
Ahmad Arissol
SEY
Red Bull - Huawei
8
141
Richard Laningo Laizer
TAN
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
8
142
Nandra Eko Wahyudi
INA
Vesuvio - Accumalux
8
143
Sergey Chernetskiy
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
8
144
Nicolas Edet
FRA
Orange - KLM Cycling
8
145
Charles Matte
CAN
RBC Pro Cycling
8
146
Stanislau Bazhkou
BLR
Aker - MOT
8
147
Dylan Van Baarle
NED
Team Puma - SAP
8
148
Sven Vandousselaere
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
8
149
Jan Tratnik
SLO
Gazelle
8
150
Miguel Angel Benito
ESP
Pokerstars.com
8
151
Konstantin Klimiankou
BLR
Metinvest-Dacia
8
152
Martin Pedersen
DEN
Orange - KLM Cycling
8
153
Florian Scheit
GER
Aegon - Lavazza
8
154
Daniel Turek
CZE
Becherovka - Petrof
8
155
Soufiane Haddi
MOR
Grieg - Eftel
8
156
Kristoffer Skjerping
NOR
Grieg - Eftel
8
157
Florian Morizot
FRA
RBC Pro Cycling
8
158
Thomas Bonnin
FRA
RBC Pro Cycling
8
159
Wouter Weylandt
BEL
Bouygues Telecom
8
160
Marco Haller
AUT
Team I-Gen - Festina
8
161
Muhamma Afif Ahmad Zamri
MAS
Aegon - Lavazza
8
162
Nathan Brown
USA
RBC Pro Cycling
8
163
Grischa Janorschke
GER
Pokerstars.com
8
164
Ulugbek Galiev
KAZ
Red Bull - Huawei
8
165
Dayer Quintana
COL
Orange - KLM Cycling
8
166
Clement Chevrier
FRA
Team Puma - SAP
8
167
Kenny Elissonde
FRA
RBC Pro Cycling
8
168
Ilia Koshevoy
BLR
Becherovka - Petrof
8
169
Victor Campenaerts
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
7
170
Francesco Ginanni
ITA
Gazelle
2
Regarding the PCT teams who don`t get points here but for your interest. Both with nice races here clearly!
So it is over and i think we can all agree that this was very much interesting GT in almost every aspect.
Starting with maybe the most important thing and that is the race coverage. Top notch work here from roturn, in both the pace and quality. As SotD said (yeah, i have really read that whole wall of text), it is great to have the report ready for your morning coffee or evening glass of wine.
So thanks roturn!
Second, massive congrats to alex and Gesink for dominating the race from the start, the race was already won in first week and he still fought like the lion in the third one. After managers dedication for his leader and such a bad luck in the past with him, it feels sweet to see him suceed, even when it is against our guy. Well deserved win and absolutely smashing points score for eBuddy!
That brings us to the 2nd place holder, our own star Pluchkin. Ofc it would be the perfect ending to our journey, if he made it 4 from 4 GT wins in our colours, but every story ends sometimes and we can be proud for what we have achieved together. Still four stage wins and 2nd place also in KOM and points competitions make this another perfect GT success for us, also 4th 1000+ race in the row obviously.
Cant say much about other riders of Metinvest, as they were rarely seen, but young guys like Sosnistkiy and Dzhus supported their leader well i guess.
Congrats to other happy teams like Movistar (wow TVG!), I-Gen, Becherovka, AKER or Pendletons. And i also feel sorry for Pokerstars, RedBull or Jaycoz, which were hindered by crashes and massive underperformance.
Farewell to Aleksandr Pluchkin-Metinvest combo, i hope this cooperation will be remembered in history of the MG! Best move ever for my team in any off-season.
And one podium place only is also quite ridiculous.
