Hello and benvenuto to spring in Italy. The Tirreno-Adriatico is a permanent fixture to the Pro Tour and have been ever since 2007 where Frank Schleck won. He did that again in 2012, while in the meantime the race had been won by Boogerd, Di Luca, Sánchez Gonzalez and Yuri Trofimov. In recent years the race have been won by strong riders such as Damiano Cunego, Simone Ponzi and last season Dan Martin was also written into the history books.
The race start out by a short prologue before heading straight into the hills. The race will definately suit the strongest puncheurs, but will likely be too difficult for the very onesided riders. Last season, Simon Spilak was 2nd in the race in a race having a tough mountain stage. This season is different, and will invite some different rider types - However, the race clashes with two other Pro Tour races, Paris-Nice and Classique du Grand-Duche, and this will offer some guessings towards results, but more importantly startlists. Clement Koretzky is here to go for the GC aswell as some stage results.
STARTING LINE UP FOR THE RACE
#11
Koretzky,
Clement
#12
Le Gac,
Olivier
#13
Tzortzakis,
Georgos
#14
Gougeard,
Alexis
#15
Haller,
Marco
#16
Vlatos,
Panagiotis
#17
Eibegger,
Markus
As Koretzky can not be guaranteed to do a top GC result, it seems evident that the team have decided to go for numerous stages instead. Panagiotis Vlatos for the opening stage, while Tzortzakis could perform well on the two flat stages. It will be difficult to guess just which riders will attend the race, but bookmakers have given it a go.
EXPERTS SUGGESTS
The bookmakers feel certain that Clement Koretzky are among the favorites for the race, but lacking the final touch and maybe climbers level of a few others, he will still be an underdog in terms of winning.
#1
Trofimov,
Yuri
2,20
#2
Boasson Hagen,
Edvald
2,40
#3
Skujins,
Toms
3,40
#4
Bobridge,
Jack
3,60
#5
De Bie,
Sean
5,00
#11
Koretzky,
Clement
13,00
*Weighted values of bet365, Unibet, sky BET, Paddy Power and betfair
Having seen what the experts say, we head on straight to the real expert of the team, the team manager, who have been so kind to help us get an established view of the team towards the race.
MANAGER'S CORNER
Team manager, Andreas Jøhnke have put up a few words on the race.
"The Tirreno-Adriatico have always been a key race for us, and this season could build on that, depending on what Koretzky are able to do in the GC. We aim to win the opening timetrial with Panagiotis Vlatos, as we hope/think that most of the top timetriallists will aim for the Paris-Nice, who offer two timetrials.
Besides the time trial we hope that Georgos Tzortzakis can also compete for a decent sprint result as there are two sprint stages on offer, where as Paris-Nice also offer two, but before the "trouble" kicks in. It is always a gamble, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
As a final touch we have decided to bring some decent backup for Koretzky in form of Le Gac, Gougeard and Eibegger"
Bonjour et bienvenue à la France. Paris-Nice is the first French race on the Pro Tour calender of the 2016 season, and as usual we are expecting to see a strong list of contenders for the final GC win. The race that have been won twice by Russian superstar Yuri Trofimov have usually seen strong riders win. In the past the winners list include Alexandre Vinokourov, Alejandro Valverde, Robert Gesink, Frank Schleck, Emanuelle Sella, Dan Martin and most recent, Edvald Boasson Hagen.
The race kicks off with a flat 3km prologue, where the best and fastest against the clock will look for a quick glance at yellow, before the sprinters take over. The two flat stages opens the race for a sprinter to take over the leaders jersey before the hills kick in on stage 4 - We are likely to see the strongest riders compete for the win already here, but some might lose all hopes of the win on the difficult stage 5 before the race yet again get's more doable on stage 6 and 7 before ending the race on a mountain time trial.
STARTING LINE UP FOR THE RACE
#91
Lecuisinier,
Pierre-Henri
#92
Novak,
Jakub
#93
Coquard,
Bryan
#94
Stepniak,
Grzegorz
#95
Bernaudeau,
Mathieu
#16
Hofer,
Andreas
#17
Kosic,
Nejc
For the first time ever we will see a maxed out Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier as a team leader, and we are looking forward to see what he can do here. Having Novak with him as a lieutenaint hopefully makes the difference on a few GC spots. Normally the team would target the opening timetrial hard to gain the leaders jersey, but instead we are hoping for some luck with Bryan Coquard however unlikely it will be that he can actually sprint for top 3s here.
EXPERTS SUGGESTS
Most bookies are feeling that Lecuisinier should be a top 10 contender for the race, but having a difficult time grasping who will race here, the odds are a bit dull.
#1
Schleck,
Andy
2,00
#2
Madrazo,
Angel
2,20
#3
Gesink,
Robert
3,40
#4
Tenorio,
Justo
3,60
#5
Taaramae,
Rein
4,00
#9
Lecuisinier,
Pierre-Henri
10,50
*Weighted values of bet365, Unibet, sky BET, Paddy Power and betfair
Having seen what the experts say, we head on straight to the real expert of the team, the team manager, who have been so kind to help us get an established view of the team towards the race.
MANAGER'S CORNER
Team manager, Andreas Jøhnke have put up a few words on the race.
"We have been loving the Paris-Nice race for a long time, and having a partly french team we need to show ourselves from the best side. We are aiming very hard for a good GC spot to Pierre-Henri, but also wishes to see just what a rider like Bryan Coquard can do on his own. He will have the help of a decent leadout setup, but we don't think it will be up to us to create the sprint train here. Hopefully the field aren't packed with the best sprinters, but we will see...
Jakub Novak is here to help Lecuisinier, and we hope he can actually ride for a top 25 himself aswell. Coquard will have Stepniak and Bernaudeau to ride for him and then we have Hofer and Kosic for the preliminary work - and who knows, maybe a break away offer here and there."
Welcome to Luxembourg and this final threat of the three-headed February monster. The Luxembourgian race is a very difficult classic race, which usually calls for the very best of the puncheurs. This season should be no different. Former winners of this race are Yuri Trofimov (twice), Frank Schleck, Damiano Cunego and lastly Simone Ponzi who had a marvelous 2015 campaign winning the race ahead of van Garderen, Gastauer, Bakelants and Claeys.
The race is almost 228km long and therefore clearly calls for the most endurant riders of the peloton.
STARTING LINE UP FOR THE RACE
#161
Spilak,
Simon
#162
David,
Tom
#163
Kastrantas,
Charalampas
#164
Campero,
Piter
#165
Potocki,
Pavel
#166
Bouet,
Maxime
The first race of the season where the Team I-Gen – Festina setup are looking for a podium. Simon Spilak only rides when he feels like having a real shot at winning the race, and this one is no different. Having a strong final kick and a very endurant ride, Simon must surely be among the top favorites, despite having a lackluster team to support him.
EXPERTS SUGGESTS
The bookmakers agree that Simon Spilak surely must be one to watch, while not being the biggest favorite for the race.
#1
Ponzi,
Simone
2,50
#2
Bakelants,
Jan
2,60
#3
Spilak,
Simon
3,00
#4
van Garderen,
Tejay
3,60
#5
Ginanni,
Francesco
4,00
*Weighted values of bet365, Unibet, sky BET, Paddy Power and betfair
Having seen what the experts say, we head on straight to the real expert of the team, the team manager, who have been so kind to help us get an established view of the team towards the race.
MANAGER'S CORNER
Team manager, Andreas Jøhnke have put up a few words on the race.
"So, here we are. At the first race of the season where we expect a top top result. We have struggled a bit so far, but haven’t lost contact it seems, but now it’s time to show that we are reigning champions and not settle for low end top 10 results. We bring Simon Spilak as the obvious captain here, but a fairly unexperienced and young team of helpers.
We expect riders such as Maxime Bouet and Pavel Potocki to ride full out on the early part of the race where we need to control things, and after that we need to see Piter Campero and Charalampas Kastrantas pull the throttle to set maximum preassure on the opponents before the finale where Tom David should stay on touch for as long as possible to aid Spilak, whom shouldn’t be left in the wind before he wants to go all in for the kill."
The cobbled season started in Belgium, and whilst we did not have a stellar team, there was a certain amount of comfort in the kiwi rider, Tom David. Omloop didn't go anything like planned with David getting 23rd overall, but at Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne we had the taste of succes getting a decent 7th in the race.
In Tirreno-Adriatico, Panagiotis rode a decent timetrial after winning his first ever timetrial in Qatar. Here he got 4th. Team leader, Clement Koretzky was alert on the hilly stages to take 4th on stage 2 aswell, while Tzortzakis made it one better to finish 3rd on stage 3. Throughout the race, Koretzky was riding well and on stage 5 he almost made a great win, only to get 2nd behind Edvald Boasson Hagen.
To top off the great stage charging, we allowed Olivier Le Gac to attack on the final stage 7 to take 2nd aswell. Clement Koretzky managed a very profitable 7th in the GC, while also taking 3rd in the points competition.
Elsewhere Bryan Coquard sprinted well to take the leaders jersey at the Paris-Nice on stage 3 having done a respectable prologue, a fairly good sprint on stage 2 and then getting the decisive 3rd place - and thus bonus seconds - on stage 3!
Team leader, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier was always out of the cameras angle, but rode cleverly to take 8th from a packed field of GC contenders, also making it 2nd in the U25 competition, behind Dombrowski, but ahead of usual nemesis, Lachlan Morton.
Having had a pretty strong run in the difficult two headed GC setup, we had to deliver in the final one day race also - And with Simon Spilak in charge we did what was expected and got a 4th place from the race. Tom David was there to take his chances aswell, but in the end was not quite strong enough to make any difference.
Going out of the three-header, though, we evaluated our point scorings and saw ourselves being the 5th best scoring team in the tripple race scenario - And this with saving up as much as possible for Simon Spilak, and without using Jerome Coppel alltogether.
The final race of the month was Milano San Remo, and we usually do well there. This time, not so much though. Jerome Coppel tried but failed, only to get 24th in the end. And while Koretzky and Tzortzakis was also away from the front we had a pretty horrible result. Still, a respectable position in the PT rankings, though.
Points gained: 815pts
Next up: March including Chrono des Herbiers, SAA Tour d'Afrique, East Midlands Cicle Classic, Vuelta al PaÃs Vasco and Ronde van Vlaanderen.Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:48
After having won the 2015 Pro Tour, the team underwent a heavy re-size, leaving out former team captain Riccardo Ricco aswell as reasonably pointscorers such as Laurent Pichon, Martin Hacecký aswell as the loanie part captains, Robert Bush and Guillaume van Keirsbulck - and the other riders gaining minor points (Such as Yoann Paillot).
In order to size up, the team had to rely on the talents to step up to the plate and recover the lost points - Meaning a staggering 2198 points. Let's have a look at how that is going so far:
Name
2015 points
2016 points
Difference
Simon Spilak
2144
313
-1831
Jerome Coppel
656
271
-385
Georgos Tzortzakis
634
245
-389
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
561
587
26
Clement Koretzky
389
684
295
Tom David
278
249
-29
Yuriy Vasyliv
161
51
-110
Charalampas Kastrantas
142
55
-87
Markus Eibegger
133
48
-85
Panagiotis Vlatos
112
268
156
Piter Campero
107
110
3
Mathieu Bernaudeau
95
51
-44
Bryan Coquard
62
126
64
Olivier Le Gac
0
90
90
Jakub Novak
0
70
70
Andreas Hofer
0
63
63
Nejc Kosic
0
50
50
Grzegorz Stepniak
0
48
48
Maxime Bouet
0
40
40
Pavel Potocki
0
34
34
Marco Haller
0
33
33
Alexis Gougeard
0
44
44
Looking at the table it seems evident that most talents have stepped up remarkably. Riders such as Clement Koretzky, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier, Panagiotis Vlatos and Bryan Coquard are all well past their total for last season. A few are still struggling, such as Yuriy Vasyliv, Charalampas Kastrantas and Tom David, but all are well within reach of their seasons total for 2015 - And we are only 66% into the season. So we are confident that all riders, below our top 3, will achieve atleast similar points as last season.
So what is interesting here? The interesting thing is to look at what is to come, and how our pool of riders do, compared to last season, and which pools needs to step up to secure last seasons result. The most interesting riders of our team, Simon Spilak, Jerome Coppel and Georgos Tzortzakis are punching below their weight when looking solely at the season's points. But how are they performing in Points pr. racedays?
Simon Spilak entered 3 races, giving him a racecount of 6.
Jerome Coppel entered 4 races, giving him a racecount of 12.
Georgos Tzortzakis entered 5 races, giving him a racecount of 40.
If we divide those with the points achieved we get:
Is that realistic, you ask? No, probably not. But it does give an indication that at this point, Simon Spilak and Jerome Coppel are actually performing according to their value of 2015, which is easying on the gap. Georgos Tzortzakis is well below after a dreadful Giro d'Italia where he didn't manage to get through. His remaining races should (theoretically) give a higher PpRD, which makes it possible for him to hit 500 points - 634 like last season is not realistic.
So let's try to chech out some pool of riders that should be compared in 2015 and 2016. Simon Spilak is left out of that comparisson, as he should just aim to keep his own level:
GC RIDERS / PUNCHEURS
2015
2016
Riccardo Ricco
1192
0
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
561
587
Clement Koretzky
389
684
Laurent Pichon
271
0
Martin Hacecký
263
0
Yuriy Vasyliv
161
51
Piter Campero
107
110
Olivier Le Gac
0
90
Jakub Novak
0
70
TOTAL
2944
1592
It seems evident, that the major points that did not come from Simon Spilak in 2015, came from this pool. Being 26 races into the season, only leaving 15 ahead, we need this pool to seriously step up. Luckily for us a bunch of those riders are having a fair few racedays left. Our main point scorer is our hilly leader, Clement Koretzky. We are still to see him in three races. Tour of Deutschland, Tour of Tasmania and Giro di Lombardia. It is definately possible that he will be able to score 200-300 points from those three races.
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier is also lacking three races. Tour de France, GP Liechtenstein and the Copenhagen-Malmo TTT. We expect Lecuisinier to get atleast 15th in the Tour de France and with some other stage and U25 succes we expect him to land around 200 points from that race, also gaining a bit in the other races. 300 points will be his realistic target.
Piter Campero, Jakub Novak and Yuriy Vasyliv are all having quite a few races left, and the goal must be to achieve 100 points each. And from Le Gac? 50 points should be the target. If those figures add up we will end on approximately 2500-2550, which is 400-450 points below last season.
SPRINTERS
2015
2016
Georgos Tzortzakis
634
245
Bryan Coqurd
62
126
TOTAL
696
371
Our sprinters are lining up at a bit more than 50% of last season, and both have a fair amount of chances left. Especially our hitman, Tzortzakis who is starring 5 races more should be in for atleast 200 points. If Coquard can get to 200 in total we cannot expect more. This will land us on par with last season. If our riders overperform we might be able to snatch back 50 points that we "lost" in the GC riders / puncheurs category.
COBBLERS
2015
2016
Tom David
278
249
Robert Bush
126
0
Guillaume van Keirsbulck
123
0
Nejc Kosic
0
50
TOTAL
527
299
Last season we didn't have the best of cobbled season, however it turned out to be better than this one - Oh wait... That was because of TONE, which is yet to be ridden, and Tom David is there once more. In fact, Tom David have a lot of racing left, with also Kosic still riding a couple. Can we expect to even out the 228 deficit? No. We may be able to get 128 points out of this pool leaving us with 100 points on the dark side. So at this point we are likely to be lacking 500 points. Atleast.
DOMESTIQUES
2015
2016
Charalampas Kastrantas
142
55
Markus Eibegger
133
48
Tsgabu Grmay
55
0
Enrico Gasparotto
54
0
Zhihui Jiang
1
0
Andreas Hofer
0
63
Grzegorz Stepniak
0
48
Maxime Bouet
0
40
Pavel Potocki
0
34
Marco Haller
0
33
Alexis Gougeard
0
44
TOTAL
385
365
Our domestiques pool is larger than last season, and have already caught up. Kastrantas and Eibegger both had strong seasons last year, but are not likely to get similar points. The volume of these riders however leave us with a hope that we will get atleast 150 maybe even 200 points more than we did last season, so we might be back to "just" 300 points deficit.
TT'ERS
2015
2016
Jerome Coppel
656
271
Yoann Paillot
113
0
Panagiotis Vlatos
112
268
Mathieu Bernaudeau
95
51
TOTAL
976
590
So why end up on the Timetrials? Well, it can well be here we cut the chase. We still last 380 points to just level out, and Paillot isn't here anymore. Well, Panagiotis Vlatos have done well so far and he is still racing Tour de France, Tour de Suisse, Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha, TONE and Copenhagen-Malmo TTT. It is easily possible that he will be able to score 150 points from those races. Mathieu Bernaudeau could well score similar to last season or better as he lacks 7 races (including the TTT in Malmo). Finally we saw that Jerome Coppel is actually performing better than last season, and we expect him to score 125-250 points in the Tour de France and then he have 6 more races where a couple of them are key races for him.
The TTT in Malmo can well decide whether or not we make things equal - If we do, will we win? No. Becherovka are lining up to score ~ 8000 points. We can reach 7700 if everything works out and Spilak levels his score of last season, which means him winning the Tour de France. We can get a podium however, and we will be targeting that - But first thing first. Our goal is to equal out our losses of the 2015 season. If we can do that after losing a rider like Riccardo Ricco - I would say "Job well done!".
Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:49
Great analysis, nobody takes management of the team so far how you are, truly a visible passion for you.
I think your team is doing great so far, when you look at facts like that Ricco is gone or Spilak/Coppel having their goal/s in front of them. Baring any disasters, i can see you easily doing a top3 in the end (Evonik, eBuddy, Metinvest will all struggle in 2nd half,so besides obvious Becherovka side, i see teams like Aker or Tinkoff competing with you for that honor).
If i should choose rider of the year for you so far, it would be Koretzky, who is scoring very very well for a rider with 79 in main stat and no TT ability to support it.
Your "rebuilt" looks absolutely stunning (though with that success I wouldn't call it rebuilt, but doing a San Antonio Spurs trick with younger guys), congrats SotD! Especially as you'll rise far high in the second half of the season. And with Spilak you have the wet dream of every Slovenian Team in your Armada, we'll have to root for you in the Tour and other upcoming races of the mighty Slovenian!
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
Great analysis, nobody takes management of the team so far how you are, truly a visible passion for you.
I think your team is doing great so far, when you look at facts like that Ricco is gone or Spilak/Coppel having their goal/s in front of them. Baring any disasters, i can see you easily doing a top3 in the end (Evonik, eBuddy, Metinvest will all struggle in 2nd half,so besides obvious Becherovka side, i see teams like Aker or Tinkoff competing with you for that honor).
If i should choose rider of the year for you so far, it would be Koretzky, who is scoring very very well for a rider with 79 in main stat and no TT ability to support it.
This is how a team should rebuild!
Clement Koretzky is overperforming this season yes, but I did spent a lot of time checking out which races he peformed in last season, and then allowed him to be helper for Spilak in the ones that were too hard. He definately seemed like a good bargain already last season.
I lost both Ricco and Pichon up to this season, both having 79HI this season. So I thought that I could be lucky to let Coppel with trained 76HI do those hard hilly stage races, but clearly he isn't strong enough. If that would have worked out, I think I would have been in contention for the victory.
I am really sad that you have decided to leave, I would have loved to see what you could do now that your best youngsters are training eligeble.
Croatia14 wrote:
Your "rebuilt" looks absolutely stunning (though with that success I wouldn't call it rebuilt, but doing a San Antonio Spurs trick with younger guys), congrats SotD! Especially as you'll rise far high in the second half of the season. And with Spilak you have the wet dream of every Slovenian Team in your Armada, we'll have to root for you in the Tour and other upcoming races of the mighty Slovenian!
Thanks, and that woul be highly appreciated
13 Pro Tour races left I believe and I have Spilak in 4, while being also a pre race favorite for the TTT in Malmo. So I might end up on the GC podium in 5 out of the last 13 races. That should make us rise a bit
SotD wrote:
I am really sad that you have decided to leave, I would have loved to see what you could do now that your best youngsters are training eligeble.
Thanks, but take it positive, now you can see what others can do with Pluchkin, Grosu or Zmorka separated. I would just put money into Grosu every off season to make him 84/85 at least, now alex will have to do it.
SotD wrote:
I am really sad that you have decided to leave, I would have loved to see what you could do now that your best youngsters are training eligeble.
Thanks, but take it positive, now you can see what others can do with Pluchkin, Grosu or Zmorka separated. I would just put money into Grosu every off season to make him 84/85 at least, now alex will have to do it.
If he get's him. I'm sure he will be pretty expensive. Pluchkin will become 1,5mio again obviously
What an awesome post
Thanks for one of the best HQ posts I have seen this season
I think you were underexaggerating your position in various discussion threads recently. While I agree with you that Becherovka is the favourite for the overall ranking win atm your team has the best chance to challenge them. Saying that you need to score 2000 points in the TDF to finish top 3 is imo not realistic with teams like me (1500 points will be enough to overtake me and with still having quite a few leaders RDs you should be able to stay ahead of me) or Metinvest in front ( who should be fading down a bit with Pluchkin finished )
After a period with no real updates we aim to get back on track. We will take a look at the month of March:
* Chrono des Herbiers
* SAA Tour d'Afrique
* East Midlands Cicle Classic
* Vuelta al PaÃs Vasco
* Ronde van Vlaanderen
After a less good effort in Milano San Remo, we had a race perfectly up our ally with the Chrono des Herbiers. Former winner of the race, Jerome Coppel was present alongside greek TT phenomena, Panagiotis Vlatos in the search for a great result. Biggest threats pre-race was Taylor Phinney and last years winner, Marlen Zmorka. Both Coppel and Vlatos performed well getting 2nd and 7th.
Straight after the strong result we headed to Africa, for the first time ever, if we recall correctly, and the Tour d'Afrique. Here we had Georgos Tzortzakis looking for a strong result, and he managed just that after sprinting in top 5 on all four stages. In the end that landed him a GC result of 3rd. Easily his best result since his Giro d'Italia campaign of 2015.
After a very resourceful start to the month we headed towards a much more difficult race for us and the East Midlands Cicle Classic where only Tom David could provide for us. In the end a 31st, well down the ranks was definately not what we had expected, nor hoped for.
The Vuelta al PaÃs Vasco was next, and here we had ever so often seen ourselves perform well, with the likes of Simon Spilak, Alberto Contador and Carlos Castaño, but this time we had a team not quite strong enough to chase the win. Instead we showed great strength in our first test against the clock as a team, winning the opening prologue - A feat we would like to re-achieve at this seasons Tour de France. Unfortunately we lost Koretzky on the way back, who lost almost 4 minutes.
However, it was a very nice to see Panagiotis Vlatos change his greek national jersey into the leaders jersey of the race - What a season he's having!
In the following stages we saw a fair amount of time gaps in the hilly terrain of the Basque country. Clement Koretzky showed great strength, while Jerome Coppel showed the lack of punch to keep the jersey within the team. Despite crashing on stage 3, Clement Koretzky kept his cool, climbing steadily to a final GC result of 18th. Jerome Coppel took 2nd on the individual timetrial on stage 5, and salvaged a reasonably crappy race by him. He landed a 29th in the GC.
So through ups and downs we finally stood at the end of the month with just Ronde van Vlaanderen to cover, and like always we had Tom David on his own. This time, however, on a much better result landing 13th in the end. We can clearly see him growing this season, but we need to get him some help to perform more regular.
Points gained: 761pts
Next up: April including Paris-Roubaix, Giro d'Italia, Tour of California, Amstel Gold Race and the HC races Dutch Food Valley Classic and Interlagos Grand PrixEdited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:49
knockout wrote:
What an awesome post
Thanks for one of the best HQ posts I have seen this season
I think you were underexaggerating your position in various discussion threads recently. While I agree with you that Becherovka is the favourite for the overall ranking win atm your team has the best chance to challenge them. Saying that you need to score 2000 points in the TDF to finish top 3 is imo not realistic with teams like me (1500 points will be enough to overtake me and with still having quite a few leaders RDs you should be able to stay ahead of me) or Metinvest in front ( who should be fading down a bit with Pluchkin finished )
Thanks a lot mate
I believe Metinvest will be caught by me - Otherwise we are underperforming. Catching those 700 points should be done by the Tour de France alone. Otherwise we are going to take the last bit in the final part of the season, having stronger leaders in almost all races back to back here.
However I don't think catching Aker is going to be easy. And while Puma will be caught during the Tour de France, I wouldn't count them off just yet, seeing as there are a fair few races that could potentiall suit them well in the final. Also a team like Tinkoff, who are just behind. They will be ahead of us going into the Tour de France as they are likely to win one of the two races before, and if Kritskiy is also riding, then they could be 500 points ahead, while having also a decent TdF setup and Trofimov racing (and winning) a fair amount of races in the end.
Catching eBuddy without Gesink riding any more should be doable aswell as Metinvest, and I can't see us getting caught by any teams (except for Tinkoff) behind us. Even if Vesuvio and Schleck wins the Tour, I believe we have enough strength to beat them in the end (and enough of a gap).
Your team... Difficult one. I will lose a bit of ground on you in the upcoming two races is my bet. Maybe 150 points more than right now, so for me to catch more than 1000 points is going to be difficult. You have a (I suspect) great TONE infront of you and I guess a few HC races aswell where you tend to do much better than me. There's also a fair few sprints left that could give you some points, and those small GC races in the end are difficult to grasp. You could also potentially beat me at Giro di Lombardia, although I don't expect you to (not by much anyway).
So I CAN get in top 3, but I need to score big in the TdF. A reasonable score won't get me there. I need to get ATLEAST a Pluchkin like 2nd place (and thus more points because the TdF gives more), but I should really aim to win, and get the leaders jersey for quite some days to be sure.
I would absolutely love to come close to Becherovka, just to make it a fight for them, but I needed to perform better, or Bewley needed to be challenged in the classics. With him winning them all, we can't catch them.
Still no 1000pts month achieved, and we seem to struggle to be consistent when riding at the top level. The month of April, have this in store:
* Paris-Roubaix
* Giro d'Italia
* Tour of California
* Amstel Gold Race
* Dutch Food Valley Classic
* Interlagos Grand Prix
Having just landed 13th at the Ronde van Vlaanderen we had the hopes for a similar result by Tom David during the Paris-Roubaix. Nejc Kosic went on the attack in the early hours and left a good impression and ended up 60th in the end. Tom David, a bit more dissapointing to only get 21st. Kosic is slowly getting accostumed with the level, and we hope he can get inside the top 50 a few times next season.
Last season we had a great Giro d'Italia with two stagewins and another three podiums by Georgos Tzortzakis while Ricco almost had the race secured but needed to settle for 4th in the end. This season Tzortzakis was back to fight for continuation, but having Piter Campero and Jakub Novak as team leaders for the GC we knew that a 20th in the GC would probably be the goal.
The highlight of the race must have been us getting back into the plane to get home. Piter Campero was 22nd, and Jakub Novak was 27th in the GC. Which was OK. But while nothing interesting happened for those, Tzortzakis had a nightmare of a race ending in his withdrawel.
Luckily another race was taking place elsewhere - In the USA - Tour of California. Last season we won the race by Simon Spilak, and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier had his big breakthrough getting 8th. This time we had no such hopes, but yet performed reasonably well with our stage-hunting crew. The opening prologue saw Vlatos perform below expectations to get 7th, but Bryan Coquard delivered well to be within striking distance in the first flat stage. 8th in the sprint, while Koretzky crashed, yet again, didn't do much to sooth our Giro d'Italia experience.
But on stage 3, Clement Koretzky seemed to be well again, getting 4th and climbing to 8th in the GC. However, on stage 4 it all seemed to ramble again as Kosic, Vlatos and Gougeard were clearly injured after early crashes and Coquard managed to mess up his sprint. Getting a stage win seemed to be so far away, when...
...this happened! Koretzky with ever aggressive riding, took the 5th stage in manor. He was out on the front end all day, and crowned the performance with a win, climbing to 2nd in the GC aswell as taking over the KOM jersey. But clearly stage 6 would be way too difficult for him being a real mountain. Both yes and no. The GC riders climbed well, but Koretzky fought his way into safety and also keeping his position as a top 5 GC rider.
The TT on stage 7 saw him fade further, and with no Vlatos (abandoned on stage 6) we had nothing coming our way in the end. Yuriy Vasyliv showed that we can maybe (just maybe) expect things from him in the future. On the final stage we also saw Olivier Le Gac stand out, as he was 3rd after a long day infront of the peloton. Bryan Coquard won the sprint for 4th.
In the end we could see Clement Koretzky winning the KOM competition, taking 6th in the GC and Yuriy Vasyliv managed 25the in the GC also. A very strong race for us, despite several riders crashing.
The dutch classic, Amstel Gold Race was the second race of the season for Simon Spilak and while 7th wasn't what we came for, it was a respectable result for the rider who finished 2nd here last year. Also Jerome Coppel showed, by getting 20th, that we might actually be able to see him perform in the bumpy stuff later on.
The HC races were dreadful to watch, and we got away with absolutely nothing. Still 0 points from our HC campaign!
Points gained: 647pts
Next up: May including 5 Jours de Dunkerque, Fleche Wallone, Liege - Bastogne - Liege, Vuelta a España and Strada Appia AnticaEdited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:49
Doing worse than the previous months, we really had to fight our way back during the month of May:
* 5 Jours de Dunkerque
* Fleche Wallone
* Liege - Bastogne - Liege
* Vuelta a España
* Strada Appia Antica
We started out where we left of, by doing a null in a HC race. Three tries left, and unless Vasyliv or Le Gac suddenly shows something null is exactly what we'll get. Oh well, back to business...
Fleche Wallone was the only ardennes this season with no Simon Spilak. Instead we wanted to see what a Clement Koretzky on form could do. And by getting 11th he showed exactly what we already know - This guy could be a future great! At the Liege - Bastogne - Liege he took it even one step further to finish 9th behind winner Sven Fritsch. Who? Yeah...
Our team leader, Simon Spilak also fought well in the race landing a 5th in the overall.
The ardennes week were over for now, and we could look back on a respetable (but not great) campaign, before entering the Vuelta a España. Previously this was our focal race, our favorite race and the race we wanted to win - We never did, but we came close several times... This time we weren't in it to win it, but to see what the talent of Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier could do alongside several other french talents, such as Clement Koretzky, Bryan Coquard and Alexis Gougeard. The french brigade that will likely try something during the Tour de France of 2017.
The race went from timetrial to hills, to flats, back to more hills before ending in the mountains, and the first period was very succesful seing Clement Koretzky performing well. And while Bryan Coquard didn't sprint well at all, he did still manage to fight his way into a single 2nd place. The main subject, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier however showed great attitude to fight for an overall 4th and to win the Youth competition. He was 13th here last season and 4th now. We definately have a future Grand Tour podium candidate on our hands here.
Clement Koretzky fought for the KOM jersey for a while also, but had to admit that a long time of being in peak had to come to an end. But a great performance from him throughout the entire month.
The final race of the month was the Strada Appia Antica. On paper the best suitable race for Tom David of the season, but once more he had to adapt to the hieraki which showed in an 18th spot. Not bad, but not good either.
Luckily we can now conclude that we have broken the 1000pts in a month barrier. Not by much, but barely. Next month is likely going to be very difficult, and see us fall well down the rankings, before our key month of July.
Points gained: 1062pts
Next up: May including Tour de Suisse and Criterium du DauphineEdited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:50
Croatia14 wrote:
I really really like these updates, even if they're timewise not spot on...keep them up
That Koretzky performance in California was one to remember for sure, especially after that crash!
Thanks a lot mate. Yeah I will aim to make them come for each month - And hopefully a bit closer to the end of the month than so far
Indeed, the California race was really something, after being very unfortunate in the first half, he charged back up to score some nice points - Even more interesting was his month of May
Great in-depth analysis going on here SotD, a pleasure to read (now that time permits!). Makes me embarrased to think of the state of my own HQ. Unless you get really unlucky, look well on course for a top 3 overall at the end of the season, although could be a tough battle (close, hence good) for the title.
knockout wrote:
What an awesome post
Thanks for one of the best HQ posts I have seen this season
I think you were underexaggerating your position in various discussion threads recently. While I agree with you that Becherovka is the favourite for the overall ranking win atm your team has the best chance to challenge them. Saying that you need to score 2000 points in the TDF to finish top 3 is imo not realistic with teams like me (1500 points will be enough to overtake me and with still having quite a few leaders RDs you should be able to stay ahead of me) or Metinvest in front ( who should be fading down a bit with Pluchkin finished )
Thanks a lot mate
I believe Metinvest will be caught by me - Otherwise we are underperforming. Catching those 700 points should be done by the Tour de France alone. Otherwise we are going to take the last bit in the final part of the season, having stronger leaders in almost all races back to back here.
However I don't think catching Aker is going to be easy. And while Puma will be caught during the Tour de France, I wouldn't count them off just yet, seeing as there are a fair few races that could potentiall suit them well in the final. Also a team like Tinkoff, who are just behind. They will be ahead of us going into the Tour de France as they are likely to win one of the two races before, and if Kritskiy is also riding, then they could be 500 points ahead, while having also a decent TdF setup and Trofimov racing (and winning) a fair amount of races in the end.
Catching eBuddy without Gesink riding any more should be doable aswell as Metinvest, and I can't see us getting caught by any teams (except for Tinkoff) behind us. Even if Vesuvio and Schleck wins the Tour, I believe we have enough strength to beat them in the end (and enough of a gap).
Your team... Difficult one. I will lose a bit of ground on you in the upcoming two races is my bet. Maybe 150 points more than right now, so for me to catch more than 1000 points is going to be difficult. You have a (I suspect) great TONE infront of you and I guess a few HC races aswell where you tend to do much better than me. There's also a fair few sprints left that could give you some points, and those small GC races in the end are difficult to grasp. You could also potentially beat me at Giro di Lombardia, although I don't expect you to (not by much anyway).
So I CAN get in top 3, but I need to score big in the TdF. A reasonable score won't get me there. I need to get ATLEAST a Pluchkin like 2nd place (and thus more points because the TdF gives more), but I should really aim to win, and get the leaders jersey for quite some days to be sure.
I would absolutely love to come close to Becherovka, just to make it a fight for them, but I needed to perform better, or Bewley needed to be challenged in the classics. With him winning them all, we can't catch them.
I'm sorry for not offering Bewley a proper challenge in the classics
I honestly doubt that catching more than 1000 points in the Tour to me will be very difficult. You have a sick squad there while I have this bunch of unmaxed riders (+Koch) there . Everything more than 150-200 points can be considered a huge success.
ToNE obviously could be good for me but keep in mind that my TTT team is worse than my climbing team so Greg will lose a lot on the opening stage.
There are not that many sprints left for Van Stayen. 2-3 stages in Suisse, Lisbon and Deutschland while the other sprints should give you equal amount of points with only Greg as rather unreliable sprinter option. He'll likely lose a bit ( or equal ) to your sprinters in those races.
HC races left: San Sebastian, Ukraine and Emilia. All of them are hilly and I dont expect as many points as on the flat or slightly cobbled HC races as the best I can send is a 76HI guy.
And don't forget Colombia, Liechtenstein (twice Spilak vs Koch ?), Praha ( Coppel vs GVA), TTT event ( good vs pure XP team with 74-71-70-...-63) where you will massively outscore me and i reckon you will also outscore me in Tasmania (assuming you send both Spilak and Coppel?).
So while my team's final rankings position is still difficult to predict it will surely be behind Festina
Koretzky,
Tzortzakis,
Haller,
Trofimov,
Boasson Hagen,
Skujins,
Bobridge,
De Bie,
Novak,
Stepniak,
Kosic,
Schleck,
Madrazo,
Gesink,
Taaramae,
David,
Campero,
Potocki,
van Garderen,
