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
Right, I didn't realize that your TdF setup was that bad
I think you are overestimating the value of that TTT in TONE. I don't think it will have much effect on the GC, and being a cobbled TTT it will be very very difficult to predict. I have a strong TTT team, but I have had that in the past and failed big time.
You are very good at predicting my setups Spilak is in Colombia, Liechtenstein, Tasmania and Lombardia. Coppel in Praha, Tasmania, Moscow, Lisbon and TONE, and also the TTT of course.
I have so very often been a top 3 team fighting for the win at this point, and then fading away towards the end. That is a crap feeling (unless you really expect it, like you seem to do), so I deliberately decided to plan my stars in the final 3rd of the season instead of all throughout, and then use my depth for the remaining season. And if my depth can do top 10, I should obviously climb when my stars are starting to ride for real. But it comes down to the Tour de France basically. We are not going to outperform the top teams in the remaining races by much. Enough to overtake a few if the gap is not big, but to catch 700+ points after the TdF will be difficult.
So everything is crossed that Spilak performs, and doesn't crash. A Pokerstars-like performance, a Cattaneo/Alarcon like crash or something like that will destroy the entire season because of the amount of top riders racedays I have put into the race.
Riders like Lecuisinier, Coppel and Vlatos could have scored drastically higher by being sent to other races.
No matter what it's going to be a very interesting final, and I can't wait to get going in the races that really matters to me. Dauphine and Suisse needs to be over with as fast as possible, and hopefully I can snatch some unpredicted points to put maximum pressure on you and Roman
Scorchio wrote:
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.
Thanks mate
Yeah things are shaping up decently for sure, but we need to stay out of trouble at the Tour de France, and to be honest, I fear for Spilak crashing out. I have had GT podium contenders crash out of contention (and out of the race) three times already. Markus Fothen, Riccardo Ricco and Alberto Contador. I feared it too much last season, hence Spilak not riding any Grand Tours. This season I took the gamble, but more riders (also top riders) are crashing this season, so last season was probably a better gamble.
Fantastic read and really nice catch up on the team. The jersey looks really nice in the screens and definitely one of my favourites to make / work on.
Certainly see you up there at the end of the season battling for the PT title. The Tour and Spilak will no doubt be the decider on where you end up. Fingers crossed it is a good one.
Talking about rankings: For me the clear #2 this season behind Becherovka. Too much of a Schleck in the Tour I fear for a dominant enough performance of Spilak to challenge Team Bewley.
the_hoyle wrote:
Fantastic read and really nice catch up on the team. The jersey looks really nice in the screens and definitely one of my favourites to make / work on.
Certainly see you up there at the end of the season battling for the PT title. The Tour and Spilak will no doubt be the decider on where you end up. Fingers crossed it is a good one.
Thanks a lot - Yeah the kit you created works absolutely perfect. I'm really happy I had the balls to move away from the classic Festina setup, and you made it work brilliantly.
I'm getting more and more eager to see that startlist, but I fear it can become quite difficult to win, despite Spilak being a pre-race favorite and me having the best possible team to support him. But beating the likes of:
Andy Schleck
Taylor Phinney
Rein Taaramäe
Romain Sicard
Joseph Dombrowski
Timofey Kritskiy
and riders such as Martijn Keizer wanting to fight for the yellow in the start will make it very difficult to dominate in ways other riders have done in their respectable Grand Tours. There's just so many top top riders here this time.
The only thing that speaks in the favour of Spilak is his MO/HI combination which is ofcourse the best in the game, but his 77TT against Phinney (83), Taaramäe (81) and Kritskiy (80) makes me a bit nervous, aswell as the attacking nature of Schleck in the final week. We really need to distance him before the final week where his 82 RES, 82 REC and 79 ACC will definately take out Spilak and his 81, 78, 74. I can only hope he will be able to wheel suck, and then beat him in the sprints, while riders like Taaramäe, Phinney and Kritskiy are losing a bit of time here and there.
Stage 5, 7, 9, 15 and 20 will be absolutely key for him to be able to beat Schleck. And before stage 20 we need those TT beasts to be well behind in the GC, otherwise it's going to be a killer.
The TTT is definately my plan, but I have no idea how others are playing it out. We have 83, 81, 78, 77, 77, 76, 76 and 72 which we hope is enough to win, and take minutes on Schleck, Taaramäe and maybe a minute on Phinney. But looking at the worst case scenario, those will have: 81, 78, 77, 76, 74, 73, 73, 71 and 81, 79, 79, 76, 72, 70, 70, 68 and 83, 77, 77, 75, 74, 71, 70, 70 - in which case we can't expect to take any significant time - If any at all...
Croatia14 wrote:
Talking about rankings: For me the clear #2 this season behind Becherovka. Too much of a Schleck in the Tour I fear for a dominant enough performance of Spilak to challenge Team Bewley.
Looking forward to your remaining perrformances.
I agree. And not only Schleck... We are definately not going to win the ranking, and I suspect that we will end somewhere between 500-1000 points after Becherovka in the end. And that is OK. As long as we get within the top 3 - And hopefully can win the Tour for the first time ever.
From the list above (At last rankings update), riders marked have already scored more points. And this even before the Dauphine has ended - We expect both Novak and Campero to score some points there aswell. This is what it looks like now:
Name
2015 points
2016 points
Difference
Simon Spilak
2144
313
-1831
Jerome Coppel
656
271
-385
Georgos Tzortzakis
634
255
-379
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
561
587
26
Clement Koretzky
389
684
295
Tom David
278
249
-29
Yuriy Vasyliv
161
77
-84
Charalampas Kastrantas
142
95
-47
Markus Eibegger
133
58
-75
Panagiotis Vlatos
112
273
161
Piter Campero
107
110
3
Mathieu Bernaudeau
95
51
-44
Bryan Coquard
62
162
100
Olivier Le Gac
0
90
90
Jakub Novak
0
70
70
Andreas Hofer
0
68
68
Nejc Kosic
0
50
50
Grzegorz Stepniak
0
53
53
Maxime Bouet
0
45
45
Pavel Potocki
0
44
44
Marco Haller
0
33
33
Alexis Gougeard
0
44
44
Most significant, obviously, is the stagewin from Kastrantas bagging him another 40 points + another 5 he will get for going through the race. He is now very close to last seasons total, despite it being a pretty strong season for him. Having 4PT races and 3 HC races he is in line to get somewhere between 20 and 50 points. Also Markus Eibegger closes the gap by 10 points after surviving the Tour de Suisse and taking 5th in the KOM aswell. 75 points is, however still unlikely for him to catch, unless he gets a lucky breakaway. He is having 5 PT races and 2 HC races left giving him a realistic points tally of 25-40.
Also Georgos Tzortzakis scored a bit to his unimpressive score, but only 10 points so far and a fair concern about getting another 5 from surviving the Dauphine takes him to 379 points missing. He is still having Lisbon Classic where 40 points or so can be expected, besides that he is riding 3 races which will probably land him another 40-50 points. We expect him to be 300 points short in the end.
And then it is nice that Bryan Coquard keeps on doing well. From the first stage of the Dauphine he scored 36 points putting him 100 points ahead in total, while still having 4 races remaining, that could give him a total of 80 points. So we still lack 120 or so points in the sprinters region!
Yuriy Vasyliv took 7th in the U25 competition and got 23rd in the GC of the Tour de Suisse landing him 26 points, meaning he is now 84 points short. He is, however, riding the Tour de France our TTT setup in Copenhagen and 3HC races. It seems possible that he will land about 50 points more depending on his TTT performances and the GC result in the Tour de France.
Panagiotis Vlatos took home 5 points from Tour de Suisse after a 5th place in the individual TT, however he didn't manage to finish the race... Bernaudeau didn't either, so he get's a round zero from the race also still leaving him at -44, a points tally we hope to level out from the three TTT's he is riding aswell as the 3 other races he is attending, and should complete. So atleast 15 points should be secured and him gaining 30 points from three TTT's should be a given.
Pavel Potocki, however, managed to get a top 50 in Tour de Suisse and bags 10 points.
The riders that were not here last season (Loanies, new riders, riders back from loan out) is looking to get these figures from the last races (if they survive):
Olivier Le Gac 20
Andreas Hofer 25
Nejc Kosic 5
Grzegorz Stepniak 20
Maxime Bouet 25
Pavel Potocki 15
Marco Haller 15
Alexis Gougeard 15
= 140
Some of these are also attending TTT's such as Hofer and Bouet, while the rest are attending HC races also, which could give points.
And we haven't taken account of Novak, who is in line for aproximately 100 points from the Dauphine, Tour de France, Colombia and Copenhagen TTT.
So the points lost from sprints is gained from new riders performing reasonably well, while the other domestiques score a similar amount of points +/- 100 to last season.
The month of May was kind to us, and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier in particular. June is a long month with few races to ride. Let's have a look:
* Tour de Suisse
* Criterium du Dauphine Libere
Neither the Tour de Suisse nor the Criterium du Dauphine were on our priority list this season, hence saving most of our leaders for the important month of July.
The Tour de Suisse setup was for stage hunting rather than GC results, however Yuriy Vasyliv came with the goal of doing a top 20. The race started out well enough with loanie Andreas Hofer attempting to get seconds on the first stage, but from then on we were mainly invisible. Our TTT campaign was nothing to cheer for and after a 10th place in that stage we were mainly looking towards the individual TT where greek TT phenomena, Panagiotis Vlatos was among the favorites.
Out of nowhere we finally saw loanie Grzegorz Stepniak pull a sprint, and managed to finish 7th in a weak sprinters field on stage 5. The TT we so desperately were looking at ended in a bit of meh, as Vlatos took 5th.
In the end Yuriy Vasyliv managed to pick up 23rd in the GC, slightly below our expectations, but still in steady progress, while in the midst we also saw Markus Eibegger attack to claim 5th in the KOM competition.
The Criterium du Dauphine was set up to be a much more interesting race for us, as we had riders for the stage opener and some decent breakaway types. The race opened with a flat sprint stage suited perfectly for Georgos Tzortzakis, and with a train consisting of Bryan Coquard and Marco Haller we could be in for a treat.
The sprint train looked absolutely stunning once Haller hit the front, but in the end Coquards leadout was too much for Tzortzakis who immediately lost his wheel and had to fight for himself. Bryan Coquard took the long sprint for himself, but having been in the wind for too long he was finally overtaken by PCT rider, Daryl Impey.
The second stage, a long TT, also went fairly well. Jakub Novak performed below expectations, but Piter Campero showed great strength to limit his time losses against similar riders - even gaining on some. From here on we didn't do much for a period of time. The difficult stage 3 saw Tzortzakis try his best to attend the sprint, but for nothing, but after stage 4 we were pretty content with our GC hopes as Piter Campero was sitting in 18th while Jakub Novak was positioned in 21st.
That was quickly coming down the drain, however. Instead we saw Charalampas Kastrantas take a dominant win on the hilly stage 5 to make up for the losses ahead. Much like last season this could be another record season for Greek cycling. Now having stagewins from two greeks, while Georgos Tzortzakis is still looking for one.
From here on, we saw nothing but two tired GC riders dropping for each stage that went by, and in the end we had to settle for 24th (Jakub Novak) and 28th (Piter Campero). Both should have done better, but we will look back on the race and think of it as a succes. We came back with a stage win a 2nd place, a 4th place and a day in the U25 jersey.
Unfortunately those two races sums up the month, thus giving a fairly low monthly points intake - Most teams have only outscored us by 100-200 points though.
Points gained: 227pts
Next up: July including Tour de France and Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha.Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:50
The 2016 season stands before the biggest race of the season, and because of that, we have decided to launch our 2016 Playing Cards, which can be found below. Feel free to coment.
GC Riders
Puncheurs
Timetriallists
Cobblers
Sprinters
As we always want to improve on our work, we ask you to help us gather information, if you know of any. Especially for these following riders: * Alexis Gougeard
* Nejc Kosic
* Olivier Le Gac
* Charalampas Kastrantas
* Markus Eibegger
* Maxime Bouet
We look for positive stage results, GC results, U25, Points or KOM results, that should be put into the riders Palmarès.
Once again. Feel free to comment below.
Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 11:42
Mus be at least 10-15 years back when I played such card games. Do these kind of things still exist even?
Top Drumpfs and many more still do!
Outdone yourself once again SotD, amazing stuff and as roturn said great idea
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Here we are! At the start of the biggest race of the season. Team I-Gen - Festina have marked this race as the major event of the season, while having previously neglected the race somewhat. This time is different. Everything is on the Simon Spilak board, which was announced some time back, and expectations is high as ever.
Let's start out by having a look at the starting line up:
Simon Spilak is here to win the race, and with him he have Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier who joins after a fresh 4th place and a U25 win in the Vuelta a España. The french talent was here last season where he was 13th and 2nd in the U25 competition. It is likely that something similar can happen this season. Joseph Dombrowski is the main rival for the U25 competition, but also Tim Wellens shouldn't be ruled out. A GC position in the region of 8-12 seems realistic, but as Lecuisinier is mainly here as a lieutenaint we know that everything can happen.
Behind Lecuisinier we aim to put maximum pressure on the mountains early on, and to catch dangerous breakaways in order to compete for as many stagewins as possible. For that task we have the young Yuriy Vasyliv, who himself managed to take top 25GC results in both California and Switzerland. His best Grand Tour result, however is a 46th in this years Vuelta a Espana, where he helped Lecuisinier. We expect something similar from him in the Tour de France, and perhaps he can break into the top 30 with some luck. We also have czech GC hope Jakub Novak here, who will be a strong asset in the Team Time Trial aswell as putting up a high pace on the mountains. Jakub Novak was 2nd in the Giro del Trentino last season so knows his way around climbs. His best GC result on a large scale is however 27th in this years Giro d'Italia edition. He also managed top 30 results in the Criterium du Dauphine Libere this season and the Deutschland Tour a few years back. So with these four riders we should have a significant firepower in order to compete for the Team classification aswell as putting on a real show for Simon Spilak.
In order to give Spilak the much needed delivery for transportation stages we have decided to bring our strongest riders in the flat, having Jerome Coppel, Maxime Bouet, Mathieu Bernaudeau and Panagiotis Vlatos averaging on 74,25, with also the remaining 4 riders all above 70.
What is more important is, that we aim to put Spilak into contention of the yellow jersey as early on in the race as possible, and while we do aknowledge the fact that Taylor Phinney is a major threat in the opening, we have managed to put up our strongest possible Team Time Trial team, without weakening our climbing department too much. This also meant that climber Piter Campero and Pavel Potocki was left out, as they were not strong enough against the clock. To further on this we decided to leave out Clement Koretzky and our main sprinters, Bryan Coquard and Georgos Tzortzakis for exactly that reason. The rider that was left out of contention as the 9th and unlucky rider was Andreas Hofer simply because he lacked the top level in the timetrials and would struggle to get over hills and mountains. So Vasyliv was taken onboard instead, while having "only" 72TT.
Another important factor in this years edition is the hills, where Simon Spilak is easily among the best riders. He will need to take time on Andy Schleck in the hills and the timetrials, and could do with a bit of time on Taylor Phinney aswell if he is to take on yellow. But also Jerome Coppel is capable of taking yellow early on if he matches Taylor Phinney in the opening 6km prologue, while we aim to beat RBC in the Team Time Trial on stage 7. If Coppel can stay close to the front on the hilly stage 7 he will be a contender aswell. Yuriy Vasyliv, Jakub Novak and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier should all be strong in the hills aswell, while Maxime Bouet could put on pressure in the early phases of the stage.
Expectations
We expect to gain a lot from this race, not only in terms of points, but also in terms of media coverage, image and spectacle. We expect to put up a great fight for the overall win, while we aknowledge that Phinney is the favorite for the first week, while Schleck clearly is in the final week. This is what we expect from each rider:
Simon Spilak *** Win the Tour de France (3rd GC FAILED) ** Atleast 2 stagewins (1/2 FAILED) ** Atleast 5 days in the leaders jersey (2/5 FAILED) * Top 3 Points jersey (Currently 3th) * Top 5 KOM jersey (5th Achieved) * Atleast 10 top 10 stage results (10/10 Achieved) Expected points: 1000-1500 points - FAILED Achieved points: 887 points (+20 TTT)
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier *** Top 12 GC (7th GC Ahieved) ** Top 3 in the U25 competition (2nd Achieved) ** Atleast 5 days in the U25 jersey (6/5 Achieved) * Atleast 5 top 10 stage results (5/5 Achieved) Expected points: 250-400 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 353 points (+20 TTT)
Jakub Novak *** Top 30 GC (28th GC Achieved) ** Atleast 5 top 25 stage results (2/5 FAILED) Expected points: 50-75 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 53 points (+20 TTT)
Jerome Coppel *** Atleast 2 stage podiums (2/2 Achieved) ** Atleast 5 days in the top 5 GC (7/5 Achieved) * Atleast 5 top 20 stage results (5/5 Achieved) Expected points: 140-180 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 297 points (+20 TTT)
Panagiotis Vlatos *** Atleast 1 top 10 stage result (0/1 FAILED) ** Atleast 2 days in top 10 GC (0/2 FAILED) * Survive the race (FAILED) Expected points: 10-25 points - FAILED Achieved points: 0 points
Mathieu Bernaudeau *** Finish with the group in the Team Time Trial (FAILED) ** Survive the race (FAILED) Expected points: 0-8 points - FAILED Achieved points: 0 points
Maxime Bouet *** Finish with the group in the Team Time Trial (FAILED) ** Survive the race (123th GC Achieved) Expected points: 0-8 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 10 points
Team Goals *** Win the Team Time Trial (Achieved) ** Win the Team Classification (Achieved) Expected points: 100-150 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 150 points
The first week of this seasons Tour de France is over. We expected to see Jerome Coppel in atleast 2nd on the opening prologue aswell as fighting for a GC top 5 untill the beginning of stage 7 where he should possibly be able to take the lead. We also expected Simon Spilak to fight for the stagewin on stage 5 and possibly take the lead - And finally, we expected to win the Team Time Trial on stage 7.
Well... Stage 1 was a huge succes for some, less for others. Jerome Coppel charged into the lead a staggering 4 seconds ahead of Taylor Phinney, while especially Panagiotis Vlatos in 42nd and Simon Spilak in 73rd were extremely dissapointing. Vlatos because we expected atleast a top 10 and Spilak because gaining 3 seconds on Schleck was too little, and losing a lot of time on other GC candidates were unnecessary, aswell as it being a shit signal to send to the team. We decided to raise our arms instead in tribute to Jerome Coppel who took his 3rd Tour de France stagewin aswell as his only seconds yellow jersey. Well deserverd.
The following stages were all about not losing time, and Jerome Coppel were clever to sprint to 15th on stage 2 to keep the points jersey aswell. Bouet, Vlatos and Bernaudeau came to the front a lot on stage 2 and 3 to help the sprinter teams control the pace, while on stage 4 there were a split causing several riders, including Yuriy Vasyliv and Jakub Novak, to lose time. This did however hand us the U25 jersey as Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier were alert, just like Mathieu Bernaudeau who gained enough time to get 10th in the GC. His best ever periodical Tour de France GC result in his 5th ride.
The 5th stage were all about keeping things clear for Spilak, but having the yellow jersey we felt obliged to try to keep Coppel close to the front aswell. It all ended up in a decimated sprint where Taylor Phinney just managed to take 3rd, giving him enough bonus seconds to take yellow. Our team fought well though and took a lot of mountainpoints in the attempt to keep things tight. Jerome Coppel and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier took a good amount, which can possibly be used in a later attempt to get a good KOM ranking. Also Simon Spilak collected 10 points, which could come in handy later on.
Stage 6 was a "rest day" for us where RBC and the sprinter teams worked, while we were just keeping Coppel, Spilak and Lecuisinier out of the wind for the important stage 7.
And the stage 7 was our main goal of the season. The Team Time Trial. What a signal to send if you can win that! And we did! Not in style, but by the skin of our teeth. Unfortunately for us, our main rivals, RBC and Taylor Phinney, were first after us, only 2 seconds down, meaning that we were unable to take the yellow jersey. We do, however still hold the U25 jersey, which we are keen to keep for as long as possible.
After 7 stages we have a points haul of 349 points which is a bit more than anticipated, however not that much, as we expected Spilak to get a stage podium and possibly yellow on stage 5.
2016 TOUR DE FRANCE - WEEK 2 THOUGHTS
Heading into the second week of the Tour de France we face a relatively easy start. Despite going over a 3rd category climb we expect to see a sprint finish with not a lot going on. We are OK with a small breakaway group rolling away, although we would like to see Coppel stay in 2nd of the KOM for another day, so we prefer not having riders like Mullen in the break. We also hope for a group big enough for RBC riders like Pantano, Morizot and Kreuziger not to take more points.
The stage 9 is an absolute key stage for us if we want to win the Tour. A hilly stage ending in a difficult uphill finish should suit Spilak better than anyone, and having gone up and down all day we hope to see quite a selection, and if possible take the yellow jersey. We are alright with the fact that the stage might be too difficult for Jerome Coppel, so him dropping out of the top 10 is realistic. Hopefully the stage is not too hard for Lecuisinier to drop out of the top 5 and lose the U25 jersey, as we wish to hold that for atleast another day.
Stage 10 is a transport stage where we expect the sprinters to control the peloton before stage 11 see us go into the mountains and kickstart the real GC fight, which should be shaken up a bit on stage 9, though. Stage 11 is relatively easy for most of the stage and if we do have the leaders jersey we want to put maximum pressure on Andy Schleck so he isn't allowed to get away, and if not we want Spilak to escape - possibly in an alliance with Schleck to get time on Taylor Phinney.
Stage 12 is difficult to grasp, but could well go to a breakaway group/rider. We need to control things in order to not have Andy Schleck get away, but having a pretty long descent we expect the main contenders to be marking eachother, so that no big gaps occur. We could possibly still be wearing the yellow jersey here, but stage 13 is difficult and a real Andy Schleck stage. Two difficult mountains early on to put acid in the legs and then a HC climb towards goal.
Stage 14 is for the sprinters and for us to have another status. Hopefully in another succesful manor.
We hope to get another ~350 points from the next 7 stages, with stage 9, 11, 12 and 13 the ones where we can gain points, and possibly stagewins.
Tune in next time for more information...
Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:51
After a brilliant first week we were in a great position, having had Coppel leading the race for 5 stages, Lecuisinier in white aswell as getting two stagewins - the last in stage 7, the TTT which also put Coppel right back into contention as 2nd, while Lecuisinier held 3rd and Spilak was safely positioned in 7th before the mountains. We also scored a good amount of points making our 2000 points goal realistic.
But quickly it went from good to worse, as Jerome Coppel was caught behind a split on stage 8 losing 1'40" and thus all chances of regaining yellow. Lecuisinier, Spilak, and for once, Novak and Vasyliv were positioned well on the other hand seeing Lecuisinier taking 2nd in the GC with Spilak moving to 6th, Coppel falling to 15th, but Novak to 16th and Vasyliv to 22nd. A very strong base.
Stage 9 was one of the key stages for us prior to the race, but instead of riding aggressively we decided to shut the race. Spilak was the strongest of the GC riders but yellow went to stagewinner Jan Bakelants, while Spilak weren't able to shake up things as Phinney, Schleck and Taaramäe were all right in his wheel. Instead Lecuisinier lost contact - if only 40 seconds.
Spilak were alert on stage 10 to gain a few sprinters points, but the real deal was on stage 11, where he were severely under pressure. First it was Martijn Keizer and Rein Taaramäe who escaped, but then also Joe Dombrowski and finally Andy Schleck moved away. The situation were troublesome, but Lecuisinier did an amazing piece of work to regain time and in the end Spilak could sprint to 4th not losing any time, and thus taking the yellow jersey as both Bakelants and Phinney were droppen in the proces.
At this point our yound Tour de l'Avenir prospect, Yuriy Vasyliv were also 21st in the GC and 5th in the U25 competition, and we were 2nd in the Team GC behind Bouygues Telecom who showed remarkable strength taking three stagewins so far.
Stage 12 was another mountainstage, but this time ending in a downhill section we felt like we could control things. But once more we were in a lot of pain from the early parts of the stage. Stagewinner Tsgabu Grmay enjoyed a stay at us last season so we were happy to see him win, but we couldn't quite enjoy the stage as Andy Schleck and Joe Dombrowski kept attacking, and this time got a gap! But while Phinney lost contact, Spilak once more had faith in Lecuisinier, and his chase were world class. The Vuelta a España 4th place charged down the mountain to cut the time loss for Spilak and in the end the finish were similar with Spilak sprinting to 4th, but keeping the leaders jersey.
On stage 13, one of the hardest stages of the Tour, this tactic didn't work anymore though. Lecuisinier had used up all of his energy, and Spilak didn't realise this until it was too late. And there beeing no downhill section for him to claw back time we saw a huge margin of 3'30" to Andy Schleck, but even worse, also lost significant time to Joe Dombrowski and Rein Taaramäe. Also Lecuisinier and especially Yuriy Vasyliv had a hard time losing several minutes. A 4th place going out of week 2, which ended up in a sprint win to Sam Bewley was NOT good.
So despite having good periods we manage to lose it all on one stage. 223 points were also atleast 77 points too little, but Spilak just didn't have the legs to fight for stagewins, hence getting 3rd, 4th, 4th and 7th on the stages we expected him to fight for the win. This meaning that we need to get going, and attacking from the go!
2016 TOUR DE FRANCE - WEEK 3 THOUGHTS
Having most likely lost the chances for the overall win there's not a lot left to do but attack. Stage 15 is perfectly suited for Simon Spilak, and unless he finds a way to steal atleast a couple of minutes there we are in a dire situation.
Stage 16 is on paper a sprint stage, but could end up with some riders attacking from the go getting a massive amount of time. It could well be a stage were we should try to send Coppel, Novak or Vasyliv away in order to keep a shot at winning the Team GC.
Stage 17 should be relatively easy until the end where we go straight to hell. Being 241 km, it is the longest stage of the entire race. Being a good flat, hill and mountain rider should keep the legs fresh, but in the end it is all about endurance, resistance and probably some recovery, despite stage 16 being pretty easy. So this might be the chance for Spilak to finally do something, but Andy Schleck is the clear favorite. Taaramäe, Dombrowski and Sicard should love this stage, while Phinney and Kritskiy are likely to fear this stage more than anything else. Riders like Arndt, Goos, Keizer and Faiers from the top 15 could be in for a long day in the saddle aswell, while we hope that Lecuisinier have what it takes to take a stage top 10
Stage 18 and 19 are GC defining stages with mountains from start to the finish line, although they are almost reverse. One start out with the hard climbs, the other finishes like that.
Stage 20 will clear up the GC after 44km solo on the relatively flat timetrial. Normally it would be a great opportunity for Coppel, but here I suspect Phinney will claim the win infront of the likes of Taaramäe and Kritskiy. Maybe we will even see Andy Schleck and Joe Dombrowski in the top 10.
Stage 21 to the Champs Elysees is hopefully a calm stage with no changes to the GC.
We expect it to be difficult for Spilak to move up in the GC from here on, but we have to try everything we can and be aggressive instead of passive. Maybe we can use Dombrowskis aggressive riding to jump from a fair bit away. We surely needs it!
Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 08:52
Week 2 were a bit of everything really, where it started out bad, it went to fine before turning bad again in the end, thus starting the 3rd week in a dire situation with Simon Spilak in 4th place in the GC.
Immidiately after the breakdown of Spilak we had to react, and thus sending Jerome Coppel in the daily break on stage 15 was a possibility for us to recover. Coppel took a great 3rd place after Ponzi and Bakelants, but was the strongest of the original group. A couple of uninteresting days really went on before stage 18 where Simon Spilak attacked again and again and again.
In the end he managed to take the stagewin in style, but despite having clearly gapped the favorites group including Schleck, Dombrowski, Taaramäe and Phinney, the race organizers decided to let go of the 30 second gap. A gap that would have made it possible for Spilak to catch Dombrowski in the final TT.
Stage 19 was a demonstration in team work and ended up with us having 3 riders in the top 25 including two in the top 10 and also Vasyliv shortly after, and thus securing the Team GC before the final TT.
In the TT Spilak was relatively isolated in 4th with 2'30" to Dombrowski in 2nd and 1'30" to superior TT rider, Taaramäe in 3rd. Luckily Phinney was also far down so Spilak atleast wasn't in any trouble of losing 4th.
Coppel had a hard time matching the best of the stage, but Lecuisinier had a great stage and moved up from 8th to 7th, his best ever TdF result, but more interestingly, Simon Spilak showed great strength and took 2nd in the TT more than 2 minutes ahead of Andy Schleck, surprisingly 20 seconds ahead of Taaramäe and a staggering 2'45" ahead of Dombrowski meaning Spilak taking the final step on the podium.
In the end the race was lost by Spilak not paying attention on stage 14.
Let's have a look at the evaluation of the race:
Expectations
We expect to gain a lot from this race, not only in terms of points, but also in terms of media coverage, image and spectacle. We expect to put up a great fight for the overall win, while we aknowledge that Phinney is the favorite for the first week, while Schleck clearly is in the final week. This is what we expect from each rider:
Simon Spilak *** Win the Tour de France (3rd GC FAILED) ** Atleast 2 stagewins (1/2 FAILED) ** Atleast 5 days in the leaders jersey (2/5 FAILED) * Top 3 Points jersey (Currently 3th) * Top 5 KOM jersey (5th Achieved) * Atleast 10 top 10 stage results (10/10 Achieved) Expected points: 1000-1500 points - FAILED Achieved points: 887 points (+20 TTT)
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier *** Top 12 GC (7th GC Ahieved) ** Top 3 in the U25 competition (2nd Achieved) ** Atleast 5 days in the U25 jersey (6/5 Achieved) * Atleast 5 top 10 stage results (5/5 Achieved) Expected points: 250-400 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 353 points (+20 TTT)
Jakub Novak *** Top 30 GC (28th GC Achieved) ** Atleast 5 top 25 stage results (2/5 FAILED) Expected points: 50-75 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 53 points (+20 TTT)
Jerome Coppel *** Atleast 2 stage podiums (2/2 Achieved) ** Atleast 5 days in the top 5 GC (7/5 Achieved) * Atleast 5 top 20 stage results (5/5 Achieved) Expected points: 140-180 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 297 points (+20 TTT)
Panagiotis Vlatos *** Atleast 1 top 10 stage result (0/1 FAILED) ** Atleast 2 days in top 10 GC (0/2 FAILED) * Survive the race (FAILED) Expected points: 10-25 points - FAILED Achieved points: 0 points
Mathieu Bernaudeau *** Finish with the group in the Team Time Trial (FAILED) ** Survive the race (FAILED) Expected points: 0-8 points - FAILED Achieved points: 0 points
Maxime Bouet *** Finish with the group in the Team Time Trial (FAILED) ** Survive the race (123th GC Achieved) Expected points: 0-8 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 10 points
Team Goals *** Win the Team Time Trial (Achieved) ** Win the Team Classification (Achieved) Expected points: 100-150 points - ACHIEVED Achieved points: 150 points
Prior to the season there were numerous speculations that Festina-Canal+ was going to give up on their Pro Tour License after Canal+ stopped sponsoring the team and Festina had difficulty rising the needed finances. Less than a season after the troublesome off season there's problems with the sponsors yet again.
This time, the financial balast of the team, head sponsor, Gen-I (og I-Gen in public speak) have decided to give up on the sport, in what they call a horrible result for Slovenian cycling:
It comes as no surprise that we decided to put quite a lot of money into the team in order to build a future Slovenian team, and in the beginning building it around Simon Spilak.
But our main sponsor goal of winning the Tour de France was a joke. Despite having the strongest team of the race backing him, Spilak was no way near the win. We have great kudus'es for Lecuisinier, Novak, Vasyliv and Coppel especially for doing a fabulous job, but we are angry with the way Simon Spilak decided to play his cards.
The entire season, Spilak have been underperforming and there are no indications of it improving. Getting 3rd in the Tour de France and just 5th and 7th in Amstel and Liege-Bastogne-Liege definately isn't what we are paying him to do.
Spilak is not getting any younger and the prospect of ensuring slovenian cycling at the very top level seems to be irrelevant at this point. Therefor we decide to withdraw our financial obligations to the team, leaving Festina in charge after the season. If they can.
Thus indicating that the financially troubled Festina sponsorship department might not be able to lift the burden. Chairman of the fund had some obvious worries.
It's not good, that's for sure. We will have to look into the situation and see what can be done from here on. We can't run the full setup as it is now, so we will be looking for another sponsor to co-operate with, as we have been in several years, but it's uncertain what can be done at this time. I will be having a chat with our investors and our bank to ensure we do our job the best we can, and if we can increase the sponsorship we would prefer to do that aswell.
We see a huge potential in the team and the two time back to back, Manager of the Year, so we are not interested in giving up the team. But money is certainly an issue, that we have to look into.
There should be massive interest from world wide organisations to co-sponsor the team, and arabic sponsors from Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi-Arabia have all publically announced that they would be interested in buying the PT License of the team.
Edited by SotD on 19-03-2017 11:46
Spilak is in Colombia, Liechtenstein, Tasmania and Lombardia. Coppel in Praha, Tasmania, Moscow, Lisbon and TONE, and also the TTT of course.
