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Aegon, Aker, Becherovka, Bouygues, Bpost, eBuddy
Evonik, Gazelle, Grieg, Jayco'z, Kenya
Metinvest, Movistar, Orange, Pendleton's, Pokerstars, RBC
Red Bull, Festina, Puma, Tinkoff, Vesuvio

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Giro d'Italia
Since we don't have the best Team Time Trial line-up in the MG ProTour (and therefore the pink jersey is almost impossible after stage 3) we wouldn't mind losing some time in the first stages, so we can do what we do best; Stage Hunting!

Tour de France
Kritskiy will be our leader in the biggest race of the world; Top-10 is the (sponsor)goal, Best Team as a side dish would be nice!

Vuelta a España
The only Grand Tour where we bring a sprinter, but Boev is here for experience mostly, hence BotD and King of the Mountain will be our main focus in Spain.

Today we celebrate another great win by none other than the great Yuri Trofimov! The Tirreno - Adriatico 2016 will be added to his already impressive palmarès: Liège, Amstel, Grand-Duché, Badaling, Nice, Tirreno, Pais Vasco, Catalunya, Tasmania, Russian Road and Time Trial Champion, multiple stages in the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France and many more!

So people can continue using nicknames all they want, but it is quite clear that Yuri is a living legend, at least in ManGame he his ;-) So does he still have a bucketlist? Yes, having won Liège - Bastogne - Liège and Amstel Gold Race it would be nice to win Fleche Wallone as well to complete the Ardennes Triple. But the race Trofimov is looking forward the most this year is the Olympic Road Race in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

With the Tour of California halfway, the cycling world is starting to look forward to one of the biggest races off the season; Giro d'Italia (for line-up see Post #225). But let us first review what happened up until the Giro.

Last year (just like 2014) Tinkoff finished 7th in the ProTour, with Yuri Trofimov 6th in the Individual Rankings. This year our aim is to be in the Top-10 again. The season started with Trofimov finishing 14th in Badaling and our new signing Malori getting 17th in Qatar, nothing special.

Gusev rode his first (cobble) races for Tinkoff in February, he finished 27th at the Omloop and 24th at Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne, still not much to celebrate on. But after a slow start it was Trofimov to kick of the season with our first win; without winning a stage he became 1st at Tirreno! Kritskiy started his season really good, he fisnished 11th in Paris-Nice were good old Andy Schleck showed his skills once more, while Rovny became 24th at the Grand-Duché. Trofimov was our leader at San Remo -> 5th was the maximum result, Sam Bewley won the Monument, spoiler alert, in fact Sam would - JUST LIKE LAST YEAR - win the first three Monuments of this season!!!

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Our Italian Stallion Malori kept scoring points for us; 14th at the ITT of Herbiers, but Porsev couldn't do much at the sprinters race SAA Tour d'Afrique; 46th in GC. Gusev was a bit disappointing as well during March, he finsied 18th at East Midlands, 17th at the Ronde and 18th at Roubaix and worse - after a MGUCI rerun - he even got 33rd at Vlaanderen! We also ride HC-races this year - mainly to gain experience (points) for our younger riders - Chernetskiy was able to get 87th at the Classic Corsica, not bad. So until then March wasn't much, but luckily Trofimov was able to secure our first and hardest goal of the season; Win Vuelta al Pais Vasco. He won the second stage of the race, and became 1st overall, plus 1st Points at Vasco!

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With only two ProTour races left to ride, the cycling world is starting to look forward to arguably the most important race off the season; MG World Championships! But let us first review what happened mid-season.

April started with the Giro d'Italia where Kolesnikov finishing 14th, a decent result to start off with. Traditionally Trofimov had a very good month; he won Tour of California and finished 3rd at Amstel Gold Race.

The Ardennes classics continued in May and unlike last year (Ponzi-triple) the podiums were much more diverse this year; Trofimov finished 2nd at Fleche Wallone and 4th at Liege- Bastogne - Liege (too bad because we had a top-3 sponsorgoal). Just like the Giro Kolesnikov was our leader during the Vuelta a Espana, he finishing 15th, again a decent result. Gusev rounded up the month with a 20th place at Strada Appia Antica.

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Three HC-races in June to collect those much needed XP Pionts, the results however were average; Porsev 39th Tour of Norway (however Chernetskiy won the King of the Mountain Jersey and stage 4!), Rybakov 36th Nelspruit Classic and Shalunov 129th Tour d'Andorra. Kolesnikov was able to use his after Vuelta form and had a great ride during the Tour de Suisse, he finished 9th in a very strong field. After a good training camp Kritskiy had his last race before tackling the Tour, he showed he was in good shape by finishing 5th at the Criterium du Dauphine Libere.

The Tour de France world's biggest race and a top-10 sponsorgoal, Kritskiy "easily" achieved the sponsorgoal and finished 6th, 12 minutes behind the winner Mr. Andy Schleck. During the Tour our Italian stallion Malori got 12th at Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha.

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This year we had two extra races on the menu: The Olympics at Rio de Janeiro, Trofimov expected a lot from the road race, but unfortunately his biggest help Kritskiy was involved in a big crash during the descent from the (wet) Vista, which completely changed the shape of the race. Trofimov eventually ended up 9th. Kritskiy finished 6th at the time trial, 1 minute and 10 seconds behind the winner Taylor Phinney. Trofimov bounced back from the Olympics by winning the Deutschland Tour (and winning the fourth stage), while Porsev couldn't do much at our home race GP Moscow, 19th in the peloton sprint behind the surprising winner Greg Van Avermaet (late attack). In our last HC race of the season we were quite anonymous; Korzh got 71st in the General Ranking of the Baltic Chain Tour.

September turned out the be a very good month for Tinkoff; Kritskiy 9th at Vuelta a Colombia (not great) and 7th at GP Liechtenstein (OK-ish). But Gusev had one of his best races since he joined Tinkoff, he finished 2nd at the Tour of Northern Europe and in hindsight (with a better team time trial) Gusev could have won this race. Nonetheless his 2nd place was celebrated like he had won the race by the whole team.

And now we are in Oktober and what a month it has been so far, we started out by winning the Copenhagen - Malmo TTT! Maybe the most surprising result of the season, so it didn't matter much that Chernetskiy got 41st at the Lisbon Classic; who cares we won at Malmo!

So only two ProTour races left: Tasmania and Lombardia (Top-3 sponsorgoal), we hope to score big, we are currently 9th in the ProTour Ranking (the sponsorgoal is Top-10) but if Trofimov can (over)deliver, we might even get close to a Top-5 team ranking, which would be amazing. Then there are still some other important races like the National Championships and the World Championships!

Sergei Pomoshnikov, Matvey Mamykin, Viktor Manakov and Aleksey Rybalkin joined MOL - OMV Petrom (Continental) for this season. Pomoshnikov had a great season: Many top-10's and podium places and he won the 2nd stage of the Tour de Azerbaijan and won the final stage of the Tour of Scotland (and the General Rankings). In the end he scored 310 points and MOL - OMV Petrom will probably promote thanks to Pomoshnikov. The three other (young) riders learned a lot this season and all of them gained a XP level:

Alexander Foliforov also gained a XP level, he joined Elta - Hellenic Post this season (Continental). In house we were developing some youngsters as well, all of them gained a XL level: Evgeny Shalunov, Matvey Zubov, Alexander Sulimov, Igor Boev and Sergey Chernetskiy.

Six seasons long OlegTinkov and Will007 were responsible for the jersey designs, but for 2017 we hired famous jersey designer Maddrengen: Here's a first preview of next season team kit ->

Ten riders didn't renew their contracts for various reasons, two of them have been part of the Tinkoff Project (which started in 2011) from the beginning: Artem Ovechkin and Ivan Rovny, we enjoyed working with them for six years, but now they are both 30 years old and looking for a new environment/challenges. We sincerely hope they both find a team that match their wishes.

Another name worth mentioning is Vladimir Gusev -> 2015 and 2016 riding for Tinkoff, best result: 2nd place at Tour of Northern Europe 2016. After an amazing career (see article) he probably will retire, but maybe we/fans can convince him to add one more year...

The other seven riders who didn't renew their contracts are:
Dmitriy Ignatiev, Artem Nych, Maxim Pokidov, Alexander Rybakov, Aleksey Rybalkin, Sergey Shilov and Sergey Vdovin.