whitejersey wrote:
I know I am just repeating what everyone else have said, but nice job with the roundup, love reading these types of posts.

knockout wrote:


Thanks for commenting! It's quite cool to see that people not yet part of the game are reading HQ updates as well

When the team applied for a CT licence the longterm plan was build around developing young talents and building a team around them to compete. 3 years later the last group of talents we picked up in the first two seasons are hitting their peak. These riders are expected to return to the team improved as the team wants to renew every rider under contract:

Andris Smirnovs (26)

Having not a single decline this season this leads us into the upcoming renewals with the following roster:



We're especially proud that 9 of the 16 maxed riders maxed while under contract with us and 2 of the others were trained further since signing with us. Generally, this squad looks quite good as a base to work without many changes needed as we can see every single rider of them as a valuable option for next season. However, there are rumors that the team chases a high profile leader who might be available this season which could shuffle the transfer plans of the team and make some of our riders - including Greg Van Avermaet - available for the right offer.

sgdanny wrote:
That is one scary team! With a good transfer season, that will be a good contender for a Top 10 in the PT. Good luck!

knockout wrote:
Thanks for the kind words but Top3? I'd say it's unlikely that i can improve the team so much that it's realistic. Most of the teams ahead of me are so far ahead of me (in terms of squad strength and depth and of course in years to develop the team) and you've got to consider how my team had to massively overperform to finish so highly this season.

Many teams are publishing their new jersey for the upcoming season and we are ready to present our new jersey as well. New? Well, there have been some minor sponsor changes since the end of last season so we had to update our jersey accordingly but the general design will remain the same as the previous two ones. We thank aidanvn for the original design and the_hoyle for the update!

Janis Dakteris and Gatis Smukulis rode to two dominant national champion titles and won the right to wear a special jersey for the upcoming season. Special thanks to the_hoyle for the new NC design which should be a lot more recognizable than the previous one :

While our team is still relatively young we already have a quite succesful history with lots of great riders to remember. With no end to the long break in sight this is the perfect time to remember which riders helped in bringing us where we are today. These are the all-time Evonik leaders in various categories. Only achievements during their Evonik time are counted.

	Total Years	Loans In	Loans Out	Stagiaire Years
Mark Dzamastagic	3	0	1	0
Andris Vosekalns	3	0	1	0
Indulis Bekmanis	3	0	1	0
Michel Koch	3	0	2	0
Andris Smirnovs	2	0	0	0
Evaldas Siskevicius	2	0	0	0
Maris Bogdanovics	2	0	0	0
Gatis Smukulis	2	0	0	0
Andsz Flaksis	2	0	0	0
Willi Willwohl	2	0	0	0
Simon Geschke	2	0	0	0

Supporters often favor long-time team members and while the back-to-back promotions caused many riders to leave quickly again the list of returning riders features many of the fan favourites of our team. Notably is that no rider rode in our jersey in all three seasons as our four remaining team members from our debut season were all loaned out at some point.

	Classics	GCs	Stage Wins	Jerseys	Total Wins
Simon Geschke	0	0	8	3	11
Luis Leon Sanchez Gil	1	3	3	2	9
Michael Van Stayen	0	0	4	0	4
Greg Van Avermaet	1	0	1	1	3
Toms Skujins	0	0	3	0	3
Tom Boonen	0	0	2	1	3
Andsz Flaksis	0	1	1	0	2
Aleksei Saramotins	2	0	0	0	2
Mark Dzamastagic	1	0	1	0	2
Lasse Norman Hansen	0	0	1	0	1

The moments that are remembered the most in retrospective are the big moments. We've had lots of them in the first two seasons with our two most valuable riders from each of the first two seasons. Mark Dzamastagic is the only rider to record a victory in two different seasons.

Most Classics: Aleksei Saramotins (2)
Most GCs: Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (3)
Most Stage Wins: Simon Geschke (8)
Most Jerseys: Simon Geschke (3)

Single Season Records:
Most Classics: Aleksei Saramotins (2) (2014)
Most GCs: Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (3) (2015)
Most Stage Wins: Simon Geschke (8) (2014)
Most Jerseys: Simon Geschke (3) (2014)
Most Total Wins: Simon Geschke (11) (2014)

	Total Points (All divisions)
Greg Van Avermaet	1586
Michael Van Stayen	1512
Luis Leon Sanchez Gil	1207
Tom Boonen	993
Toms Skujins	910
Simon Geschke	585
Mark Dzamastagic	457
Evaldas Siskevicius	284
Aleksei Saramotins	185
Andris Vosekalns	183

Points are what ultimately matters the most and there are two main takeaways from this leaderboard:
1. Evonik has always been a team relying on the success of its leaders and there hasnt been much depth of scoring in any season.
2. We would not be where we are now without our belgian leaders.

Single Season Record:
Greg Van Avermaet: 1586 (2016)

	Total RDs
Andris Vosekalns	169
Yannick Stoltz	168
Olli Kulppi	157
Andris Smirnovs	157
Janis Dakteris	156
Maris Bogdanovics	150
Mark Dzamastagic	147
Evaldas Siskevicius	140
Arnaud Grand	139
Willi Willwohl	131

While our leaders often rode a very limited schedule to keep their legs fresh some of our domestiques had to race a lot during the seasons. This list includes lots of young talents who were eager to prove their worth in the hope to get promoted into more protected roles later.

Single Season Record:
Yannick Stoltz: 106 (2016)

	Total BotD Appearances
Andris Vosekalns	17
Yannick Stoltz	7
Andris Smirnovs	6
Olli Kulppi	6
Nur Amirul Marzuki	4
Alexander Edmondson	4
Phil Bauhaus	4
Arnaud Grand	3
Florian Bissinger	3
Mark Dzamastagic	2

As most teams we also appreciate a lot if our riders ride aggressively as it helps to get TV time on terrains that we arent as strong *cough* mountains *cough* but we also gained some very nice success from attacks. In this ranking are only those attacks included that lead to succesfully being part of the morning break. Attacks in the second half of a race to bridge to leaders or attack other favourites were not counted.

Single Season Record:
Andris Vosekalns: 13 (2014)

Croatia14 wrote:
love it! Vosekalns is the MVP of the team in disguise