knockout wrote:
I guess those are races you would rather forget about
Despite the nunber of race summaries you have done the manager satisfaction scale still feels super weird. In Austria Brajkovic finished just about where he was reasonable to he expected with very consistent racing in the mountains and only a bad TT to miss out the top5 gc by half a minute. Giving that a 2.5/10 is very harsh.
Well, the performance of Brajkovic was on par, the result just was under par. Plus the big issue was heavy underperformances by Brändle (due to a faster race than expected) and the white jersey failure.
The Manx International was maybe the most suiting hilly race for Kump all calendar. But with the downhill also Mohoric should have a chance of going strong here, so let's see how we did:
The breakaway was controlled pretty easily, so everything went as planned until the final climb. There the favourites went attacking, while we tried to control the pack.
This worked pretty well with our trio there, just our leader was missing. We've decided to push on nevertheless, to give our other riders a chance then and keep the pace high.
At the end of the day we couldn't catch Boasson Hagen, but our 1-2 punch did a great job to sprint for some nice Top 5 points!
With Mohoric in 3rd and Quevedo in 4th we could celebrate a big time race, eventhough we missed out on the plan with Kump, who came in only as our 5th best rider behind Mugerli and Navardauskas.
Positive Surprise:hills department - Our team dominated the run in after the climb. And eventhough it wasn't for our big captain, it was a great effort that resulted in a nice outcome!
Negative Surprise:Kump in Hills - no need to copy/paste CSS
Another PTHC appearance for us. Young Matej leads the team on this experience against tough opposition. It is made for the puncheurs, and our youngster has the full support of the team to go for the white jersey.
Stage 1: A sprint stage. Neither a breakaway nor any sort of sprinting for us. At least our GC guys didn't loose time.
Stage 2: On this hilly day Bostner was allowed to join the break in a group of 3.
While he couldn't manage to stay clear, he collected enough points to find himself 3rd in the KOM standings. On top, Mohoric took over white with a solid ride ahead of Vakoc.
Stage 3: No success for us on the queen stage. None in the breakaway, and a pretty disappointing 17th place for our young leader in white. He also lost the jersey to Vakoc like this, now sitting 14th overall and on par with GC ambitions.
Stage 4: It should've been a calm day for us, bu it wasn't. No break, but instead a crash that destroyed all our GC ambitions to a setback into 21st GC and 4th U25, loosing 3 minutes due to the incident.
Stage 5: No rider in the break and no sprint. Only thing for us was yet again another crash. Difficult times up ahead.
In the aftermaths we missed out on our goals due to the crash, which turns Ukraine into a disappointing outcome. The bright spot was Jaka's performance on stage 2 that secured us 3rd in the KOM.
A little up and down with the results recently, but Ukraine had a loaded puncher startlist where Mohoric just came up a bit short. Good ride from Bostner though!
Great in Manx, less so in Ukraine Now let's go in the final promo push, go Isostar!
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
Manx International has been nothing short of sensational! Xavier shows that he can deliver as well if he doesnt crash for once. Kump a minor disappointment but that should not worry you when others step up like this!
@AbhishekLFC: Yeah Jaka has done a great ride here, and he almost certainly will be a valuable domestique on the roster for a number of years.
@jandal7: We'd need some more points though, thanks for your support!
@knockout: Yeah it revealed all the potential Quevedo would've had if he'd have stayed healthy for most of the season. Crashes were definitely not on our side this year.
Vuelta a Colombia
18.-22.9
HC
Mountain Tour
Brajkovic
Top 15
Janez Brajkovic
Leader
Jernej Svab
Domestique
Pavel Potocki
Domestique
Tadej Logar
Domestique
Daniel Jaramillo
Domestique
Jerome Giaux
Domestique
Ahmed Belgasem
Domestique
Martin Laas
Domestique
A climbers race with some options for sprinters. You'd guess: It's not our preferred terrain. Still we have Janez Brajkovic on the run, leading our team in his final HC race for our squad. A Top 10 is what our veteran aims for at least, while Jerome Giaux once again has the opportunity to sprint for himself (haha).
Stage 1: Not our stage: A flat one with crosswinds. We couldn't put anybody in the group, from which stage winner Arashiro survived. At least Potocki could bridge the gap he had to the main pack in between the race. Giaux "sprinted" to 16th.
Stage 2: The first mountain stage kind took place without us. No attack, and Brajkovic suffered pretty early. He limited his losses to 2:13 at least.
Giaux with another brilliant ride to miss the time limit.
Stage 3: The toughest of all - and you guessed it: not our stage. 50 kms before the finishing line Brajkovic has already been 5 minutes down on the pack. Potocki as invisible as ever on top.
+ 19'10" for a group with Brajkovic (48th on the stage) - he will need a breakaway like Ji/Shikai now!
Stage 4: The 2nd flat stage, and we were in the break!
Great job by Jernej Svab, who hang on to his life on the previous stages. The young Slovenian competed with the big names joining him. He couldn't answer to Monforts winning attack, but instead he absolutely nailed the timing to win the sprint for 2nd against his breakaway mates and the upcoming bunch. An awesome job by the youngster to secure our first points here!
Stage 5: A brutal closing day. And Brajkovic was that far down, that he was really allowed to join the breakaway.
Sadly he was far away from the best in the group, with 10 kilometers to climb he was 6:30 behind the leaders. At least he secured us some TV time distracting the favourites attacks while drifting backwards...
Once again our hero though was Svab. The youngster was able to hang on and just make the time limit to receive further minor points from the points classification.
1
Andrei Amador
Team UBS
21h30'36
2
Sergio Luis Henao Montoya
Ferrero - Samruk
+ 2'08
3
Stefan Denifl
SPAR - Shimano - SCG
+ 3'54
4
Merhawi Kudus
Eritel - Sonatrach
+ 5'51
5
Rigoberto Úran
Minions
+ 7'24
6
Fabio Duarte
Novatek-Panarmenian.net
+ 9'06
7
Jianhua Ji
Compal-Merida
+ 9'19
8
Nairo Quintana
Orange Pro Cycling
+ 9'23
9
Benat Intxausti
Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ
+ 10'12
10
Chen Shikai
Meiji - JR East
+ 10'16
22
Janez Brajkovic
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 28'48
33
Pavel Potocki
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 42'32
46
Ahmed Youssef Belgasem
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 56'20
Goal: Top 15, Top 30, Stage Top 5, Top 3 U25 --> failed
Positive Surprise:Jernej Svab - If there was any doubt left Jernej signed his contract for 2018 this race.
Negative Surprise:Janez Brajkovic - We don't know whether it was an early crash or just retiring early, but it was heartbreaking to watch Jani in this race.
It's really impressive how you keep doing these rather long per race updates even when you underperform a bit in races where you arrived with low expectations. Great HQ!
A bumpy race with an almost certain sprint finish, and a strong support for our leader. What could be better for Kump? Well, less opposition, less awesome opposition and even more less van Stayen. Lac Megantic wasn't really a great outing for our squad in PTHC being similarly, so things could go in either direction.
We couldn't join the breakaway, but we were part of it somehow anyway. Loan rider Pibernik did a fantastic job to join the breakaway for VisitUkraine. They got caught, but we found ourselves on the wrong side of a split shortly before the finishing kilometer was approached.
Wisniwoski won the race in awesome fashion by attacking late, and also our friends from Evonik had a fantastic race. We however failed, especially since Kump was waaaay down the order. At the end it was a decent team performance led by Navardauskas in 24th to at least secure some minor points.
1
Lukasz Wisniowski
Grieg - Eftel
5h02'58
2
Erik Mohs
Fablok - Bank BGZ
s.t.
3
Greg Van Avermaet
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
4
Mark Dzamastagic
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
5
Roger Kluge
Iberia - Team Degenkolb
s.t.
6
Evaldas Siskevicius
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
7
Tom Van Asbroeck
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
s.t.
8
Leigh Howard
RBC Pro Cycling
s.t.
9
Sam Bewley
Moser - Sygic
s.t.
10
Sebastian Langeveld
Strava
s.t.
24
Ramunas Navardauskas
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
33
Roy Jans
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
37
Matthias Brändle
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t
Truely a missed opportunity, as the race scenario was almost made for us, but we just couldn't get it to go. Of course none of our 3 main sprinters were the ones to take some minor points btw.
Goal: Top 10, Top 25, 2*Top 50 --> failed
Points scored: 12 (Navardauskas 8, Jans 2, Brändle 2)
Manager's satisfaction rate: 1.5/10
Positive Surprise:Luka Pibernik - Our loanie once again joined a breakaway in a big race for VisitUkraine. We are very much looking forward to see him with us in 2018!
Negative Surprise:Marko Kump - Sometimes it just doesn't work. He's just the opposite of van Asbroeck since May.
Giro dell Emilia is one of the most interesting races on the calendar. With the mountain influence we brought Janez Brajkovic to draw an option for a very hard race. Otherwise we got our classical deep hill top line-up together, captained by Mohoric who should really enjoy the number of downhill passages here.
Despite our depth we couldn't place anybody in the group. Instead, our first notable appearance was yet another crash by Quevedo, in which also Brajkovic went down. Two of our leaders out of contention early? Check.
Mohoric was our only hope left. Only Mohoric? Nope, one rider was with him: Neither old Matej, nor Stan or Polanc. It was our youngster Svab that stayed with Mohoric through all the pain of the race.
But while the group sprinted for glory, all of our riders lost the grip. We slipped down right when it mattered, and Matej couldn't cover the issues, so that he had to settle for a very disappointing 18th. And sadly also Jernej fell two points short of the points positions.
1
Domenik Klemme
Novatek-Panarmenian.net
4h54'24
2
Mohamed Shawal Anuar Aziz
Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ
s.t.
3
Michal Kwiatkowski
Netia - Vónin
s.t.
4
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Grieg - Eftel
s.t.
5
Maurice Schreurs
Orange Pro Cycling
s.t.
6
Tejay Van Garderen
Newton Foundation
s.t.
7
Cyril Gautier
Valio - DeLaval
s.t.
8
Christopher Juul-Jensen
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
+ 18
9
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Meiji - JR East
s.t.
10
Arvin Moazemi
SPAR - Shimano - SCG
s.t.
18
Matej Mohoric
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
32
Jernej Svab
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
40
Matej Mugerli
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
Goal: Top 10, Top 15, 2*Top 30 --> failed
Points scored: 8 (Mohoric 8)
Manager's satisfaction rate: 1.5/10
Positive Surprise:Jernej Svab - The young Slovenian puncheur was the flashing light on the wall of shadows of our performance here, guiding Mohoric in until the very last climb to then hold on to finish as our second best rider of the day.
Negative Surprise:bike handling skills - Guys we definitely need some mental training in the offseason
Edited by Croatia14 on 25-04-2018 14:31
The race to forget of the season. Mansilla is our leader, and the two times that happened before he scored 0. We'll see whether he can turn around that issue. Jans & Navardauskas would love some tough and windy sectors to work their flat stats, the rest of the team should hunt for breaks.
Stage 1: No breakaways for us. Mansilla not participating in the sprint that was won by Bouhanni, Jans was our best in 18th.
Stage 2: No breakaway again. 3 riders in the Top 35, sadly none better than Jans in 32nd. Gossy wins.
Stage 3: Same procedure as yesterday. No break, no wind, no splits, no result. Jans again our best in 30th - again Navardauskas & Quicibal in the Top 40.
Stage 4: Finally some action. We were invisible all day, but we made the splits today. Only 23 riders finished s.t., and we have finally been on the right side of the split on the day when Guerao won. Our 3 captains managed to stay with the best to get some nice minor points in the GC. Well done guys!
1
Mark Cavendish
Kraftwerk Man Machine
15h32'47
2
Óscar Guerao
SPAR - Shimano - SCG
+ 2
3
Matthew Goss
Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ
+ 3
4
Nacer Bouhanni
Euskaltel
+ 31
5
Juan Van Heerden
Eritel - Sonatrach
+ 37
6
Andrea Guardini
Fablok - Bank BGZ
+ 42
7
Ivano Lo Cicero
Valio - DeLaval
+ 43
8
Roman Maksimov
Newton Foundation
+ 46
9
Peter Kennaugh
Orange Pro Cycling
+ 47
10
Dan Holloway
Novatek-Panarmenian.net
+ 48
18
Roy Jans
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 1'03
20
Ramunas Navardauskas
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
21
Luis Miguel Mansilla
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
39
Romeo Quicibal
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 2'25
On top Quicibal achieved an awesome 2nd place in the young riders competition, and the team finished 2nd in the teams classification.
Positive Surprise:Romeo Quicibal - 16 points from a stagiare draw an awesome race. And the 2nd in the youth classification is a great achievement for the young gun.
Negative Surprise:Luis Mansilla - You gotta give him credit for hanging on at the very last stage. No participation as a leader in the 3 before is unacceptable though.
Just two days in Indonesia, one for the sprinters. With the clash with Barbados this could be the last opportunity for Giaux to lead our sprint department. Brajkovic has his last stage race to lead with the usual support.
Stage 1: We would've liked to be in the break, but couldn't join it. In his last opportunity Giaux sprinted to...32nd. Our best finisher even was Jernej Svab (once again) in 21st, sitting 2nd U25 afterwards.
Stage 2: The breakways was caught early, so the race was lighted up on the final 12 Kilometers. Berhane put in a vicious attack that brought him the stage and GC win. Brajkovic kept cool and rode his pace together with Denifl up the climb. At the end of the day he found a very solid result with his race, coming in 7th of the day together with Barguil and Nazaret.
That led to finishing 8th overall (s.t. with 7th and 6th). Also Pavel Potocki could bring in some points finishing in 23rd overall and 2nd in the U25 competition.
1
Natnael Berhane
Eritel - Sonatrach
5h46'11
2
Rafael Valls
Repsol - Honda
+ 1'37
3
Robert Kiserlovski
Kraftwerk Man Machine
+ 1'41
4
Sergio Luis Henao Montoya
Ferrero - Samruk
+ 1'49
5
Nairo Quintana
Orange Pro Cycling
+ 1'55
6
Magno Nazaret
Berg Cycles
+ 2'11
7
Warren Barguil
Team Ticos Air Costa Rica
s.t.
8
Janez Brajkovic
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
9
Chen Shikai
Meiji - JR East
+ 2'18
10
Stefan Denifl
SPAR - Shimano - SCG
+ 2'24
23
Pavel Potocki
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
Goal: Top 15, Top 30, Top 3 U25 --> achieved
Points scored: 43 (Brajkovic 33, Potocki 10)
Manager's satisfaction rate: 8/10
Positive Surprise:Jani - After several difficult races our stage racing veteran closed out his year with Isostar-Adriatic in stellar fashion. A solid ride out in the last stage race in lime.
Negative Surprise:Jerome Giaux - Giaux was awesome as supportive rider on the cobbles/flat. He couldn't use his rare sprinting opportunities, including the one here.
In the last race of the season where we were considered one of the favourites the team decided to leave Kump out after a strong season. Instead it was Jan Polanc that had the opportunity to lead us once more over the hilly cobbles in Rwanda.
Starting the race we had to leave a group up the road. Even worse, once again we were cursed by bad luck with Svab crashing out early. Other teams with even more notable riders out though. We took on the race by engaging in the chase and creating a nice situation for Polanc with 32 km to go, where it was not much left for a group of 4 including Polanc towards the two riders remaining from the break.
Together with Burghardt, Theuns and Debesay he caught the break, only to have Theuns and the breakaway survivors distanced until 17 km to go.
Until the final kilometers the situation stabilizied, only Teunissen managed to bridge over to the trio at the very late stage of the race. With 500 Meter to go it was Polanc to attack Burghardt here in the attempt to take the lead on the final cobbled hill.
At the end the youngstar ran out of steam against the veteran however. But on the bright side Jan could take home another awesome second place to add to his very successful season with our squad.
And while our other riders couldn't score any back-up points, we are very happy with the work our captain has done for us once again in Kigali!
1
Marcus Burghardt
Podium Ambition
5h30'20
2
Jan Polanc
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 10
3
Mike Teunissen
Generali - EDF
+ 27
4
Edward Theuns
Generali - EDF
+ 44
5
Oliver Naesen
Minions
+ 2'34
6
Arman Kamyshev
Orange Pro Cycling
+ 2'41
7
Martin Grashev
Podium Ambition
s.t.
8
Mekseb Debesay
Eritel - Sonatrach
+ 3'20
9
Marcos Altur
Newton Foundation
+ 6'17
10
Salvatore Puccio
Orange Pro Cycling
s.t.
Goal: Top 3, Top 15, Top 25 --> achieved
Points scored: 56 (Polanc 56)
Manager's satisfaction rate: 8/10
Positive Surprise:Jan Polanc - Another clutch performance by our Slovenian development project in his first maxed season. The young gun rides in an energetic and offensive style we absolutely love to watch at the Isostar headquarters.
Negative Surprise:Supporting Cast - Minor issues, having 0 points from back-ups this race. They delivered most of the season and were vital parts that put us in second place for the current standings.
A very intelligent performance from Jan to cap off a stellar season - but also after Lincoln just showing his beastliness in hilly cobbles!
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
Janez Brajkovic most likely says farewell. He's got one last race for Isostar-Adriatic, where he can finally hand the crown of the past to the crown of the present, as he leads together with promotion hero Marko Kump. Both aim for a Top 20 in the PT season closeout, where we were happy to be invited to. Some may be surprised by the absence of our initial hilly leaders, but they took the trip to Japan to fight for the PCT podium there.
Mathias Brändle was our man of the first hours. He managed to join the breakaway of the day, giving us loads of TV time. Our sponsors will very much like that given the prestige the race offers to its viewers.
They managed to do a solid ride until 66 kilometers to go.
Kennaugh and Brandle start Madonna del Ghisallo, a mythical climb in this race, with an advantage of 3 minutes.
Further into the race the duo managed to get away until the penultimate climb, until they got caught in the attacks of Slovenian star Spilak. For us both Brajkovic & Kump made it until 10 km to go in the 51 riders strong leading group. There it was about hanging on, which worked not to perfection. At least Brajkovic and Kump could both position themselves in the Top 35.
1
Simon Spilak
Festina - Dexia
6h37'23
2
Yuri Trofimov
Tinkoff Sport Academy
s.t.
3
Simone Ponzi
Hugo Boss
s.t.
4
Alexey Lutsenko
Pendleton's
+ 1'32
5
Clement Koretzky
Festina - Dexia
s.t.
6
Toms Skujins
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
7
Francesco Ginanni
Gazelle
s.t.
8
Jan Bakelants
Strava
s.t.
9
Petr Vakoc
Moser - Sygic
s.t.
10
Jay McCarthy
Ayubowan!
s.t.
31
Janez Brajkovic
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
35
Marko Kump
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
Goal: Top 20, Top 30, Top 50, Top 100, breakaway appearance --> failed
Positive Surprise:Matthias Brändle - What is better than finishing your season than a 200km breakaway at Il Lombardia of which you survive the longest? Nothing.
Negative Surprise:Marko Kump - 35th is not bad, but there is some space for improvement in the hills next season. Management, take action! Training camp incoming?
@Tamijo: Thank you very much honorable fellow manager. But it wasn't the management that made the season as brilliant as it was, it was the squad including all staff and riders that contributed towards this awesome year.
Japan Cup
18.10.
HC
hills
Mohoric/Quevedo
Top 15
Matej Mugerli
Leader
Martin Laas
Domestique
Xavier Quevedo
Free Role
Stanislau Bazhkou
Domestique
Matej Mohoric
Free Role
Jernej Svab
Domestique
Ahmed Belgasem
Domestique
Tadej Logar
Domestique
And we continue with the farewell partys, as this is our last race of the season. This time it's Matej Mugerli that will get his final race. Given the situation of the team he will have the chance to lead us here. He served our team some great contribution, not only in the races but also as the calm veteran between the youngsters. Of course he can be proud of being part of the Matej-duo, and surely it's also his achievement what young Matej may become for the squad in the future. It is almost certain, that Matej Mugerli will stay at the team, as with promotion on the horizon the team may look to expand their staff.
But it wasn't Mugerli that was our first appearance of the day. Instead Tadej Logar managed to join the breakaway once again on the final race day on the calendar.
Together with his breakaway companions he had a nice ride out through the countryside of Utsonimaya, that stopped 20 km before the finishing line as the first contenders reached out to them and they were caught. Not so nice was the day for Mugerli until here, he suffered from a bad early crash. Still he fought for all the race to come back and finish the race.
It took several attacks until a group finally got away and fought for the win, from which once again Edvald Boasson Hagen was the strongest. We could not really counter that move, also due to bad positioning; instead we settled to achieve some lower tier points.
However our riders could barely compete here. Mugerli hasn't had the best of days, hence he took it easy on the last lap and enjoyed the crowd that was cheering for him all the time around the circuit. Closer to the front it was Mohoric and Quevedo close to the best but just not there, finishing 11th and 18th of the day, which is very much inside our expectations. A decent way to finish a brilliant season.
1
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Grieg - Eftel
4h23'32
2
Tejay Van Garderen
Newton Foundation
+ 8
3
Christopher Juul-Jensen
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
s.t.
4
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Meiji - JR East
s.t.
5
Cyril Gautier
Valio - DeLaval
+ 19
6
Cesare Di Maggio
MOL-OMV Petrom
s.t.
7
Damiano Caruso
Euskaltel
s.t.
8
Aleksandar Flügel
Kraftwerk Man Machine
s.t.
9
Maurice Schreurs
Orange Pro Cycling
s.t.
10
Zico Waeytens
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
s.t.
11
Matej Mohoric
Isostar - Adriatic
s.t.
19
Xavier Quevedo
Isostar - Adriatic
+ 2'09
Goal:Top 15, Top 20, Top 30 --> achieved
Points scored: 29 (Mohoric 22, Quevedo 7)
Manager's satisfaction rate: 6/10
Positive Surprise:Tadej Logar - The young Slovenian was one of the most active riders all season, and crowned it with a break here. No regrets on giving him a chance with the team, as he paid it back against all odds from outside throughout the season.
Negative Surprise:Positioning - We still don't know how to do that, this is another confirmation.
Decent end to the season. But it doesn't really matter as this wraps up what has been a brilliant season. Congrats on the confirmed promotion. Looking forward to what you plan for the PT. I'm sure it's going to be epic
Can't wait for Isostar 2018 - but again must say what an amazing 2017 season you had
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
Manx International 
Tour of Ukraine 
Now let's go in the final promo push, go Isostar!
Lisbon Classic 
Giro dell'Emelia 
Barbados Cycling Classic 
Tour of East Java 
GP Kigali 
realy not much else to add 
Japan Cup 
