Ollfardh wrote:
"I would furthermore like to mock the teams that showed interest in Pieter Serry and Yannick Eijssen but did not put on a decent offer. Both were solid pointscorers this year and had some great wins."
Well, I tried. You probably would've accepted if you had seen it in time (or did you?? )
Ollfardh wrote:
"Finaly, I can confirm we're preparing a massive steal offer on a rider that would really fit our team."
Don't forget the promising future prospect I offered you on top of that You seemed desperate at the time. So was I to get in a puncher. It seemed like a good solution to our collective desperation!!
CarbonSports Cycling- Lightweight enjoys a very succesful season. So succesful that the entire team is invited by the sponsor's CEO to a celebration cruise on his private yacht. Unfortunately, there has been scheduling conflicts with the final races of the season: The national championship races happen to be in the same week. This means that the team will not be able to attend those events. The team wishes all participating teams good luck.
Cycling fans beware: The national championships this year will take place a week later than initially planned. The ICL management came up with this measure to allow all cyclists to take part in these prestigious races. This is the reaction to a press release issued by the media management of Carbonsports Cycling. Unfortunately the CEO of their sponsor was only able to rent the yacht in this exact week, which lead to a rescheduling of the NCs the only solution. This shows the management’s appreciation of one of the biggest team in the ICL.
The management of the ICL would like to thank the CarbonSports team to have made the planning problem public still in time to allow the ICL to react.
The team management is very thankful about the rescheduling of the National Championship but sadly, the team still cannot attend the races because the new date is on the same day as the "Friedrichshafen Sportgala". The team has been tipped that they will receive the award for the "Friedrichshafen Team of the Year" and of course the entire team prefers to attend this prestigous award show. It's rare that this award is given to a cycling team and not even such a succesful rider as Alberto Contador has won it previously. What an honor!
Upon the announcement that CarbonSports would miss the National Championships due to scheduling conflicts, Polestar Pro Cycling Teams (which manages both the Main and U23 teams) issued a statement in which they confirm their participation in the nationals and will not prevent any of their riders to compete.
Polestar seems to have tight grip on the Finland NC with Joonas Henttala tiped to win both, but he's not the strongest TT racer - that belongs to U23 rider Matias Laitinen.
Fredrik Ludvigsson is their best bet for the Swedish NC, but his brother Tobias is touted as the better TT rider.
Our final focus races of the season, the Vuelta a Colombia couldn't have started any better, our team won the opening TTT by 20 seconds and Dowsett was happy to wear the leader's jersey for two days. But the first mountain stage went terribly, favourites attacked a long way out and we thought we could reel them back in with a team effort but failed miserably, Fuglsang and Poels lost over 3 minutes. But a day later Poels battled it out with the best, he finished the stage in 2nd place and moved from 14th to 4th in the GC. Fuglsang remained below par in 10th, but took the win on stage 5, his first stage win of the season.
The Danish champion's form was on the rise and he was able to distance most rivals on the queen stage, moving up to 5th in the GC, past his team mate Poels. He also rode an excellent ITT on the final day, finishing 2nd behind Rui Costa, and climbing another place in the GC. Poels proved human after all, not overperforming in his last ITT, and dropped to 7th. Still a very successful goal race, with two great stage wins and Monsavle adding a few more points as 16th. It was a tough race, Van Winden dropped out on stage 4, Dowsett crashed on stage 6 and Stannard missed the time cut on stage 10.
Vuelta a Colombia
4
Fuglsang
8'26
7
Poels
11'28
16
Monsalve
23'15
25
Bibby
34'53
Stannard
DNF
Dowsett
DNF
Van Winden
DNF
We would have been happy with a top 20 result in our last race of the season, the Japan Cup. Under slightly irregular circumstances Denifl had the race of the season and finished a great 10th. Valgren wasn't far behind as 12th, an excellent result for our team in a race packed with good riders. A great end to an incredible season.
Van Avermaet led the team and had one his better rides of the season in a hilly race. He finished 14th as our best result.
1
Philippe Gilbert
Spidertech - Argon18
5h10'05
14
Greg Van Avermaet
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
105
Klaus Gießner
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 4'33
113
Carl Ilsanker
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 5'53
114
Julian Runge
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
117
Martin Jansen
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 8'53
119
Emil Ritter
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 9'22
120
Lutz Berg
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
Bucaramanga Classic
We didn't have a lot of expectations from this race and we didn't really make an impact with 32nd as our best result.
1
Vincenzo Nibali
Italo - Ventilair
6h44'38
32
Greg Van Avermaet
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 3'31
76
Julian Runge
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 8'55
101
Julien Vermote
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 12'12
110
Jürgen Reuter
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 14'25
118
Martin Jansen
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 18'17
122
Jeroen Meijers
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
Milano - Torino
Our team leader was not even our best finisher as Frank usurped Intxausti to end up 37th. Nothing much to write home about.
1
Fabio Aru
Ceramica Panaria - Autogrill - Cipollini
4h19'37
37
Matthias Frank
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 3'17
44
Beñat Intxausti
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 3'43
110
Martin Jansen
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 7'04
134
Jürgen Reuter
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 12'02
137
Martin Springer
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 12'35
138
Carl Ilsanker
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 13'59
140
Denis Kathmann
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
Paris - Tours
A Degenkolb race is always a highlight and he took 5th place to ensure that truth. The rest of the sprint squad continued their season long vacation!
1
Sep Vanmarcke
Grupo Argos - Quala
5h16'21
5
John Degenkolb
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
56
Nikias Arndt
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
58
Phil Bauhaus
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
92
Julien Vermote
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
114
Lutz Berg
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 3'21
134
Emil Ritter
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 5'06
140
Klaus Gießner
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 8'47
Giro dell'Emilia
Despite being a long way back on the road, Heiner Parra achieved his best result - 17th - of the season other than the 2nd place in the Vuelta KOM standings. Frank backed him up with 22nd.
1
Dominik Nerz
The Balkan Cycling Project
4h34'49
17
Heiner Parra
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 5'28
22
Matthias Frank
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 7'00
112
Martin Springer
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 14'31
122
Denis Kathmann
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 16'57
127
Carl Ilsanker
Lufthansa Racing Team
s.t.
130
Martin Jansen
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 20'11
134
Jürgen Reuter
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 22'57
Il Lombardia
We were hoping Porte could continue his form from the Vuelta and sign off from the top on a good note. It wasn't to be. He was involved in an early crash and that was the end of his challenge. He did finish, but was quite close to the Lanterne Rouge eventually! Meijers was our best finisher in 53rd, as better climbers faltered again and for the final time this regular season.
1
Daniel Martin
Équipe Cycliste Peugeot
6h43'07
53
Jeroen Meijers
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 7'24
67
Gianluca Brambilla
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 8'23
71
Matthias Frank
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 9'41
84
Beñat Intxausti
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 11'52
92
Julien Vermote
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 12'30
127
Richie Porte
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 21'04
131
Jürgen Reuter
Lufthansa Racing Team
+ 26'28
Japan Cup
Another race where we were disappointed by our hills squad. 19th place is nearly not good enough, but when you consider it is one of our higher finishes all season, it really puts our struggles into perspective!
Santos-Euskadi have confirmed their participation in the National Championships to the surprise, or caring, of absolutely nobody. These will include all riders contracted to them and PureBlack Racing - though Rafal Majka has still not resurfaced, nevermind arrived in France for the World Championships and so is doubtful of attending.
Meanwhile, the team don't want to be "that guy" but the so-called "Friedrichshafen Sportgala" does not exist. They don't want to seem jealous of CarbonSports or be a snitch, they just would like to see no extra advantages for the Germans.
Rumours that they just want time to fly Contador away from Spain to Blackpool for a seductive evening of verbal contract discussions have been categorically denied by the team.
In a short press conference labelled 'confusing but inspired', the Manager of the SAP squad has made the confirmation which has been preying on the minds of Santos fans for months. "I campionati nazionali parteciperanno al SAP" (The National Championships will attend the SAP) He proudly declared at the post-Lombardia press conference, shortly before punching an official.
We look forward to having all the different courses fly into Gasparotta from their respective countries and hope they can enjoy the Autumn weather on the Swiss seaside.
It was a good season for us, the highlight of course was the Ronde - Roubaix double by Guillaume Van Keirsbulck, who also won the cobbles world cup by this unique achievement. We got a few other nice wins as well to finish 6th in both rankings, so we can't complain there. A nice bonus is the title of best WT team in the CT, we got quite a few wins there as well.
There also were a few disappointments though, the season goals to start with. Ronde was great obviously, but we failed hard in San Remo and bad racing gave us a meager result in the Eneco Tour. The GT's were also bad, we rarely attacked for a breakaway stagewins, Wellens didn't have a good Giro and Van Poppel got injured in le Tour.
Our Dev team had a tough transition year with so many riders joining the main squad. Jens Dumont showed his talent a few times, but especially Florian De Bruyn deserves our praise, being very consistent in the stage races.
I've long run out of superlatives to describe Aviva's season. It's probably in my nature to be pessimistic, when I signed up, not knowing anything about the game, my goal was to not finish last. Seeing the many good free agents got my hopes up, but I still chose what I felt was a very conservative approach, both in the riders I bid on and eventually hired (fairly old and not the very best available) and in my season planning (mostly CT.2, fewest points, but least competition).
Well, that was a long time ago – not so long, of course, because our reporters set an amazingly fast pace. I couldn't believe my luck when Schorn was 5th overall in our first ever race. And then came the first video for stage 3 of the Oman Tour and I couldn't believe my eyes, here was Poels daring an attack, countered quickly by the better riders like Rui Costa and Caruso – but he attacks again and only Herklotz is able to follow and Poels is 2nd on the day with a gap to the rest and ends 2nd overall... just wow.
More great results followed, and followed regularly. We end the season with 16 wins, including four major victories: The GC of Paris-Nice by Fuglsang, the GC of the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt by Valgren, Le Geant de Provence by Poels and the GP Montreal by Van der Sande. A dozen stages on top of that, seven of them thanks to Schorn, one each for Fuglsang, Poels, Valgren and Christian as well as the TTT in Colombia.
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Poels
76.7
585
400
1237
2.11
Fuglsang
77.3
755
440
1148
1.52
Schorn
75.2
425
290
792
1.86
Valgren
75.6
320
320
439
1.37
Stannard
75.6
425
320
421
0.99
Van der Sande
73.4
180
180
268
1.49
Christian
71.6
100
100
209
2.09
Dowsett
74.7
275
260
135
0.49
Monsalve
73.9
305
210
132
0.43
Denifl
74.1
305
220
123
0.40
Bertilsson
72.6
140
140
100
0.71
V. Winden
72.0
110
110
75
0.68
Simon
72.2
120
120
62
0.52
Minguez
71.7
155
100
58
0.37
Bibby
72.1
155
120
52
0.34
Lowsley-Williams
72.5
140
140
43
0.31
Birch
69.7
100
100
17
0.17
McCluskey
68.9
100
100
14
0.14
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Wout Poels
76.7
585
400
1237
2.11
3.09
16.13
We saw Poels as a pure climber, on paper he was at best the 10th best rider for that terrain and so we didn't think we'd ever see him on the podium. But he proved us wrong again and again, he simply didn't have a bad race. He becomes the best rider in all value-for-money stats I've compiled.
Highlight: Winning Le Geant de Provence
Low Point: None
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Jakob Fuglsang
77.3
755
440
1148
1.52
2.61
14.85
Fuglsang struggled a little across the season. He started off brilliantly, winning the CT.1 Paris-Nice, the greatest achievement for our young team - probably for some time to come. He was a bit below expecations in South Africa and Trentino, he had a horrible USA Pro Challenge, but many fine results, too.
Highlight: Winning Paris-Nice
Low Point: Only 23rd in the USA Pro Challenge
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Daniel Schorn
75.2
425
290
792
1.86
2.73
10.53
If I was playing a PCM career, I wouldn't bother with a sprinter. But it seemed prudent to hire one for the ICL, the AI wants to nominate a sprinter. Also, I had no real idea what the calendar looked like. So Schorn came and we planned accordingly, joining the stage racers when a decent number of sprint stages were on the menu and allowing Schorn to captain a few races, too. And we certainly didn't regret it, he won 7 stages in mass sprints.
Highlight: 4 Jours de Dunkerque, 2 stages, Points Jersey, 2nd overall
Low Point: No result in his home tour
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Michael Valgren
75.6
320
320
439
1.37
1.37
5.81
Valgren only brings HIL 75 to the table, there were definitely better punchers on the market but it seemed to me that a lowly CT wouldn't have a chance at hiring them – which turned out to be totally wrong. We bid on Gilbert, he seemed most realistic, starting his final season. But we ended up with Valgren as our captain in hilly races. We looked around for hilly profiles which weren't too difficult and tried to guess where he'd face the least competition. The Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt turned out to be the best choice, nobody was much better than him, a top 5 seemed possible – and Valgren actually won the race, much to our delight.
Highlight: Winning the Rheinland-Pfalz-Rundfahrt
Low Point: 25th in the Istrian Spring Trophy
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Ian Stannard
75.6
425
320
421
0.99
1.32
5.57
We also looked for a cobblestone captain, since the ICL is similar to real life we knew there wouldn't be many races for him so it was not a position we wanted to spend much of our budget on. Stannard was the obvious choice, by nationality alone. But when we had to place a secret second bid, we were reluctant to offer a substantial wage. In the end we did, and we are very glad we did. His COB 76 turned out to be pretty good at the CT level and he scored accordingly. His only win came from the TTT in Colombia, but he finished 2nd a few times.
Highlight: 2nd in the Kigali GP, a focus race
Low Point: Missing the time cut on stage 10 in Colombia
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Van der Sande
73.4
180
180
268
1.49
1.49
3.65
Ahead of the 2nd free agent round we felt we missing a back-up sprinter who'd double as a lead-out man for Schorn. We could have gotten a rider with a faster finish, but Van der Sande seemed most rounded in his price bracket. He did his job well, helping Schorn to several of his victories and adding an excellent 6th place in RideLondon as the main sprinter. But he crowned his season, his career so far, by winning the GP Montreal, anybody who bid on him walked away with a small fortune.
Highlight: Winning the GP Montreal
Low Point: None
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Mark Christian
71.6
100
100
209
2.09
2.09
2.92
Mark Christian is the 100-wage-underdog who overperformed, with a points to wage-ratio only barely beaten by Poels. The key to his success was the opening stage of the Tour of Oman, he was part of a breakaway trio which finished ahead of the peloton, and won the stage. Largely thanks to that he finished 2nd in the point and 3rd in the mountain rankings. But he also nearly doubled his total across the season, scoring another 94 points, which by itself isn't shabby.
Highlight: Winning stage 1 in the Tour of Oman
Low Point: None
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Alex Dowsett
74.7
275
260
135
0.49
0.52
1.81
Our time trial specialist Dowsett had a difficult season until he reached the Post Danmark Rundt. Finally he completed a time trial worthy of his skills, he was 6th, and ended a good 12th overall. His highlight came in Colombia, he pulled the team to victory in the opening TTT and wore the leader's jersey for two days.
Highlights: Leader's jersey in Colombia, internet phenomenon
Low Point: 19th in the Copenhagen-Malmo ITT
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Monsalve
73.9
305
210
132
0.43
0.63
1.79
Monsalve was a tempting offer, MON 76 (though little else) for a minimum wage of 210. We bid considerably more in FA round 1.2 to secure his signature, but he still seemed a solid super-domestique, the last man to help Fuglsang in the mountains. He could never break into the top 10, but had a few notable results, 13th in Paris-Nice, 11th in the Tour d'Andorra, 18th in the USA Pro Challenge, 1th in Colombia.
Highlight: Beating Fuglsang in the USA Pro Challenge
Low Point: 63rd in the Tour of Vancouver
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Stefan Denifl
74.1
305
220
123
0.40
0.56
1.66
We had secured Valgren's signature and needed another puncher, Denifl was the only option in FA round 1.2. In hindsight, we should have laid off instead of offering him a wage of 305, we could have found a better rider for that kind of money. But back then we were very pessimistic about our chances. Denifl was mostly invisible, until June he'd only scored 17 points. He picked up the pace a little in the second half of the season, his best result was 9th overall in the Volta a Portugal in a weak field of riders. He concluded the season with a very good 10th place in the Japan Cup.
Highlight: 9th overall in Portugal
Low Point: 137th in the GP Quebec
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Bertilsson
72.6
140
140
100
0.71
0.71
1.38
Bertilsson came with SPR 73 ACC 73 and his main job was to get Schorn into the final sprints. two excellent results in quick succession made him end with 100 points, he was 7th in the Cigar City Classic and 9th in Praha-Karlovy-Praha.
Highlight: 7th in the Cigar City Classic
Low Point: None
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Van Winden
72.0
110
110
75
0.68
0.68
1.04
We traded off Merino, a climber, at the last possible moment, looking to replace him with a domestique in flat terrain, preferably with a bit of COB thrown in and settled for Van Winden. We're very happy with him, he was a great help and even scored some good results himself. He was 13th in the Three Days of De Panne and 9th in the Rheden GP.
Highlight: 9th in the Rheden GP
Low Point: None
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Jordi Simon
72.2
120
120
62
0.52
0.52
0.86
Miguel Minguez
71.7
155
100
58
0.37
0.58
0.81
Ian Bibby
72.1
155
120
52
0.34
0.43
0.72
Lowsley-Williams
72.5
140
140
43
0.31
0.31
0.59
Simon, Minguez, Bibby and Lowsley-Williams were our mountain goats, always riding in support of Fuglsang and Poels – sometimes even filling squad gaps in flat races – and thus instrumental to their success, with few chances to show themselves in breakaways.
AVG__
Wage
MinW
Points
Pts/W
Pts/MW
Pts/AVG
Edward Birch
69.7
100
100
17
0.17
0.17
0.24
Philip McCluskey
68.9
100
100
14
0.14
0.14
0.20
Our youngest riders, Birch and McCluskey, also had to be content with purely supporting roles, always the first to drop out of the peloton after their job was done. Birch's best result was 15th in Prague, McCluskey managed a 19th place in Tampa, the Cigar City.
A great performance from Johnny Donleben saw him finish 5th in the U21 Road Race. He arrived at the finish in a group of 4 after the winner but did not have anything left to use his speed on a course than proved to be too tough for puncheurs on our team without some ability on the big climbs.
Marc Herder was our only rider in the ITT and finished down in 21st, not the sort of race we expect him to excel in.
This was the first outing for PostNL, albeit, in national team colours, full focus on the new season!
Aviva Interview: "I don't know if it's a good or bad dream"
The 2018 season is nearly over, only the national championships remain, and we are delighted Aviva team manager Ripley found the time for another interview.
Q: Congratulations, your team immediately gained promotion to the World Tour! How does it feel?
A: Honestly, it still feels like a dream – but I don't know if it's a good or bad dream.
Q: What do you mean?
A: Well, the goal was to establish our team in the Continental Tour. For that we hired riders with a proven CT track record, well inside their prime, but with no room to grow. It was a foundation we wanted to build upon, but I'm afraid it's not the foundation a WT team needs.
Q: Does that mean you'll have to let everybody go and start over?
A: It's a possibility. Certainly a very risky proposition, if we were to let our captains go, there is no guarantee we'll find better riders. We'll have to weigh our options carefully. One road to take would be to accept going down again after one season, looking for young riders with lots of talent which will be outclassed at first but then competitive in the CT and hopefully later the WT, too, when we promote again. Or we try our darndest to stay in the WT, hiring more old riders and remaining under constant pressure to replace them.
Q: Do you have a personal preference yet?
A: It's tough to say. Returning to the CT adds pressure, too, we'd be expected to promote again soon. But that is never easy. We were incredibly fortunate to achieve it this year, by a slim margin, it could easily have gone differently. Just one better result for CCC or Wilier could have done it, especially if Van der Sande hadn't won the GP Montreal out of the blue. Or if Poels hadn't been quite as brilliant, just great, this season.
Q: And the other option?
A: This season the free agent market offered a number of great riders, look at Froome, who was only picked up in the second round, or Tony Martin, who joined a new CT outfit and I hear earns a surprisingly low wage considering his quality. If we had such bounty on the table again next season, it'd be an easy choice. But pickings might be slim on the FA market next season. We'd have to find captains and offer a lot of money to very few riders and they'd probably have weak support. It'd be an uphill struggle, one we might well fail and then we'd be back to the drawing board.
Q: I see why you're so ambiguous about promotion. But you still celebrated, I assume?
A: Of course, we all did. It really was a team effort and everybody contributed, everybody can be personally proud of this season and that adding all the performances up turned into promotion is an incredible feeling.
Q: You were talking about adding talented young riders yet you did not sign anybody through scouting, how come?
A: Well, I experimented a bit with the new scouting system, which wasn't the best idea, and we didn't have much luck finding great talents – the two interesting riders we did find were picked up by an established WT team with deeper pockets. We probably won't add a U23 squad next season, it wouldn't help the main team anyway. We'll see, we do have a list of young British riders, but without much potential, sadly. We could offer them a place on the U23 Tour, but maybe they should choose a different career.
Q: How did the World Championships go?
A: Aviva was represented in the U23 road race with our only young rider, McCluskey, also with one rider, Dowsett, in the ITT. A pleasant surprise was Monsalve's win in the qualifying race for the men's road race, but he followed it with a terrible performance in the main race, beaten even by a sprinter or two. Poels was our best rider as 29th. It shows just how much work we have ahead of us for the WT season.
Q: Thank you very much, Ripley, for taking the time to talk to us. Good luck!
A: My pleasure, and thank you, we'll need it again!
The squad of the young Leopards is growing. With the confirmed departure of Raymundo Alday in sight and the age restrictions soon to hit Arsenio Alves and Jakub Vaclavik, the young Leopards deepen the core of young Southern Americans. Beneath future prospects Husillos and Preciado - both being likely to determine the future of the main team for long years - now a third southern american talent has made it to the squad for 2019. The man we are talking about is Germán Ollero, an 18 year old stage racer from Venezuela.
This also makes it two Venezoelans on the young team. Looking at the small amount of Venezoelans with a licence for the International Cycling League it is expected, that this number can only increase by deep scouting investments into the junior national leagues, as the team is also very unlikely to pick a Venezoelan in the upcoming draft.
Talking about the draft, it wouldn't be a full surprise if Grupo Argos will pass on their draft rights. Team Management member Jose Rujano said in a statement, that the team gained pretty much full knowledge over the currently available cycling prospects from latin America. Sources say that the team has been in talks with young Argentinian Miquel Espinosa, but the sprinters talent decided to move to TVM Cycling instead, joining puncheur supertalent Eldir Moreira.
Further the management neglected involvement in any talks with the U21 World Cup Stars Eloy Nogueira, Manuel Torres and Juan Manuel Palmero, eventhough all of them would draw a great regional fit. The team management said that the focus lays on the development of the current youth stars including loyal youngster Ivan Buchko, that turned down a stellar offer by the Filliers Mora squad. Sources told us that the manamgement calls upon other ICL PT member team managements to follow the equipo Grupo Argos-Quala in their ceasefire policy during the upcoming period of contract negotiations.
Jungels had to participate in the qualification for this event. The time trial course didn't suit to his abilities and he only finished ninth, not enough to qualify for the main event.
Someone who would ride the ITT is Paillot, who was selected for the French squad. He finished 43th, 3'21 down on winner Tony Martin.
U23 RR
Our development rider Lambert was selected for the French squad. Given the mountanious route he was seen as one of the favourites for the youth world title. Here he is on the attack with a few others
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His group was caught, but he was well positioned in the final sprint. It was close until the final kilometers. The Ukrainian Budyak was raising his arms, but Lambert appears to overtake him on the inside. A photo finish has to decide the winner!
Here is clear evidence that Lambert crossed the line first, but the jury was bribed by the Ukrainian Cycling Federation and VisitUkraine. They inexplicably announced Budyak as winner. Outrage!
RR
In the qualification race, Martin finished second behind Polanc, which was enough to secure a spot in the main event. Don't be fooled by the picture, in this case it was the winner actually crossing the line first. Jungels, like in the TT event, did not qualify.
Thus we have two riders in the main race: Martin and Rolland. The former wasn't strong enough to engage in the title fight, the latter was ordered to work for his countrymen with more quality. They finished 38th and 36th respectivaly, Aru won the race.
The management team of the Deutsche Bahn Developmnet team would like to present to everyone the team's jersey for their first ever season in the peloton.
Spoiler
The team would like to thank the designer, krisa, for his incredible work in designing this beautiful jersey. He is also the designer of the jersey for the senior team and we hope to continue the association for a long time.
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Johnny Donleben saw him finish 5th in the U21 Road Race. He arrived at the finish in a group of 4 after the winner but did not have anything left to use his speed on a course than proved to be too tough for puncheurs on our team without some ability on the big climbs.
