knockout wrote:
I'm very happy about the coquard schedule. He's facing mvs less than i feared and especially Praha and Tasmania are races where he could steal points from mvs
Indeed. Also happy with that, although I would have liked to be in Praha...
Tasmania is basically one stage, and while it could give a good amount of points it seemed a bit to "risky".
I basically decided to go to Deutschland Tour rather than Praha, which might be a mistake - I hope not
The new season is starting shortly, and we would like to present the first two races of the season. Badaling International and Tour of Qatar. We have big expectations to Tour of Qatar, while Badaling International might be a race to prove a point in regards to the future of the season.
Badaling International: Clement Koretzky | 80 HI Robin van der Hugenhaben | 79 HI Romain Le Roux | 75 HI Armanto Archimandritis | 74 HI Pascal Ackermann | 72 HI Loic Vliegen | 72 HI Georgios Karatzios | 70 HI Rudy Barbier | 66 HI
We come to the season opener with the hope that Clement Koretzky can provide us with some much needed hope for the hilly season. Last season he was 12th in a decimated sprint after the win move by Sagan, Bakelants and Trofimov. We hope for something similar with him being in a slightly better position, and hopefully helped by Robin van der Hugenhaben, where we only had Kastrantas as a decent helper last season.
Tour of Qatar: Bryan Coquard | 84 SPR, 79 PRL Emerson Santos | 78 SPR, 74 PRL Panagiotis Vlatos | 81 PRL Jocelyn Bar | 77 SPR Sascha Weber | 77 SPR Maxime Daniel | 76 SPR Pascal Ackermann | 75 SPR Georgios Karatzios | 74 FL
Unlike in Badaling we come here with one massive goal, to win the race. Bryan Coquard should be among the top sprinters, and if he does manage to be consistent, and maybe even win a stage or two, his qualities against the clock should give him a good position. We do have to hope that Emerson Santos can deliver him perfectly though, as we have decided not to bring Georgos Tzortzakis, as we have used this season as a bit of a test to see what works best for Coquard. And while we have Bryan Coquard as a top favorite, we also hope that Santos can lead out Coquard to get a few bonus seconds himself, as he too is pretty decent against the clock. A final threat for the GC is Panagiotis Vlatos who acutally won the last stage two seasons back, while also getting 6th last season.
In 2016 Vlatos was 9th in the GC, last season 17th. If he can deliver somewhere in that region yet again we are very happy.
Very nice to see Coquard is in Qatar without Tzortzakis.
Santos still a huge leadout, but I feel a bit more comfortable with having both there and hence might have a small advantage if they play it out well.
His PRL obviously will still make him top favourite I guess.
Must be an exciting start to the season for you, with Coquard's prime opportunity to score massively coming very early on.
It would be appreciated if Coquard could take lots of bonus seconds away from worse PRL sprinters so Sütterlin can rise in the GC, since that'll be our only source of points there.
Koretzky surely can stick to Kelderman's wheel in China and be content there, we don't want you too far ahead yet.
roturn wrote:
Very nice to see Coquard is in Qatar without Tzortzakis.
Santos still a huge leadout, but I feel a bit more comfortable with having both there and hence might have a small advantage if they play it out well.
His PRL obviously will still make him top favourite I guess.
Yeah for me it's kinda new to play with top sprinters, so I have to find my legs in it. I don't quite know if a sprinter at such a high level is needed, and since Tzortzakis is a bit lower in FL and ACC I decided to go against him in the key races. It might be a bad call, but in the past I have seen riders such as Dzamastagic play the leadout role perfectly, while I have seen the Degenkolb train be all over the place with top sprinters leading eachother out. So hopefully the combination of flat beasts Bar and Santos will be better than Tzortzakis.
No matter what he is still a pre-race favorite of course, but he need to be within 10 seconds going into the epilogue. Maybe even less...
cio93 wrote:
Must be an exciting start to the season for you, with Coquard's prime opportunity to score massively coming very early on.
It would be appreciated if Coquard could take lots of bonus seconds away from worse PRL sprinters so Sütterlin can rise in the GC, since that'll be our only source of points there.
Koretzky surely can stick to Kelderman's wheel in China and be content there, we don't want you too far ahead yet.
It is a combination of excitement and fear. If Coquard isn't faring better than he already did last season in Qatar, I fear this will be a relegation battle season, rather than a comfortable mid-finish season, which I'm hoping for. Also I'm heavily dependant on scoring big early on, as I will hardly score anything in the coming 5 races after that.
I don't think you need to fear that we will move away from you in any way Even a great Qatar won't see us score massively.
Better late than never, but here is a look back on the month of January. The races for us to attend:
Badaling International Tour of Qatar[/b]
As always the season started in China and the Badaling International. Despite having Clement Koretzky present, hopes weren't high as the race is usually not for us. And this episode was no different. With a surprise winner in young Caio Godoy the race was very much open for us to try our best, but in the end we did what we always do. Wait it out for the final - for no apparent reason.
Clement Koretzky "sprinted" to a dissapointing 25th with Robin van der Hugenhaben not far behind.
Luckily, elsewhere the Tour of Qatar - a key race for us - Bryan Coquard was off to a decent start getting 3rd on the first stage.
Also Jocelyn Bar proved strong sprinting to 6th.
Unfortunately the race did not provide any stagewin for us despite coming close a couple of times. It did, however end up with us bringing home 3rd in the GC a mere 12 seconds behind the race winner, John Degenkolb. Something that shows that the race can be re-won for us in the years to come.
Despite a good GC result for Bryan Coquard we were dissapointing in the race, also from Panagiotis Vlatos from which we expected a good GC result. The months tally is as shown below.
Points gained: 323pts
Next up: February including Copenhagen - Malmö TTT, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, Classique du Grand-Duché and Milano - San Remo
February is a busy month, including the dreaded PT 3-header. But it's not only that:
Copenhagen - Malmö TTT Paris-Nice Tirreno-Adriatico Classique du Grand-Duché Milano - San Remo[/b]
For several years the Festina setup have used the timetrials, including the team time trials to brand their products, watches, but for once we don't expect to see the Festina-riders provide top results.
This was shown quickly in the Copenhagen - Malmö TTT, where (despite looking good) the team ended up as 23th out of just 24 teams.
That the timetrials wasn't completely forgotten territory for the team, however was shown elsewhere though where Panagiotis Vlatos took home a surprise victory on the first stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico.
The good start was, however the only notabel thing to come from either of the two GC races, where neither Chamorro nor van der Hugenhaben showed any sign of promise.
Promising signs was shown in the final race of the tripple-header however, where Clement Koretzky took home a fantastic result for us, landing 3rd in the Classique du Grand-Duché, a career high for him, beating the likes of former teammate, Simon Spilak, Ben Gastauer and Petr Vakoc.
It wasn't just Koretzky who showed up for a decent show, though, as also Kastrantas did reasonably well taking 21st on the stage.
The final race of the month, for us, the Milano - San Remo have provdied some great moments for us in the past, with multiple winners and even more top results. Having no real contenders this time, though, we had to rely on luck and overperformances from the guys.
The race was surprisingly uninteresting throughout, so in the end it was all about positioning and the faster kick. Unfortunately for us, Georgos Tzortzakis was at the back, but fortunately we had a team of riders with a good kick, meaning that it was Sascha Weber who was in the position to go for a result for us. 15th was a good result for him, but even more so when also landing 19th and 20th from Jocelyn Bar and Clement Koretzky.
That concluded a month of mixed results, but generally a month that could have been much worse for us. The amount of points scored, however, saw us right at the back of the rankings, something we have not been used to for quite some time.
Points gained: 486pts
Next up: March including Strade Appia Antica, Tour d'Afrique, Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha, Ronde van Nederland, Strade Bianche, Ronde van Vlaanderen
A new month, and finally one that should suit us reasonably well:
Strada Appia Antica SAA Tour d'Afrique Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha Ronde van Nederland Strade Bianche Ronde van Vlaanderen
For the first time in the new colors, it was up to Maxime Daniel to show that he was an upgrade from the former cobbled leaders like Tom David, Frederik Nolf and Geert Steurs. The nature of the race with its difficult and long run-in towards the cobbles isn't suiting Daniel that well, but still he managed to hang on to the 12-man big group that went on to fight it out.
In the end the power ran up, however, and Maxime Daniel ended up in 11th despite having a good sprint. But still a decent start.
Elsewhere in South Africa one of the biggest races for us, and Bryan Coquard took place. Last season Coquard showed that he was close to the top sprinters and this season was no different. Having podiumed on stage 1 and 2, he missed the opportunity to fight for the overall win on stage 3 only securing 6th.
However, on the final stage he showed that even if the competition is Swift, Degenkolb, Ahlstrand etc, he still has the quality to win. By the skin of his teeth he took home a very important win for us, and it was an emotional young french sprinter who took the podium.
In the end Bryan Coquard ended up 2nd in the GC 7 seconds behind race-winner Ben Swift. But it wasn't just Coquard who showed himself to be capable of good results as also Jocelyn Bar, Emerson Santos and Georgos Tzortzakis all sprinted their way into the top 10 on atleast 1 stage each. This meant that Jocelyn Bar took a brilliant 15th in the GC, with both Tzortzakis and Santos landed in around 30th, which helped the team to win the Team classification too.
In the Czech Republic we were aiming for a top 10 GC result with Panagiotis Vlatos, who did that previously. Having lost Jerome Coppel a real top result didn't seem very likely, however. Vlatos started out well by taking 6th on the opening prologue, and while it is the longer TT on stage 3 that seals the deal, 6th was indeed a good start to the race.
Stage 2 of the race was a classical sprinter stage. For that we brought Georgos Tzortzakis, but several topsprinters was present, so we decided to give some room for attacks. Maxime Daniel thanked for the opportunity and went clear with Trillini and Reguigui. Snatching up some bonus seconds on the way and also points we were happy to see he was, by far, the strongest in the group.
As the bunch closed the gap, Maxime Daniel decided to attack from the group with 4km to go, and put down the pedal.
And with the peloton close behind, he took an impressive win, which also secured atleast 2nd in the points competition!
In terms of the overall GC result, Daniel was unfortunately not gifted the 20-30 seconds gap he clearly had to the line. Seconds that would have given him the GC lead over Yannick Stoltz.
While stage 2 basically secured the race for us, stage 3 was - on paper - the most interesting as Vlatos, with a good ride, could secure a good result.
On the road, it was easy to see that Vlatos was quick. Very quick! Infact he was quick enough to beat Jacob Fiedler by 44 seconds, getting hopes very high... In the end there was one man, from another planet, though. Taylor Phinney. The man without bad days (rarely atleast) took and impressive win by a 41 second margin. But we wasn't unhappy. Panagiotis Vlatos took home a great 2nd and now was sitting great overall.
In 2016 stage 4 claimed quite some casulties due to the hard nature of the stage. Here Vlatos lost contact with the frontgroup effectively losing the 7th place in the GC he was close to getting. In 2017, however he managed to survive and help Jerome Coppel to succes.
With 14km to go riders started to fall short in the back of the group, with some decent timetriallists among them. Vlatos wasn't one of them luckily, and while he did his best to stay in the bunch Tzortzakis started to position him for the sprint. For a short while it looked very promising, but Tzortzakis was boxed in and had to settle for 8th.
Not a major problem looking at the race in general though! Panagiotis Vlatos 2nd in the GC, Maxime Daniel with a stage win and the points jersey. What a race!
In Ronde van Nederland expectations wasn't quite as high. In the final hours of planning the season the manager decided to pull not just Bryan Coquard, but also Clement Koretzky from the race, meaning that we had Georgos Tzortzakis and Robin van der Hugenhaben as our race leaders instead.
The race was ridden for the punchy sprinters mainly, but even then, van der Hugenhaben didn't show he was capable of following on the decisive stage 3, and lost quite a big amount of time.
In the end 35th in the GC was somewhat 20 positions too low, but when it is a low priority race, we can accept the blunders.
The reason why we decided not to bring Koretzky was to ensure he could ride the Strade Bianche - but for reasons unknown, the race organizers decided to postpone the race, risking riders missing the race or missing their form. We are still awaiting the situation!
Instead we went on to race one of the biggest races in the world. Ronde van Vlaanderen.
Maxime Daniel was put on a big task to level out the 7th place that Tom David achieved here last season, but we wasn't expecting him to do so. A top 10 would be a great achievement. Top 15 acceptable.
When Maxime Daniel took 8th we were extremely pleased, but it was the winner of the race that was the most interesting. It was Sam Bewley! No? Really? Greg van Avermaet!!! Finally taking one of the big monuments away from the Bewley-Beast, but also Joeri Stallaert mushed his way in between to take 2nd.
A very strong month for us, even better than expected - and still a race left for when the race organizers find room for it. With the amount of points secured we take a great leap well into top 10. Despite of April not being a really good month for us we still have 4 PT races and 2 PTHC races, so we could even get close to the top 5 (temporarily) in the PT rankings. We hope for a great month of april, and a great Strade Bianche too!
Points gained: 964pts
Next up: April including Paris-Roubaix, Giro d'Italia, Tour of California, GP Liechtenstein, Lisbon Classic and Amstel Gold Race
The first Grand Tour of the season is upon us. And while we don't have a Grand Tour winner on our hands anymore, it doesn't mean that we can't take the matter very serious.
Badaling International: Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier | 82 HI Georgos Tzortzakis | 81 SPR Panagiotis Vlatos | 81 TT Juan Ernesto Chamorro | 78 MO Yuriy Vasyliv | 77 MO Emerson Santos | 78 SPR Matteo Fabbro | 73 MO Romain Le Roux | 75 HI
Obviously we bring Lecuisinier as our leader. We knew going into the race, that there was a very strong chance for riders such as Alarcon, Schleck, Dombrowski etc. to be here due to the low amount of flat TT kilometers, and that those would beat Lecuisinier. So we started evaluating each Grand Tour in terms of points, rather than results! Of course, some might say...
On stage 3 there would be a relatively difficult hilly stage, and on 4 a mountainous timetrial. The chance of Lecuisinier being in the U25 jersey on stage 3/4 was almost 100%. In the Vuelta he would likely be able to take it on stage 12 (if at all!), while at the Tour de France he would be able to take it on stage 3-8...
So looking at the points scored between Giro and Vuelta is 40 from wearing the jersey. That is approximately the difference between ending 5th and 7th in the GC. So unless the Vuelta could somehow guarantee a top 4 it wouldn't be worth it. Then there was another gamble, called Herklotz. Where would he be? He also have the ability to take U25 jerseys - but more importantly he have the ability to win a GT outright! So which would likely be easiest for him to win? Our guess... The Vuelta!
So here you have Lecuisinier. Not to fight for top 5. But to milk the situation to take the most points possible, and to win another U25 competition!
With him are Yuriy Vasyliv (another U25 contender) and Juan Ernesto Chamorro. Two strong riders to keep him out of trouble for quite some time.
In the sprints, Emerson Santos is here to make the most for Georgos Tzortzakis who will ride his very last Giro d'Italia at top level. We hope to see him shine (we already did, luckily!).
Panagiotis Vlatos, Matteo Fabbro and Romain Le Roux are here to ensure that Lecuisinier won't lose as much in the Team Time Trial as he would have without them. It's a guessing game what the result will be, but hopefully Panagiotis Vlatos can help out Lecuisinier - and then hopefully be ready to give a good showing himself on stage 17 which is placed after a flat stage - and a place to recover a bit.
That is, if he survived that far!
We hope to win 2-3 stages from this race, win the U25 jersey and take 6th in the GC. If we can do that, we are very happy and should be very close to surviving another season in the Pro Tour.
After a good month, in March, we would try our best to keep up the momentum during the month of April. The first Grand Tour of the season, was on offer, amongst others:
Paris-Roubaix Giro d'Italia Tour of California GP Liechtenstein Lisbon Classic Amstel Gold Race
Despite it being a race touted too difficult for Maxime Daniel, he delivered a very fine result in the Ronde van Vlaanderen, and thus we started the Hell of North - Paris-Roubaix - in a somewhat positive note.
Loic Vliegen was brought into the break from the early morning ray of sun, in a race not necessarily suiting him all that well, but being a belgian rider he isn't too unfamiliar with the content. The peloton would be having no such things, however and with more than 200km to go the breakaway was neutralized.
The race was relatively calm for much of the parcour. With less than 50km to go we still had 2 riders in the front group of around 40 riders. The breakaways started rolling over and over again, decimating the front group. Yet Maxime Daniel stayed alert. There was quite a big group at the velodrome, and interestingly, Maxime Daniel was among those riders having a shot at winning.
In the end he was beat by 5 elite cobblers, to take and amazing 6th place. A great result for us! But looking at how strong he had performed in those difficult cobbled races, we might have to reconsider his training plans, to actually make them come true earlier than expected. Shortly after also Sascha Weber and Georgios Karatzios entered the top 50. Impressive feat from our greek protigée.
At the Giro d'Italia we brought former stagewinner, Georgios Tzortzakis to lead the sprints, while Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier was there to hopefully put a good effort in his first ever presence. Having managed 4th in the Vuelta a España and 7th in the Tour de France in 2016, also having won the U25 competition of the Vuelta a España in both 2016 and 2017, while setting 2nd in the Tour de France also in 2016 and 2017 there was a huge amount of pressure for him to deliver.
With him was trusted lieutenaint, Yuriy Vasyliv and newcomer Juan Ernesto Chamorro.
The race started out with a cobbled prologue, where Vlatos took 10th. Lecuisinier kept his calm and did well to gain time on most. But already on stage 2, we had to raise the arms, as Georgios Tzortzakis took an absolutely spectacular stagewin.
Stage 3 was a difficult stage with focus on climbing, and punchy ability. We had a hope that Lecuisinier could stay in front to perhaps claim the U25 jersey. With the help of Chamorro and Vasyliv, Lecuisinier could ride an aggressive stage, and with 55km to go they opened up a nice gap with a few other riders.
Unfortunately things didn't stick, but the peloton was thinned to such a level, that Lecuisinier had a great shot at a stage result and the U25 jersey. In the sprint home he managed 4th, moving to 4th in the GC and easily claiming the U25 jersey - which he didn't let go of at any point from here on.
Throughout the stages we were very attentive and tried to get the best possible results, but on stage 9 something extraordinary happened! On a seemingly flat'ish route, an elitegroup of 10 GC favorites muscled their way past everyone else to make it a sprint finish.
Despite fighting riders like Guldhammer and Bibby, Lecuisinier proved to be the strongest - or maybe just the smartest. But nevertheless he could celebrate his first ever Grand Tour stagewin! In fact this would be his first ever World Tour/Pro Tour stagewin. He took a briliant win at PTHC level during Tour of California, last season - but what a win!
Because of a horrible TTT by our team Lecuisinier started the battle against the opposition from far behind, at this point being 10th in the GC, but day after day, meter by meter, he jumped the GC, and on the final mountainstage he passed Lachlan Morton (his arch nemesis), to take a phenomenal 4th GC. Ahead of riders such as Grand Tour winner, Jose Alarcon, Grand Tour podium riders like Tiago Machado, Lachlan Morton and a declining Thomas Dekker.
4th Giro, 4th Vuelta and 7th Tour de France at the age of 25, having won the U25 competition twice in the Vuelta and once at the Giro is quite the feat! If Lecuisinier performs well enough, he could eventually snatch the U25 jersey in the Tour de France later this season, where he should be the main favorite to do so.
Meanwhile, the Tour of California took place, in a race which had us come with hardly any expectations. After a prologue which was all about limiting losses, the race headed in-land. Kastrantas hit the front of the break as he tends to do a couple of times each season, and while taking some KOM points in the proces he also proved to be the strongest. With 2km to the line he had a gap of '37 seconds. Looking back at victories in 2015 and 2016 we started to raise our arms, but a tad too soon!
The sprinters was too strong, and Kastrantas had to give up. A stupid positioning error led to 1'30" lost for Koretzky, our GC hope aswell!
And what a bummer! Because, on the next stage, Koretzky showed his strength to take 5th on the stage claiming some time on his rivals.
Kastrantas went on to fight for more KOM points on stage 5, claiming the jersey after the end of the stage. Unfortunately, he was not too attentive, and lost quite a lot of points he should have landed.
Behind the breakaway, Koretzky again showed a great display of strength to follow riders such as Kwiatkowski and Mohoric. In the end landing 4th on the stage, climbing to 5th in the GC - Mind you, having lost 1'30" on the unatentive flat stage.
From here on it was all about limiting the losses. First a difficult, and long, mountain stage. There was no gas in the tank for Kastrantas to fight for the KOM, so he had to settle for 4th in the end. Not quite what we hoped for when leading on stage 5.
Koretzky survived reasonably, while Van Der Hugenhaben also climbed a bit in the GC after an anonymous race. The final TT proved difficult for Koretzky, but still he managed to finish 14 in the race - Or 7th had he not lost that 1'30.
In Liechteinstein we brought nothing, for the first time ever, and was pleased to see not only Van der Hugenhaben, but also Archimandritis and Kastrantas actually finishing the difficult race.
The big race of the month for us was in Lisbon, where Tzortzakis took his greatest win to date, back in 2016. He was back, but this time as a leadout for Coquard.
Unfortunately the race proved to difficult for most lead-out riders, so it was a battle of the giants, alone at the front. Bryan Coquard cleverly picked the wheel of Van Stayen, who had the best setup around him.
And then he was off...
It was clearly a two-horse race, but short before the line, van Stayen had to accept that the legs couldn't put anymore effect into the chain.
And that concludes the race. A huge win - the biggest, also for Bryan Coquard.
Unfortunately Clement Koretzky couldn't follow the french duo, Lecuisinier and Coquard with a good Amstel Gold Race. A race to forget with 20th in the final result being very dissapointing.
That said, a great month, where not only the results and points were kind to us, but we also got to see a new top level from two of our own talents, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier and Bryan Coquard. Almost now at the very top of their game. Being just 25 and 26 years old, there's still quite a lot of room to perform in, and seeing newly signed Maxime Daniel (27 years old) performing at a high level in the cobbled, we are looking to next season with great anticipation!
Points gained: 1397pts
Next up: May including Fleche Wallone, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Vuelta a EspañaEdited by SotD on 27-04-2019 11:52
April was a huge month for us, winning the Lisbon Classic aswell as doing reasonably well in most other races - and great in Giro d'Italia. A new month, some new races however:
Fleche Wallone Liege-Bastogne-Liege Vuelta a España Tour of Scandinavia
The first part of the month included the final two races of the ardennes. Clement Koretzky hadn't done anything spectacular during the dutch opener, Amstel Gold Race, so we didn't quite know what to expect.
During the race Koretzky looked strong, although the help for him was pettyful. When the selection came, 10 riders made it up the road, and Koretzky unfortunately wasn't paying enough attention to go with them, despite having still plenty of power left.
Because of that, he had to spend all of his energy trying to claw back during the final, which he almost did. However, at the end of the day, he came short and had to settle for 11th.
In hindsight we would have appreciated to be in the selection, as we believe Koretzky had the strength to fight for top 5 on the day.
Fortunately it was merely the trial run for the big classic, Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The race was ridded quite aggressively and Koretzky couldn't follow the winning move, but right after those he was the strongest setting in a strong attack to climb the race the best possible.
In the end it was Peter Sagan who took the win from a sprint finish in a group of 6 riders. Shortly after, Simon Spilak came in 7th, before Koretkzy showed great determination to take 8th infront of riders such as Kelderman and, de Bie and Ginanni.
The good form seemed to continue for Koretzky as he entered the prologue of the Tour of Scandinavia. A discipline which he never fancied ended up giving a shocking 18th on the day. After a couple of another strong performances, Koretzky could land 8th in the GC. A rather strong performance from him.
Heading into the second Grand Tour of the season, Vuelta a España we came with quite a different focus than the Giro. This time it was all about sprints. And for that we brought Bryan Coquard!
After er mediocre 3rd place on stage 1, he took home his first ever Grand Tour stagewin on stage 2, beating Nick van der Lijke to the line.
This also gave Coquard the leaders jersey (aswell as the points jersey). Unfortunately things went downhill from there. On stage 5, however he took another stagewin from the race, but it would prove to be that last. On stage 7 Ben Swift took the leaders jersey from Coquard, and he never reclaimed it.
On stage 10 the real race started, and ours came to a close. Robin van der Hugenhaben had a few decent days, but our GC leader Juan Ernesto Chamorro had a massive letdown of a race leading him to end the race in 38th place.
No matter how little the race mattered to us at this point, it was a great piece of history that was written, once the 24 year old Silvio Herklotz raised his arms in celebration in Madrid winning the race, beating former Grand Tour winners such as Angel Madrazo, Taylor Phinney, Justo Tenorio, Jose Alarcon aswell as numerous top 5 GT riders like Daniel Martin, Timofey Kritskiy, Rigoberto Úran, Benat Intxausti and David Abal. What a young, brilliant champion this!
It wasn't quite what we had hoped for from Chamorro and Coquard, but we still came away from the race relatively intact. However not quite the 1000 points mark which we had hoped for.
Points gained: 862pts
Next up: June including Tour de Suisse and Criterium du Dauphine Libere
After a reasonable month of May, without any big upsets in either direction, we move into the worst month of the entire season for us. Luckily we only have to go through two races:
Tour de Suisse Criterium du Dauphine Libere
Neither of the races suited us very well, and we early on decided that Lecuisinier should not take part, hence all chances og GC succes was out of the question.
In the Tour de Suisse we came with Robin van der Hugenhaben and Sascha Weber as our biggest names, and with them a huge number of young talents. Obviously this came at a cost. Robin van der Hugenhaben showed a decent level on the difficult stage 7 to take 10th on the stage, but other than that, it was all about surviving. Silvio Herklotz took another strong GC win.
In the Criterium du Dauphine we didn't have much to show for either, however a slightly more competent lineup including Yuriy Vasyliv, Juan Ernesto Chamorro, Maxime Daniel and Panagiotis Vlatos.
Unfortunately the competition during the long individual TT was fierce, and Vlatos had to settle for 4th.
On stage 3, young Pascal Ackermann showed that he might be a future stagehunter when he claimed 9th in the sprint won by Taylor Phinney over Nick van der Lijke.
Unfortunately the mountainstages was ridden extremely passive from our "GC leaders", hence the race amounted to next to nothing. And so, after 8 days of nothing, we had to settle for 29th and 46th from Vasyliv and Chamorro. Vasyliv, however claimed a few points from ending up in 2nd of the U23 competition.
Fortunately we won't have any other months remotely close to this, so let's look forward.
Points gained: 146pts
Next up: July including Tour de France and Chrono des Herbiers
Once more, a month of merely 2 races for us to cover. However, this month with 2 races that suit us significantly better:
Tour de France Chrono des Herbiers
We arrived at the Tour de France with two goals. Get Lecuisinier on the top spot of the U25 competition, and make sure he ends up in the top 5 while he does so. The higher, the better.
Yuriy Vasyliv was picked as the lieutenaint for the race, as the two riders know eachother better than anyone, and riders such as Kastrantas, Fabbro and Archimandritis should stay with him for as long as possible. Georgos Tzortzakis for the flat stages, while Vliegen and Le Roux was here to grab whatever chances they could.
Lecuisinier opened the race with a decent prologue which set him up for an early attack on the U25 competition, but on stage 2 it was Georgos Tzortzakis who took a great result, landing 3rd behind Ahlstrand and Cavendish.
Stage 3 was difficult enough for Lecuisinier to take the U25 jersey, despite not showing great form. Stage 4 was significantly better, and Lecuisinier took 7th on the hilly stage to climb to 12th GC and just short of 2 minutes ahead of the 2nd U25 rider. Romain Le Roux had also been on adventure, something he would also do on the next stage. To such a degree that he took the polka dot jersey!
Both Kastrantas and Loic Vliegen was part of the setup for Le Roux during the early parts of the stages, and had to be applauded aswell.
On stage 6 there was a few more points on the line, so we asked Le Roux to join, if possible. He did. And he easily won the first mountains sprint. The second was quite difficult, and climber Jonathan Hivert tried his best to outtake him. But unsuccesfully. Le Roux wanted the jersey for as long as possible.
A great result for the team, and especially for loaned-in Romain Le Roux. In the chaotic sprint, Tzortzakis attempted to disrupt the fight for order by sprinting from far out, and at one point he seemed to be getting the gap he needed, but in the end he ran short and was overtaken.
The TTT on stage 7 was always going to be catastrophic for us.
Here is a picture of an uncoordinated TTT... Fortunately the TTT was so short, that Lecuisinier stayed in the U25 lead - something he from here on only extended.
Stage 8 was the first mountainstage, and we were looking for Lecuisinier to claw back some of the lost time. However, he had a horrible day taking 10th, behind riders like Kolesnikov, Dekker and Roche, losing more than 1 minute to the competitors for the final podiumspot. Being already 3½ and 3 minutes behind Sicard and Gesink would be impossible to recover, although Lecuisinier seemed equally strong - atleast.
On the long individual TT Lecuisinier clawed back 30-or-so seconds on Gesink, yet nothing on Sicard.
After the stage it became obvious that it wasn't Lecuisinier with a great stage, but rather Gesink with a poor, as 8th is about where Lecuisinier would be expected, atleast.
On stage 11, while Lecuisinier rested, Tzortzakis yet again showed that he isn't at all over. He wasn't close to taking the stage, but another 3rd in a very competent field.
At this point, Le Roux had lost the KOM jersey to Dominik Nerz, and there was no way we would get it back. Stage 12 was a difficult and very hard mountain stage, and finally Lecuisinier showed himself as a potential podium aspirant getting 4th on the stage. Unfortunately for him, he was in a 3 man group, and with him. Sicard and Gesink! Vasyliv rode superbly on the stage to climb to 28th in the GC and also take 3rd in the U25 competition.
On stage 13, Lecuisinier once again proved strong enough to fight for the podium (had it not been for the macabre losses early on). He landed 5th on the stage, this time though 20 seconds ahead of Gesink and 30 ahead of Sicard. A similar performance throughout could see him get close to atleast 4th, as Gesink was now "just" 2½ minutes ahead, while Sicard had another minute.
But on stage 15 - the day after the final rest day - Lecuisinier collapsed! 10th on the stage, yet again behind riders like Dekker, Wellens and Schelling and a staggering 4½ minutes after the stage winner, Taaramäe. A time loss of 2 minutes on Gesink and Sicard made the fight for the podium (and 4th) lost.
Having nothing left to lose made Lecuisinier significantly more aggressive in his riding, and on stage 16 he made it to the line with Rein Täaramae to fight for the win. The Estonian proved too strong, but Lecuisinier took 2nd ahead of Simon Spilak, and clawed back 15 seconds + bonus seconds to the two riders ahead of him. Not enough to re-open the dream though.
Stage 17 was a classic breakaway stage, so we decided to send our best option, Kastrantas. And he seemed strong for most of the stage, but unfortunately for him, others were stronger and he had to settle for 4th
Having gotten the taste for things, he went on again on stage 18, but the stage was simply to difficult for him. Still 8th on the day was a pretty good effort. Lecuisinier lost 30 seconds to Gesink, but kept with Sicard.
On stage 19 Lecuisiner once more proved that he was equally strong, ending up with Gesink, gaining 40 seconds on Sicard - But it wasn't until stage 20 he really showed just how strong he was, and what could have been.
After a very hard stage, Lecuisinier and Simon Spilak took a great charge withing the final couple of km's, but it was the devastating strength of Lecuisinier that ended up crushing Spilak in the final corner of the stage
Alone into the finish line, and raising his arms for the biggest result of his career. A stage win at the Tour de France.
At the end of the race, Lecuisinier managed to get 5th. 3 minutes and 14 seconds behind Sicard and 3 minutes and 18 seconds behind Gesink. Deducting the time lost on the Team timetrial aswell as the collapse on stage 15, he would have been exactly on time with the two, fighting for the podium. We will have to learn from it next season, to see if we can go two higher. This time around, we will be happy to cheer for the U25 jersey, won with a margin of 36! minutes...
The Chrono des Herbiers have been a great race for us in the past with Coppel fighting for the win, and Panagiotis Vlatos fighting for whatever top 10. This time around we only had Vlatos, and so we hoped for a top 5, having seen him land 6th and 7th in the past two editions.
In the end he was no match for the top 3, Phinney, Fiedler and Zmorka, but from then on it was close. A mere 12 seconds between Vlatos and 4th place - but nontheless it was just 7th in the end, with 22 seconds down to 8th! Too bad seconds wasn't on our side, but 7th is an acceptable result.
Overall a good month for us, but with some ups and downs in the proces. Next month, the final month of summer, we are one of just 4 teams in total to ride 3 races. We will be looking forward to that, and hopefully this can help us get a good amount of points. We will see!
Points gained: 1015pts
Next up: August including Rund um Köln, Volt a Portugal and East Midlands Cicle Classic
New sponsorship will help bring Greek cycling to the next level
The past couple of years have seen a massive increase of interest in Greek cycling, which have also cast a small ray of light on cycling in Cyprus. Riders such as Georgos Tzortzakis, Panagiotis Vlatos and Charalampas Kastrantas have shown that with the correct amount of training, experience and luck, it is possible to bring Greek cyclist to the highest level of professional cycling.
Because of the heavy increase of interest in cycling over the entire country, the Greek government have decided to put in a substantial amount of money for further development and research on the subject. The money facilitates the Hellenic Sports Research Institute through the Olympic Athetic Center of Athens (O.A.K.A). The facility have provided heavy research in the branch of Greek athletics, and have put in an extensive anti-doping campaign in the past.
Because of the strong facility and the ambition to develop riders with a massive focus of eliminating the luring effect of doping, the Festina-setup have decided to agree on a sponsorship for the future. A good amount of money are put into the Festina Professionel setup in order to keep fighting for the top 5 spots in the world, while having room to include even more Greek riders in the setup in the future.
The partnership should have the following goals for the “near” future:
1 Atleast 30% of the professional setup should be evolving around Greek/Cypriot riders in 2019.
2 Atleast 40% of the professional setup should be evolving around Greek/Cypriot riders in 2020.
3 By 2022 and onwards atleast 3 Greek/Cypriot riders should be included in the Tour de France team.
4 By 2024 Greek cycling should be able to fight for top 15 on all different terrains, meaning:
• Atleast 1 rider can fight for top 15 in GT/GC races
• Atleast 1 rider can fight for top in Ardennes
• Atleast 1 rider are among the 15 best sprinters
• Atleast 1 rider are among the 15 best timetriallists
The partnership opens for a massive investment in Greek cycling, but it has been important for the Festina cooperation, that they are not overrun to a degree where competitiveness is set aside, so the deal should involve a heavy amount of money for other riders, aswell as an exit-strategy in case it is impossible to provide the amount of talented riders as aimed for.
The O.A.K.A. have already begun their talent setup, from which the potential riders could be picked up. Due to international law from the European Nation no such fixed trade will be possible, so other teams are free to contact those “un-contracted” riders aswell – but all are tutored with the knowledge that Festina will likely be targeting the most talented Greek/Cypriot riders in the setup from a very early phase.
Festina currently have the following riders on contract:
• Georgos Tzortzakis
• Panagiotis Vlatos
• Charalampas Kastrantas
• Armanto Archimandritis
• Georgios Karatzios
• Nikolaos Ioannidis
• Miltiadis Giannoutsos
• Stylianos Farantakis
From a team with a full 23 riders the percentage of Greek riders within the team have already reached 35%, hence the goal of 30% next season should be possible. Georgos Tzortzakis have, however, stated that he is likely to step down. Also Archimandritis are looking to continue at a lower level, bringing the number down to 29%.
Co-sponsor, Dexia, should be uninterested in continuing with an added focus on Greek talents over the focus on French talents, and has announced that they are stopping their sponsorship at the end of the season. Whether or not O.A.K.A. or another related company will feature in the team name in the future is yet to be announced.
Having recently announced that Dexia steps down, and greek cycling gets a massive notch up, Festina manager, Andreas Jøhnke, have announced that several members of the crew have been replaced. "It is time to take knowhow from the saddle and from the team into consideration for experience meassures" he said.
The following staff have been added in key roles:
Leader of the Greek development: Ioannis Tamouridis
- Tamouridis was a professional at the 2013 Festina - Canal+ team where he took part in not only the Giro d'Italia but also the Vuelta a España. The first ever greek rider to take part in a Grand Tour. He helped Markus Fothen to 5th in the GC of the Giro d'Italia, while finishing 37th himself. In the Vuelta a España he helped Alberto Contador to 3rd overall while finishing 48th himself.
General Manager: Steve Morabito
- Recordholder of seasons in the Festina color, Steve Morabito was in the team from 2010 to 2015. He stopped his career last season, and has agreed to join up with the team again after 6 seasons of active riding. Steve Morabito was part of many Grand Tour setups throughout the years and helped Contador, Fothen, Sanchez, Ricco among others achieve GT results.
General Manager: Markus Eibegger
- Eibegger was part of the 2015 and 2016 seasons where Festina won their first and second Pro Tour rankings. Eibegger worked effectively as an ageing road-captain. Markus have always been a very clever and well-liked member of the team and we appreciate the fact that we are yet again coming to work with him.
Directeur Sportif: Gianpaolo Caruso Enrico Gasparotto Iban Mayo Jonas Ljungblad
- 4 former riders have been appointed Directeur Sportif and will drive through the races in the future and help achieving the best possible tactical overview. All riders have been part of very strong setups and have a combined 6 seasons at the team.
Other than the direction the team have decided to also add a couple of very qualified experts helping with the development of riders into different aspects. Thus introducing an entire new trainingsetup:
Climbing trainers: Carlos Castaño Mauricio Ardila
- Carlos Castaño rode 4 seasons within the team while Ardila rode 3. Both had a very importan role within the team to assist top riders such as Alberto Contador and Markus Fothen. But both also had several chances to ride for themselves, and while Ardila struggled to get many top 10s, Carlos Castaño had several top results, not only in shorter GC races, but also both Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España top 10s. Both are respected in the team, and are extremely qualified in the attempt to get the best from climbers.
Puncher trainer: Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez
- Sammy Sánchez had no less than 6 season at the Festina-team, and also another one in the rebuilding Discovery Channel team from which the team evolved. Sánchez is also a recordholder of superior results having won all punchy classics aswell as a huge amount of strong GC results in explosive races. Sammy will help the riders get the most out of their attacking nature.
Timetrial trainer: Jurgen van Goolen
- van Goolen was also at the team for 6 consequtive seasons and did very respectable especially in team timetrials. Jurgen is a great mentor and was the leading timetriallist in all of his years, and was part of the reason why Panagiotis Vlatos turned into what he is today. We would love to see more riders formed that way.
Cobble trainers: Filippo Pozzato Geert Steurs
- Pippo Pozzato are looking to end his career after the current season, and will bring a lot of energy and humor to the table. He unfortunately only had one season in the team, but some historical wins, Milano-San Remo for once was amongst them. Geert Steurs was a more pure cobbler and his 3 seasons with the team give a lot of know-how on how we like things to work. Both are extremely talented at riding the cobbles and know exactly how to maneuvre the tricky paths. This should be of great importance in the future.
Sprint trainers: Thor Hushovd Vicente Réynes
- Thor Hushovd was not only a great cobbler, he was also a stellar sprinter who won several important races throughout his careed. 5 season in the Festina shirt in total, and while Hushovd was never the fastest he was super strong and very intelligent with positioning, and those are the exact skills we need. You can only become so fast - but you can be fast AND clever at the same time. This Thor Hushovd should help with. Réynes was a very intelligent leadout sprinter who was perfect at reading race situations from a broader perspective. He too comes with valuable experience. Réynes had 2 seasons in the Festina-setup.
Big time plans. Maybe this is the time where you can afford to develop some more of the Greek guys that can turn into decent domestiques but lack a team that takes care of them ride now. I'd love to see you working on this, as both title and relegation should be a thing that you are more likely to target in 2-3 years again.
Still it's awesome to see your Greek riders able to compete. Not sure how old Vlatos is, but him on 84 TT may be very interesting from a role play perspective...
I approve the mission statement about Greek cyclists, it's good to have a few teams (too many is not good) who have a clear focus on making their country great again
Indeed training Vlatos would be interesting. I already trained him a bit in hills which helped him perform better. I consider training Kastrantas to 79 HI over two seasons too, which would be interesting, although his sprint stat is uninteresting for that.
Clement Koretzky | 80 HI
Robin van der Hugenhaben | 79 HI
Armanto Archimandritis | 74 HI
Pascal Ackermann | 72 HI
Loic Vliegen | 72 HI
Georgios Karatzios | 70 HI
Emerson Santos | 78 SPR, 74 PRL
Badaling International
Tour of Qatar[/b]
Copenhagen - Malmö TTT
Tirreno-Adriatico
Classique du Grand-Duché
SAA Tour d'Afrique
Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha
Juan Ernesto Chamorro | 78 MO
Tour of California
GP Liechtenstein
Lisbon Classic
Vuelta a España
Tour of Scandinavia
Tour de Suisse
Markus Eibegger
Thor Hushovd
