AbhishekLFC wrote:
I think I already like this little rivalry It's 1-1 after DUC and CPB. ToME should be fun again

Great start to PCT for you btw! Results like Bystrom's and Roelandts's so far is exactly what I was imagining as a possibility when I mentioned that it's a fun situation for you to be in

Thing get serious this month, as we have 32RDs in this month, a lot of races, our only triple clash of the season, several clashes, a home race, a lot of cobbles, a goal race, a race we dream about winning...

First mountain stage race of the season for us, and of course, Merhawi Kudus is leading the team here. The route is the typical route this season where we hope he can deliver big results, as it contains both hill and mountain stages. In a startlist dominated by Pluchkin, it's unlikely that he'll fight for the overall win, but a podium place and as in every race, the U25 jersey, are realistic goals. His lieutenants will be present, with Valens Ndayisenga and Jakub Novak hoping to also get some depth points despite working for Merhawi, and Valens to support with a Top3 in U25.

Sep Vanmarcke gets to ride his first cobbled race of the season in this Belgian roads. We can't expect a really great result from him in a PTHC outing, against riders like Bewley, Summerhill or Trentin, but given that this classic usually is decided in a reduced sprint between the favourites, Vanmarcke not too bad sprint could make him get a Top10 result. As in every cobbled race, Fabien Taillefour will be there to support Vanmarcke.

First Goal Race of the season, and it's a Win Goal in Pologne. Our hopes are in Sven Erik Bystrom, but we know his abilities, and hoping for a race like TDU again is not logical, so a reasonable goal could be to get a Top10 in GC. We can only field a 6-rider team in this race, but we've brought all our hilly power into this race, with Sergio Barrio, Antoine Duchesne, Guillaume Levarlet, Luis Leon Sanchez and a pure attacker like Stefano Pirazzi. We hope that some of these riders can get in breakaways late into the race, once they've lost some time and are not dangerous for GC, like Duchesne did in Willunga Hill stage in TDU, which massively helped to Bystrom 4th place in GC

Second cobbled race for Sep Vanmarcke and this we are hoping for a Top5 finish. It's a route that he should like. Kemmelberg is hard but not extremely tough to overcome for a rider like Sep who is not the best puncheur among the cobbler, and then a lot of flat kms with heavy wind, where he can show his exceptional rouler skills. In this race Fabien Taillefour could be a great helper, and should even have a chance to score depth points given his flat skills, which could help him to stay longer in the first group late into the race

This is a race we only picked because of the new Gent-Wevelgem route, which would never see a rider like Jurgen Roelandts feature in the sprint for the win. So instead we sent him to this 3-day sprinters race, thinking specially in the final stage, more bumpy than the first two, where he could get some bonus seconds to achieve a GC Top10. Apart from him, we have 5 riders who should try to get in the breakaway and fight for KoM and bonus seconds to have more riders with minor points. If we can't perform here, not a lot will be lost, because expectations are low

Probably the less-suiting cobbled race for Sep Vanmarcke all season. A race made for hilly cobblers, that has a tendency of either have a breakaway win or a spectacular race. Sep will have to face a lonely race given that Fabien Taillefour is completely useless in hilly terrain and will get dropped sooner than most of the riders in the race

First home race of the season and we have here in this race all our mountain depth, but we lack the ultimate leader to compete for a podium place. We decided against bringing Kudus here because he had more suited races in offer for 6RDs, like his home race in Eritrea, so the decision was to give the lead to Jakub Novak, thinking on the long TT in the fifth day. It's likely that he'll fail to feature inside the GC Top20 at the end of the race, so our best bet for a good result in the race is likely to be Valens Ndayisenga. He should fight for the U25 jersey, and bring it home given that for once, he's not the last domestique of Kudus.

Also, we hope to see our riders in breakaways in this race. Not having a big leader in the race should favour us doing that, but we've never a breakaway-prone team, so we'll see

As with the sprinter's stage race earlier in the month, probably not the wisest planning decision around Sven Erik Bystrom, as a race of only 3 day, all hilly focused, will see almost every top puncheur in the division, making Bystrom a Top10 contender at best. But what we are most excited about this race is Stage 1 and what can Jurgen Roelandts deliver that day. Despite that stage being hilly rated, it doesn't seem hard enough to see gaps before the favourites, and if the stage comes down to a sprint, he's the ultimate favourite for the win. A worthy risk with only 3RDs in exchange

First C2 outing of the season, and we have decided to go South-East Asia to participate in this new race in the calendar in Hong Kong. A hilly stage, a TT and a mountain stage. We don't have any rider except maybe Luis Leon Sanchez who can take part in the race while also being good in all three terrains. But surely there'll be way better riders there, so breakaway shows are our only hope in this race, unless Rafael Serrano goes crazy in the mountain stage and can steal both a stage result and some GC minor points. Also with so many young riders in the race looking for experience, a chance to get a some kind of result in the U25 classification is there

Booker wrote:
A massive (and not just in race days) month for Repsol. Looking forward to seeing how Sep matches up against Baugnies and other top cobblists here, as his sprint abilities are formidable, and he should be favoroud for strong results should races come down to a select bunch of riders duking it out for the win.

Not in our wildest dreams we could imagine that the team would get its first HC GC win in their first attempt, as Merhawi Kudus was the strongest rider in Tour of the Middle East, and after two second places in the two important stages, he has run away with the GC win, ahead of the winner of GT Triple Crown Aleksandr Pluchkin!


Stage 3 of the race saw Merhawi take a surprising second place in the hilly stage, as he beated Kwiatkowski in the line, only finishing behind George Bennett. Kudus' great performance in this stage gave him a 1'41 gap over the race favourite Pluchkin, with a brutal mountain stage left


Both Pluchkin and Kudus attacked race leader from far out, leaving Bennett isolated and the GC fight was down to three man (Monsalve was also in Kudus' group). Kms were passing and despite Monsalve being dropped, Pluchkin could not get rid of Merhawi until the very end of the stage, as the Moldovan sprinted to win the stage, while Merhawi finished a few seconds behind, securing his first ever GC win in a pro race (he won Avenir in 2016)


His achievements in this race didn't stop with the GC win, as obviously he won the U25 jersey, with a 17-minute gap over the second place rider, but he also won a third jersey in the race, as with his two second places, he took enough point to win the Green jersey of the Points standings. A total of 242 points for Merhawi in this race, which already puts him over 300 points with only 8RDs into his season, looking set to improve in his points tally from 2017 (around 670 points). He's also the new PCT Individual Ranking leader

Ndayisenga, Novak and Roson finished in the Top50 to score a few depth points, for a total of 261 points for the team in this race, which makes our team the NEW PCT LEADER

1	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	17h37'26
2	Aleksandr Pluchkin	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	+ 1'22
3	Rigoberto Úran	Minions	+ 3'17
4	Yonathan Monsalve	Ayubowan!	+ 3'39
5	Natnael Berhane	World Cycling Center	s.t.
41	Valens Ndayisenga	Repsol - Netflix	+ 21'54
43	Jakub Novak	Repsol - Netflix	+ 22'39
45	Jaime Roson	Repsol - Netflix	+ 23'29
79	Rafael Serrano	Repsol - Netflix	+ 36'21
84	Andres Paez	Repsol - Netflix	+ 39'07
89	Sean McKenna	Repsol - Netflix	+ 41'47
97	Cristian Rodríguez	Repsol - Netflix	+ 44'49

Leading the ranking in our first PCT season in early February is amazing, way better than i could ever expect. We have a 267-points gap to the first non-promotion place, and more importantly, 364 points over the 10th place, our season goal. Always important to remark how far in the first relegation spot, as we have 10 times more points than the 22nd team in the division at this point

1	Repsol - Netflix	583
2	Fablok - Bank BGZ	437
3	Podium Ambition	395
4	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	357
5	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	347
6	Minions	327
10	Phillips - Continental	219
22	Azteca - NBCSM	55

1	Merhawi Kudus	303
2	Jurgen Roelandts	85
3	Sep Vanmarcke	80
4	Sven Erik Bystrom	67
5	Valens Ndayisenga	21
6	Jakub Novak	9
7	Jaime Roson	7
8	Antoine Duchesne	6
9	Cristian Rodriguez	3
10	Sergio Barrio	2

Booker wrote:
Simply, congrats on the phenomenal victory Aquarius. Love the effort you put into this team/MG and its being rewarded

Aquarius97 wrote:
@jandal It never was my fault #RepsolGate is just one thing you made up in your mind, nothing real.

It's mid February and this means that the cobbled season has already started, and this season we had signed Sep Vanmarcke for the role of leader, hoping that he could consistently give the team good points in the cobbles. Not a lot of support was given to him, only Fabien Taillefour as a proper support, but after 3 cobbled races, he has proved that he doesn't really need a strong support to get big results.

His first cobbled race was Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, in PTHC level. While Sam Bewley won the race against Danny Summerhill in a group 1 minute ahead of the one where Vanmarcke was, but the better news came when TV switched to the sprint for the 4th place, and Sep was overtaking Senechal to get a Top5 result in his first cobbled race for us!

1	Sam Bewley	Moser - Sygic	4h50'15
2	Danny Summerhill	RBC Pro Cycling	s.t.
3	Clenne Morvan Moulingui	Minions	+ 46
4	Matteo Trentin	Aker - MOT	s.t.
5	Sep Vanmarcke	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
67	Fabien Taillefour	Repsol - Netflix	+ 9'54
120	Luis Leon Sanchez Gil	Repsol - Netflix	+ 23'29

After a great result in PTHC level, his next race was Gent-Wevelgem, one of the most prestigious cobbled races in the PCT calendar, despite being a C1 race. The huge winds, together with the several passes through Kemmelberg, made this race to be a atrittional one, and Sep knew how to use his fantastic rouleur skills to always be in the leading group. Taillefour also played a huge role, as he stayed in the same group as Sep for a really long time


Jerome Baugnies couldn't stop attacking all the time, and with a few kms to go, he finally broke free, but then it was when Sep attacked together with Thomas, being joined later by Maes and Bush. Those 5 riders would fight for the win

Thomas won the race in the sprint, ahead of Bush and Sep, who started his sprint in not the best position, thus missing on the chance to finish second instead, but his first podium for the team is a great achievement too

1	Geraint Thomas	Podium Ambition	6h06'17
2	Robert Bush	World Cycling Center	s.t.
3	Sep Vanmarcke	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
4	Jérome Baugnies	Kulczyk - DMTEX	s.t.
5	Tom David	SPAR - Shimano - SCG	s.t.
48	Fabien Taillefour	Repsol - Netflix	+ 5'23
128	Sean McKenna	Repsol - Netflix	+ 26'11
144	Miltiadis Giannoutsos	Repsol - Netflix	+ 29'44
146	Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.

And the final cobbled race of the month was Viana do Castelo. Probably the less suiting race for Vanmarcke all season, with the route having a big focus on hills, not the best skill of Sep

The race wasn't decided until the final lap of the circuit, where Jerome Baugnies launched a great attack for the win, while Sep was left in a group that would fight for the second spot in the podium, together with Theuns, Zepuntke and Van der Haar


Obviously, beating Theuns in a sprint was an impossible mission, so Sep had to settle for the third place, nevertheless an amazing result in a route like this

1	Jérome Baugnies	Kulczyk - DMTEX	5h52'53
2	Edward Theuns	Generali - EDF	+ 22
3	Sep Vanmarcke	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
4	Lars Van der Haar	Delvaux	s.t.
5	Ruben Zepuntke	Minions	s.t.
79	Fabien Taillefour	Repsol - Netflix	+ 15'25
98	Sean McKenna	Repsol - Netflix	+ 21'29
116	Cristian Rodríguez	Repsol - Netflix	+ 24'33
124	Jaime Roson	Repsol - Netflix	+ 25'49
130	Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
135	Ryan Christensen	Repsol - Netflix	+ 26'49
140	Miltiadis Giannoutsos	Repsol - Netflix	+ 30'11

Overall three fantastic races, with Sep always ahead of expectations, as he's already with 172 points , a massive help for the team that is still leading the PCT Rankings!

We are still leading the PCT Ranking, though our lead has been reduced to only 16 points over Indosat, and 64 over Podium Ambition. Though the gap to first non-promoting team keeps rising, and we have almost twice the amount of points as Minions, who sits in 6th place in the rankings. It's kinda obvious that we won't have to care too much about the relegation fight, given our amount of points in so few RD's, but being 600 points ahead of the first relegation spot is always confortable

1	Repsol - Netflix	784
2	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	768
3	Podium Ambition	720
4	Generali - EDF	588
5	Fablok - Bank BGZ	582
6	Minions	409
10	SPAR - Shimano - SCG	391
22	cycleYorskhire	168

Kudus is obviously the best rider in the ranking after his win in ToME, but Vanmarcke is now second, ahead of Roelandts and Bystrom. We are really close to have already 4 riders with 100+ points, while we can't deny the importancy of depthing scoring, as already 13 out 21 riders have scored points this season

1	Merhawi Kudus	303
2	Sep Vanmarcke	172
3	Jurgen Roelandts	121
4	Sven Erik Bystrom	95
5	Valens Ndayisenga	21
6	Antoine Duchesne	18
7	Sergio Barrio	14
8	Stefano Agostini	12
9	Jakub Novak	9
10	Guillaume Levarlet	7
11	Jaime Roson	7
12	Cristian Rodriguez	3
13	Luis Leon Sanchez	2

The rankings are updated even with races that haven't been analized in this HQ, like Pologne or Ras, basically updated to now

The rest of the month didn't go as good as the other races we've already talked about, but it was to be expected anyway

This race was the first Win Goal of the season for the team, but we were almost anonymous during the 7-day race


Obviously, aiming for a GC win with Sven Erik Bystrom was a very ambitious goal, but the Norwegian could only finish 15th in GC, almost 3 minutes behind race winner Ulissi. The good thing was that we had some depth with decent showings from Duchesne, Barrio and Levarlet, which allowed the team to finish 2nd in the Team standings. Around 60 points isn't a top performance from a 7-day HC race, but given that it could have been said that we weren't in the race, that amount of points looks good

1	Diego Ulissi	Generali - EDF	26h47'56
2	Mohamed Shawal Anuar Aziz	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	+ 17
3	Maurice Schreurs	Novatek-Panarmenian.net	+ 29
4	Alexey Lutsenko	Team Reddit	+ 43
5	Aleksandar Flügel	Kraftwerk Man Machine	+ 1'25
15	Sven Erik Bystrom	Repsol - Netflix	+ 2'51
32	Antoine Duchesne	Repsol - Netflix	+ 5'46
34	Sergio Barrio	Repsol - Netflix	+ 5'55
43	Guillaume Levarlet	Repsol - Netflix	+ 8'15
67	Luis Leon Sanchez Gil	Repsol - Netflix	+ 14'48
79	Stefano Pirazzi	Repsol - Netflix	+ 18'45

Jurgen Roelandts was leading the team in this race, hoping to mix between the top sprinters to get a decent result,

The first stage wasn't the best, with Jurgen just outside the bonus places, but in the second stage, a random split in the sprint made by breakaway riders, allowed Jurgen to follow Kraftwerk's train and get a stage podium. This put him up to sixth in GC, really close to a Top4 result


But the final day didn't go his way, which saw him dropping back to 9th place in GC. Though the day's positive surprise was Stefano Agostini, as the Italian rider got in the breakaway and managed to finish 2nd in the KoM standings. A shame the breakaway got caught just before a climb that could have given him the win in this classification



Almost 50 points from a race like this, in only 3 RD's was a great achievement, that shows the team's depth and ability to score in every race

1	Matthew Goss	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	8h45'07
2	Caleb Ewan	Podium Ambition	+ 5
3	Ivano Lo Cicero	Carrefour - ESPN	+ 8
4	Mark Cavendish	Kraftwerk Man Machine	+ 10
5	Jacopo Guarnieri	Delvaux	+ 12
9	Jurgen Roelandts	Repsol - Netflix	+ 23
140	Andres Paez	Repsol - Netflix	+ 39
151	Cristian Rodríguez	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
154	Ryan Christensen	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
155	Jaime Roson	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.
156	Stefano Agostini	Repsol - Netflix	s.t.

First home race of the season for the team in the mountain of the northeast of Spain, but without bringing here our top climber, expectations were low and unknown. We came here with a 2-headed leadership, though both riders had their flaws to be real leaders. In one side, Jakub Novak had both climbing and tt abilities to perform in this route, both his not so good punchy skills might cost him badly. And Valens Ndayisenga was not even a Top10 climber in this field, and he also lacked any tt abilities. But the Eritrean was supoused to fight for the U25 jersey.



And at the end of the race we got more or less what we could expect. Ndayisenga was the U25 winner, but he didn't even finish in the GC Top20, something that Novak was able to do, with a 17th place, At some point we hoped for a great result from the Czech rider, but a really lacklustre TT performance made him drop a lot of places in GC



And the other positive show of the race was the fighting spirit of our two young Spaniards, Rodriguez and Roson, who both went in the breakaway, specially the former, finishing 3rd and 4th in the KoM standings.

At the end, another decent scoring from a race we didn't expect too much, which clearly contributes to our great run overall in the season, as we currently seem to be fighting for a promotion spot

1	Ki Ho Choi	Meiji - JR East	18h08'23
2	Peter Velits	Xero Racing p/b Octagon	+ 27
3	Martijn Keizer	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	+ 1'11
4	Stefan Denifl	SPAR - Shimano - SCG	+ 1'13
5	Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	+ 1'23
17	Jakub Novak	Repsol - Netflix	+ 5'15
22	Valens Ndayisenga	Repsol - Netflix	+ 6'53
38	Luis Leon Sanchez Gil	Repsol - Netflix	+ 11'50
48	Rafael Serrano	Repsol - Netflix	+ 14'55
60	Stefano Pirazzi	Repsol - Netflix	+ 19'32
63	Jaime Roson	Repsol - Netflix	+ 21'56
103	Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	+ 38'21
111	Cristian Rodríguez	Repsol - Netflix	+ 42'04

We had another race in C2 level, but apart that Pirazzi avoided a 0-pointer in the Kong Kong Challenge, that race isn't worthy mentioning further.

We won't give you the Repsol Rider Ranking at the end of February, with Kudus being the top scorer of the team, ahead of Vanmarcke and Roelandts, basically because it remains the same as in the last update, with only very minor changes

With the team roster for the 2018 season not built around a super leader that would guarantee us several wins, like Rafa Valls did last year in CT, wins for the team are rare and ocassional. So we have to celebrate big those.

A couple of days ago, Jakub Novak took the biggest win of his career, as he won the Corsica International. He wasn't considered as a pre-race favourite, not even a contender. Obviously he isn't anywhere close to be the best climber on the team, as Merhawi Kudus was leading the team in this race (Kudus would eventually finish the race 4th)

After a calm first day, with the flat stage where Kudus would get a Top15, it was time for the timetrial



Jakub's time was great, ninth best of the day, and second best between climbers, but at the end he's a decent timetrialist, and a performance like this could be expected. Even more impressive was Merhawi's time, as again he finished in the Top15, only 7 seconds behind his team-mate, despite being a much worse rider for tt's.



So ahead of the final stage, the mountain stage up L'Ospedale, Novak and Kudus were virtually second and third in GC. The team worked hard all day, and with 6 kms to go, Novak and Kudus would just break away from the bunch, without attacking, but that high was Novak's pace



They would be caught by other 3 riders, Shikai, Uran and Henao, right before the final km. With Duarte dropped, there was a high chance of winning the race. Novak only needed not to lose any time, and that Uran didn't win the stage



And that's exactly what happened, as Shikai took the stage win, with our riders finishing fourth and fifth, exhausted from their previous efforts, but securing the GC win for Novak, and Kudus losing on a podium spot because of bonus seconds.



A result like this was very much needed, as in the two previous month, the team had suffered from low performances, also influenced by our race schedule and the planning, and for the first time in the season we had been placed outside of the promotion spots, and even starting to see the relegations spots closer than ever. It's curious how so much points during the season have only seen two wins from the riders that got them, with Kudus' ToME GC win being the only previous win for the team this season

This result promotes Novak to the podium of best Repsol riders of the season, narrowly overtaking Roelandts and Bystrom, while becaming the 5th rider to get 100 points for the team. Meanwhile Kudus sees his lead increased, and getting closer to the 860-point mark we set for him this season

1	Merhawi Kudus	470
2	Sep Vanmarcke	263
3	Jakub Novak	161
4	Jurgen Roelandts	153
5	Sven Erik Bystrom	150
6	Valens Ndayisenga	71
7	Antoine Duchesne	34
8	Rafael Serrano	25
9	Sergio Barrio	25
10	Stefano Agostini	19
11	Luis Leon Sanchez	18
12	Jaime Roson	14
13	Cristian Rodriguez	11
14	Stefano Pirazzi	11
15	Guillaume Levarlet	7
16	Fabien Taillefour	6

The most amazing (and longest) day in our team's history concludes with Jurgen Roelandts taking the win in Philadelphia Classic! The veteran Belgian sprinter was one of the top favourite before the race, and he delivered in "The Wall", as it's commonly known that uphill finish in the streets of Philly.

A very attritional race that saw a very small group fighting for the win in the finale. Bystrom, who came here as hilly support, and maybe looking for a minor placing in the finish, got dropped, like other 100 riders in the final lap, including pretty much all our team, except for Jurgen, who from then had to manage himself to get in the best places ahead of the sprint



Jurgen chose to follow Phillips' rider Navardauskas, and what a great decision it was, as the Lithuanian rider stormed through the field, taking the first place after the final corner, where "The Wall" started



From then, Jurgen only had to get out of his slipstream and using his great sprint skills, get really fast to the line to get the 30th win of his career, the first in almost 2 years.

This completes the best day in Repsol - Netflix history, as earlier today, Jakub Novak won the Corsica International (with Kudus finishing fourth). Also, with the end of the month of April, we can give you an update on how the team is doing so far this season.

We sit in the third place of the PCT Rankings, right in promotion spots to the PT. We are quite far from the two best teams, and in a big battle for those final promotion places, as only 77 points separates us from falling outside it. Also, our gap to our Season Goal placement (10th) is now 371 points, a good gap to stay ahead if we have a bad month later on. And over 700 points is the gap to the relegation zone, which we hope to not have to worry about this season again

1	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	2021
2	Generali - EDF	1851
3	Repsol - Netflix	1579
4	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	1555
5	SPAR - Shimano - SCG	1523
6	Fablok - Bank BGZ	1502
10	Ayubowan!	1208
22	Team Reddit	832

In the Repsol Rider Rankings, not much changes from last update, as it was also "today". So Jurgen goes from 4th best scorer to 2nd best, with a total of 293 points

It feels like forever since our Press Department last worked, but here we are with some amazing news to bring to the cycling world.
Repsol - Netflix has done it! We have achieved the promotion to the Pro Tour division in our first year in he PCT, making it back-to-back promotions.

We are excited for this chance at competing against top-wordly opposition and trying to win the most important races in cycling, but at the same time we are kinda scared of the magnitude of this challenge. But if we could manage to promote twice in the two years of team's existence, why should we be scared?

As much as we have our fun as "rivals" I am really really happy and proud to see Repsol promote, Aquarius did great things and then they overachieved huge in a great effort, every rider maximised their potential fantastically after he put together a great line of scorers. Well deserved newest addition to the club of back to back promoters and hopefully we'll meet again in the PT rather than the PCT - and we can once again be rivals rather than 11 places apart Smile