Yellow Jersey wrote:
Super to see MAL perform, as CT's top loanee this season I sure hope to see him more often Also Siskevicius giving good signs, I bet he will win something this season he's looking great!
MAL has certainly done well so far, but hes mostly gonna ride without Siskevicius, except in our hilly goals I believe, Placci and Slovenia, so I am excited to see what their duo can do together. Especially since he is a massive burden financially but whatever, lessons learned lol.
On the other hand holy crap my spelling was god awful in that post
March is in the books and it was a weird month, some surprisingly good results, some somewhat disappointing.
Roma Maxima - Videika 42nd
Our young cobble boi Videika found himself in the break, a position from which he managed to finish highest from our team, even outperforming Kaupas who will make an appearance later on. Was always going to be tough to get a good finish there, therefore this result is excusable.
Circulo de Juarez - Kruopis (7th S1, 3rd S3, 12th GC), Savickas 23rd GC
This was certainly a pleasant surprise following previously disappointing performances from Aidis. Sadly he couldn't get into top 10 on last couple stages, finishing just outside on both occasions, failing to secure top 10 GC. Nevertheless, Savickas gaining extra seconds in the breakaways made it up for that, so overall I would consider Juarez trip a success.
Geraardsbergen-Bosberg - Kaupas 10th
Siskevicius made an appearance here, this race being quite hilly it opens up possibility for some shenanigans. Evaldas did find himself in a break, which managed to do little to nong. Kaupas on the other hand, remained strong till the leaders pulled away and he was left to fight for 8th. Ultimately he simply did not have enough juice left and had to settle for 10th just a few seconds ahead of bigger pack which rounded up top 20. Amazing result.
Tour of Turkey - MAL (6th S2, 20th GC, 2nd U25)
Certainly a disappointment, mainly because Miguel failed to secure U25 jersey, which was had MAL's name all over it. A really poor queen stage which saw him finish 24th in C2HC field dropped him down the rankings, and in turn net us way less points than I expected. I guess this makes up for some over performances earlier in the month.
April is going to be busy for us. First race goal of the year in Coppa Placci. which will see a very strong squad sent there, with only notable absentee being MAL due to race clashes. The feeling within the team is that this month provides ample opportunities to score some big points, as well as wave our flag in the only HC appearance in Ukraine (because Poles hate us), here are our leaders for the month of April.
Nakhon Ratchasima Trophy - Dzervus, Kruopis / Expectation - Top 20 Grand Prix du Midi Libre - MAL, Kreuziger / Expectation - 2 Stage Top 5s, Top 20 GC Coppa Placci - Siskevicius / Expectation - Top 5 (please) Tour of Ukraine - Siskevicius / Expectation - Stage Top 10 Betonexpressz GP - Kruopis / Expectation - Top 15 Lincoln GP - Kaupas / Expectation - Top 20 Sochi Cup - Siskevicius, MAL / Expectation - Top 10 and Top 20
Maybe top 20 finish was a bit optimistic and naive, but in the end, points were gotten, and in much tougher C1 fields I can't expect much more from my sprinting team. We're weakos.
Grand Prix du Midi Libre / Expectation - 2 Stage Top 5s, Top 20 GC / Manfred (Top 5 stage 6), MAL (28th GC, U25 jersey)
Kreuziger started off with *decent* 15th place in the prologue, can't say I was too pleased with that, but at least he did something. Stage 2 was a sprint stage, and somehow Kreuziger got himself into the break and gained himself some extra time, catapulting him into 8th in GC - me likey. Stage 3, the first one for climbers, was a disaster. MAL lost over 7 minutes and instantly Top 20 GC became more of a pipedream than a realistic achievement. Next up, ITT, and Kreuziger completely shit the bed, 4 minutes behind, even managing to lose almost 2 minutes to Talacka, who is not even close to Roman's level. MAL ranks 36th heading into final stages. Stage 5 was a flat stage, a DUD. Next stage, a hilly one, surely must wake MAL up and get a great result there. And we did manage to achieve a Top 5 result. Not from MAL though, but Manfred, who just went hard and got himself into the attackers group and rode till the end to get himself his first Top 5 this season. MAL stays 36th. Final stage another mountain one. This time, MAL delivered. 17th, climbing up to 28th in GC, far away from our goal, but that was enough to win U25 jersey by mere 3 seconds.
Coppa Placci / Expectation - Top 5 / Siskevicius 6th
The first big boy race of the year for us, yearly goal. This race proved that getting someone into solo breakaway in hilly C2 races is a recipe for success. Even though Siskevicius got himself into position to achieve his goals, and he had to do was finish Top 3 in the 2nd group, sadly, he just ran out of steam finishing 6th, just outside of the goal. Luckily just missing out on that won't dishearten our sponsors too much, extra money and points that would have come from Top 5 are tough to miss out on.
Tour of Ukraine / Expectation - Stage Top 10 / Siskevicius 33rd GC
Our only HC appearance this season started off with a weak performance in the opening uphill ITT with Rumsas being top performer. Stage 2 was the one we had any hopes for, a nice hilly profile, but alas, wasn't meant to be. Siskevicius finished 24th, jumping to 31st in GC. And lastly a flat ITT, expected nothing. Siskevicius did well enough to only drop 2 places in GC and finish 33rd, I've no idea if that will fetch any points, but I guess not too bad considering our lineup.
Betonexpressz GP / Expectation - Top 15 / Kruopis 6th
Kruopis came in and shattered my expectations. Somehow someway the kid has done it. 6th is a phenomenal result for him, even came very close to a top 5, which would've been an extreme overperformance. Considering my team's love for 6th place, I guess I shouldn't have expected such a lowly placing as 15th.
Lincoln GP / Expectation - Top 20 / Savickas 21th
After Kaupas blistering 10th in a previous cobbled classic my expectations maybe were a bit too out of this wordly. Savickas saved us from a pathetic performance, mainly due to him getting into the break and holding on till the end, getting very close to our race goal. Savickas has been an unsung hero in getting some extra points for us, that may be taken into consideration when renewals are up.
Sochi Cup / Expectation - Top 10 and Top 20 / Siskevicius 19th
This was a highly anticipated race, due to me sending a very strong deal, rarely will you see MAL and Siskevicius in a same race, but this was one of them. And MAL shit the bed once again. You may thing top 40, 50? Nah, your boy finished 104th. Truly pathetic. Siskevicius himself didn't have the best day, but Top 20 is somewhat acceptable with everyone around him just being complete uninterested in doing anything.
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Not the greatest of months, but points were earned, didn't completely fail one of yearly goals, sadly I have no clue where we are in CT standings, expecting top 15 is probably too greedy at this point, and May is not looking too great for us, let's have a look.
Windhoek ITT & Chrono D'Arenberg - Kreuziger, Talacka, Rumsas / Expectation - honestly no idea, Top 20?
Interesting race for us, a nice intro to Vilnius GP, our Win goal (won't happen but I can't betray my country like that). Really don't know what to expect, with Kreuziger's mixed time trial results this season.
Tour du Faso - Kruopis, Dzervus, Kaupas / Expectation - Top 25 GC
I think I can trust Kaupas to get us Top 25 GC result here, even though the stage profiles are just insane, and he's not the greatest cobbler in the world, but I have to have faith
Giro del Trentino - MAL, Juodvalkis, Izagirre / Expectation - Top 30 GC
Slightly tampered expectations due to our performances in tours this year. Can't expect anything from individual stages, but MAL always seems to get himself into that top 30 spot, which is usually enough to grab the U25 jersey as well.
Welp. We only got 2 points from that May, so no reason to discuss it much, other than to officially announce that Roman Kreuziger is an inside agent from the 'riggers' and he's been doing a great job of holding us back. He will be enjoying dumpster diving next season.
Instead, we will discuss couple races from June that went fairly well
Tour of Japan
After a decent prologue, we had an opportunity to hold our first ever yellow jersey, sadly Kruopis couldn't outsprint the weaker sprinters competing there. MAL and Siskevicius held their own on a very hilly Stage 3, very little time lost, which was essential is both of them reaching Top 20 GC. Stage 4, the mountain TT was as disastrous as you may expect, especially for Evaldas, as he was brought all the way down to 40th in general classification, while MAL, amazingly, held onto Top 15.
Siskevicius knew he needed to deliver on penultimate stage, and he decided to go on a break, which in retrospect, was easily the best course of action. Up until the very last few kilometers, it sure seemed that 2nd place was in the books for Evaldas, unfortunately, he ran out of gas towards the end, but he still got himself a 7th and a place in Top 20. While Lopez did lose some time in the GC, most importantly he kept his U25 jersey. Last stage,mass sprint on the flat, who cares.
GC
1 Michal KwiatkowskiNetia - Vonin 11h54'49
...
17 Miguel Angel LopezDK Zalgiris + 3'39
18 Evaldas SiskeviciusDK Zalgiris + 3'55
U25
1 Miguel Angel LopezDK Zalgiris 11h58'28 (1)
2 Alexis GougeardIberia - Team Degenkolb + 2'17 (2)
...
Tour de Slovenie
One of the most anticipated races of the season, Top 5 GC goal, and decently suited for our team. I expected Kreuziger to get a decent GC finish, but I guess I forgot that he was Roman Kreuziger the Infiltrator, so we're only gonna mention Siskevicius here.
S1, a hilly TT. 65th and 2+ minutes lost for Evaldas. I was monkaS'ing upon seeing the results, surely even with his bad TT stat, he should be able to do better in only TT that suits him in any way.
He bounces right back on stage 2. After a vicious attack from Meyer, Siskevicius and friends were a bit late to respond, allowing Travis to get a solo stage win, but not before catching the other escapee and Evaldas charged for 4th and effectively no time lost. Up to 6th. Siskevicius even managed to sprint for 12th on stage 3, which says a lot about strenght of sprinters brought to Slovenia.
Stage 4, the long ass time trial. Can't expect much. Maybe a bit better than 67th and 5 minutes lost, but it wasn't that disastrous, only dropping to 12th and keeping a manageable gap to timetrialist who have overtaken him in the standings.
Stage 5 was where Evaldas needed to pop off. And he fuckin did. One of the things I was missing from him was following attacks. He seemed to be content with people riding away from him and just grabbing a top 10 finish and being done with it.
After some attacks by Zaini and Hoelgaard, three strong bois in Gautier, Meyer and Siskevicius decided to take matters into their own hands and launched their own attack. The rest had no chance, and eventually even Gautier couldn't keep up, not even managing to finish in the top 5. But in the end, Evaldas did ask Meyer to hold his dick and he sprinted to the first ever stage win for the greatest team in the world - DK Žalgiris. Comfortably gets Top 5 in GC, and even capitalising on Gautier's collapse in the last kilometers, overtaking him by 2 seconds and finishing 4th in GC.
1 Travis MeyerEddie Stobart 12h58'20
2 Lawson CraddockBanco de Bogota + 37
3 Mark ChristianCampari - Super Dry + 1'42
4 Evaldas SiskeviciusDK Zalgiris + 3'04
5 Cyril GautierValio - DeLaval + 3'06 (suck it France)
Meyer winning is a very disappointing, as I've mentioned earlier, the anti North Europe coalition lead by marco made Eddie Stobart, one of our competitors for the 15th place in Conti standings, win a shitload of points, while giving us scraps in comparison, but as our local folk hero Justin Timberlake once again, what goes around comes around.
Tour of South Africa is next, C1 race full of hilly stages, and Siskevicius is looking to break through the barricade of injustice placed in front of him and get some nice loot for our Lithuanian goblins
Good to see that Lopez is doing quite well in the CT and especially as a force in the U25 competitions and Siskevicius also delivered quite well. But please be reasonable and dont grade any former Evonik rider by their performance in TTs. By our standards this was an exceptionally great TT performance
knockout wrote:
Good to see that Lopez is doing quite well in the CT and especially as a force in the U25 competitions and Siskevicius also delivered quite well. But please be reasonable and dont grade any former Evonik rider by their performance in TTs. By our standards this was an exceptionally great TT performance
Kreuziger an ex-Evonik? That makes sense now...you can never erase the horrors of living in Latvia, ruined the poor guy
S1, a hilly TT. 65th and 2+ minutes lost for Evaldas. I was monkaS'ing upon seeing the results, surely even with his bad TT stat, he should be able to do better in only TT that suits him in any way.
Nope. Was referring to this. He spentyears learning that 65th in a tt is an outstanding result. Kreuziger was never part of our team although that wouldsurely be an explanation for our distaste of timetrialling
Wasn't much need to update as there wasn't much to update on. Unless someone is interested in a bunch of 0-10 pointers.
The plan went perfectly, make other teams feel sorry for us, pounce during transfer window.
Siskevicius, obviously, was our best scorer, he is one of few guys who will remain with the team, and he will be getting help, fo sho.
MAL was the 2nd best scorer, very nice, although disappointing at various points during the season.
Our spies also gathered intel that Navardauskas is being held hostage and is currently chained after his disappointing season, we are working on setting him free from the evil oligarchs.
We will also be spending 900k of salary cap on best prospects from upcoming crop, our goal next season is to make a lvl 1 rider our best scorer.
We will also be spending 900k of salary cap on best prospects from upcoming crop, our goal next season is to make a lvl 1 rider our best scorer.
I love the first part of that but you'll have an awful team if a guy with 70-73 main stat is your best scorer Do love your dreams of Nava, and I think although it was a hard season you will have a nice future ahead, especially with your talent focus!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
We will also be spending 900k of salary cap on best prospects from upcoming crop, our goal next season is to make a lvl 1 rider our best scorer.
I love the first part of that but you'll have an awful team if a guy with 70-73 main stat is your best scorer Do love your dreams of Nava, and I think although it was a hard season you will have a nice future ahead, especially with your talent focus!
it's *probably* a joke I might save that 900k for when my boy Waerenskjold comes into DB
Our spies also gathered intel that Navardauskas is being held hostage and is currently chained after his disappointing season, we are working on setting him free from the evil oligarchs.
No Navardauskases were harmed during the running of this season!
Our spies also gathered intel that Navardauskas is being held hostage and is currently chained after his disappointing season, we are working on setting him free from the evil oligarchs.
No Navardauskases were harmed during the running of this season!
DK Žalgiris announce partnership with Georgian Cycling Federation
Track arena in Tbilisi to be constructed by 2021
DK Žalgiris has recently revealed their upcoming partnership with Georgian Cycling Federation, mission statement including 'Kartvelians and Lithuanians have stood by each other throughout the decades of turmoil and pain. Sports have always united people, and today marks the beginning of our cyclists uniting under one banner.' Borjgali, a traditional Georgian symbol of sun, will be on display on the uniform in the upcoming 2019 season in acknowledgement of the partnership.
Spoiler
1980s F1 livery looking 2019 uniform
Lithuanian-owned supermarket chain Ioli has also appeared in the news regarding DK Žalgiris - Ioli will become the main sponsor of the new track cycling and basketball arena in Tbilisi, set to be completed in early 2020. Due to obvious Lithuanian links, it is believed that there has been an agreement made to have some sort of sponsorship deal between the two sides once it is all said and done. Rumours say that Ioli will form a junior team, using their own resources to advertise the sport of cycling in Georgia and training up prospects for the Lithuanian outfit. Similar rumblings have been heard coming from other former Soviet nations, but at this moment, nothing is concrete.
Also Siskevicius giving good signs, I bet he will win something this season he's looking great!
would love him riding for Zalgiris one day
I might save that 900k for when my boy Waerenskjold comes into DB
