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[PT] Team Puma - SAP 2021 | Goals
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-09-2021 14:42
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Edited by cio93 on 27-11-2021 16:29
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-09-2021 14:42
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-09-2021 14:42
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Edited by cio93 on 21-09-2021 13:23
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 25-11-2024 19:57
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-09-2021 14:48
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A triple for the ages - Silvio Herklotz 2020
In a season that started with a surpise epilogue win for Jasha Sütterlin in Qatar and delivered an early memorable peak with Arnaud Demare adding the maglia ciclamino to his impressive jersey collection, one man stood out not only from Team Puma - SAP, but from the entirety of professional cyclists.
After finishing a decent season opener in East Java in second place behind Taylor Phinney, Silvio Herklotz suffered the first significant defeat of 2020 close to home soil in Hallstatt, where he rode too aggressively and faded in the final kilometre to come home in 7th.
Better days had to come soon if there was to be a chance to crack the Top 5 PT teams, and the next opportunity came in the Tour de Suisse, a race he had already won in 2018, well ahead of a cycling legend in Andy Schleck.
With a TTT to begin sorting the favorites by team strength rather than individual one, a strong lineup carried Silvio to within one second of the best team and an important gap of 29 seconds to the first serious opposition in Lachlan Morton.
Not willing to work too early in the race, the yellow jersey was conceded to Festina for two stages, but on the punchy finish of stage 5, Herklotz proved the worth of his winter training to take the stage and the jersey, never to let go of it again.
Two more stage wins on the very next stage as well as the final stage 9 (above) allowed him to sweep all jerseys but white and distance everyone but Madrazo by at least 4 minutes in his last test before lining up at his first ever Grande Boucle.
After a final training block in the weeks between the races, the identical TT-heavy lineup supported Herklotz at the Tour de France, where the battle with Spaniard Madrazo and Australian Morton carried over from Switzerland and was enriched by the presence of big hitters like Dombrowski and Sicard alongside a wildcard role for Silvio's Giro d'Italia nemesis Simon Spilak.
With another relatively early TTT, there was no need to spend much energy early on in the race, but that was no reason to hold back for Herklotz as he again utilized his recent puncheur training and threw the bike across the line first on the earliest possible opportunity for a stage win on day 3, barely ahead of Spilak.
Backing up a solid prologue performance that way, this effort saw him put on the maillot jaune very early on, and Silvio used the very first photo opportunity on stage 6 where he expertly waited to pounce on a fading Van Stayen in the final metres to raise his arms in yellow for the first time.
A weird sprint stage in between those two stage wins saw Van Stayen remain in contention for yellow and eventually earned him a short, but deserved stay in the jersey on the day after.
The TTT right after saw our rouleurs drag Herklotz along back into yellow though, with a 35 second gap on Spilak and 53 seconds on Madrazo leading into the mountains being enjoyable, but far from comfortable.
Ups and downs in week 2 and the early parts of week 3 saw that gap shrink to just 23 seconds over Madrazo as the mythical Alpe d'Huez loomed on the horizon to judge the abilities of the riders brave enough to tame its serpentines.
The race remained tight and fast with the breakway not given much of a gap, which eventually led to the consensus Top 6 of the race finding themselves at the front crossing under the flamme rouge, with the overall victory still to play for.
And that was where Silvio found the last sliver of extra energy compared to his rivals and created the iconic image seen above, slowly slipping away from the exhausted best climbers in the world who were left unable to respond as he carried the yellow jersey out of Madrazo's reach, across the finish line and into Paris.
With the consensus pick for the 2020 World Championships being a hilly route, the focus within the team was on Arnaud Demare to utilize his dual threat in a bid for the striped jersey.
But when the event venue was announced, all of that preparation quickly went out of the window as the Nürburgring provided THE perfect opportunity to prepare Silvio for a chance at a historical first Tour-Worlds sweep.
With a long, undulating route on home soil offering a decently long climb every lap, it wouldn't ever get better for Herklotz, but still there were doubts as to whether the profile could allow stronger sprinters to remain in contention if the comparatively weaker and/or less coordinated national selections couldn't force a selection like the best trade teams might be able to.
The race did start uneventful and worrying as only a duo slipped away from the peloton at first which didn't force the peloton to ride fast, but the German team with Herklotz, Arndt, Vasyliv and Mager stayed attentive at the front, displaying their strength and intent to make the race hard later on.
Luckily, the United States selection working for Phinney had a monster domestique in Dombrowski who was more than happy to shred the peloton to pieces quite early into the finale, which did eliminate stronger sprinters who were weaker climbers.
With the situation becoming much more favorable for all sorts of riders then, attacks came left and right and the race quickly turned into a fight between 8 riders at the front leading into the final lap, with the most durable among the puncheurs battling against the top 4 climbers in the world.
Herklotz controlled the situation from the front and used an acceleration from Kinoshita to slingshot past the Japanese, with only Taylor Phinney staying close and eventually making the junction over the final hilltop.
But on this day, even flat roads were to Herklotz' advantage, and he distanced the American one final time, reaching the incline up to the finish line alone and with plenty of time to soak in the cheers of his fellow countrymen in the crowds to claim the World Championship and gain the rights to wear the most exclusive jersey in cycling for the 2021 season!
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-09-2021 14:48
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World Champion
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2021 Renewals and transfer availability
| Rider | 2021 Wage | Change | Availability |  Silvio Herklotz | €1.150.000 | + €150.000 | no |  Arnaud Demare | €650.000 | - €50.000 | no | | Nikias Arndt | €280.000 | + €130.000 | YES |  Filippo Ganna | €150.000 | + €90.000 | no | | Remi Cavagna | €110.000 | + €60.000 | no | | Jasha Sütterlin | €110.000 | + €30.000 | YES |  Colin Stüssi | €105.000 | - €5.000 | unlikely | | Yuriy Vasyliv | €105.000 | + €25.000 | no | | Marcel Aregger | €75.000 | - €35.000 | YES | | Valentin Madouas | €75.000 | - €25.000 | no | | Christian Mager | €65.000 | - €15.000 | YES | | Mike Aaron Egger | €60.000 | + €10.000 | unlikely |  Guy Sagiv | €60.000 | + €10.000 | YES |  Patrick Bevin | €55.000 | + €5.000 | YES |  Yikui Niu | €55.000 | + €5.000 | unlikely | | Nils Politt | €55.000 | + €5.000 | no | | Domenic Weinstein | €55.000 | + €5.000 | unlikely | | Fabien Doubey | €50.000 | --- | unlikely | | Lukas Meiler | €50.000 | --- | no |  Joris Nieuwenhuis | €50.000 | --- | unlikely | | Johannes Schinnagel | €50.000 | --- | no | | Jannik Steimle | €50.000 | --- | no | | Florian Stork | €50.000 | --- | no |
Complicated renewals at Team Puma - SAP
Any successful season comes with a risk attached once it comes to renewing contracts, and after another Top 3 season for Team Puma - SAP, there has been some significant pre-transfers movement both in rider wages and releases at their Herzogenaurach HQ.
Silvo Herklotz was undoubtedly the most successful rider in the world in 2020. Despite falling short to a smartly planned Phinney effort, winning both his first Tour de France and topping that with a dominant home victory at the World Championships, the best rider deserves the highest wage.
On the other hand, despite adding another Grand Tour points jersey to his palmares, we again convinced Arnaud Demare to take a paycut and at least partially level out the wage gains of our other leader.
After a very solid season that did lack a big victory, a significant change in rider appraisal by the MGUCI meant Nikias Arndt felt worthy of another raise, and while we feel he is still good value for his money, his true niche is as a PCT leader with a carefully selected race schedule or even a CT star rider, where his points per wage ratio would be game-changing.
We're therefore officially entertaining offers for him this season.
Our two stars of the future, Filippo Ganna and Valentin Madouas, had very different seasons and therefore trended opposite ways in renewals. Ganna had a brilliant season for a lvl3 rider, and combined with his expected significant development, his wage had to be adapted accordingly.
Madouas on the other hand struggled a bit to fill a more variable role, and accepted a lower wage than expected.
Remi Cavagna came into renewals with what likely was the best ever season performance by a 50k rider, with surprising results left and right, and therefore earns more than double of that minimum wage this year. Despite that, he's too fun a rider to part ways with.
The same OVL change that emboldened Arndt saw the duo of Jasha Sütterlin and Yuriy Vasyliv undoing the wage reductions we negotiated last time around, but both are still great ambassadors of German cycling.
Some minor changes for our not-quite-50k Germans Christian Mager and Mike Aaron Egger came positively and negatively unexpected respectively, and last but not least, Israeli RR champion Guy Sagiv leads the charge of a handful of surprise riders that earn slightly more than we were initially planning with.
In the case of Sagiv and Patrick Bevin, this might very well have been their last negotiations with the team. Both riders are still amazing value (and who doesn't love a NC jersey), but not quite the regional fit for the team anymore.
Overall, we finished renewals barely above our allotted cap space and incurred a small fee, but with half a dozen of intriguing riders transfer listed and several more that are open to all sorts of talks, we're positive that yet again there will be a decent amount of free cap space available to pursue more talents for our future during transfers!
A detailed post on our transfer strategy with a more in-depth look at the strenghts of our transfer listed riders will follow soon.
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 06-09-2021 14:56
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We will most definitely talk once that is allowed!
Fairly nice that you were at least able to regain some of the lost wage from Herklotz in Demare's reduction.
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 06-09-2021 15:02
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"Unlikely" doesn't mean "No", right? 
Happy to see a Swiss rider with a clear "Yes" flag, but he's not getting younger, either... Anyway, we'll definitely talk - and maybe a package deal could be an option 
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| cio93 |
Posted on 06-09-2021 20:38
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World Champion
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Before I forget it altogether, massive thanks to hillis91 for this gorgeous WC jersey!
whitejersey wrote:
We will most definitely talk once that is allowed!
Fairly nice that you were at least able to regain some of the lost wage from Herklotz in Demare's reduction.
I'm very much looking forward to that, that should be the first time between our two teams?
Yeah it seems like Demare's 6 Giro stage wins year in '18 skyrocketed his wage way beyond the average, and I've slowly managed to get it back into the expected region lately. Even assuming that trend in advance, there's a lot of anxious debating going on before he gets an offer every season...
Fabianski wrote:
"Unlikely" doesn't mean "No", right?
Happy to see a Swiss rider with a clear "Yes" flag, but he's not getting younger, either... Anyway, we'll definitely talk - and maybe a package deal could be an option
There's still a lot of performance left in that man! 
I'm always happy to discuss all possible combinations at length, although Herklotz ultimately does have veto rights if he considers his GT chances at risk, and Stüssi is hard to replace.
But I can't wait to dive into it all with you!
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 06-09-2021 20:47
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cio93 wrote:
Fabianski wrote:
"Unlikely" doesn't mean "No", right?
Happy to see a Swiss rider with a clear "Yes" flag, but he's not getting younger, either... Anyway, we'll definitely talk - and maybe a package deal could be an option
There's still a lot of performance left in that man!
I'm always happy to discuss all possible combinations at length, although Herklotz ultimately does have veto rights if he considers his GT chances at risk, and Stüssi is hard to replace.
But I can't wait to dive into it all with you!
I understand - there's a reason why Colin looks so appealing to me But let's be honest, Herklotz could by now win a GT without even a team around him
Looking forward to negotiating anyway, whether we reach an agreement or not. We definitely might, as there are some other interesting guys around as well
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 06-09-2021 22:41
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cio93 wrote:
Before I forget it altogether, massive thanks to hillis91 for this gorgeous WC jersey!
whitejersey wrote:
We will most definitely talk once that is allowed!
Fairly nice that you were at least able to regain some of the lost wage from Herklotz in Demare's reduction.
I'm very much looking forward to that, that should be the first time between our two teams?
Yeah it seems like Demare's 6 Giro stage wins year in '18 skyrocketed his wage way beyond the average, and I've slowly managed to get it back into the expected region lately. Even assuming that trend in advance, there's a lot of anxious debating going on before he gets an offer every season...
Most likely yes, but we will see
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 06-09-2021 22:53
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Posts: 2433
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You can expect a Kraftwerk Kommunication during transfers
P.S. Nice jersey indeed
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| SotD |
Posted on 07-09-2021 07:25
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World Champion
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*Looks up the frenchies*
"No, no, nope"
*Leaves*
Oh come on - A couple of those would most definately love the life at Festina. With Ganna in the team you don't need Cavagna surely.
Sagiv looks very interesting though - Not really my focused area unfortunately, but he would be a perfect fit with Karatzios and Kortsidakis. Sütterlin and Aregger too are interesting
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| ember |
Posted on 07-09-2021 07:39
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Niu being kind of available is interesting. After all, I guess we both have a soft spot for him after our «fight» to get him, and then seeing what he was able to do for you. There are also other riders here I’m sure we’ll talk about, eventhough they’ve got a strong NO next to their name  |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-09-2021 15:59
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@Fabianski:
There's been too much training cash involved to risk that. It'll be fun!
@DaveTwoBob:
I kan't wait!
@SotD:
Doubey can certainly be discussed, the rest is just too vital for the present and the future. Sagiv would love to join you though!
But the Frenchies are tough terrain unless I can find a way to truly go all-German at some point...and I'm pretty sure one day there won't be a hard no behind Demare anymore regardless!
@ember:
I will admit that was one of my prouder moments in hindsight, he's such a fun rider to follow and keeps surprising to the point where it's no longer a surprise.
There are a few European talents on my shortlist that could just about replace his role, but grabbing one of those plus being short on cash would probably be the requirement for a sale.
But there's always a good reason to have talks with you anyway indeed!
Edited by cio93 on 07-09-2021 16:32
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| the_hoyle |
Posted on 07-09-2021 18:38
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Grand Tour Champion
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Some interesting riders available... We might talk!
.: Manager of :.
.: My Awards :.
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 08-09-2021 03:58
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Bevin We will be in tough for sure!!!
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| cio93 |
Posted on 08-09-2021 09:07
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World Champion
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I'm excited to find out who has attracted your attention!
He was last seen whistling the Groundhog Day theme while leaving the team meeting where we announced our transfer plans to the riders...
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| SotD |
Posted on 08-09-2021 09:11
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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Yeah unfortunately I can't help with the germans.
Doubey isn't really interesting unfortunately, as I think I'm pretty well covered in that region with riders like Lafay, Rochas and Morin
But I'm sure we'll talk regardless
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 08-09-2021 09:42
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Naturally, we’ll be in conversation during transfers. I’ll wait till you sign some bargain talent and then take him on loan for you 
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| cio93 |
Posted on 13-09-2021 14:00
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World Champion
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Luis Leon Sanchez wrote:
Naturally, we’ll be in conversation during transfers. I’ll wait till you sign some bargain talent and then take him on loan for you
Not quite the for the reason you expected, but I'm very happy we talked!
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