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[PT] Evonik - ELKO | 2021
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| SotD |
Posted on 08-11-2021 07:26
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The season where you can actually feature a reasonable TTT setup is the year where you neglect participating alltogether 
I fully understand that you don't want to waste RD from Taaramae, Chiarello and MAL on a race like this unless you have a real shot at winning, but I guess Tvetcov, Crncevic, Polanc, Xandri, Navardauskas, Becis, Stoltz and Chavanne could have given you some points.
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 08-11-2021 09:04
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Classics Specialist
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Looking forward to see our teams meet for the first time ever in Portugal! Hofstetter and Maksimov will be fighting it out in the sprint(s).
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| knockout |
Posted on 08-11-2021 15:45
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Grand Tour Champion
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Croatia & Dark Wolf - Love you guys <3
Nemolito - I guess Maksimov is slightly favored for those ... I just hope that Hofstetter does indeed sprint there 
SotD wrote:
The season where you can actually feature a reasonable TTT setup is the year where you neglect participating alltogether
I fully understand that you don't want to waste RD from Taaramae, Chiarello and MAL on a race like this unless you have a real shot at winning, but I guess Tvetcov, Crncevic, Polanc, Xandri, Navardauskas, Becis, Stoltz and Chavanne could have given you some points.
Thanks for mentioning the points aspects - i love to talk about things like that: i looked closely at the situation and think it might be the right decision to skip the race from a point scoring analysis as well. Caution: Long rant ahead
Over the years, most teams have learned that you have to send 8 riders to be competitive in Copenhagen so any less riders and i only end up with 5 points in all likelyhood. Even if i send my A-team (without Taaramae/Lopez/Chiarello), i didnt see a way to score more than 10-15 points here. And that did not seem worth it from a RD / clashing races POV:
I only have three riders with 2+ free RDs left: Xandri (5 RDs), Waersted (17 RDs), Chavanne (14 RDs). Xandri is the only one of those not racing in Portugal -> the only rider i can add right to the TTT lineup.
The Portugal clash is the big reason why i ended up skipping. Chavanne and Stoltz have to ride there due to a prologue. Tvetcov also makes a lot of sense in Portugal and i think he will improve my Portugal scoring more than i could get in Copenhagen (finishing 50th in GC already adds 6 points).
Navardauskas & Waersted could have been swapped over to Copenhagen but would leave me with a 6 man lineup in Portugal with no rider having enough race days to replace them immediately. Also removes very unlikely long shot at prolog stage scoring (by them) and team classificaiton.
Crncevic could have been freed up by replacing him in a cobbled race with Chavanne but that also risks not getting any finishing points somewhere.
Polanc could have been replaced in Qatar (probably by Xandri after freeing up 3 race days elsewhere or Hofstetter by cutting 7 race days where he has an outside shot at sprinting) but had he overperformed his 74PRL in Qatar a bit, he could have been valuable as depth GC scoring and/or for the team classification with Stoltz & Chavanne as the anchors. Didn't work out but that was the idea behind it and seeing how random the prolog results were, i think that was the right call.
But i would have to find RDs by three more guys who are not yet racing in Portugal. Becis could be added to it but has basically no bad RDs all year. I guess he could be replaced in a flat or hilly classic (most likely by Waersted) but gives me much better chances at top 50 scoring.
Williams (63CB) basically only has Macskako Kerekparverseny where he could be left out but due to the Giro clash Navardauskas (50CB) is the only possible solution to replace him there (but would still need 2 RDs freed up elsewhere) and would eliminate the top 100 scoring option.
And for the final spot i would have to free up RDs for Neilands since the other options like Dzamastagic, Budenieks or Hofstetter are not much better in TTing but would have to remove better RDs.
All these changes would give me this lineup:
75-73-71-70-69-66-64-63
(Navardauskas - Crncevic - Xandri - Polanc - Becis - Williams - Waersted - Neilands)
Based on last seasons startlist that would have put me as 20th of 22 PT teams with both wildcard teams worse as well. This year, the wildcard teams are far superior to my lineup but there are two PT teams less in the division so expected finish would be around 20th. If i finish 20th, that gives me 5 total points for the team. If i overperform a bit and/or some teams struggle with RDs too and send a pure XP lineup or sth like that, 18th place sounds like a realistic ceiling for me. But that still only gives me 10 points for the entire team and I believe that is not worth all these changes as the scoring elsewhere could suffer from it (especially if the worst rider is the one usually joining breaks as has often been the case in pcm18 classics)
Even if we ignore the Portugal clash. The realistic lineup would still only be able to beat three of last years PT lineups in Copenhagen for ~10 points.
Navardauskas - Tvetcov - Crncevic - Xandri - Polanc - Becis - Stoltz - Chavanne
75 - 73 - 73 - 71 - 70 - 69 - 65 - 65
Heck, even if i add all my leaders for the best possible lineup (79-75-73-73-73-71-71-70) i probably end up around 15th for ~25 points
tl;dr: Yes, i miss out on 5 guaranteed points but it's hard to score any more than that for me. I rate my chances of getting the scoring back in other races. |
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| tastasol |
Posted on 08-11-2021 16:18
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Classics Specialist
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Excited to see Eislers in Sanremo. He should be a great fit. Even though we would lose the sprint, I'd be happy to have him joining a late attack.
Prologue battle in Tirreno coming up!
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| knockout |
Posted on 08-11-2021 19:25
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Grand Tour Champion
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Joined: 21-12-2010
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tastasol wrote:
Excited to see Eislers in Sanremo. He should be a great fit. Even though we would lose the sprint, I'd be happy to have him joining a late attack.
Prologue battle in Tirreno coming up!
Looking forward to both. In theory, Sanremo should be close to perfect for Eislers but we are yet to see any theory actually play out so far. As always a combined Grieg/Evonik late attack is something i would not oppose 
The prologue in Tirreno is basically the only hope for my team in the race so we better win the battle
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 09-11-2021 11:01
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Thanks for the comprehensive answer 
I wasn't aware of the fact that you had a Portugal clash. That obviously changes things a bit.
Your point about whether or not it's a good investment not to attend the race I only partly follow though. If the reason is that you have too little racedays for your riders, then I do agree, but I reckon that is only the case for Polanc maybe. The remaining riders have a lot of racedays. Not knowing your planning it's obviously difficult for me to ignore your analysis, but I had plenty of racedays to let Vlatos, Ioannidis, Mavrikakis, Spanopoulos, Giannoutsos, Kiriakidis and Farantakis race without it interfering with their "perfect plansituation". I have basically only thrown de la Cruz in, where I may have gotten a better outing having him as a helper in another oneday race like Lombardia or LBL. But realistically speaking he would come away with 5 points like any of my other possible solutions.
For me the main difference this season is, that you actually have a shot at featuring a decent setup, and 2 teams less means you automatically get pulled up. So the risk of getting just 5 points would heavily decrease.
I would put you ahead of Farfetch, Huski, Isostar, MOL and then maybe Grieg (depending on Würtz). On a very good day I could see you competing with the likes of Amaysim, Gazelle (Powless/Geogheghan?), Mapei, Xero, Zwift (Eastman/Cattaneo?).
So 12th-13th on a good day, 15th-16th on a mediocre one and 17-20th on a bad day.
Saying goodbye to 5-40 points while PTHC races often gives 0 for helpers doesn't make sense to me. It's equivalent to a good stage or KOM result, which I know we'll both happily take
But the more managers neglecting the race the better for me. We come with an average of 73,6 TT which will hopefully land us a top 10 - but I guess it's always a little bit of a gamble. I could have increased to 74,5 by swapping in Lecuisinier for Giannoutsos, but that would obviously be an idiotic move.
I hope you have your math settled and it pays out as a good "gamble", but of course we'll never know for sure
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-11-2024 06:08
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| knockout |
Posted on 09-11-2021 17:46
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SotD wrote:
I would put you ahead of Farfetch, Huski, Isostar, MOL and then maybe Grieg (depending on Würtz). On a very good day I could see you competing with the likes of Amaysim, Gazelle (Powless/Geogheghan?), Mapei, Xero, Zwift (Eastman/Cattaneo?).
[...]
So 12th-13th on a good day, 15th-16th on a mediocre one and 17-20th on a bad day.
I think either you overrate my team a bit or we have different thoughts about how random TTTs are (and in that case I'm probably the one in the wrong) but i think that 75 - 73 - 73 - 71 - 70 - 69 - 65 - 65 is too far away from many of those teams to bet on a good day.
Huski and Isostar i agree. Farfetch maybe if they throw it which might make sense for them. MOL can probably send sth like a 76-74-72-71-69-67-67-66 which is fairly even to my best realistic lineup here.
Grieg even without Würtz & Wisniowski & Kragh Andersen would be able to send a 77-76-73-72-72-70-69-68 which is far stronger than everything i could send.
Amaysim could come with sth like 76-76-76-75-71-69-68-67 which should be far better than mine.
I suspect that Gazelle will send at least one of Powless/Hart and then its sth like 78-76-75-71-71-70-69-68 .
Mapei has 77-73-72-72-70-x-x-x with the Xs basically being whichever 67-70 guys have some RDs left. Again better than mine.
Xero has 78-76-74-73-72-70-68-68 who probably should all ride this so another team that i cant really beat.
Zwift even without Cattaneo and Eastman could send a 77-77-73-72-71-68-68-67 lineup which is superior to mine and i could see them sending them here as they might have a top 6-7 team with their best lineup.
So by my count that leaves me as 17th-18th if i decide to send my "good" team here which would be 10-15 points worth on an average day.
Sure, there is a chance that some teams only send 6-7 riders and basically disqualify themselves from the higher spots that way but history has shown that most PT managers will send 8 decent riders here and not throw the race. It's always a risk that these planning assumptions are wrong and then i might regret the decision but for now, i bet on the Portugal route being a great fit for Tvetcov and that he alone could already make up for missing out Copenhagen with a top 25-30 GC result.
Spoiler and without Tvetcov the rest of my TTT lineup surely would not be good enough to score more than 5 points |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 09-11-2021 19:43
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knockout wrote:
Xero has 78-76-74-73-72-70-68-68 who probably should all ride this so another team that i cant really beat.
lol
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
5x  x5
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| SotD |
Posted on 10-11-2021 07:19
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World Champion
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I think you might overestimate how much of an effort other managers put into the raceplanning when they have a team that is unlikely to get a good result.
For Gazelle I suspect that Powless/Hart is in the same category as some of your riders - Aren't they better spent elsewhere when you can't possibly get a top 5 anyway?
I fully understand you not selecting Tvetcov due to clashes - and I do fully aknowledge that I didn't have put the clash into consideration before you mentioned it. Some of your competition have that same clash though and will probably have a weaker TTT race because of that.
Anyway, my feel is just that you would likely get something like 10-15 points from the race - maybe more, but I fully understand that especially Tvetcov can easily score more in Portugal. The question is whether he'll score better in Portugal than in TTT + 7 RD. We'll never know
I hope more peope have opted to neglect the TTT so we can get some points
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| knockout |
Posted on 26-02-2022 22:17
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Grand Tour Champion
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Rein Taaramäe wins Vuelta a España
Half a year ago, we presented Rein Taaramäe as our new key signing for the season. It was no coincidence that we used a podium picture from his 2019 Vuelta victory for the presentation as the belief that he would be able to contest for the overall victory in this very race was the deciding factor in pushing for the transfer move.
Once the startlist was revealed, everyone was correctly expecting the battle of three former Vuelta winners to compete for their second Vuelta win: 2012 winner Angel Madrazo vs 2013 winner Justo Tenorio vs 2019 winner Rein Taaramäe with no clear favourite between them.
After a couple of flat stages without an impact on the overall classification, the time trial on stage 6 was the first day of importance. Tenorio won the stage and earned the right to wear red but Taaramae finished as 3rd on the day to climb up to 2nd in the overall classification just 16 seconds behind Tenorio - gaining 48 seconds on Madrazo.
The peloton reached the mountains on day 9 with a very steep finish at the Peña Carbarga. Taaramäe proved that he had great legs by winning the stage but the stage was mostly insignificant because the favourites finished together. On the very next day, the legendary Alto de l’Angliru was the stage destination where Tenorio won the stage 45 seconds ahead of Taaramäe (4th) and Madrazo (6th).
Two days later Taaramäe took control of the race (stage 12). After his team mates dropped every other domestique from the group of favourites, he started a 7.6 km long solo on the Sierra Nevada and was not caught by anyone. He finished the stage 59 seconds ahead of Madrazo and 97 seconds ahead of Tenorio which was not only good enough for the stage win but also meant that he had captured the race lead with an advantage of 36 seconds over Tenorio.
Starting on stage 15, a string of four crucial mountain stages was on the schedule starting with a top finish on the Cortals d’Encamp in Andorra. Instead of riding defensively to defend red, Taaramae continued to race aggressively and attacked the other favourites with 8.6km to go. Tenorio and Madrazo still had team mates with them to chase but it was not enough to stop Taaramäe from celebrating his third stage win of the race. Madrazo only lost 12 seconds but Tenorio lost over a minute. And on the next day, a mountainous time trial in Andorra, he was only able to gain back seven seconds to runner-up Taaramäe which meant that our Estonian had a gap of two minutes to defend in the final three mountain stages.
Despite a few glimpses of possible weaknesses of Taaramäe, stage 17 ended up without any major impact and the favourites crossed the finish line on the Valter 2000 together. And the next day, same result: No time differences between the favourites although Taaramäe struggled a lot more than on previous days and probably would have lost some time if his team mates would not have carried him back to the group of favourites inside the final two kilometers.
The final showdown came on stage 20 with the last summit finish of the race on the Bola del Mundo. Madrazo and Tenorio both tried the long range attacks that they needed to do to challenge for red but Evonik succesfully defended the jersey once again without losing any time - even gaining further time on Tenorio. A day later, Rein Taaramäe could celebrate the first Grand Tour victory in Evonik history.
| 1 | Rein Taaramäe | Evonik - ELKO | 82h04'07 | | 2 | Justo Tenorio | MOL | + 2'35 | | 3 | Angel Madrazo | Gazelle | + 2'55 |
After starting as a German team in 2014, we announced our plans to focus on Latvian riders prior to the 2015 season with the ambition to develop cycling in the Baltic states. In the seventh season, we won a Grand Tour with our Baltic star rider while his key domestiques were three homegrown Latvian climbers in Martins Blums, Andris Vosekalns and Kristaps Budenieks who had major impact in defending opponent's attacks. If there was any doubt left, this confirms that we have succeeded in developing Baltic cycling.
Evonik controls the pace on the Port d’Envalira (Stage 17)
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 27-02-2022 03:22
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Congrats on the win, the team and Taaramäe were uniformly excellent. My pick from your team, other than the leader, was Blums, he was very consistent on all terrain.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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| Laurens147 |
Posted on 27-02-2022 10:25
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Congrats knockout! Great to see your success with Baltic/Latvian riders!
MG - Lotto - Caloi
[MG] New Manager of the Year - PCM.daily Awards 2022
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| knockout |
Posted on 27-02-2022 12:44
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Grand Tour Champion
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Ulrich - Based on the reports it was hard to pick one between Blums and Vosekalns. Blums was super consistent but Vosekalns had some huge moments of chasing down attacks / thinning out the group while lacking a bit of Blums' consistency. But i trust your judgement there
Laurens - Thanks! I love how much that baltic core contributes to the team, too
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 01-03-2022 11:57
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Huge congrats on the win once again. I must admit that when you signed Taaramäe I thought it was a number too late to gain any real benefit, also considering the points/wage aspect, but winning a Grand Tour and taking 2-3? stagewins along the way certainly makes it worthwhile. I suspect he will catapult into something like 1500-1700 points after this race which is already better than last season.
I haven't followed his RD situation though, does he have more racedays to actually make him fight towards 2000 points this season?
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 01-03-2022 15:14
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All those years of win GT goal was always the long-term objective
Great stuff from Taaramae and huge congrats on the win  . The pivot from a classics focused team to a stage racing unit (probably overall unit) is now complete!
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 01-03-2022 17:27
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Tour de France Champion
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That pic of the full Evonik mountain train is really sick to see. Massive congrats on the Vuelta win! Glad I bet on Rein.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| knockout |
Posted on 01-03-2022 19:30
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
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SotD wrote:
Huge congrats on the win once again. I must admit that when you signed Taaramäe I thought it was a number too late to gain any real benefit, also considering the points/wage aspect, but winning a Grand Tour and taking 2-3? stagewins along the way certainly makes it worthwhile. I suspect he will catapult into something like 1500-1700 points after this race which is already better than last season.
I haven't followed his RD situation though, does he have more racedays to actually make him fight towards 2000 points this season?
Thanks a lot! Haven't checked exactly how many points he got during the Vuelta but it was 3 stage wins plus iirc one 2nd place, one 3rd place and one 4th place as well as being 2nd in GC since day 6 and leader since day 12. That's ~1000 points plus some minor stuff. Unfortunately, no big points via minor classifications. Add the 315 points he had previously and he should be somewhere around 1400 points right now.
He has two more races left: He will race in the upcoming 2,5-header (Java/Suisse/Dauphine) and one "classic" so getting to 2000 is a tough ask but he should at least get a bit closer to it.
Gotta say I was fairly convinced that Taaramae was going to at least match his scoring from last season if not improve it - mostly due last season's Giro win being such a scoring desaster for him that an average 2nd or 3rd place could outscore it too and the Vuelta route looking so promising for Taaramäe both in terms of route and expected startlist. Of course winning the Vuelta with three stage wins is pretty much the best case scenario but i wouldnt have paid so much (wage and fee) if i didnt think this was a realistic possibility. But it was obviously a big gamble and not exactly plan A
Abhi - I know that it might look like a pivot from classics to a stage racing team and there is of course a lot of truth to it but to me it still feels like i have that same classic focus i always had with Lopez as a top puncheur, Eislers as a big sprinter and Polanc as a pretty strong cobbler. But of course, Eislers & Polanc are a downgrade compared to the worldclass leaders i've had in the past and Taaramäe and Chiarello offer qualities i didnt have before.
The next offseason probably marks an important decision whether we properly pivot towards a different focus or if we stick with our previous orientation... and the most interesting thing about it is that I'm pretty clueless about which way i want to go myself.
bbl - It might just be my all time favourite MG pic already. Spontanously, I'd say it's either this or a picture from the 2015 Paris - Roubaix with Boonen and Bewley on the way to the Velodrome. Thanks!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 01-03-2022 21:29
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Tour de France Champion
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knockout wrote:
bbl - It might just be my all time favourite MG pic already. Spontanously, I'd say it's either this or a picture from the 2015 Paris - Roubaix with Boonen and Bewley on the way to the Velodrome. Thanks!
Well in that case I'd have to choose 2015 Roubaix, since I took those screens.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| redordead |
Posted on 02-03-2022 07:03
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It hasn't been a great season for you, if I've followed enough of PT. But I'm gonna guess winning a Grand Tour largely makes up for that
Great to see Rein justify the big transfer fee
I'll also be interested to see in what direction the team goes in the future.
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| knockout |
Posted on 02-03-2022 08:04
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
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Pretty spot on. The season is riddled with inconsistency for me with every of my leaders having some fairly disappointing results while the secondary scorers were ineffective so far as well. There were good results too but it just was not good enough to match the number of disappointments.
Winning a GT is very sweet. I was eyeing the title in case of a good Taaramae GT but even now, i probably also need to win the Tour to have a shot at it now due to all those low scoring disappointments and due to Isostar and Puma almost never failing a race ... 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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