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Milano - San Remo - Discussion
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 06-12-2021 10:12
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Classics Specialist
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Preview made by knockout, race report made by Nemolito
Buon giorno! It is time for the first monument and the longest race of the year. Many of the cyclists and cycling fans at home will be familiar with the route:
The biggest challenge of the race is surely the pure distance of this race with 293,8 km of racing ahead of the riders but the route includes some famous climbs that shape the race as we know it.
The highest point of the route is the Passo del Turchino - a long climb but not particularly steep. As the climb is around the halfway point of the race, you usually wont see much action here. The Cipressa is much closer to the finish line as the riders pass it as the penultimate climb of the day with around 30 km to go. It's 6km long with an average gradient of 4%. Although it is rare that a deciding move happens on the Cipressa, you usually see some long range atttempts by outsiders and the climb can hurt participating sprinters who can't climb too well if raced fast.
The most crucial climb of the route however is the last one: The Poggio located well inside the final ten kilometres. It might only be 3.5 km long with an average gradient of 3,7% but the pure distance leading up to the climb and the closeness to the finish line make it the best opportunity to snatch the victory away from the top sprinters. After the Poggio, only a difficult technical decent is between the riders and the Via Roma where the race comes to an end.
Milano San Remo is also arguably one of the races with the longest list of favourites as history has shown that the race can be won in different ways. In the past years, more often than not, sprinters or punchy sprinters have been victarious on the Via Roma but also puncheurs and even climbers were able to celebrate their victories. Here is how they won:
2020: John Degenkolb (ISA - Hexacta) wins a sprints of a ~30 rider group after the peleton split at the foot of the Poggio after an effort mostly by Dzamastagic.
2019: Edvald Boasson Hagen (Air France - KLM) attacked together with Stoltz, Kneisky and Ji with 12 km to go (~4 km before the start of the Poggio) and goes solo as soon as the climb starts.
2018: Nick Van der Lijke (EA Vesuvio) wins a mass sprint of 172 riders.
2017: Michael Van Stayen (Evonik – ELKO) wins from a group of 23 riders in a decimated group sprint.
2016: Sam Bewley (Becherovka - Petrof) wins a mass sprint of 154 riders.
2015: Sam Bewley (Becherovka - Petrof) wins a mass sprint of 154 riders.
2014: Riccardo Ricco (Festina-Canal+) did a solo attack on the Poggio and narrowly avoided being caught by less than a bike length.
2013: Tom Boonen (Pokerstars.com) wins a mass sprint of 129 riders.
2012: Diego Ulissi (Festina - Conec) follows an attack by Ballan on the foot of the Poggio together with Pozzovivo and Bakelandts and goes solo over the top. A small group behind cant cooperate to bring him back.
2011: Alessandro Ballan (Sony Ericsson) went solo from on the downhill from the Capo Berta and defended his lead over Cipressa and Poggio to the Via Roma for the most dominant victory in San Remo history.
2010: Filippo Pozzato (Crédit Lyonnais), Sanchez, Hagen, Ballan and Steegmans got a small gap of a few seconds over a larger group of favourites with just 3km to go and Pozzato wins the group sprints..
2009: Franco Pellizotti (Accumalux - Formex) was part of a five men attack with Valverde, Boogerd, Rodriguez Oliver and Sanchez Gonzalez before the Cipressa starts. Valverde dropped out of the group on the Cipressa and Pellizotti wins the sprint of four.
2008: Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez (Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team) counter attacked on the Cipressa and solo'd to the finish line.
2007: Filippo Pozzato (AG2R Prevoyance) is part of a 11 riders group that attacked with 20km left and wins the group sprint.
Punchy Sprinters
| FL | HI | ST | RS | SP | AC | DH |  Demare | 73 | 80 | 75 | 72 | 82 | 81 | 63 |  Van der Lijke | 73 | 76 | 73 | 71 | 82 | 79 | 63 |  Houle | 78 | 75 | 76 | 71 | 79 | 78 | 69 |  Yates | 74 | 81 | 77 | 70 | 77 | 80 | 64 |
Two of the last four editions were won by punchy sprinters. Nick Van der Lijke (1st 2018) was one of them and would love a repeat this year. He finished 9th in the two most recent editions.
Arnaud Demare is one of those names that always pop up in the discussion every year and rightfully so since he finished each of the last four editions in the top 6. His sponsors have set a podium goal for the race which he only managed to achieve once in 2019 with a 3rd place finish.
Hugo Houle might not be the biggest name amongst the punchy sprinters but has a proven track record for this race too. He has three top ten finishes to his name with a 5th place in 2017 as his biggest result so far.
Simon Yates is arguably the strongest puncheur amongst the punchy sprinter but might struggle from a lack of route knowledge as he has never finished this race. His brother Adam finished 42nd in his only participation in 2018 so everything other than a new family-best would be a disappointment.
The Sprinters
| FL | HI | ST | RS | SP | AC | DH |  Degenkolb | 76 | 69 | 73 | 71 | 84 | 81 | 61 |  Coquard | 73 | 67 | 71 | 74 | 84 | 83 | 65 |  Gaviria | 76 | 72 | 74 | 76 | 83 | 84 | 71 |  Ewan | 75 | 71 | 73 | 71 | 83 | 81 | 71 |  Ahlstrand | 74 | 67 | 74 | 73 | 83 | 82 | 64 |  Grosu | 73 | 73 | 74 | 70 | 83 | 80 | 70 |  Eislers | 79 | 67 | 77 | 78 | 82 | 78 | 62 |  Groenewegen | 73 | 67 | 74 | 71 | 82 | 81 | 64 | | Bewley | 76 | 69 | 75 | 73 | 81 | 80 | 75 |  Samolenkov | 74 | 64 | 75 | 71 | 81 | 79 | 70 |  Van Asbroeck | 75 | 71 | 75 | 72 | 80 | 78 | 68 |  Hsu | 75 | 67 | 75 | 70 | 80 | 79 | 71 |
John Degenkolb is the reigning champion but has only finished one other time in the top ten (2nd in 2016).
Bryan Coquard also had his strongest ever finish in last year's edition (4th) with a 19th place in 2019 being the best result of his previous three participations.
Fernando Gaviria is a San Remo virgin who should immediately be one of the biggest favourites for this race.
Caleb Ewan has been stuck in the PCT for the entirety of his career but has received a wildcard for this monument for the third year in a row. Finishing 6th and 2nd respectively, he is definitely amongst the riders to watch.
Jonas Ahlstrand has a single top 10 result to his career, finishing 7th last year.
Eduard Grosu is another constant in this race with a proven track record. This will be his 7th consecutive participation and he finished top 6 in four of the last five editions with 2018 being his only podium finish (3rd)
Ingus Eislers will participate for the 2nd time in his young career. He had to sacrifice his chances at a better result for an inattentive Van Stayen last season and only finished 34th but as one of the toughest sprinters to crack, he could be a man to watch tomorrow.
Dylan Groenewegen finished the race 2nd in 2019 but it's his only top 20 result to date. He will hope that he will do better than last year when he finished down in 24th.
Sam Bewley. The man, the myth, the legend. One of only two two-time-winners (after Filippo Pozzato) and the only back-to-back winner of this race. He has finished in the top 3 a total of six times but finished outside of the top 10 in the last two editions. He will hope that his time at the top isnt over yet.
Artem Samolenkov's best MSR result so far is a 10th place finish from last year's edition.
Van Asbroeck might have had a long career already but rarely got the opportunity to race in monuments due to mostly riding in PCT teams. His 9th place in 2018 came from from a wildcard participation and he will hope to once again do well as a wildcard participant.
Hsuan Ping Hsu will do his third Milano San Remo after finishing 97th in 2019 and 17th in 2020.
The Puncheurs
| FL | HI | ST | RS | SP | AC | DH |  Sagan | 72 | 83 | 78 | 74 | 73 | 76 | 78 | | Lutsenko | 69 | 83 | 76 | 73 | 72 | 81 | 70 | | Koretzky | 73 | 81 | 77 | 70 | 71 | 79 | 70 |  Waeytens | 70 | 80 | 72 | 70 | 66 | 73 | 75 | | Gidich | 72 | 80 | 78 | 77 | 62 | 75 | 68 | | Ulissi | 75 | 79 | 82 | 70 | 73 | 74 | 62 |
In recent years, puncheurs were mostly beaten by sprinters for top honors. Because of that, 2012 winner Diego Ulissi is the only puncheur on the startlist that knows how it feels to win on the Via Roma.
Peter Sagan has a 20th place as his best result (2015). However, he always was second fiddle to Sam Bewley so never got enough freedom to race for his own victory. This year he is the sole captain of Moser and is arguably the strongest puncheur in the startlist so it would not be a surprise to see him cross the Poggio first.
Alexey Lutsenko finished as 21st last season which is his best result from four participations.
Koretzky finished three times in the top 30 with a 10th place in 2017 being his strongest result so far.
Zico Waeytens will participate for a third time this year. His best result was a 48th place for 2018's wildcard team Lierse SK which might be the most satisfying result he had for them during his entire stay at the longterm PCT team.
Yevgeniy Gidich is a San Remo virgin as he has never participated before. If he wants to be succesful, he will have to enter the Poggio decent solo or in a small group.
The Rouleurs & Cobblers
| FL | HI | ST | RS | SP | AC | DH | Best Result |  Andersen | 81 | 65 | 77 | 78 | 76 | 74 | 71 | 3. (2020) | | Wisniowski | 80 | 71 | 75 | 76 | 73 | 76 | 73 | 13. (2x) | | Cherkasov | 80 | 71 | 72 | 74 | 70 | 75 | 67 | - |  Culey | 79 | 65 | 77 | 76 | 66 | 70 | 67 | 72. (2020) | | Stoltz | 79 | 67 | 74 | 77 | 61 | 72 | 72 | 15. (2019) | | Per | 79 | 70 | 74 | 75 | 74 | 74 | 72 | 22. (2020) | | Summerhill | 78 | 73 | 76 | 72 | 70 | 73 | 73 | 16. (2013) | | Dzamastagic | 78 | 70 | 76 | 72 | 76 | 78 | 66 | 11. (2020) | | Vermeersch | 77 | 70 | 74 | 78 | 74 | 72 | 78 | - | | Pedersen | 77 | 69 | 78 | 80 | 78 | 77 | 71 | 32. (2019) | | Gerts | 77 | 78 | 76 | 80 | 72 | 70 | 67 | 25. (2019) |
While Milano San Remo is usually seen as the battle between sprinters and puncheurs and those that belong to both categories, there is another group that could be considered as outsiders too and had a big impact on racing in the last two editions: The rouleurs that can make things happen and the cobblers that know how to race long tough races. In 2020, rouleurs forced a split at the foot of the Poggio that eliminated several top favourites while in 2019, Boasson Hagen's victory was helped a lot by an attack of three strong rouleurs.
Here is the full startlist:
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| SotD |
Posted on 06-12-2021 10:16
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World Champion
Posts: 12188
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As always we come with the better of two worlds. A top class sprinter and a top class puncheur. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
We usually hope for a top 10 here, let's try to up the ante and ask for a top 5 this time. Coquard did unreasonably well last season to podium. I guess it's not realistic for him to do so twice, but you'll never know!
Funny sidenote:
We have had this race as a win goal 3 times. In 2011, 2013 and 2015. We won the race in 2012 and 2014 where we did not.
Edited by SotD on 06-12-2021 10:21
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| roturn |
Posted on 06-12-2021 10:28
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Team Manager
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Groenewegen can perform here, but not sure he does again...a top5 would be great in a sprinter race.
If some attacks start, I can only hope some of Barbin, Vermeersch, van der Hoorn, Sergent will follow here and there and might be lucky in the end.
In the past neither had regular luck with puncheurs, so spending 2 rd with De Bie here not really worth it for the gamble.
Edited by roturn on 06-12-2021 10:28
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 06-12-2021 10:28
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World Champion
Posts: 14563
Joined: 08-08-2011
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My boy Gaviria ready to win in his first time here!
Also, good Waeytens joke! Always appreciated!
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 06-12-2021 10:30
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 18187
Joined: 12-05-2012
PCM$: 0.00
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Caleb Ewan has been stuck in the PCT for the entirety of his career but has received a wildcard for this monument for the third year in a row. Finishing 6th and 2nd respectively, he is definitely amongst the riders to watch.
Factually incorrect, but close.
2nd straight Wildcard, but we were actually a full PT team in 2019 (shocking but true!). Ewan also spent a year riding for us in the CT in 2016.
That said he usually goes well here, so fingers crossed for another Top10 result. Decent support team around him. Keep an eye on Alex Mayer, he's shown already this season a semi-hilly/flat sprint race can go very well for him.
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 06-12-2021 10:50
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9099
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We are hoping for the win here. I'd imagine Lutsenko and Per being in the game for Gaviria and/or giving us options, but at the end of the day I hope we can lead Gaviria into the final and use his acceleration to win it.
Thanks for the awesome preview knockout and thanks to Nemolito for taking it up!
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| knockout |
Posted on 06-12-2021 12:53
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Had a lot of fun looking through the MSR history for this and am pretty hyped for this. This was a pretty disappointing race last season so I'm looking for blood this time around. First time we are racing here without Van Stayen but Eislers should be a strong leader for this. His flat power combo should do great here and as little as that usually means, I'm stoked to have the #1 bib.
TheManxMissile wrote:
Caleb Ewan has been stuck in the PCT for the entirety of his career but has received a wildcard for this monument for the third year in a row. Finishing 6th and 2nd respectively, he is definitely amongst the riders to watch.
Factually incorrect, but close.
2nd straight Wildcard, but we were actually a full PT team in 2019 (shocking but true!). Ewan also spent a year riding for us in the CT in 2016.
Ups 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 06-12-2021 13:30
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 18187
Joined: 12-05-2012
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knockout wrote:
TheManxMissile wrote:
Caleb Ewan has been stuck in the PCT for the entirety of his career but has received a wildcard for this monument for the third year in a row. Finishing 6th and 2nd respectively, he is definitely amongst the riders to watch.
Factually incorrect, but close.
2nd straight Wildcard, but we were actually a full PT team in 2019 (shocking but true!). Ewan also spent a year riding for us in the CT in 2016.
Ups
Don't worry, we were such a bad PT team it's an understandable mistake 
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| tastasol |
Posted on 06-12-2021 14:39
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2889
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Looking forward to this one! Will be hard to repeat the result from last year, but hopefully we can do something in the final. Might be a slight question regarding how the game will handle Kragh's somewhat weak hill stat and if it's any different from last year with a new game and such, but I hope to have a couple of guys near the front towards the end.
Looking at the sprints we've had so far this season, it will be interesting to see how this one goes. Gaviria probably the favourite for my, but wouldn't be surprised to see an outsider taking it.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 25-11-2024 05:12
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| SotD |
Posted on 06-12-2021 15:34
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World Champion
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Croatia14 wrote:
We are hoping for the win here. I'd imagine Lutsenko and Per being in the game for Gaviria and/or giving us options, but at the end of the day I hope we can lead Gaviria into the final and use his acceleration to win it.
Thanks for the awesome preview knockout and thanks to Nemolito for taking it up!
That's fine by me, aslong as you drag Coquard to the line in 2nd.
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 06-12-2021 16:31
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Grand Tour Champion
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Fantasic preview! So many stats and interesting notes to set the stage. Almost reads like a cheat sheet for a TV commentor of stuff to point out during the race.
As for Yates, his first crack at a monument win with his upgraded stats. Should be fun to see how he matches up against the other veteran favourites... most notably Demare. 
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 06-12-2021 16:47
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World Champion
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Yes, Grosu is usually pretty consistent in this race so I'm hoping for some good points if it comes down to a sprint.
Still waiting for Gerts to achieve something in this race, though, as I think he was a very good combination of stats for it.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-12-2021 05:31
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World Champion
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Great preview!
The first monument of the season is again the one we have the best shot at, but it might be the first time that it's Demare's season opener as well.
Coming from two consecutive wins, we head straight into our second season goal, and it would be massive for our momentum and the season as a whole if we could repeat 2019.
We lose van Stayen as a main rival, but it comes at the cost of gaining Gaviria and Yates.
On a good day and with hard racing over the hills, the podium remains very much achievable though, and even after four years, I still dream of more than that!
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 07-12-2021 06:15
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World Champion
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A real “PCT strong” squad for us here - I think it’s good with Jams, Meurisse, Tesfaye and MVN supporting Houle but then I remember the competition we’ve got this year and I’m not so sure. Looking forward to it, awesome preview knockout and I’m sure Nemo is cooking a report to match 
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
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 07-12-2021 09:27
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Small Tour Specialist
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Hope we join the long range breakaway because that's pretty much our only chance of a good result.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 07-12-2021 13:13
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See us smash the PT with 2 Top 10s, 4 Top 30s and 0 points 
Thanks for the great preview knockout!
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| SotD |
Posted on 07-12-2021 18:39
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World Champion
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Well that has to be the lamest version of the Milano San Remo ever in the history of the Man-Game.
Given the crappy finale with random blokes all over the place I can’t complain with 8th from Koretzky combined with some reasonable depth, but from a neutral point of view this was a disaster.
I must say that I become increasingly unessy with this game version, that I think may end up doing more damage than good to the game community. I fear quite some managers will end up letting go of the game if the gameplay doesn’t significantly improve.
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 07-12-2021 18:44
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World Champion
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So yeah, there's no refunds for Gaviria..
Weird race, but it does feel like the one we had this year with a late attack from Stuyven. Still no clue what the sprinters were doing though.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 07-12-2021 18:58
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World Champion
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That was the worst MSR ever, but with the best result ever!! 
I can't believe the best transfer decision I've made this year was to not sell Aregger for cheap! With a podium goal, these final 200 metres became even more intense.
And our best transfer decision of the last years period seems to have been the late bid and subsequent silent auction on Yikui Niu, with this surely being the biggest among his many overperformances.
Of course I'll be the first to apologize for that quite ridiculous depth scoring, but on the other hand, I've steadily built my squad around Demare to be perfect for MSR: durable on the hills and fast in the sprint if the positioning is right!
That was certainly done with sprint trains in mind, but on the weird days like these, it comes in handy in an even more important fashion.
And to be fair, if the AI had been at least half sane from the top of the Poggio onwards, we would've had a brilliant train going leading the downhill and into San Remo, with potentially similar points scoring on the line.
Congrats go out to the two teams having an even better time here, particularly to tsmoha who certainly didn't buy Summerhill with THIS monument in mind, but there you go mate!
ISA with three in the Top 15 as well were just as lucky as we were, with a massive shoutout to Guy Sagiv! I would've kept him if I had known this.
Zwift also with great depth scoring in their bid to stay in PT, the three of us got super lucky here, although we've all had a big pre-race favorites if it had played out regularly (who coincidentally all finished the worst of our top trios).
Thank you Nemolito, I hope you don't feel bad about the finale, you've reported on this mess brilliantly and hopefully made it at least a bit fun for the teams less fortunate than us as well.
That concludes a crazy two weeks of racing in Italy and Austria, with a frankly outrageous points total and our first two sponsor goals passed.
It can't go much better than this going forward, but we should already have a decent buffer now to deal with less consistent stretches.
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 07-12-2021 19:00
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Grand Tour Champion
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Really bizarre. But I'll happily take four inside the Top 17.
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![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
