Indeed, September racing isn't fully over. However, with just 3 races in October, I thought the updates were better balanced if we just move Rheden/Battenkill over to the Pre-Final rankings. I hope you're fine with that!
Period Ranking: September
Without the cobbled end-of-month PTHC classics, there are just 4 races in September - including the final stage races for PT teams!
But we'll start with the classics - there were two of those for the men with thick legs. Paris - Tours became Gaviria's prey, and our defending champions from Isostar went home with 185 points. And given that 2nd place went to PCT in that race, there's a big gap to the next PT team, which is Huski with 104 points. Whereof 100 are the reward for Grosu's 3rd place. Demare got 90 points for 4th - and that's the score for Puma as 3rd best team in their sprinter's home race.
GP Moscow was Tinkoff's and Samolenkov's home sprint race - but they clearly weren't among the highest scoring teams. Instead, Ewan made this a big race for ISA, who brought 260 points back to Latin America. Gaviria took "only" second this time, but with three of his teammates finishing inside the Top 50, Isostar still scored 211 points. It was a close call for 3rd, but Aegon with Groenewegen (3rd) just edged out Puma with Demare (7th) and Steimle (9th) by 164 vs. 161 points.
So, classics are done - it's stage race time now! And Balkans means it's MAL time! Winning stage 1, he never gave away the GC lead afterwards, added three more stage Top 5s and the points win on top of that - 351 points for him alone, and 372 points for Evonik! Who cares about depth?
King Power do, at least a little more, with Gidich getting rewarded with 171 points despite a last stage stinker and only 6th in the GC (despite two stage podiums earlier on) - and the rest of the team (mainly Sosa) scoring 79 points, that's still a solid 250 points haul for the Thai.
Sagan only had one really good stage - but 2nd place on the final day also propelled him up to 2nd in the GC, and he scored 168 out of Moser's 181 points.
Surprisingly - despite one day more, and PT points scale - the high score in Northern Europe was just 4 points higher than in Balkans, meaning the points were much more equally distributed. Unsurprisingly, those 376 points went to MOL, thanks to Kwiatkowski winning the final stage and - most importantly - the GC. 312 of those points were scored by the GC winner.
EA Vesuvio also scored above 300 points, with Oliveira taking 3rd in the GC after a pretty anonymous ride. Van der Lijke was way less anonymous, taking a stage win, a total of 3 Top 5 results and the points jersey. 339 points for the Luxembourgers!
GC runner-up Wisniowski was the 2nd best individual scorer with 222 points, but with his teammates only contributing some 50-odd points, that's only enough for 3rd for Aker, totalling 278 points. Which are just 2 more than King Power, by the way.
A honorable mention also to Gamper, who would've been 3rd highest individual scorer, if he did qualify for PT points. Lierse would've been the 5th highest scoring team...
But honorable mentions aren't worth anything at the end of the day, as all that counts are points. And there were 605 points for this month's top team - which was Evonik! However, King Power in 2nd and MOL in 3rd both are less than 10 points behind, showing just how freakingly close this division can be!
With this in mind, it's already a big gap down to EA in 4th, with the Luxembourgers scoring 549 points. Isostar and ISA are above 500 points as well - the former being the highest scoring team not participating in Balkans!
Puma are 7th, however losing another 60 points to Isostar riding the same schedule. ELCO and Aegon scored more than 400 points as well.
At the other end of the table, Polar are the losers of the month, scoring just 177 points. And UBS - despite a stage win in TONE - can't make a step towards safety, either, getting just 5 points more. Zwift are the only other team below 200 scoring below 200 points. Of the other low-scorers, let's mention LPH and Duolingo, both being unable to cross the 300 points mark despite riding Balkans.
And here's the full overview:
P-T
Bal
Mosc
TONE
Total
1
Evonik - ELKO
0
372
59
174
605
2
King Power
0
250
72
276
598
3
MOL Cycling Team
0
166
55
376
597
4
EA Vesuvio
0
132
78
339
549
5
Isostar - Specialized
185
0
211
130
526
6
ISA - Hexacta
46
92
260
116
514
7
Team Puma - SAP
90
0
161
214
465
8
ELCO - ABEA
0
62
148
221
431
9
Aegon - Peroni
86
66
164
96
412
10
cycleYorkshire
0
64
101
234
399
11
Huski Chocolate
104
0
142
144
390
12
Aker - MOT
0
0
106
278
384
13
Moser - Sygic
2
181
64
75
322
14
Duolingo
0
49
71
179
299
15
Gazelle
0
0
60
208
268
16
De Stijl Cycling
4
0
45
199
248
17
Grieg-Maersk
0
0
123
101
224
18
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
0
0
80
140
220
19
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
10
97
101
208
20
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
4
57
135
196
21
Team UBS
0
0
69
113
182
22
Polar
43
0
54
80
177
Full Ranking
So, what does that mean overall? Well, Isostar definitely once again had a huge season - and we can already say that, as they've just got Lombardia left to race. They currently total 7459 points - which is clearly below last year's winning score of 9294, and also a whole lot below 8643, which would just be a linear reduction by 7% (just like the RDs).
But can we compare to last year? Maybe not, as there were two PT teams less - and the two top teams were just insanely strong. Isostar are still a whole lot above the rest, having extended their lead over Puma to 600 points - with the Germans also just having Lombardia to race. They'd need to absolutely dominate the race to still win the title - unlikely.
However, beware of King Power in 3rd place! The Thai are just 17 points behind Puma right now - and have two additional races to go! Projections logically see them finish 2nd - still with a huge gap to Isostar, though.
With a 500 points gap over 4th place, it clearly looks like these three teams will indeed end up on the podium. Aker are now looking pretty safe in 4th place, as they're almost 200 points ahead of Tinkoff now.
The Russians, on the other hand, are also almost 200 points clear of EA, who jumped up from 10th to 6th. The fight for the Top 10 spots will be fierce, though, as we currently have just 130 points between 6th and 11th!
However, Polar in 11th only have Lombardia left and might need a big race in Italy to still make the Top 10 - depending on what their rivals do in the 2 to 4 races they've got left additionally.
We then have Grieg in 12th place, with a sizeable gap ahead and below. However, another PTHC win by Pedersen and they're almost back in the Top 10...
It's also pretty close between 13th and 16th, with just a little more than 100 points separating these 4 teams. Which leaves 6 teams fighting against relegation - whereof one looks certainly and two more almost certainly doomed. Zwift will definitely go down, LPH and UBS pretty likely, with the latter's gap to safety exceeding 500 points by now.
Huski currently are looking best, as they're on the last safe spot - but just 59 points ahead of Duolingo. Aegon don't look great, trailing by more than 200 points already - but they also have two races more to go than the five other backmarkers. Still, they'd likely need a De Bie in 2021 form to pull off another last-minute salvation.
There's obviously no change on the Top 2 spots - Silvio Herklotz still leads 10 points ahead of Taylor Phinney - who still has one race left. I'd bet it's Lombardia, which could definitely be enough to complete the three-peat.
But it gets even closer than 10 points when looking at the fight for the final podium spot: Mads Pedersen is one point ahead of Arnaud Demare, who has overtaken Joe Dombrowski by one point! Three riders in 3rd to 5th, separated by two points!
However, of these three, only Pedersen is still racing this year, so chances are high that he'll finish on the podium! Ewan in 6th won't catch him; neither will Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier in (disappointing) 7th. Bryan Coquard, Pavel Sivakov and Fernando Gaviria round off the current Top 10 - however, Wisniowski is luring just outside and should have a decent chance of jumping up!
The only rider dropping out of the Top 10 is Tenorio, with his 10th place being taken over by Gaviria.
In terms of notable moves - besides Gaviria joining the Top 10 - we have Lopez improving from 27th to 16th - and potentially going further up still. Kwiatkowski's jump from 52nd to 26th is pretty impressive as well this late in the season.
To round off this update, here are the full standings:
A near perfect month pulls us up the ranking and puts the slightest relegation worries to sleep. But the relegation fight remains the most interesting part of the season finale as all three teams have a path to survival - the remaining schedule doesnt look all too great for Duolingo though.
Extremely close between 6-11. Being 7th atm bodes well for ending in top 10, but with just 100 points down to 11th and a bad scheduke, I could see us miss the 5th goal of the season aswell…
Congrats King Power! Even if it just were a straight Lombardia vs Lombardia battle, they'd be overwhelmingly favored to come out ahead.
It's certainly deserved.
Arnaud safely in the Top 5 is positively insane, and potentially losing Aegon AND Huski is the opposite.
Thanks for compiling this, Fabianski!
Alone De Bie`s 0 pointer in the Ardennes triple makes us relegate unfortunately.
His season is really awful so far. Can only hope for some Lombardia magic but his 2 hill stages in TONE weren`t really promising.
The gap between him and similar or actually weaker puncheurs is huge in the individual rankings.
In addition to a very awful Olivier this year and also the tougher opposition in the cobbles, where the low scoring was expected, makes this season one to forget.
roturn wrote:
Alone De Bie`s 0 pointer in the Ardennes triple makes us relegate unfortunately.
His season is really awful so far. Can only hope for some Lombardia magic but his 2 hill stages in TONE weren`t really promising.
The gap between him and similar or actually weaker puncheurs is huge in the individual rankings.
That's one of the things I just can't explain: From 2021 De Bie finishing 7th in the individual standings, to 2022 De Bie not even in the Top 50 - with the same game version, and mostly similar/identical profiles.
Really sorry for you; An average De Bie season alone would easily get you to safety... Don't really agree on the "very awful Olivier", though, as he's roughly on the same level as last year (with the 7% correction). If you compare him to Sivakov, I can get why you think he was afwul, though.
But the De Bie inconsistency is something I really hate to see.
Looking to be a very tense finale of the season in the fight to avoid relegation! Thank you for the update and underlining the importance of the remaining races, Fabianski!
We should be very safe in the top 5 now, seeing the races we have fot left. Obviously super happy with that as a comeback season. Though, it will be difficult to build on, seeing how many points and success loanee Dainese have gotten for us with his TdF.
Balkans International
Hard to have high expectations for Valter but let’s see if he can go better at PTHC level. Stage 1 is certainly very good! 5th place, the U25 jersey, let’s at least fight for that all race.
Stage 2, of course the first time Van der Lijke wins a bunch sprint this season, he is 14th on the stage.
Valter performing well and on Stage 5, finally, Van der Lijke has pulled off a good sprint! A win in the bank for 2022.
Final decisive climby stages have not been so good for the team this year and again Valter does suffer. 12th overall, as reported, would have been fine for pre-race predictions though. And he did get that U25 jersey!
Moscow – not much to say. 12th for Van der Lijke, that’s fine.
TONE
No Wirtgen this year with an adjusted route. Van der Lijke’s month continues. And what about Nelson Oliveira? He has proved a good all rounder so far, and he has history here. Winner in 2020, 5th in 2021. Is a top result still possible?
8th on the Cobbled TT is nice! Then up to 4th overall after the 2nd stage of hills. How long can this last?
Oh September, this is great actually. Van der Lijke has found that stage race sprinting form in style. Super set up by Geniets.
Let’s go Oliveira on the cobbles! Loanees Rutsch and Teggart with great support. Still 4th overall.
2nd place and the points lead for Van der Lijke! Really every stage has gone well so far, so much for a quiet race! Then a 5th to keep the lead! Oh of course, TONE includes Netherlands, that’s why Van der Lijke likes it.
Final stage, and Nelson Oliveira is riding like a mad man! In the front 4 starting the final Mur de Huy. What is happening? A genuine bid to win the final stage to crown a MG career.
Finally, the Huy has it’s say. Can’t follow Kwiatkowski of course, but enough is done for a final TONE podium spot in 3rd. He might not have been my first choice in TT bidding wars back in transfers, but perhaps he should have been!
“Won’t be Top 10 for long” he said, an hour ago. Now 6th! More faith in the team required clearly, though Top 10 is not secure yet.
