The final day of the year approaches for PCT as well - but before, let's look back on quite some racing that was done recently:
Period Ranking: October
The title is even less fitting than in PT, as the results covered reach back to August - but 5 out of 8 races still took place in October. However, the most important one - meaning the one with the highest scores - was the leftover one from August, the Tour of America.
But let's not kill all the suspense right away - so that one will be covered last. Instead, we proceed chronologically starting with the September races.
Those were the two clashing cobbled classics, Battenkill and Rheden. The former was the slightly more successful one for PCT (391 vs. 380 points in total) - and the best PCT rider was Trentin who narrowly missed out on the podium. Carlsberg still got 107 important points for the promotion fight. David (5th) and Marzuki (14th) did a good job for Sauber, who scored just 3 points less in total. HelloFresh were the 3rd best PCT team, reaching their 61 points mainly with three riders between 13th and 20th (Daniel, GvK, Riesebeek). Among the most "around the lines" contenders, the most notable scorers were Binance with 54 points for the promotion fight, while Trans scored 47 in their battle against relegation.
The high score in Rheden was lower, with Gamper's 5th place netting Lierse 80 points. Strava got 72 points with Gaday (8th) and Owen (20th), while 52 points went to Project: Africa thanks to Cissé (12th), Lecourt de Billot (18th) and Kireva (22nd). Gjensidige's 40 points could be precious at the bottom of the table, while late bloomers Kraftwerk scored 31. No other teams above 30 points.
Then came Morocco - the race with the second highest scoring in this update. The first three teams - who clearly stand above the rest - are separated by just 7 points! The top scorers, with 219 points, were - Philips! Although Penasa "only" got the runner-up GC position, the stage 1 win by Minali plus some good stage results by triple-P himself alongside some depth GC results all sum up to a total score of 219 points.
Just one point behind is GC winner Sicard's Strava - with the Frenchman scoring 197 out of their 218 points, meaning the lack of depth finally put them behind the Dutch.
And, as said before, the 3rd team is just another 6 points further back, and it's... Carlsberg! Although Guldhammer "only" finished 4th in the GC, Gregaard added a 16th place on top of that - but even more importantly, AKA contributed a stage win and the green jersey - 212 points. Assa Abloy then are a pretty long way down already, scoring 147 points, whereas Madrazo's teammate couldn't add anything useful on top of his 3rd GC place, with Bralirwa geeting just 123 points.
So this obviously was a big race for Carlsberg in the promotion fight, with Binance also doing pretty well (114 points). At the bottom, Strava get some hope after their success here, whereas Volcanica's 117 points aren't too shabby, either.
Japan Cup was the next PTHC race - and it was a strong race by the PCT teams, taking 2nd and 3rd! Calmejane surprisingly finished runner-up to Buchmann, with Trans bagging 158 points (Waeytens, Korosec and Bystrom all finished around 20th place). Local hero Kinoshita took 3rd place - with his teammates not doing anything useful, that's "just" those 100 points for Voyagin - some precious points, though! Gjensidige also managed to score a good result for once, with Eiking leading them to 71 points thanks to his 6th place.
Herald Sun Tour is very easy to cover - only Zara participated in this C2 event, and Castrillo's 8th place in the TT (and hence in the GC) alongside some depth points by Cardona were worth 33 points.
Euskal Bizikleta, the final stage race of the year (in chronological order, not in this update), then was a big show by Xero! Houle got a full collection of stage podiums (with Vermeersch adding another one on stage 1), plus the GC win, plus the points jersey - 177 points for him alone, 192 for the Kiwis!
Surprisingly, on 2nd place overall there was a CT team, while Kinoshita's Voyagin was the second strongest PCT outfit. A stage win on the final day and 2nd place in the GC got him - and the team - 115 points. Some more respite in the relegation fight!
Next we had HelloFresh, led by 3rd overall Meurisse, scoring 90 points in total (thereof 84 by the Belgian). A decent score - enough for staying in promotion contention? When talking about it, Binance got the better of Carlsberg here (75 vs. 41), while Indosat were able to keep Gjensidige at bay at the other end of the table (35 vs. 16). Both obviously were far behind Voyagin, though.
So, what remains is just the final PTHC event of the season, Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, before we head over to the biggest race in this update. In Canada, mainly one team did a great job: Strava. Felline's great 2nd place (plus a little bit of depth) saw them bag 131 points - whereas Kraftwerk as the next PCT team only got 56 points (Bilbao in 11th and Chaiyasombat in 15th). 3rd best at 50 points were Popo4Ever, thanks to Prevar (10th) and Bratashcuk (23rd) mainly. Cedevita got 39 points for the promotion fight.
But now, let's look at the big scores. Well, they weren't as big as in the years of Kraftwerk dominance, but still. And who were the highest scorers? 3 stage wins (and 8 stage podiums in total), GC runner-up, points runner-up (after 18 days in green) - that's obviously Philips. 466 points go to the Dutch-Indian outfit - whereof Choi (203) and Van Asbroeck (177) scored a huge chunk. Eenkhoorn as 3rd in the U25 standings (and a Top 20 GC finish) also contributed more than 50 points. Relegation danger? Definitely no longer!
2nd place goes to... no, still not the GC winner. They're THE ToA team, they're Kraftwerk! Four stage wins - most of any team - 9 days in yellow, a 5th place overall - Ranaweera et al. bring home 362 points. Which is only slightly more than half of last year's scoring, but still the 2nd highest value in 2022. Moazemi and Ranaweera (152 and 123 points respectively) scored the major part of their points, with Haller also contributing a stage win, Nerz and Destribois a stage podium each. Is that enough to seriously challenge for promotion?
And in 3rd place we have... Assa Abloy. Formerly in acute relegation danger, they have definitely found their way out of the misery, taking three stage wins, the green jersey, two days in yellow and 4th GC place. It's 348 points for them, whereof Faglum Karlsson scored 158, points winner Coutinho 111, and long-term KoM leader Magnusson 67.
GC winner Bennett's Xero are only in 4th place, with 330 points. Given that the Kiwi scored 319 on his own, that's some miserably depth - but the GC win will make up for it.
Cedevita were making good use of this race for their promotion campaign, leaving with 238 points - while none of Bralirwa, Binance or Carlsberg were present.
Crabbe did even better, scoring 248 points - enough to get close to safety? Gjensidige's feelings must be pretty opposite, with both Kritskiy and Lunke heavily disappointing and the team going home with just 102 points. Which is 9th place among the 11 PCT teams present. Luckily for the two teams scoring even less, they weren't in immediate relegation danger recently - but any promotion challenge also takes a serious hit after such a race.
Well, that's it, these are all 8 races covered in this update. And the winners are...
Philips, once again! They got the highest score in the two highest scoring races, which obviously had to put them high up - it's the top position for them. 751 points means that they got more than 1/4 of their total 2022 points in this period!
Xero did a good job as well - obviously with their ToA win, but maybe even more so with Houle's triumph in Euskal. They scored 637 points - over 100 less than Philips, but the gap to the next team is almost as big.
And the next team is Kraftwerk. Had their ToA scoring been similar to the last two years, they'd easily stand on top of this update, but those 541 points are "just" 3rd place. Which is only 11 more than Assa Abloy, who should also move clear of the danger zone.
Strava, Popo4Ever, Cedevita and Carlsberg are separated by less than 50 points - but they're over 100 points behind Assa Abloy (ranging from 421 to 374). Remember that in the last ranking update, there was just one point between Cedevita and Carlsberg - with 6 points separating them in this period, we can be looking for a great fight in Emilia!
Sauber and Crabbe round off the Top 10, being the final teams above 300 points (320 and 310 respectively).
At the other end, Minions didn't race a lot - but when they did, they weren't good. Will those 21 measly points destroy their promotion chances? Will Indosat's 86 points pull them back down to the relegation zone, despite an incredibly strong 2022 Dunbar?
Red Bull and Zara are next with 109 points each - we'll see the impact on the rankings in a minute. Volcanica getting just 139 points (with defending champion Kump getting a zero-pointer in Euskal...) aren't looking good, whereas Project: Africa were already far behind anyway. And Bralirwa probably can bid their promotion hopes goodbye with just 172 points scored now - especially given that two of their main contenders got 200 points more.
Here are the full October+ numbers:
ToA
Batt
Rhe
Mar
Jap
Sun
Eus
Cycl
Total
1
Philips - Force India
466
4
0
219
62
0
0
0
751
2
Xero Racing
330
2
0
108
0
0
192
5
637
3
Kraftwerk Man Machine
362
0
31
92
0
0
0
56
541
4
Assa Abloy
348
0
0
147
0
0
0
35
530
5
Strava
0
0
72
218
0
0
0
131
421
6
Team Popo4Ever
306
0
13
43
0
0
0
50
412
7
Cedevita
238
0
20
83
0
0
0
39
380
8
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
0
107
0
212
14
0
41
0
374
9
Sauber Petronas Racing
67
104
0
115
34
0
0
0
320
10
Crabbe-CC Chevigny
248
4
0
56
2
0
0
0
310
11
Trans Looney Tunes
0
47
0
70
158
0
0
0
275
12
Binance
0
54
0
114
28
0
75
0
271
13
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
102
2
40
0
71
0
16
7
238
14
HelloFresh - Lampre
0
61
27
30
29
0
90
0
237
15
Voyagin - Bird
0
0
0
15
100
0
115
0
230
16
Amaysim Cervelo
185
0
0
0
0
0
43
0
228
17
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
83
0
80
49
0
0
0
4
216
18
Bralirwa - Stevens
0
0
0
123
0
0
49
0
172
19
Project: Africa
0
2
52
89
7
0
14
8
172
20
Volcanica - Fox
0
0
20
117
0
0
0
2
139
21
Zara - Irizar
0
0
0
76
0
33
0
0
109
22
Red Bull Zalgiris
0
0
25
0
0
0
79
5
109
23
Indosat Ooredoo
0
0
0
51
0
0
35
0
86
24
Minions - Subwoolfer
0
4
0
17
0
0
0
0
21
Full Ranking
Amaysim's second half of the year was clearly less successful than the first half - they easily remain on top nonetheless! Even more than that: Given that Zara won't be racing anymore this year, and with just 587 points available with an optimal result (1-8) in Emilia, they have already sealed their division title, congratulations!
Zara can start celebrating as well, though - although they could still drop some spots and even lose their podium, there's no mathematically possible scenario in which they'd end up outside of the Top 5, so back-to-back promotion is a done deal!
Minions in 3rd place are still looking good, despite a very low-scoring period. More than 100 points behind Zara, more than 100 points ahead of the next team - while it is theoretically possible that they still drop out of the Top 5, it almost certainly won't happen.
What could well happen, though, is that they'd lose their podium spot. Cedevita are 129 points down - a Beltran win in Emilia, which is not impossible at all, would see them move past Minions (if the latter don't score, obviously).
And pretty much the same is true for Carlsberg, who are trailing the men in orange by just 7 points! So we definitely could see a fight yellow vs. orange vs. green for the final PCT podium spot in Emilia!
So there's a path upwards for those in 4th and 5th place - but how big is their danger of dropping out of the promotion spots? Well, they won't fall behind Binance for sure - as the Portuguese are done with their 2022 season already. And therefore won't reach automatic promotion, but rather have to hope for a disband in PT, and for staying in 6th place.
Which could well happen, as Kraftwerk in 7th place are 90 points down. The men with black ties won't have a top favorite in Emilia - but hey, they're Kraftwerk - if any team can get 90+ points with depth results, it's them. Direct promotion looks like a really long shot, though, with Carlsberg being already 178 points ahead - even a surprise win alone wouldn't be enough.
So in all likelihood, we already know all five promoting teams - which isn't great news for the suspense. Still, surprises - even big ones - can happen; we'll see. Mathematically speaking, all teams down to 13th place could theoretically promote with an ideal result (except for Binance and Assa Abloy, who aren't racing anymore).
But let's look a little bit closer at those teams from 8th to 13th. In 8th place we have HelloFresh, with 2,761 points. They are almost 100 points clear of Lierse. Which is less than an HC classic win's worth - although both teams probably won't have a top favorite for this race. Neither will Bralirwa, who currently are on the final Top 10 spot - just 13 points behind Lierse, though.
Assa Abloy in 11th are another 2 points back - but given that they won't be racing anymore, they're definitely at risk of being overtaken by Xero and/or Philips - with the Kiwis currently being 1 point ahead of the Dutch! They're on 2,605 respectively 2,604 points - less than 160 behind HelloFresh, meaning a win plus some good depth could still see either of them move inside the Top 10!
So while the promotion fight doesn't look that exciting anymore, the fight for the Top 10 spots could definitely be a tight one!
And what about relegation? Well, Project: Africa are now definitely going down - they're over 600 points behind safety. Also definitely relegating are Volcanica, who are 22nd, but have no race days left. Crabbe in between these two would need a huge miracle - more than 400 points - to somehow stay safe. Unlikely, to say the least.
Strava had a great period for sure, and safety doesn't look impossible anymore now. Still, they're more than 150 points away from 19th place. While this doesn't look fully impossible, we have to mention that they will "only" ride in Zurich - where they could reach a maximum of 213 points (instead of 587 in Emilia) with an optimal result. Which means they'd need about the same kind of miracle as CCC to stay up.
Which leaves Gjensidige as the team having the biggest chances to reach safety on the final day. They are 96 points off. And furthermore - maybe most importantly - the team currently in 19th place is Voyagin, who won't be racing anymore either! Is a Top 2 (or some strong depth) possible for them? We'll see!
As said before, Voyagin can't do anything else but hoping none of their rivals can achieve the result they need to move past - not a comfortable situation, but they still do have a gap that won't make it easy for those behind.
And that's it pretty much. OK, there is a very, very theoretical mathematical scenario that would see both Gjensidige and Crabbe overtake Trans and make both Voyagin and Trans relegate - in which case however the latter wouldn't be allowed to score much. No way this happens. And all teams above - starting with Indosat - are safe anyway (the latter could be overtaken by two, but not by three teams).
What might be interesting, however, is the fight for 15th - given that there are just 4 points separating Sauber and Red Bull! Even Trans could however get there with their hills armada!
So it looks like the fights for promotion and against relegation are mostly decided already. There are still some interesting battles ongoing, though - we'll find out how it all ends!
Nothing new at the top. Well, kind of. Jonas Ahlstrand now has mathematically sealed the division title - but that was already pretty much a done deal anyway.
Eddie Dunbar still is in 2nd place - but Joseph Areruya, moving up from 6th to 3rd with a decent Tour du Maroc, now trails by just 30 points! Which means that a 9th place in Emilia would be enough for the Rwandan to move past - sounds doable.
Areruya's rise means that the next three riders lost one spot each - this concerns Mattia Cattaneo, Sam Oomen and Kristoffer Halvorsen.
With his final race of the year, Angel Madrazo has made the jump inside the Top 10, moving up from 11th to 7th - thereby pushing all of Jack Haig, Fabio Jakobsen, Joeri Stallaert and Sam Bewley one spot down. Which also means that the latter misses out on the Top 10...
Thanks to some pretty high scoring races, there were still a couple of notable moves, even this late in the season. Kinoshita gained 22 spots (34 -> 12), Houle 20 (38 -> 18), Bennett 52 (71 -> 19), Choi 23 (48 -> 25) and Sicard 22 (49 -> 27). These are just those who joined the Top 30 - you'll find many more further down (e.g. Pluchkin gaining 76 spots).
And here are the penultimate 2022 individual standings:
Whew, one more race to go. anything can happen, however unlikely it is that we can still go down. Borges and Eddie hopefully finish the season strongly for us, we have a strong team and ultimately the puncheur depth in PCT is not good so a top-5 should be the minimum. Hopefully we turn up. Will comment on other teams after Emilia, but it’s hard - I hope Voyagin stay where they belong, but hillis deserves to stay up with how much he does for the game + he assembled a decent team. Good luck to both.
Eden95 wrote:
Borges and Eddie hopefully finish the season strongly for us, we have a strong team and ultimately the puncheur depth in PCT is not good so a top-5 should be the minimum. Hopefully we turn up.
Well, they will not. Sorry to say, but you're not in band 1 including Emilia. 163 RDs done mean the season is over for you...
We're really going to drop out of the Top 10, huh? Either Xero or Philips, potentially both, should have the firepower in Italy to overtake us. Rough season then, and especially given how we could have used a lot of resources with a more long-term view to set us up for the future. But it was worth a shot. Lot of questions looming for the offseason, should be interesting (and fun)!
Outside of the battle for the Top 10, there's not a great deal of drama here on the final day, I have to say. 4th vs 5th is close but I would expect the Top 8 to be set otherwise, and relegation looks mostly a done deal, too. As always, some very likeable teams are going down, which is a shame, but can hardly be avoided with so many good teams and people in there.
Great year for us, even though it looked like it could have went way better at points! Very happy with finally managing to stay in the PCT and to do so in the top 10 is just immaculate!
Individually I think it's great to see two of this year's primary training spends pay off in Dunbar and Areruya proving to be great captains. Going to be interesting to see if Eden and Jandal can produce enough funds to continue the development of them!!
Thanks for the update will share more thoughts after the season is fully done!
Philips and Xero kicking the absolute ass out of squeaky bum time to rise well away from the bottom to fight for the Top 10, you absolutely love to see it Our goal for Emilia shouldn't be in any doubt, we have the top dog on paper (though how many hilly classics have been decided on paper this year? 0) and to be honest we should be overtaking everybody we mathematically can to move up to 9th.
Shows how stripped bare our squad was in transfers that we have a Top 3 and two Top 20 riders, Areruya and Houle putting in the best season of their careers, and not a sniff of promotion going into the last day. This time two years ago Bennett was just slipping out of the Top 20 as our best rider in a promotion year - we could have the top 3 individual rankings seasons in our PCT history and only the third best team rankings finish for us. Absolutely pathetic depth in the team with Habtemichael in the 80s and nobody else over 100 points. Can't blame our trident at all for the disappointing season!
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
Holy crap, is it happening? Is this really it? Things were so close all year. Lingering in the 4th-8th spots in every update. Never quite breaking through or falling off the pace. Secretly I was feeling a little confident in the pre-TOA update because the PpRD calculations really don't add up for that unless you have a traditional Kraftwerk domination, and it was already seeming increasingly unlikely. But I didn't want to jinx it in any case. Now it's real.
I'll wait until the final rankings to go on and on about my riders' individual performances and what promoting to PT means to me and everything else. But it really is something special. I did not build a team meant to dominate any terrain or rack up tons of wins. We were versatile, tenacious, and more consistent than before, and that seems to have been just enough to sneak us into a top 5 place overall. This also means we at least passed 1 goal this season, and it was our hardest and most important one! Hoping for a good Emilia to round everything out, and then looking forward to the new challenge ahead.
Thank you Fabianski for the consistently detailed and well explained standings updates all season. They certainly built the drama and intensity in these final months.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
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
Still to early to call because I don't think we'll come close to scoring points in Emilia. The last few races are out of our focus areas so the low points were expected. Surprised we still have a gap in third but as stated the rival teams have a much bigger scoring potential. Just hold on!
Thanks for the update Fabianski and good luck to everyone going into the final race.
Will hold my longer comment until the final rankings but hopefully we can hold onto 2nd! The gap should be enough with just the final race of the season to go but we shall see
Disappointing season finally coming to an end. Luckily it's hard to expect relatively large underperformances for two straight seasons, so were in great spot to crush the opposition next year. Letsa go
Another very good month for us, highlighted by the performances of Faglum Karlsson, Coutinho and Magnussen in Tour of America. Nice to see that we consistently have been among the best scoring teams in the second half of the season. Bodes well for next season, but we need to have a much better spring season next year to be in the promotion discussion. Hopefully the return of Dainese and Konychev will help with that. Gonzales Salas and Coutinho have been very good this year, and despite of some iffy performances in the first half of the season, Paillot eventually found his form as well. We’ll need to re-think Faglum Karlsson’s schedule a bit, who have not scored as well this season as he did last year. Gesbert also has room to improve.
Seems like we’ll end up in the middle of the pack, which is about what I expected ahead of the season. Promotion and relegation looks pretty much set, but will be interesting to follow the season finale in any case! There’s always room for surprises
Thanks a lot for the update Fabianski (and for the fantastic Tour of America coverage)!
Thanks for the super update Fab, you have been spoiling us recently
Kraftwerk achieving our top 10 goal is great. For a brief moment it looked like big overperformances might have moved us into promotion contention but it wasn't to be.
Eden95 wrote:
Borges and Eddie hopefully finish the season strongly for us, we have a strong team and ultimately the puncheur depth in PCT is not good so a top-5 should be the minimum. Hopefully we turn up.
Well, they will not. Sorry to say, but you're not in band 1 including Emilia. 163 RDs done mean the season is over for you...
Our goal for Emilia shouldn't be in any doubt, we have the top dog on paper (though how many hilly classics have been decided on paper this year? 0) and to be honest we should be overtaking everybody we mathematically can to move up to 9th.
