Gorazd Stangelj:

This is arguably the toughest one day race on the calendar. Tadej will lead us, but given the Giro clash we are far from having our strongest team here. Milos Borisavljevic will be the main domestique and will try to stick with Tadej until the final climb. The rest will be on bottle duty and try their best to finish the race.

Martin Hvastija:

Cobbled races are primarily races to give the young riders more experience. That is even more the case when it comes to PTHC races. Any points we manage to score will be welcome, but we have to be realistic. Our expectations are quite minimal.

Gorazd Stangelj:

The race went about as well as we could have hoped for. With Stojnic we were able to enter the early breakaway with the rest conserving their energy as much as possible. Borisavljevic supported Pogacar for most of the race with our leader smartly riding his own tempo. In the end 8th place is a great result amongst such hard competition.

Race score: 8/10

Martin Hvastija:

Without Enger our expectations here are quite low. We would love to see Dusan get involved in the sprint, but it won't be easy for him in what should be a pretty deep list of sprinters. We have some options for late attacks, but it's not something we've been able to pull off this season.

Gorazd Stangelj:

We have a young race squad led by David Gaudu and Jernej Svab who will try to score more than minimum points. The rest are here to learn and play a support role.

Marko Polanc:

We had our ups and downs during the 3 weeks. The start was pretty good. Enger's stage win along with a couple of days in the pink jersey was certainly great. After that we failed to make a real impact on the race. None of our breakaway efforts bore any fruit and Enger never came close to winning a sprint again. Habtemichael and Bouchard turned in solid GC results, but on the whole we left the race wanting more. It was a good learning experience for young riders like Croes, Hocevar and Govekar.

Race score: 6/10

Laurens147 wrote:
A breakaway success would have been a nice follow up after the good start. I'm curious what the other 2 GT's will bring for you

Martin Hvastija:

We were mostly anonymous for most of the race. Siric has trouble keeping his position in the peloton. We are not sure why, but it keeps happening. Dusan got lost amid the hectic final and couldn't really sprint like he wanted to. We managed some minor points which is better than nothing.

Race score: 6/10

Fabianski wrote:
Looks like it's a long time since my last comment here

The March ranking is looking fantastic for you, looks like you've got a pretty nice gap to the dangerous zone already. In April, Pogacar had a nice race in Liechtenstein, and that stage win and Maglia Rosa by Enger in the Giro surely was a highlight, too. Looking forward to see Tao and Tadej compete in their GTs (I guess there's one for each of them)

Gorazd Stangelj:

Differing from the other hilly classics we have added Santiago Buitrago to this squad. The hard finish in Huy might be suited to him. We still have a young race squad apart from David Gaudu and Jernej Svab. The rest are here to learn and play a support role.

Martin Hvastija:

While we didn't have many expectations before the race, the riders clearly had other ideas. We had an early presence in a strong breakaway group then Miha was still with Ivan as the race was thinning out in the final 30 km. Ivan had really good legs and rode smarly by following attacks and conserving energy, performing a great sprint at the end in what was a very hard race. Neither Ivan or us could quite believe what he managed to accomplish here!

Race score: 10/10

Marko Polanc:

The second Grand Tour of the year and we are here with a completely different setup than at the Giro. We have a sponsor goal to win a stage so our team is primarily geared towards all the time-trials, especially the TTT. Due to that we don't have options for sprints nor are we well equipped for breakaways. In return we'll do our best to support Tao Geoghegan Hart in the GC. We aim to have someone in the leader's jersey after the TTT.

Gorazd Stangelj:

Despite this being a monument we are not treating it any differently from the other Ardennes classics. The longer length will certainly provide a challenge to all our young riders, but perhaps it will suit our leader David Gaudu. At least we hope so.

Gorazd Stangelj:

We struggled a bit with positioning as Gaudu lost contact with the main group. Fortunately he was able to recover the situation and still finish in a good spot. Penko did a good job getting in the early breakaway, the rest were here mostly for the experience.

Race score: 6/10

Fabianski wrote:
With less TT-heavy races, and the sprinters not overperforming last month, I guess that drop was expected. Giro wasn't amazing, either. However, I suppose that Tao in the Vuelta, and Tadej in TdF (as the likely top favourite for White) should be in for some kind of mid-table finish in the remaining GTs.

Fabianski wrote:
With the hilly classics mostly done after May, and some more TTs and stage races for your climber duo yet to come, I think you're still pretty comfortable - at least I wish I won't meet you in PCT next year