You're right, October isn't done yet - hence the asterisk. But there's only one day of racing left in the entire season - one day with one final race for most PCT teams. 5 PCT teams are already done and can only watch the final races on TV, and 3 teams will be racing twice.
5 races have been done this month, with one being the final HC stage race of the year - expected to be the highest scoring race of the month. Plus one C1 and C2 stage race each, and two PTHC classics.
First came the potentially most important race of the final month, the Tour of Japan. A weird race, very honestly. Whether it was the riders not being used anymore to ride in Asia, the wind, fatigue after a long season or something else - some riders were punished hard for being inattentive at the wrong moment.
Despite inattentiveness costing the top scoring team a couple of points, they did far better than you'd expect looking at their GC positions. Their top rider "only" finished 3rd - now you know that I'm writing about Olivier. Despite not being a specialist against the clock, he laid the base for his GC podium in the MTT stage, finishing 4th. He then won the next stage, climbing to 3rd in GC. He also won the points jersey, and scored 172 points. Fastned also had Cras in 13th place, and Vanhoucke in 29th - with the team coming out on top of the team standings. 231 points in total - definitely a big boost in the promotion fight!
A rider who definitely wasn't inattentive, but right in his top shape when it mattered, is Eastman. Winning two stage races at home before, he made the best possible use of the stage 4 MTT to prepare the ground for another GC win, far away from home this time. He got only one stage Top 10 result - the stage 4 win, but that was enough to get his name on the GC winners' list. And he also added a 3rd place in KoM. The good news is that he scored 223 points. The bad news is that Glanbia scored 223 points - none of his teammates even managed to score a single point in this race! Complete lack of depth is one of the main reasons why they're so low in the standings - and the main reason why they won't gain much ground despite an HC race GC win...
Just like it was the case for the top scoring team, depth also was key for the team getting 3rd place. No stage win, no GC Top 5 - but the 3rd best score nonetheless. Having two riders in the Top 10 - and being the only team to do so - still pays off, especially in HC. This team is Jura, who had Stüssi in 6th and Darbellay in 8th, both not riding a spectacular race, but never getting dropped, either. The team's only stage points came from their sprinter D. Page, finishing 3rd on day 2. H. Page also scored well, being in the KoM fight early on - and that KoM jersey was finally won by Schmid. Plenty of riders scoring - including points for the 2nd place in teams - and despite no rider getting 100+ points, that's 211 points for the Swiss.
The Herald Sun Tour was the final C2 stage race of the year, with Glanbia and Spark participating. Glanbia being there already indicates that there must have been a TT somewhere - and indeed, the ITT decided on the GC order in an otherwise pan-flat race for the sprinters.
The men in green actually didn't do as well as expected, but still outscored Spark by far. Cheyne was their highest finisher on stage 4 and hence in the GC, by taking 8th place. Downey followed two spots behind, making it two Glanbia riders in the Top 10. Scotson was the final rider scoring some notable points, ending up 20th in GC. All in all, 51 points for Glanbia - they might be looking forward to next year's edition when they can send their strongest TTers again...
Spark will very likely be present with a strong squad in 2024 as well, given that it's their home race, and they have no more hopes of survival left. Scott got them three Top 10 stage results in four sprint stages - delivering the top result on the final day with 2nd place. Which also brought him a shared 4th place in the points standings. Bevin scored a couple of points for taking 14th in the GC, making it a total of 21 points for Spark.
The first classic of the month took place in Canada, more precisely in Québec, hosting a PTHC race. Unlike in any PCT race he attends, Areruya wasn't the big favourite for once - but he behaved like one, chasing down MAL's mid-range attack. Well, he ended up burning too many matches in the process...
Instead, Trans were the highest scoring PCT team for once! Calmejane left behind many usually stronger puncheurs, finishing 7th, with Bystrom making it a great team result by adding a 19th place. Waeytens was dropped pretty early, but still ended up in the Top 50 - it's 75 points in total for Trans.
The best PCT finisher, though, was another pretty surprising one - Vansevenant! With Fastned often struggling on the hills this year, the pressure on him to deliver was huge - and he definitely did deliver! 6th place, 70 points for him and Fastned - some much needed big points in the promotion fight!
Turgis also had a really strong day, finishing just behind Vansevenant and Calmejane in 8th place! Milan had enough left in the tank to end up 27th after his breakaway efforts, and both Meurisse and Riesebeek added a Top 50 finish - 60 points for Lampre.
And yet another classic, another PTHC one, another hilly one. This time, the riders were back in Japan, on a tough course with a lot of repeated climbing.
And who else but PCT's top puncheur by a landslide could have been the highest PCT finisher? Unlike in Balkans last month, Areruya wasn't quite able to beat MAL, but 3rd place is still a great result and should give Xero a big boost in the promotion race! 100 points for the Kiwis, with no-one else scoring.
After quite some failures this year, Benoot seems to have found his best legs now, getting a great 5th place and 80 points for Sony. Will it be enough to get involved in the promotion fight at the last possible moment?
3rd place is shared between two teams. On one hand, we have Kelderman, getting his team an extremely important big result in the relegation fight, finishing 6th and scoring 70 points! Trans scored the exact same amount, thanks to Calmejane in 9th, Primozic in 12th and Bystrom in 36th. Especially Primozic' result is a pretty surprising one - unfortunately, it's unlikely to help his team big time...
Last but not least, the final stage race of the year. Euskal Bizikleta, traditionally a race for punchy sprinters, underlined by Houle's 2022 win. The Canadian was present again and did pretty well in the end. However, the big winner wasn't a PCT rider, to everyone's surprise. For the details, refer to the CT ranking update.
The highest scoring PCT team isn't the most surprising one, given their puncheur lineup. However, it wasn't a puncheur, nor a sprinter, nor a particularly punchy sprinter who got Lampre's top GC result - it was flat beast Dzamastagic, finishing a surprising 2nd in GC! Without winning any bonus seconds, consistent Top 15 stage finishes were key to get the edge over 10 more riders with the same final time. Meurisse, the final stage winner, added 39 to Dzama's 87 points - and Lampre's team standings win got them some more points for a total of 135!
The undisputed top favourite for the race however was Démare - one of the best puncheurs AND sprinters, and hence the best punchy sprinter by far. However, a bad descent on stage 3 made him miss out on a decisive split, so his 2nd place on day 2 wasn't decisive for the GC. He only ended up 15th - but teammate Hoelgaard jumped in to take 6th in GC! Démare at least won the green jersey, with Schlegel and Kron adding some GC and U25 points respectively. Tryg also finished 2nd in the team standings, making it a total of 119 points for the Danes.
It's then almost 40 points down to the 3rd best PCT team, and that fight was pretty close. In the end, we once again have Jura, capitalizing on their depth, taking a podium spot. Not in the race, as Errazkin finished 4th in GC, with a 5th place on stage 3 being his highest result. Page also got them a stage podium on the second day, and Theuns ended up in the GC Top 15 as well. Add some minor U25 points for Schmid, and that's 80 points all in all. One more than Assa, and 8 more than Xero.
So, let's take a look at the October scores - without the final two races, of course.
At the top, it's a very close fight for the lead - between two promotion contenders. Thanks to a great Tour of Japan score and a decent Québec performance, Fastned currently lead the October standings with 323 points!
However, Xero are very, very close behind - just 3 points back! They definitely needed the Japan Cup performance to get there, though, with Tour of Japan being rather disappointing for them. With Emilia still left to do, they could definitely win the month, though!
Next are Jura, who didn't have any outstanding individual result, but who were consistent both in Tour of Japan and Euskal. GP Cycliste didn't go well for them, but 296 points are still an amount of points they can be very happy with!
Sony might have expected a bit more - especially in Québec - but their two Japan results were definitely good! Choi was 2nd in ToJ, with Benoot getting a Top 5 in Japan Cup - nothing to scoff at, and 288 points are a good return. And Benoot still has Emilia left, which he won last year - a repeat could even mean winning the month for Sony!
The final Top 5 team are Glanbia, who had two pretty good races. Tour of Japan being the obvious one, with Eastman winning. But also Sun Tour was quite good, with a 10 PpRD return from a C2 race. 274 points for the Irishmen.
Then we already get to the final team above 200 points - Lampre. Euskal with a surprisingly strong Dzama GC result was their obvious highlight, with Tour of Japan being a huge bummer. 260 points is good for the Italians - but they might still wonder "what if"...
It's then very close among the final Top 10 teams, with only 6 points between 7th and 10th! Tied for 7th - with 195 points - are UBS and P4E. Just two points down are Tryg - who despite a decent Euskal score were surely hoping for more. Los Pollos as the final Top 10 team got all of their 189 points from Tour of Japan.
It's still close even outside the Top 10, with 11th being just 11 points down. And in 11th place we see a team having made a big move in the relegation fight - Colombini! An Afewerki stage win in Euskal might finally be decisive for them to stay up - but Kelderman is contributing his share, too.
Trans are another 10 points down - after an awful Tour of Japan, they were very solid in the two hilly PTHC classics (they actually were the highest scoring PCT team doing both). Lierse are 14 points behind, after an OK Tour of Japan and an OK Japan Cup.
It's then a bigger jump down to 14th and... Bralirwa! They definitely expected more than 111 points from the Tour of Japan, and with just 120 points in total - 200 less than Fastned and Xero - they must be fearing the worst for their promotion hopes...
We have one more team above 100 points, DuckDuckGo, holding the final Top 15 spot. Euskal wasn't too shabby for them - especially thanks to Hayakawa - whereas the same rider also scored most of their disappointing Tour of Japan outcome.
Next are Kraftwerk with 92 points - and only then we have Indosat and Assa Abloy, only scoring 84 and 79 points respectively! So that's three promotion contenders clearly outside the Top 10, two of them even scoring less than 100 points - what does this mean for the overall ranking?
Sauber and Zalgiris are next, both not having the best autumn so far. Nor do McCormick, apart from ToA. 69, 59 and 51 points for these three teams.
However, whereas none of them might worry too much (except for Zalgiris, maybe), 46 points and 22nd place so far is a horrible outcome for Zwift! They - more precisely, Jorgenson - threw away lots of points in the Tour of Japan, which could turn out being extremely costly for them!
Genii and Spark are once again at the bottom, but they might not even care that much anymore, with their fate being sealed anyway.
Here's the numerical overview:
Team
ToJ
Sun
GPC
Eus
Jcup
Total
1
Fastned
231
0
70
0
22
323
2
Xero Racing
116
0
32
72
100
320
3
Jura GIANTS
211
0
5
80
0
296
4
Sony - Force India
192
0
16
0
80
288
5
Glanbia
223
51
0
0
0
274
6
Lampre - Pinarello
60
0
60
135
5
260
7
Team UBS - Tissot
111
0
14
4
66
195
7
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
102
0
0
32
61
195
9
Tryg - Gobyk
74
0
0
119
0
193
10
Los Pollos Hermanos
189
0
0
0
0
189
11
Colombini Cycling
19
0
28
61
70
178
12
Trans Looney Tunes
18
0
75
5
70
168
13
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
112
0
0
0
42
154
14
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
111
0
9
0
0
120
15
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
57
0
0
59
0
116
16
Kraftwerk Man Machine
63
0
10
0
19
92
17
Indosat Ooredoo
76
0
0
0
8
84
18
Assa Abloy
0
0
0
79
0
79
19
Sauber Petronas Racing
26
0
0
39
4
69
20
DK Žalgiris
24
0
0
35
0
59
21
McCormick Pro Cycling
9
0
8
34
0
51
22
Zwift Pro Cycling
46
0
0
0
0
46
23
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
23
0
0
6
0
29
24
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
21
0
0
0
21
Full Ranking
Congratulations to Los Pollos on winning the PCT title 2023! Yeah, the season isn't fully over yet, but it's not mathematically possible to catch the Mexicans anymore - and this isn't really surprising, given the amazing run they're having lately! Higuita's Japan show just is another chapter in their awesome 2023 campaign. They're currently at 4,439, and their PpRD of 27.6 is looking pretty historical... After one year of having quite a lot of fun down in PCT, they're going back to PT, big congrats!
The Mexicans' gap to 2nd place is actually "just" 501 points - but with Jura being done with their 2023 season, they obviously can't get the 1st-through-8th needed to theoretically catch LPH.
Still, the Swiss definitely won't be sad about that; instead, they can definitely celebrate as well, as they'll ride in PT next year! And putting it all down to just being lucky surely wouldn't be right - with 3,938 points, they actually miss out on Amaysim's 2022 division winning score (!!!) by a mere 17 points... It's the 3rd year in a row with back-to-back promotions, after Los Pollos in 2021 and ZARA in 2022.
But the interesting part of the rankings is behind the top 2 spots anyway. Just to relate - Los Pollos are almost 1,200 points ahead of 3rd (with Jura almost 700 points clear). But behind them, we have 7 teams separated by 234 points. Or 5 teams within 81 points. Or 3 within 21 points... Let's go into the details.
In 3rd place, jumping up from 6th, we now have Xero! What looked pretty unrealistic after the first part of the year - promotion to PT - now looks almost certain, mostly thanks to a single rider: Areruya. He's been insanely consistent, and he's scored 42% of Xero's 3,246 points - and this ratio will surely get even "worse" after the final day. I honestly didn't believe that such a top-heavy team could promote, but I definitely didn't see 1.3k+ points from a single rider coming. It's too early to congratulate them, but by now it's 99% sure that PCT teams will be delivered from Areruya in 2024!
But the fight for 3rd isn't over yet. Fastned made a very similar jump, from 7th up to 4th - looking to salvage their pretty mediocre year in the final month! The Dutchmen currently trail Xero by 13 points, 3,233 vs. 3,246 - and Vansevenant has already shown this month that he can beat Areruya under certain circumstances... Probably not in an HC race, but you never know. In any case, it's looking good for promotion again!
Which is mainly due to the next team - just 8 points down - not racing anymore in 2023. This next team is Indosat, currently at 3,225 points. They're done with the season, and all they can do now is hoping that no single team overtakes them now. Only looking at this month, their current situation is definitely due to Yates' only bad race of the year, giving away a GC Top 5 in Tour of Japan due to a split. It might be the most costly mistake of the year - at least at the top of the table...
The good thing for Indosat is that their gap to 6th is almost 60 points. The bad thing is that the next team is Assa Abloy, trailing by 58 points. A Top 5 in Emilia, and the gap is gone - and it definitely wouldn't be a surprise to see Gesbert getting such a result. It will be tense...
And it looks like another heartbreaking season end for Bralirwa. They were in the Top 5 during almost the entire year - they no longer are. They dropped from 5th to 7th, currently 2 points behind Assa. But unlike the latter, the Rwandans don't have a top contender for Emilia - they'll have to hope for some kind of miracle... It looked so well for so long, but Meintjes didn't do enough in Japan, and Izagirre has never found his ToSA legs again - one final race to turn things around!
It's pretty unlikely that a team outside the current Top 7 will still get automatic promotion - but not completely excluded. In 8th place, we have Sony, with 3,047 points - 118 less than Bralira, 178 less than Indosat. But Benoot won this race last year... Winning alone (140 points) wouldn't be enough, but you never know. And maybe just gaining one or two spots could be decisive - given the low activity by quite some PT managers, disband promotions wouldn't be overly surprising...
Even Lierse in 9th place can still have some tiny hopes, sitting at 3'012 points. They're more than 200 points behind 5th place, so it's unlikely they actually get into the Top 5. But not impossible.
However, here's where I'd draw a line. Even though Lampre could theoretically still reach a promotion spot - and what other team could get a huge depth result in a hilly classic - scoring almost 500 points doesn't sound realistic at all. At least, the Italians slightly extended their gap to UBS and P4E, now 71 points ahead of the former and 97 clear of the latter, so they should have some good chances to at least hold onto the final Top 10 spot. Not getting a Top 10 will be disappointing anyway for two out of these three teams.
Then it's a 400 points gap down to 13th place, where we still have McCormick. Despite not having any good races apart from ToA lately, they still hold onto the Top 15, and they'll likely defend 13th place. They may be done racing, but so are DuckDuckGo, 65 points down.
The latter are definitely under threat of losing their Top 15 spot, though. Tryg currently hold that place with 2,230 points, just 35 behind DDG, but with two races left. Sauber are just 62 points behind 14th place, too, and have Emilia left.
For the teams behind, it's then all about avoiding relegation, not that much about still targetting a Top 15. Kraftwerk's 2,116 points will likely be enough, bu Zalgiris with just 2,062 could be at risk. So could Colombini, who now are on the final safe spot with 2,013 points.
That's only a 21 points gap to the relegation zone though! It still looks like a pretty big advantage for the Sammarinese, though, as Zwift's top puncheur Ackermann doesn't look like the best suited rider for Emilia. It looks like Jorgenson's awful race tactics in Japan could actually end up being the most costly mistake in the relegation fight - it could mean back-to-back relegations, which is definitely awful.
Eastman did what he could to save Glanbia, winning California, ToA and Tour of Japan. But there's just not enough support from the rest of the team, and so Glanbia are still 214 points behind safety. So it would take a miracle to save them, and I honestly don't see anyone potentially able to do it.
For Trans, it's all about leaving a good final impression in PCT - which they're definitely doing so far in October. Almost 450 points to safety is just too much, even with a puncheur-loaded squad.
And for Genii and Spark, there's not even a mathematical chance left to stay up, the former even being done with their 2023 races already.
Here are the standings ahead of the final two races of the year:
Sadly, I think it's time to start preparing for the fire sale. What a collapse by Jorgenson in Japan. Would be extremely happy to escape this, but I fear the worse... back-to-back relegations. Sickening. As much as I don't want to rebuild from the ashes, it makes for quite a story if I can finally get this turned around. Taking two steps back to take three steps forward
Should be promoted by triple figures already, but I've done enough partisan moaning about Japan this year (not forever - I'm always going to be sad that that's how Bennett's last maxed race went down, the worst AI after a season of bad ones for him).
Not quite feeling safe with Emilia as the final race after GPC showed how Areruya can neutralise himself, and Torino showed how the rest of the PCT can neutralise him together - the latter result would probably still see us crawl across the line though.
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
Thanks for the update Fab. Looks like we should be safe in the top 15 which would be nice after being there all season. Not a great finish, first half of the year we got all the breaks in the punchy races, 2nd half none of them.
Congrats to Nemo and Fab on the promotions. Good luck to everyone who still has things at stake.
Our goals for the final race of the season couldn't be more clear!
(i) Top 5
(ii) Outscore Bralirwa
Unfortunately, the odds feel a little bit against us. Gesbert has raced 3 hill classics this season and although he has been top 10 in all of them, he does not have a single top 5 finish.
The gap has grown a little bigger than I had hoped, much down to Fastned scoring really well both in Japan and Canada. Congrats to them and Xero who seems have a good grip on promotion at this point and good luck to Indosat and Bralirwa in the upcoming promotion decider!
This is what I've expected, even if it is still a little heartbreaking. There's very, very little chance for us to outscore Assa Abloy in Emilia, so the main goal is to remain ahead of Sony. I'm honestly surprised that Indosat is in danger of falling out of the Top 5, I thought they had that locked up, but Fastned scored better than I anticipated. Gonna be a tense battle, tough for them to be looking from the sidelines. And in the end, I think Abhi is spot on saying that this might be one of the hardest years in a while to be a promotion contender.
At the bottom, I'm gutted for Zwift and at the same time happy for Colombini. It sucks to see either of them go down. Both took risks with their team building, but Zwift at least is probably in about as good a position as you could be in to tackle a rebuild in CT.
Thanks as always for the update, and good luck to everyone on the final day!
Definitely feels good to see us jump out of relegation. Never considered us being in this position in the first place but phew. Definitely have to thank Afewerki for this as he pulled off some surprise wins and points scoring races i didnt expect. I feel really sad for Zwift as no one should have to deal with relegation after already falling from PT the year before but as saying goes, its them or us.
Thanks for the great writeup Fabi and onto Emilia!
AbhishekLFC wrote:
It's not a good season to be a promotion contender unless you are a great one!
cunego59 wrote:
I think Abhi is spot on saying that this might be one of the hardest years in a while to be a promotion contender.
The final point totals for places 3-5 will be pretty similar to last year, so not sure it's that much harder. But it's true the top half is more congested, because the bottom half of the table is very bad.
Xero might actually have it, you love to see it! I hope Bralirwa brought Meintjes to the final race, I'd love to see them getting it done at the very end.
AbhishekLFC wrote:
It's not a good season to be a promotion contender unless you are a great one!
cunego59 wrote:
I think Abhi is spot on saying that this might be one of the hardest years in a while to be a promotion contender.
The final point totals for places 3-5 will be pretty similar to last year, so not sure it's that much harder. But it's true the top half is more congested, because the bottom half of the table is very bad.
You're right with 3-5; 5th might actually even end up lower than last year.
But it's definitely congested in the Top 10 - last year we had 6 teams above 3,000 points, now we already have 9 (which will likely be the final number as well, as Lampre would need an amazing race to get there).
But if you consider that you "only" need the points of 6th plus 1 point to promote, 3,055 points (one more than Binance) would've been enough last year. We currently have 7 teams 100+ points above this value, and two more could at least get this amount as well. 8 teams currently are above Binance's 2022 PpRD and would end up ahead in terms of projected points.
So I can agree with Abhi and cunego.
On the other hand, you're definitely right about the lower half being worse than last year; there's indeed a clear split between 12th and 13th. And especially the bottom of the table, with currently 3 teams being worse than last year's red lantern. These "missing" points obviously went to the upper half, which now is really congested between 3rd and 9th.
So I'm definitely happy to be above this "fight" zone - something I'd never have imagined to this extent. And LPH are in yet another league, they just were amazing, congrats!
Good luck to all the teams still having something at stake in the final race - definitely hoping for a cool race without bad AI making the decisive differences!
Guess we're safe now. But what a sweaty last third of the season this has been. Terrible GC placings only saved by individual brilliance from Stannard, Hayakawa, Arndt. Going to need to train our teamwork for next season.
Good luck to everyone for the grand finale. Excitement and suspense lurking on.
Fabianski wrote:
And for Genii and Spark, there's not even a mathematical chance left to stay up, the former even being done with their 2023 races already.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Thanks for the penultimate update, Fabianski. As great as ever. Very happy with the title, will comment on it more detailed later good luck to all in the race for promotion/against relegation tomorrow.
After 2-3 pretty weak months, the last couple performances were pretty solid again, moving us over the line with just a single classic left.
Olivier in Japan was fantastic, basically how he was most of the season.
Vansevenant added a few points as his 2nd half of the season was actually a lot better than his early races. Basically he did decent in classics, but was totally ignored in stage races. His development should see the later being stopped next season I hope.
Final race is one of his classics, so he is hopefully able to score a few points and then keep the team in the top5.
Then a lot of things must be considered as the team is ageing as well here and there and I have way too many riders, that are in a lottery for too many times.
Congrats to nemolito, fantastic season all year, as also fabianski.
Two teams which were easily one or two steps ahead of the rest.
Sadly, I think it's time to start preparing for the fire sale. What a collapse by Jorgenson in Japan. Would be extremely happy to escape this, but I fear the worse... back-to-back relegations. Sickening. As much as I don't want to rebuild from the ashes, it makes for quite a story if I can finally get this turned around. Taking two steps back to take three steps forward 
