It's been a busy month, with all teams doing five mandatory races and up to two PTHC stage races. Triple header, the first monument, and the season's longest PTHC event - plenty of action to recap, so let's start right away!
And indeed, the first PTHC stage race of the season was directly the longest one. 8 days in Portugal, most of them flat or hilly, against the clock or not - plus one final mountain stage.
Who says TTs and mountains often had to mention one name in the past: Taylor Phinney. And the American just proved us that you still have to mention him, even after two declines. After a controversial 2nd place on the opening day - the live timings had him in 1st place - he was rather anonymous, only to strike on the final two days: Win in the ITT, win on the Torre, the final climb. And obviously: Win in the GC, win in the points standings. Yeah, that's a lot of wins, and they were rewarded with 339 points. However, the rest of the team didn't contribute a whole lot. Last year's 5th place GC finisher Cras only took 48th this year (as a helper instead of GC leader admittedly), so Bauhaus with a 3rd place on stage 4 was the team's second best scorer. All in all, Fastned ended up with 361 points, definitely a good reward!
Which has to be said even more for Xero! The Kiwis had no Ganna, no Areruya, no Manninen - but they had Pidcock! And the Brit definitely wrote the story of the race. Win on S3, 2nd on S5, leader in GC and points after S6, still 5th in GC after the ITT. And guess what? He didn't care that he's no climber, he just kept up with Eastman, Almeida, Rodrigues or Godoy on the final day - to claim an incredible 3rd place in the GC! Yes, 3rd! He obviously won the white jersey by a mile (despite his manager thinking he wouldn't), and took 2nd in the points standings. That's a whopping 263 points scored by the youngster. Fouche (33rd) and Pomoshnikov (49th) were their other Top 50 GC finishers, with Novardianto adding a stage podium from the S6 breakaway. Xero also finished 4th in the team standings, totalling 302 points in the end. Expected? Likely not. Welcome? For sure!
It's then a more than 100 points jump to the 3rd best team. Which had their highest GC finisher in 16th place, so they must have score their main points elsewhere than via GC. Indeed, they had 9 Top 10 finishes in 8 days, starting with Chavanne's 3rd place in the prologue, then Schmid taking 2nd and 1st on S3 and S5 (swapping positions with Pidcock), and also Bol getting some sprint points. Obviously, that's Jura, indeed. Schmid surprisingly was their top GC rider in 16th, while Darbellay as the best climber on paper ended up 18th - after sitting in 6th before the mountain stage... Schmid finished 3rd in U25 and 4th in points, and the team also had Rohendi (36th) in the Top 50 and ended up 2nd in the team standings - 190 points for the Swiss.
Just mentioning it because I find it funny - the Top 4 scoring teams are last year's PCT Top 4 teams in reverted order; Fastned, Xero, Jura, Oxxo (formerly LPH). Looks like promoted teams like long PTHC races.
Besides its length, another reason for only a few TTers going to Portugal was the TTT classic, from Copenhagen to Malmo, from Denmark to Sweden. The mandatory PT events attracts most of the world's top riders against the clock - and usually those teams having most of them can get some good results.
And for several years now - for the 4th time in a row, to be precise - there's no better TTT outfit than EA Vesuvio's. The Luxembourgers, led by the world's new fastest TTer Wirtgen, were faster than anyone else once again, scoring 250 points in total. 175 points went to the Mexicans from Oxxo, who assembled a great TTT squad around Zmorka and Sütterlin this year. 3rd place went to Würtz and his teammates from Grieg, but already almost half a minute down on EA. 140 points still is a nice reward for the Norwegians.
The final race of the big clash was Paris - Nice, which was designed for the climbers this year. And for the sprinters, in the first half. Plus PT's only TTT other than the TTT classic and the usual GT one.
If you didn't follow the race, you may be surprised that it was a close fight for the best scoring team. Even more so if I tell you that the GC winner also won two stages and finished 2nd and 4th respectively in KoM and points. And all of this was only just enough to come out on top for Cedevita! Pogacar's first big revelation at the highest level was worth 388 points for the Slovenian. Habtemichael's 36th place in GC was worth 15 points - with the rest of the team scoring the minimum amount for finishing the race. All in all, that's 433 points for Cedevita, whose manager surely was hoping for some better depth. But it was enough for the win.
But what a show this was by Aker in the first five days! Five stage wins by three different riders - huge! First, there was the mandatory win by SKA, with no-one else being allowed to win prologues for quite some time now. Then, three Groenewegen sprint wins - interrupted just by Räim's surprise win on day 4. He was trying to lead out Groenewegen, but was just too strong - and rode away. When you're on a roll, you even get some crazy wins. GC-wise, it was less of a success for the team, with Novak ending up 14th after some questionable tactics on day 6. Still, with Groenewegen's 244 points (#2 individually) and almost 200 more by his teammates, that's a fantastic 429 points yield for Aker!
It's then more than 80 points down to our number 3, which is Oxxo! Apart from Sütterlin's 7th place in the prologue, they got nothing noteworthy in the first 5 days of the race. Well, make it 6 actually, as Eastman struggled a lot on day 6 to only take 9th place. The American was far stronger on stage 7, though, taking 2nd place - and laying the groundwork for his 2nd place GC finish! Which was mostly due to Oxxo rocking the closing TTT, which they easily won - and which made Eastman jump all the way up from 6th to 2nd! Obviously, he scored the team's major chunk of points - 226 to be precise. However, 4 of his teammates also got 10 points from the TTT win, and Lopez Nolasco added a great 17th place GC finish on top of that! All in all, it's 347 points for the Mexicans, giving Fastned and Xero a great fight for Best Promoted Team!
12 teams then participated in the PTHC TT festival in Ukraine. However, the organizers decided to add some bigger hills this year, in order to hold back the pure TTers. Well, it mostly worked.
However many and how high hills they put there, Wirtgen will always be the favourite. And unlike in Tasmania, where he was surprisingly defeated, there was no way past him in Ukraine. He won both TTs, the GC, the green jersey, and Vesuvio finished 3rd in teams. "Only" third, because they didn't have an amazing day on the hilly stage. They still had Girdlestone (21st) and Munton (37th) in the Top 50, and the other 4 riders in the Top 100, for 359 points in total (thereof 314 by Wirtgen).
The one (more or less) pure TTer that couldn't be shaken off on day 2 was Würtz, who dropped down to 2nd best TTer in the MG-verse after Wirtgen's massive training. And the Dane did not only ride well on the hilly stage, he also did his job in the TT and finished twice in both stages against the clock, even in the uphill prologue. And he ended up 2nd in points. That's 216 points for him, with Cort Nielsen, Gaudu and Gebrezgabihier all adding Top 50 finishes. 255 points in total for the Danes.
243 is the 3rd best score - and it might be a surprise that this team's best GC finisher was "only" 7th. But they had no less than 6 riders in the Top 50, thereof 3 in the Top 20 - no doubt, we're talking about Gazelle! Leknessund's 7th place is obviously still their highlight, but then they have Senni in 12th, Aleotti in 15th, Nsengimana in 22nd, Carboni in 30th and Pavlic in 44th - an amazing depth performance! Surprisingly, they didn't even get the team standings win, but they lost too much time in the TTs for this one.
And then, if not the biggest race of the month, certainly the one with the biggest fame. The first monument, the "Primavera". Often won by sprinters, sometimes by rouleurs or daredevils, rarely by puncheurs. And this year?
None of the above. Ladies and gentlement, we have to introduce a new rider type: The Pidcock. With the category's only representative being its name giver. In his inimitable style, he attacked in the final descent, closed the gap to the leader, and easily outsprinted his last rival. It's his first monument win at the age of 25 - and no-one would be surprised to see him add half a dozen more Primavera wins in the next couple of years. Pidcock won the race and 280 points - and even though none of his teammates added any kind of depth points, that's another huge 315 points for Xero.
Skujins was the initiator of the decisive attack in the Poggio, and although he stood no chance against Pidcock, he was rewarded by a still outstanding 2nd place, fending off the chasers by a comfortable margin. With his 205 points and Tikhonin's 10 for a Top 50 finish, that's a total of 245 points for Tinkoff.
A total that was almost matched by Fastned, where once again Vansevenant had a great day and showed some very smart riding to finish 3rd. Not his first monument win, but I'm sure he'll eventually get one, given how strong he already is. And Fastned also had a great 14th place by Bax, to make it 239 points for the Dutchmen.
Lots of names, lots of numbers - let's summarize:
You may not expected promoted teams to top any kind of rankings, but they do. First of all, Fastned. Winning Portugal and Tirreno, plus very strong results in Paris - Nice and MSR results in a pretty great score of 1,544 points! With 53.24, they also have the top PpRD of the month - domination. In terms of PpRD, they're still behind Vesuvio's February outcome from last year - they were above 60...
Next are Xero, who had a similarly great month, with some minor lows. 1,396 points is still awesome - and almost 2/3 of their points came from a rider who definitely wasn't expected to score that high. 3rd place then goes to Gazelle with the still very strong outcome of 1,321 points, despite no "flashy" result. Consistency and depth are their keys, and it's working like a charm. Jealous.
Cedevita - with the 2nd highest PpRD of the month, not having done Portugal unlike those ahead - Aker and Vesuvio are the next three, and the three others above 1,000 points. Jura, King Power and Oxxo are pretty close behind, before we have a 200 points gap. The Top 9 all had a PpRD over 30, and this includes 4/5 promoted teams.
The final promoted team - Assa - is right at the end of the table, having another miserable month, only lit up a bit by another Abdul Halil stage win. Moser weren't much better, and in terms of PpRD Evonik and Carlsberg also had a poor month. All of them apart from Moser can hope for the cobbles to bring some relief next month, with the Czech outfit having to bank on Kudus to move them up later on.
Here's the full table:
Pos
Team
Por
TTT
T-A
P-N
G-D
Ukr
MSR
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Fastned
361
50
558
306
30
0
239
1544
29
53.24
2
Xero Racing
302
0
406
102
186
85
315
1396
32
43.63
3
Gazelle
167
40
234
315
137
243
185
1321
32
41.28
4
Cedevita
0
90
266
433
40
209
84
1122
24
46.75
5
Aker - MOT
155
10
256
429
35
65
160
1110
32
34.69
6
EA Vesuvio
0
250
113
111
87
359
111
1031
24
42.96
7
Jura GIANTS
190
75
212
203
139
91
68
978
32
30.56
8
King Power
0
105
183
299
79
220
66
952
24
39.67
9
Oxxo - Frisby
173
175
119
347
48
0
89
951
29
32.79
10
Grieg-Maersk
33
140
98
108
50
255
81
765
32
23.91
11
Team Puma - SAP
92
45
64
227
274
0
62
764
29
26.34
12
MOL Cycling Team
116
5
88
251
96
118
40
714
32
22.31
13
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
76
125
69
71
67
0
245
653
29
22.52
14
Polar
0
5
59
223
30
154
179
650
24
27.08
15
cycleYorkshire
0
25
330
53
68
0
112
588
21
28.00
16
Rabobank
90
15
191
86
158
0
40
580
29
20.00
17
Lidl Cycling
0
55
144
209
85
0
45
538
21
25.62
18
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
113
5
75
191
95
0
45
524
29
18.07
19
Evonik - ELKO
42
35
135
55
193
0
58
518
29
17.86
20
ZARA - Irizar
0
65
63
77
98
156
55
514
24
21.42
21
Moser - Sygic
0
30
92
95
30
4
119
370
24
15.42
22
Assa Abloy
0
0
146
53
35
0
67
301
21
14.33
Full Ranking
Without any surprise, the month's Top 3 also hold the Top 3 overall, with the first two swapping places compared to the monthly rankings. Xero already did well in Tasmania and Qatar, and had enough of a margin to stay ahead of Fastned. It's 1,900 vs. 1,810 points for the two probably most surprising teams of the year to date.
Gazelle did enough to move up from 18th to 3rd, with King Power dropping one spot behind them. Vesuvio even lost two places and round off the Top 5.
Oxxo, Aker and Cedevita are then pretty close to each other, with 33 points separating them. Jura with 50 points less in 9th place are rather close as well, before we get an almost 100 points gap to former leader Rabobank and the final Top 10 spot.
Grieg aren't far behind the Dutchmen, whereas Puma, cycleYorkshire, Polar and Tinkoff all are within 25 points - and the last teams above 1,000 points.
Most others have scored at least 800 points - except for Evonik and Assa. Which must be worrying for both, but both have at least one big card still to play, and the season is far from over.
With used-up RDs ranging from 32 to 43, some teams aren't easy to compare yet, but as always, those who used few RDs and are high up are definitely doing a good job.
A new star is born - or has rather a new monster been created? I'll happily admit I always thought Tom Pidcock's OVL was too high. I stand corrected. It's not too high by any means. The Brit has scored 918 points in 20 race days so far - an average of almost 46 points per RD. He's on his way to a Top 10 in the individual standings, which is pretty insane for a newly maxed, untrained 25 year old! And he must have just become one of the youngest monument winners ever - hats off, Tommy P!
But let's not forget that Mauri Vansevenant has been almost as impressive so far - and looking at his PpRD, actually even more impressive: 712 points in 13 race days, that's a 59 PpRD average! Like for Pidcock, I always thought his OVL was too high - it is not, not with the current game engine. Fantastic job done by him as well, and his Tirreno win definitely was amazingly dominant!
Superlatives, something often used for Taylor Phinney in the past. Yeah, that's the 2nd Fastned rider in the Top 3 - and still they don't top the rankings. Phinney has won in Portugal, without his domination from past years though - an impression confirmed in Paris - Nice, where he couldn't keep up with the best anymore. Another decent season should be on the table for him, but the individual crown seems to be far away by now.
Tom Wirtgen did in Ukraine what he missed out on in Tasmania: He won. He also won the TTT, once again. 585 points after just 8 RDs, with a PpRD above 70. Can he challenge the individual podium this year?
Previous leader Fernando Gaviria only raced in MSR, where he only got an OK-ish result. He drops to 5th place, totalling 501 points. Close behind are Tadej Pogacar and Mads Würtz; the former after a fantastic Paris - Nice campaign, the latter picking up points left and right, but mostly in Ukraine with his 2nd place.
Then we have 35 points from 8th to 11th, which in order are Eduard Grosu (dropped from 2nd after a big MSR fail), Ryan Eastman (pretty good in Portugal and Paris - Nice), Attila Valter (strong performance in Tirreno) and Dylan Groenewegen (3 stage wins in Paris - Nice).
Here's the full overview - feel free to add your own thoughts!
Great writeup Fabianski, thanks! Hope you're feeling better.
Very happy we scored 41.3 PpRD this month as 40 is the bar we strive for.
What makes this even more encouraging is that our main leaders Dombrowski and Lutsenko were only active for a total of 6 racedays. Great job by the secondary leaders and domestiques to carry the team like this.
Thanks for the update, Fabianski. Great work and entertaining to read. We've managed to score quite regularly in the races where we haven't expected to do big things, and then a very solid start to the season for Würtz. Hopefully we can continue the good work onto the cobbles.
Still very early obviously, but we're already way way way below last year's pace. Seems like we already need the sort of cobbles domination that even Per isn't capable of in order to stay up. Unless our luck changes soon, it's gonna be back to the drawing board after relegation.
Thanks for the writeup Fabianski!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
So basically it took me just 12 years or so until I had a rider capable to dominate on PT level guaranteeing bigger points and then in the same year I kind of have two of them?
Pretty weird and unexpected outcome going into transfers.
Phinney luckily still has it even you are right, it's not as dominant anymore.
Vansevenant obviously performing already on a level I only expected once he is trained a bit. Definitely the star of the team for the next years.
And Wellens and Van Hooydonck have yet to start their seasons as leaders.
Obviously first two had a packed early season schedule and won't score as much as year but in especially the hill classics should see Vansevenant on a high level, when I expected him to be more of a stage racer as shown in TA.
Thanks for the update, great read a usual.
And congrats to Xero as well. They had a brilliant time. Pidcock was a huge gamble but one that incredibly paid off.
We were never going to be great in this early part of the season but this is going pretty badly. Grand-Duche was roughly matching expectations, Tirreno was good. Everything else was different shades of bad to terrible. At some point we need to get some more lucky depth points if we want to rise into the podium fight. Being on projection to finish below 3000 points is just incredibly bad - even with the context of our leaders not having had good races yet.
If we are still this low by the end of the month, we can basically end the season already
Very nice post, thank you very much Fabianski. A pleasure to read, even from a neutral point of view.
Strange to see Evonik this low, but then there are GTs.
Let's hope the other low ranked teams will find their legs too.
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
Well we are well clear of relegation despite racing the least in the division but I can't help but think that we are underperforming so far with the races that have been. Maybe it's Cullaigh slanting my judgement but I certainly hoped for more from him. With the cobbles season to come we will be falling down much further and that will probably ring some alarm bells from us but hopefully the likes of Yates and Morton can deliver in their own races.
Pidcock being the rider of the year so far is nice to see from a former rider - I'd suggest it's a little unexpected since when he was with us (being unmaxed of course) he didn't do anything remotely as good.
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
Thank you for the summary, Fabianski! Hope you are and feel better!
Sitting midtable is solid. If we end there after the season, I will be very happy on our part, as it will lay the foundation for what is to come. After deciding to go for De Lie in the transfer season, this year is mainly about avoiding relegation, and having a gap to the relegation zone before the classics, especially the cobbles, can turn out to be important. Hoping we can continue to deliver good points in the races we go to, like we started to do in February after a very slow January!
I'm happy that we manage to score points in basically any race, but the standout performance is still missing. It's good to see that's enough for 4th so far. Thanks for the update!
I'd be slightly concerned about being in the relegation places at the end of February normally, with the start of the season generally featuring races we'd expect to do well in, and particularly with Kemboi having raced every non-clashing RD so far.
However, having written this season off heading into it it's a strangely relaxing feeling. 8 more months to enjoy the ride and plan the rebuild it is. I'll take Xero's success as vindication for my ideas even if the execution is flawed
Otherwise, good to already have a certain cushion to the danger zone; we'll need that one once we get to the GT season. Whether Theuns is still able to deliver decent result on the cobbles or not will be decisive for where we'll end up after the next month, so definitely hoping he still has it!
