Nemolito wrote:

All hail Olivier! Great work by him, and great to see him winning a race with my former boy Munoz in second as well. Nice to read that you're happy enough with the Cheshire score as well, and personally I love to see Trezise and Alben getting some breakaway action!

Our strategy for this flat classic is similar to every flat classic we've gone to this season - hope Kulikovskiy can overperform, or hope someone can pull off an unlikely successful late attack. More of the same here.

Olivier is back in search of a high placing in the higher scoring PTHC races. Realistically, we are looking for a Top 10 result, but would gladly take anything better. Kulikovksiy is here to see if he can sneak in a result or two in the sprints.

More PTHC mountains, and more Olivier racing for us. Expectations are quite similar to East Java, get a Top 10, and try to do something better if possible. We do expect Olivier to lose time in the long ITT. Hopefully he can make that up in the mountains.

Benoot is back on the hills, but historically this race hasn't been great for us, and we expect a tough startlist to boot. We're keeping expectations low as a result. Hopefully, Benoot can do better than our expectations.

@redordead: You're right, we've been scoring consistently in most races. Hoping that continues going ahead. Waited a while for Olivier to get started but it was worth it so far!

kandesbunzler26 wrote:

You're keeping a good pace up in May. Especially Olivier is on fire this season. So I'm not sure I like seeing him in Java or Benoot in San Sebastian. And though they both won't be the biggest favourites in the race they are surely among the best PCT riders at the start.

We did nothing all race except getting Kulikovskiy into a decent position for the sprint. He started from a few places back, but took advantage of tiring sprinters ahead and claimed an excellent 4th place.

We didn't get anyone into the break on the first two flat stages, and Kulikovskiy couldn't really get into a top position either.

Saya Kuroeda did a lot of chasing on Stage 3. This responsibility was handed over to Carcueva on the harder slopes of the climb. Olivier launched the first attack among the favourites.



In fact, he did that twice and the second time he nearly pulled it off. He was inside the final kilometer but would hang on to 6th place on the stage and the GC.

The flat Stage 4 turned out a little better for us as Kulikovskiy finished 9th.

Olivier was 6th in the GC, Carcueva was 22nd, Hayter was 66th Hocevar was 67th and Kulikovskiy squeezed into the Top 100 at 95th. Carcueva finished 10th in the KOM. Hayter was 8th in the U25s with Hocevar 9th.

Alben tried to get into the thick of it in the sprint on Stage 1, getting 14th.

The break won Stage 2 and took 7 minutes from the pack!

Olivier timed his attack to perfection in the final slopes of the hilly Stage 3. Too bad one rider from the break was not caught and our leader had to be content with 2nd on the day.

Howson was on top form in the ITT on Stage 4 and he won the stage despite and early start!



Olivier lost time to his rivals, as we had expected.

The finish on Stage 5 suited Olivier as well, and he took another 2nd place, with Leemreize also doing well to get 10th.

Olivier attacked early on the final climb of Stage 6, and built up a decent advantage. However, he was caught with a kilometer to go. He was unable to stay with the winning move, instead finishing in 5th on the stage and moving up to 5th in the GC.

We finally put a rider into the break on Stage 7, that being Carcueva, but he was unable to score enough to challenge near the top of the KOM. Chaos in the group saw Olivier, probably because of the lack of domestiques, lose contact with the top GC guys, and end up losing a position on the day.

Olivier finished 6th in the GC. Carcueva's efforts on the final day pushed him up to 14th. Leemreize was 29th, Hocevar was 58th and Hayter was 59th. Olivier finished 3rd in the Points. Leemreize was 2nd in the U25s with Hocevar in 6th and Hayter in 7th. We finished 3rd in the Teams classfication.

As has traditionally been the case, this turned into another poor race for us. Benoot couldn't stay with the top contenders and only managed 19th, with no others contributing to the scoring.

No leaders, no expectations, no downsides!

We are hoping Kulikovskiy can take advantage of the undulating terrain and recapture some of his form from Hanko for another overperformance in this race.

With two possible Top 5 contenders, we have big expectations from this race. However, the competition will be tough. Kulikovskiy is also here to try and squeeze something out from the sprints.

Benoot is back in a hilly stage race, and we hope he can do well here. The profile should suit him decently well.

Just a fun outing for our guys in search of some XP or minor placings.

We have put all our cards into this deck, except for a sprinter! While we don't think the Prologue will allow Benoot to be in competition for the win, we hope we can get into the Top 10, and are also hoping for some good depth scoring. Hoping Benoot can prove us wrong though, on the positive spectrum.

No real expectations from this race in a PTHC sprint field. Any decent scoring will be a bonus.

Any race with Olivier brings high expectations for us. He has five chances of good stage results, so we wish to take advantage of that. The support is quite good, so we can have no complaints there.