Amazing to see such a devoted geographical team, in a "obscure" cycling nation.
You have like 75-80% greeks in your total line up and you are still competitive?
That's just mental!
Love your Farantakis training too. Will folloe you with interrest
sammyt93
I hope it's worth it, but I must admit that I have my doubts, given his extremely poor track-record in actually winning stuff. He has a total of 4 stagewins over the course of his entire season - I signed him when he was a stagiare! 1 stagewin in a PT race, the other 3 in PTHC. He couldn't even win in C1 or HC races last season.
Laurens147
Me too. I hope he will deliver both as leadout and lead sprinter. I think he have a good an balanced statbase to do so here and there.
Bjartne
Thanks a lot mate. Indeed it seems that a pure Greek base is somewhere in between divisions, but with a bit of help can survive the PT - Whether I managed to sign the proper help this season is yet to be seen. Could very much be a bit under the line.
TheManxMissile
Hehe that would be highly unreasonable, although those monuments are something we still haven't locked in, through out all those years. So fingers crossed he will find some magic
Goal Time! We have gone for 5 easy goals, in order to get the funds needed to make sure we could train a rider - or buy a leader...
Giro d'Italia
Win
TBA
TBA
TBA
Milano San Remo
Win
TBA
TBA
TBA
Rund um Köln
Top 3
TBA
TBA
TBA
Tour of Qatar
Top 3
TBA
TBA
TBA
Team Standings
Win
TBA
TBA
TBA
Realistically we aim to get 2/5, and with a large amount of luck, Milano San Remo could be an achievable goal - more likely though, a top 10 or worse. Regardless, let's have a look at how we aim to achieve the 4 race goals!
2025 is waiting just ahead of us, and we are back in the Pro Tour, trying our very best to survive! Let's see what to expect from the first of 4 quarters!
January Racing
Only 2 races in the first month back in the Pro Tour. Both are races that could see us perform to a mediocre part of the division, maybe slightly higher. But we also need a good start, as we are soon to ride races where our chances are very limited.
Start
End
Race
Category
08-Jan
10-Jan
Tour of Tasmania
PT
Expectations: We bring Stylianos Farantakis as a hope for the early lead. He should be among the top favorites, but mostly we are eager to see whether or not he works in our setup. Besides Farantakis we bring a lot of depth, hoping to maximize our potential in the outskirts of the top 10-20.
Start
End
Race
Category
23-Jan
28-Jan
Tour of Qatar
PT
Expectations: Where we brought Farantakis for some early gamble in Tasmania, he is here as our undisputed leader, with the best possible help he can get. We supplement with a bunch of solid PRL riders in the hope that a break appears somewhere in the race and that we can get the better of those splits.
February Racing
While January was race light, February is exactly the opposite with 6 races in total. It's a good mixture of race combinations, and this should hopefully talk into our depth side, where we have something to play for in all races, but not a winning move by any means.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Feb
Roma Maxima
PTHC
Expectations: It's time to see what our new cobbled leader, Marcos Altur can do. We bring the best possible setup around him, and with the solid amount of domestique firepower we hope to see him fight for a top 5, or just outside.
Start
End
Race
Category
05-Feb
11-Feb
Tirreno - Adriatico
PT
Expectations: We bring everything we can to help Giannoutsos get a solid result. The domestique strength might be underwhelming in the mountains, but should be sufficient in the TTT to land a somewhat solid playground for him. Giannoutsos is the weakest in the TTT train however, so it may backfire.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Feb
14-Feb
Paris - Nice
PT
Expectations: We gamble in the triple-header to get the best of Kinoshita by adding him to the highest amount of racedays possible, where our hopes is that the better puncheurs will make Grand-Duche their priority. If not, chances are slim for a result. Farantakis is here however to see if he can snatch a stagewin.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Feb
Classique du Grand-Duché
PT
Expectations: Expectations are low in Luxembourg, where we bring the 3rd tier climbers to the party and hope for some sort of mountainous selection. If there is harly any selection we may dream of Soulious or Koumpetsos fighting for something, but realistically this is a write-off.
Start
End
Race
Category
22-Feb
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
PT
Expectations: Last season we fought to win all TTT's. This season is very much a different outcome, but we still hope to have enought strength to give the top 5 a go.
Start
End
Race
Category
28-Feb
Milano - San Remo
M
Expectations: Milano San Remo is always a bit of a gambles race. We try to cover every scenario from a sprint, to a late attack or a puncheurs final. Likely we will be around the top 10, but whether or not we will get a good result is up to luck.
March Racing
After a mixed setup, we are back to sprints, cobbles and timetrials - which is, on paper atleast, our speciality. We expect to score a decent amount of points during March before moving into a much more difficult Q2!
Start
End
Race
Category
01-Mar
03-Mar
Ronde van Nederland
PT
Expectations: We have solid experience and fond memories from Coquard in Nederland, where also Koretzky have done reasonably well in the past. We hope to see something similar from Farantakis and Kinoshita, and to atleast break into the top 10 GC.
Start
End
Race
Category
20-Mar
22-Mar
Tour of Ukraine
PTHC
Expectations: Ukraine is, on paper, a very good fit for our riders. The main issue being, that a lot of other teams can say the same, and most are present here. Much like in Tasmania we hope to see our depth department roll into the lucky side of the GC battle, and maybe sneak a guy into top 10.
Start
End
Race
Category
20-Mar
E3 Prijs
PT
Expectations: Altur is ready for his second real leader performance, and yet again we have the team setup around him, to see if he can land somewhere between 5-10th, and with some luck break into the top 5.
Start
End
Race
Category
31-Mar
Ronde van Vlaanderen
M
Expectations: Similar as to E3 Prijs we hope to see Altur fight for a top 10. Ronde is a much harder race, however, and doesn't suit him quite as well.
After a pretty awful Tour of Tasmania, with only Farantakis showing a glimmer of hope, we hurried to the Tour of Qatar, where expectations were significantly higher.
In the shadows we expected a scoring around 250-300 points from the race we previously won through Bryan Coquard in 2021, and historically with Thor Hushovd in 2009. Throughout the years we have consistantly performed well here with a total of 9 stagewins, 11 GC top 10s and a single pointsjersey.
Stylianos Farantakis showed his capabilities within the race structure in both 2021 and 2022 getting 12th and 8th respectively, in both occassions working for the team star Bryan Coquard.
And thus, began his role as a leader within the team at the highest level ever, with an immidiate expectation that he could push for a GC podium given his strong abilities against the clock. It would require a somewhat consistent performance, to keep snatching up seconds before the final battle against the clock. Alternatively time it just right on a couple of occasions to take the big chunks.
On stage 1 he delivered the consistency we were hoping for with a 5th place, but on stage 2, he hit it just right and took his only 2nd ever Pro Tour stagewin! (Having previously won a stage in Tirreno-Adriatico in 2022)
From there on, it was more of a struggle, despite getting a great piece of leadout at times from the new signing Axel Zingle. On stage 3 it was a complete miss, getting 14th - even some spots behind his leadout rider. It was somewhat better on stage 4, but he couldn't quite get it right after the enourmous burst of energy from Zingle. In the end 7th gave a bit of extra seconds, but the chances of GC succes slowly began to fade, with just one shot left to keep things under control.
Yet it didn't happen, and a new subpar performance getting 8th saw him being in a bit of stress before the epilogue. Fortunately his main rivals had secured even less points throughout, so when it came to the final day, he won the race with considerable ease! Getting 13th on the day was enough to push for a rather dominant win, and make a small jump to a shared 2nd in the points competition.
In the end the win was as big as 23 seconds down to a surprising 2nd in Frederik Rodenberg from Carlsberg - Danske Bank. 25 seconds deficit is the largest gap in modern day of the race, slotting Farantakis in among the more definitive victories! We have to go back to the early days of Daniele Bennati dominance to see a significant increase. In 2010 he won the race in ease 1'12 ahead of Maxime Vantomme.
To add a bit of sugar to the result, both Remy Cavagna and Martinos Moutsios had a good final day, and added to the score sheet. In particular was it great to see Moutsios score 2nd in the U25 result, which is in fact our best result since Coquard won the U25 in 2017.
In the end, we managed to score 419 points from the race, putting January in +120 pts in total! A very good start to the season in a very important month for us! And even more importantly - A goal achieved!
We are now ready for a very important february, starting in Roma Maxima with big expectations to fight for a top 5 result.
Better late than never. A fair amount of the Q2 Racing have already been concluded. But that doesn't mean that we are not going to share our pre-season estimates, as the figures gives an indication as to where we believe our season is going.
The first quarter of the 2025 season is well over, and it's time to take a look at how we performed.
Tour of Tasmania
EXP: 100pts
ACT: 50pts
Tour of Qatar
EXP: 250pts
ACT: 419pts
Roma Maxima
EXP: 80pts
ACT: 79pts
Tirreno-Adriatico
EXP: 100pts
ACT: 55pts
Paris-Nice
EXP: 100pts
ACT: 282pts
Classique du Grand-Duché
EXP: 50pts
ACT: 64pts
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
EXP: 75pts
ACT: 75pts
Milano San Remo
EXP: 150pts
ACT: 214pts
Ronde van Nederland
EXP: 150pts
ACT: 164pts
Tour of Ukraine
EXP: 100pts
ACT: 193pts
E3 Prijs
EXP: 130pts
ACT: 147pts
Ronde van Vlaanderen
EXP: 150pts
ACT: 239pts
STATUS
EXP: 1435pts
ACT: 1981pts
Overall we have to conclude that things are coming along very very nicely. Most races are estimated pretty close to the actual results with 5 out of 12 races coming inside just 15 points. Some races stand out notably though.
In negative aspect we were absolute no shows in Tour of Tasmania and Tirreno-Adriatico. Two races where we didn't have huge ambitions, but just never showed anything at all. Fortunately those two are the only negative outliers.
Highligts of the quarter is certainly Farantakis winning Tour of Qatar, landing us a whooping 419 points. Easily in the top 3 of our best races this season despite having only ridden about 1/4 at this time. The surprise GC succes in Paris-Nice also added nicely to a feeling that we are punching well above our wheight here. Also races like Milano San Remo and Ronde van Vlaanderen ended up significantly better than expected with solid performances from Altur, Kinoshita and surprisingly Boutopoulos.
After the period we are almost 550 points ahead of our expected final scoreline, which is a very nice cushion, as most of those could easily be lost in the 3 Grand Tours, where we might have estimated a bit over the top.
Let's take a look at Q2.
April Racing
April offers a bunch of versatile riding, from the cobbled superrace Paris-Roubaix, over the first Grand Tour of the season aswell as a Team TimeTrial heavy race, a climbing marathon and the first race of the ardennes week. We like our chances here as versatility and depth is our strength. So we come hoping for ~850 points this month.
Start
End
Race
Category
01-Apr
Paris - Roubaix
M
Exp. pts: 175pts Expectations: On paper the best suited race on the calender for Marcos Altur is the long and endurant Paris-Roubaix. After a stern showing in the more hilly Ronde van Vlaanderen we have a high expectation that Altur can fight for a top 5. We have solid backup aswell.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Apr
23-Apr
Giro d'Italia
GT
Exp. pts: 450pts Expectations: Without having a top contender for the Grand Tours we have to spread out our gambles a bit. Giannoutsos is here with a solid team around him, aiming for a GC top 10, while maybe having a bit of leeway to join a late break. We have Zingle as our main sprinter, and expect him to be a solid bet. Besides that we have a lot of faith in Kinoshita and Vine for breakaways. 450 points is a lot without a top 5 GC candidate though!
Start
End
Race
Category
13-Apr
17-Apr
Tour of Slovenia
PTHC
Exp. pts: 100pts Expectations: With a Team TimeTrial we have decided to bring the full firepower. This is also the reason why some of the obvious domestiques have been left at home from Giro d'Italia. We expect to fight for a low end top 10 GC.
Start
End
Race
Category
23-Apr
GP Liechtenstein
PT
Exp. pts: 40pts Expectations: We had to make sacrifices some where, and this was it. We might have been better off putting someone like Christakos here, but we left him with helpers duty.
Start
End
Race
Category
30-Apr
Amstel Gold Race
PT
Exp. pts: 100pts Expectations: Time to see where Kinoshita stands in the straight fights between the top dogs. We don't expect him to top 10, but maybe just outside.
May Racing
While April was a month of versatility May is everything but. Hills and cobbles are on the table. We feel pretty comfortable with the cobbles. Not so much with the hills, and then we have Tour of Northern Europe as a good mixture, which can go in any direction. If we can come away with 500-600 points this month we are very happy. It wouldn't require more than one super result to push us past that, but we can't really see where it should come from.
Start
End
Race
Category
01-May
Fleche Wallonne
PT
Exp. pts: 100pts Expectations: On paper this one is a bit more difficult than Amstel for Kinoshita, but we have opted for a similar outing in the end. 100 points is very rough, and we would be happy to score 200 points across those two races.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-May
Liege - Bastogne - Liege
M
Exp. pts: 125pts Expectations: Due to being a monument a few more points are on offer here - otherwise we expect something similar to the above mentioned races.
Start
End
Race
Category
19-May
25-May
Tour of Northern Europe
PT
Exp. pts: 150pts Expectations: Tour of Northern Europe is historically a race that can go in all different directions. Cavagna have shown great strength here in the past, and we have tried to keep solid riders around him everywhere, knowing there's a risk he will be left to play domestique. Riders like Kinoshita, Altur and Farantakis could all play a role on different stages.
Start
End
Race
Category
29-May
Tour of the Battenkill
PTHC
Exp. pts: 110pts Expectations: Having to split up "the party" we have opted for Altur here, and hope we win the lottery of startlists. He is supported by Stavrakakis and Cavagna to make for a solid setup.
Start
End
Race
Category
29-May
Rheden GP
PTHC
Exp. pts: 75pts Expectations: Without Altur here it's time to see if Kortsidakis and Boutopoulos can fend for themselves as leaders. They have done well in the past and should supplement eachother fairly alright.
June Racing
June is back to being a mixture of things, which normally should suit us. The only races that clashes, however, are the two GC races which isn't ideal for us. We need Farantakis to step up and show his class, while we get some stage succes in the 3 final GC races. We hope to settle in at 600 points for the month, but we see a high risk here that we end up closer to 400 points.
Start
End
Race
Category
01-Jun
GP Moscow
PT
Exp. pts: 150pts Expectations: Flat one day race smell like Farantakis. This one is no different. He is here with his usual setup delivered by Zingle, and a bunch of strongmen to keep him out of trouble. Sprinting is always a gamble though.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Jun
Hanko Classic
PTHC
Exp. pts: 105pts Expectations: Not much have changed. Farantakis is here once more, but without his trusted lead-out rider in Zingle. We need to test out how the Farantakis/Koumpetsos duo will due, so we can make the right moves for the upcoming season.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Jun
Chrono des Herbiers
PT
Exp. pts: 70pts Expectations: There are significantly stronger individual timetriallists in other teams than we can gather. We can only hope for one of our solid guys to get a decent result, and let the depth scoring keep us afloat.
Start
End
Race
Category
12-Jun
18-Jun
Tour de Suisse
PTHC
Exp. pts: 50pts Expectations: Here we have to hope for something similar to Paris-Nice to get us points - but it is a significantly harder stage race, hence our low expectations. Axel Zingle is here for a last stint is his own hands. Jay Vine as a hopeful breakaway rider.
Start
End
Race
Category
14-Jun
20-Jun
Criterium du Dauphine Libere
PTHC
Exp. pts: 125pts Expectations: The remaining quality is sent to France to help Giannoutsos fight for a top 10. If we are lucky with the startlist that should be possible.
Start
End
Race
Category
22-Jun
22-Jun
Scandinavia Open Road Race
PT
Exp. pts: 100pts Expectations: We finish the 2nd quarter in a small stage race that doesn't suit us all that well. Kinoshita might be doing alright, but we suspect that a top 10 will be difficult. He is supported by the best we have, which isn't all that much looking at the competition in the Pro Tour.
Over the course of the Man-Game era no less than 56 Greek/Cypriot riders have delivered results of various quality. We have decided to bring you a little bit of that historical data. More specific, we have taken a look into the history of this seasons race calender, and showcased the best overall results from Greek/Cypriot riders.
The numbers are somewhat uplifting to read as a manager of such a team.
In the Pro Tour universe the worst result is #40 in Fleche Wallonne followed by #31 in Amstel Gold Race. This obviously also tell a story that despite numerous talented breakaway riders, the nations are yet to crack the code on how to deliver top level puncheurs. It is, however interesting to see top 20 results in all Grand Tour aswell as Monuments. In just one of those races we have managed to crack the top 10 however. The Giro d'Italia. Twice though as Giannoutsos just managed #10 this year. Previous result of 5th however is still the biggest ever Greek result.
Just one Pro Tour race have been won, that was done by Stylianos Farantakis earlier this season, when the Tour of Qatar was won. A total of 11 Pro Tour races have seen a Greek/Cypriot rider break into the top 10. That is 39% of the races in the Pro Tour. It would be interesting to see if we could get that number up to 50% within the next few seasons!
From all the currently active races in the Man-Game universe these are the top record holders...
It's rather interesting to see that despite of a massive 121 active races being ridden this year, not a single one doesn't have a greek or cypriot rider participating at one time or another. Olympia and Monterrey TTT have not been added, as no greek team has ever ridden them. Greek riders have, however ridden both!
There are still plenty of records to be stolen, however - in all race categories! Hardest is it in the PTHC where Greek/Cypriot riders have managed to record a top 10 in no less than 63% of the races!
Feel free to comment, and if you spot a mistake, please let me know! It has all been done manually, so there's a big risk that some records are not collected correctly!
Giro d'Italia
Rund um Köln
Tour of Qatar
Team Standings
Tour of Tasmania
Paris - Nice
Classique du Grand-Duché
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
Ronde van Nederland
Tour of Ukraine
E3 Prijs
Tour of Tasmania
Tour of Slovenia
GP Liechtenstein
Tour of the Battenkill
GP Moscow
Hanko Classic
Tour de Suisse
