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Tour of Northern Europe - Discussion
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 16-01-2026 07:57
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Classics Specialist
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Ulloa and Malacarne with some almost-breakaway action, I'll take it  Congratulations on the nice win, SotD, and thanks for the first nice report out of many to come, Ulrich 
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| SotD |
Posted on 16-01-2026 19:02
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World Champion
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Thanks a lot for the congrats guys. Much appreciated. And indeed taking the first stage is always brilliant for multiple reasons. As a team with an ambition to stay afloat the added points is always great! Farantakis haven't really had a brilliant season though IMO. He has 2 stagewins and no more stage podiums. He just scores a big amount of points when he wins. Here from getting the leaders jersey, and in Qatar he ended up winning the race - but mainly because of his PRL and due to the fact that he was the pre-race favorite really.
He has ridden 12 stages where he has been a podium favorite (at least) this season with these results:
1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 14, 14, 17 - Average 8th.
Actually often being beaten by Axel Zingle in the sprints.
He used 50% of his RD's already and scored 485 points including these 53. Considering that he's the shared 2nd best sprinter in the PT I don't think it's particularly impressive. He's the 2nd "worst" rider in my team in terms of who's the furthest away from my expected target in percentage. He's at 44%. Only Christakos at 16% is worse
Anyway! This was a massive win for us!
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 17-01-2026 03:32
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16632
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Per losing 4 minutes for no reason. No other potential leader on my team and 79 flat. 
It is what it is. Empty race for us now, but I guess Per decided he'd given me enough this year.
Even worse for Xero and Pidcock. Or Anderberg, or Gerts, who had advantages on multiple terrains. I guess all the obstacles on today's stage were just too much...
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| SotD |
Posted on 17-01-2026 06:32
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World Champion
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Another fantastic win from Farantakis. Seemed very much like a lottery win compared to the first one though, as he was Well boxed in and couldn’t really follow his own leadout. Does any other sprinter in the PT won 2 sprints in a row in the same race? Feels like that hardly Ever happens!
It was a bad stage GC wise however! Losing Carstens (who just decided to sit up) was really not part of the plan. In fact I tried to plan so he would lead out Farantakis to make sure he would be in the front row. Probably should have left out Koumpetsos to make that work - but then we probably wouldn’t have won two stages. We came with an ambition of 150 points, and it seems like we will make that. So I guess it doesn’t matter if it comes from one or the other…
Fingers crossed that Boutopoulos and Kiriakidis have a good cobbled stage.
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| ember |
Posted on 17-01-2026 08:18
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Team Leader
Posts: 7108
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Congratulations again, SotD, and thank you for the very well covered sprint, UU!
For us, that was the worst possible finish, unfortunately. GC over before it was about to start, really  |
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| knockout |
Posted on 17-01-2026 09:01
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8288
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Unfortunate split there, bit of a shame to see so many cobblers hit by it. For me that could end up benefitial though as Herregodts survived the stage and is sitting in 25th in GC already. But the next stage is the crucial stage and we need to survive it first and foremost before any other effects matter...
Congrats SotD, great race for you already!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 17-01-2026 09:32
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World Champion
Posts: 11640
Joined: 17-12-2014
PCM$: 1120.00
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oh fuck off
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
1x  x1
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-01-2026 11:00
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Bot Agent
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 17-01-2026 10:40
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World Champion
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Good to see Kooij trying to get into positions but he's just not there yet. It's a real shame that we tried to protect Kooij so much while completing ignoring Gerts behind. Such a stupid way to lose any chance of defensing the crown.
Congrats, SotD, not often you see a sprinter making it back to back wins these days.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 17-01-2026 11:40
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 12751
Joined: 27-07-2015
PCM$: 1961.50
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Nothing for us in the first two stages. Glad that MVD survived the split. Let's see if we can get something out of this race.
Thanks also for the preview! And for the reports so far.
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| redordead |
Posted on 17-01-2026 15:24
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Team Leader
Posts: 5561
Joined: 18-10-2017
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We botched the sprint, but at least we got more riders to make the split so maybe some chances to score in the GC now.
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 17-01-2026 17:05
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2808
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Always looking forward to this race!
That split is very unfortunate. Really messes up the race for many people.
Malecki also missed it, but Aleotti made it. Kinda balances it out for us. Now Aleotti has to survive the cobble stage and he is in a good position to score well.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 18-01-2026 05:28
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16632
Joined: 27-07-2011
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Per went for it way too early. I guess maybe it was a GC play, but if your strategy is to lose 4 minutes on a flat sprint day and make it back by attacking 60 km out the next day, you might need a lobotomy.
GC wise, our poor performance got worse as we have no shot at depth spots now. This stage was even more head scratching for that. Keep in mind everyone except AKA is 71+ cobbles and Meiler is 77. This is truly something to behold:
Congrats to Tinkoff! And thanks for the report.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| SotD |
Posted on 18-01-2026 07:22
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World Champion
Posts: 12703
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Sucks to see Gamper just deciding not to give a crap. You Can accept those bad days and all, but just sitting up is not good.
For us it went as expected. It wasn’t today that was any sort of issue, rather the 3min drop on stage 2. Would have loved to see Kiriakidis making the other group, as he is likely going to be our Leader now. He will lose more time tomorrow, and I suspect the game will then just let him not Care…
We hope to get some free room for breakaway in the remaining days, and maybe keep Farantakis in for a final good sprint to keep the points Jersey. Would make this a very good race.
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| knockout |
Posted on 18-01-2026 07:48
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8288
Joined: 21-12-2010
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Incredible report! Always love when i know exactly who is doing the chase work and despite this surely being a super chaotic stage, it felt like i always knew what was going on.
Herregodts survives in the big leaders group. This is massive for us. Now i have real hopes for his GC fight.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| ember |
Posted on 18-01-2026 08:04
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Team Leader
Posts: 7108
Joined: 27-03-2008
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Amazing report, thank you, UU!
Good stage result by Anderberg for us! It turned out to be a day in huge favour for the better TTers regarding the GC, but still with a lot of action, which was fun to follow. Enjoyed to see how we made use of the team to give Anderberg the chance at stage success
Last year, Anderberg did an amazing TT here. Would be cool if he can podium again, but suspect it will take a massive race day condition, but we can always hope  |
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| redordead |
Posted on 18-01-2026 09:58
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Team Leader
Posts: 5561
Joined: 18-10-2017
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I was hoping for more than 6th from Siric on the cobbled stage, but I guess he kinda makes up for it by getting the KOM. I doubt that's what we were going for, but we'll take it. Otherwise it's a solid day for us with Fedorov and Wright in good GC positions.
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 18-01-2026 11:17
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2000
Joined: 07-02-2009
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I share similar frustrations others have mentioned with the AI here. Jacobs not competing on the cobbled stage is pretty nonsensical and disappointing. It seems our team is playing the control team in this one. I hope we have a chance to reconsider continuing with this version of PCM after the season. Anyhow, it does turn out to be a great race for some so congrats to SotD and Oleg on the results so far and thanks for the reporting.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 18-01-2026 11:27
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World Champion
Posts: 13614
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At least Gerts didn't lose the race because of the split
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 18-01-2026 13:43
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 12751
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MVD did everything we could've hoped for. Leading the U25s is very good at this stage. Hoping he can keep it up for he coming stages. Decent result for the likes of Rossi and Hoole as well.
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 18-01-2026 14:55
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Directeur Sportif
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baseballlover312 wrote:
Per went for it way too early. I guess maybe it was a GC play, but if your strategy is to lose 4 minutes on a flat sprint day and make it back by attacking 60 km out the next day, you might need a lobotomy.
GC wise, our poor performance got worse as we have no shot at depth spots now. This stage was even more head scratching for that. Keep in mind everyone except AKA is 71+ cobbles and Meiler is 77. This is truly something to behold:
Congrats to Tinkoff! And thanks for the report.
I had this in the report but think I took it out as there was too much going on - unfortunately the team all dropped back to support AKA, which has been seen before when the game doesn't consider any of the team a GC leader. This has always been a tough race to balance because there is a lot for the AI to consider and it isn't that smart. Clearly it didn't consider the cobblers GC leaders this year. That said I thought there was some really good racing on individual stages so optimistic we can make some tweaks to avoid too much GC wackiness.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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