There have been three races for the CT teams in this month so far, one HC, C1 and C2 each.
The month started with the C2 race in Hong Kong. Ethiopian Airlines continued their late season streak with a Sagan win there. They scored 70 points in total. Tafjord Kraft finished in 2nd with 43 points while 30 points were enough for 3rd for the SEE Turtles. There were quite some teams scoring in the range from 18 to 29 points on top of that.
Peugeot – Bancolombia were the only CT team racing in Marocco and thus obviously the best scoring there too. 21 points are probably less than they hoped for, but will come in handy anyway.
The final race of the month (so far) was the C1 Tour of South Africa. And what a race it was for the CT teams, getting away with 5 stage wins, 8 more podiums as well as the entire KoM and points classification podiums. The scoring was obviously really high there for quite some teams, but once again Ethiopian Airlines came out on top of them with a whopping 118 points. Podium Ambition scored 77 points, beating IncaLine Pro Cycling by a single point.
 
Period Ranking October*
Pos
Team
Hong Kong Challenge
Tour du Maroc
Tour of South Africa
Oct
1
Ethiopian Airlines
70
0
118
188
2
IncaLine Pro Cycling
26
0
76
102
3
Podium Ambition
12
0
77
89
4
Tafjord Kraft
43
0
41
84
5
SEE Turtles
30
0
29
59
6
Parmalat - Ecopetrol
0
0
46
46
7
Peugeot - Bancolombia
24
21
0
45
8
Bianchi Enel
19
0
15
34
9
The ONE - Fox God
18
0
16
34
10
Kraftwerk Man Machine
29
0
0
29
11
Kone-Nordea
7
0
8
15
12
Euskadi-Murias
8
0
1
9
13
Glanbia
0
0
9
9
14
Air New Zealand-Prada
0
0
8
8
15
Team Zappes Kölsch
1
0
6
7
16
Euskotren - Pays Basque
0
0
0
0
 
Overall Ranking
So let’s have a look at the pre-final overall rankings. And to be fair, given the gaps, it’s probably already the final ranking essentially.
In last place we have Air New Zealand-Prada and there’s no hope they’ll still get away from there as they’re the only team done with racing already.
Team Zappes Kölsch dropped to 15th. There’s still a chance they’ll climb to 14th as they only have a gap of 26 points to The ONE – Fox God. Glanbia in 13th are another 33 points ahead, but with two of the teams disbanding that probably doesn’t matter anyway.
Kone-Nordea sit relatively comfortable in 12th, but they’ll also disband so nothing to celebrate there.
In front of them we have essentially the last contested spots as Tafjord Kraft climbed to 10th and have a lead of only 25 points to Parmalat – Ecopetrol. IncaLine Pro Cycling are 43 points ahead and so still in reaching distance, although it will take at least a win in Zuri to still overtake them.
From now on all gaps are 70 points at least, so changes are highly unlikely. Euskotren – Pays Basque are 8th, just behind the other Basque outfit Euskadi-Murias who dropped a bit in the last months of their final season.
SEE Turtles in 6th will miss automatic promotion, but they are the first in line to take advantage of disbands (if there are more than two given the PCT reduction to 22 teams).
So that means Podium Ambition might have missed the goal of their ambition, but most probably achieved the goal of their final season with the current focus as they’ll promote back to PCT directly!
Peugeot – Bancolombia were among the top favourites for promotion pre-season and they safely achieve this goal although they might have hoped for more than 4th.
Pre-season favourites Kraftwerk Man Machine will finish in 3rd and return to PCT.
Ethiopian Airlines climbed to 2nd in October and they won’t lose this position anymore.
But Bianch Enel stay at the top and will win the division although they lost some of their early-season lead.
It's not over until it's over, so i'll take any advantage I can. I'd rather it not be the Turtles right behind us, our great frenemies deserve a direct promotion spot as much as we do.
Tell you what, Ehtiopian really got close to Bianchi here! If there was another month of racing could they have hauled in that gap?
A very cool and deserving group of promoting teams this year! Podium Ambition feels particularly impressive and a nice capstone to the project, and good to see Kraftwerk immediately bouncing back as well. You never root for teams to disband, and it'd need to be even more this year with the PCT reduction, but I second TMM that it would be really neat to have SEE Turtles going up as well.
Tell you what, Ehtiopian really got close to Bianchi here! If there was another month of racing could they have hauled in that gap?
They've been so good to close the season excellent Sagan and the amazing effort of Perrera and great leadout have been real stars of the season!
Knowing what Ethiopian last race is and that we have two races to go including Moscon in HC i'd be pretty confident the gap will go back over 200pt before end of season. which is pretty much the gap we've had all year and the one i credit Basso to 100% his score of 52k wage has been the difference in the end essentially!
Have to say its been a pleasure to see, Me, Dippo, Dave, Heine, TMM and Sean all likely to go up there is other active guys in the division but to have all 6 likely promotion be really active managers gives me great hope for a real fun season in PCT next year
A team with two Zalgiris alumni at the top have ran away with the division? Shocking !!! Hoping both Podium and Turtles make it through, goofiness is welcomed in PCT
Tough to be disappointed with the month when we're still a top 5 team overall - just couldn't compete with Podium in South Africa.
Would be nearly impossible for a change of luck in Zuri - but I'm still really proud of the team this year. Will certainly be adding some HQ posts about our season after it's conclusion.
And if we do promote... will have to be a question about whether the Turtles continue or whether we find another animal to support!
