The season is over, and to be honest: it went pretty much as expected.
With a team fully built around young talent and long-term development, immediate results were never the goal. The expected relegation to the CT division next season was always part of the plan, and while the standings may look rough, there is no reason to panic.
Most importantly: there were clear positives.
We managed to take 2 victories this season - one through Marius Mayrhofer, who also ended up as our second-best scorer, and another memorable win through Karel Camrda at the Vuelta, even if it did not count for PCT ranking points. A stage win at a Grand Tour is still a major success for this team and our sponsors.
Final Rider Points
Steff Cras - 188 Marius Mayrhofer - 124 Muhammad Imam Arifin - 74 Joris Delbove - 70 Darren Van Bekkum - 35 Maral-Erdene Batmunkh - 31 Warre Vangheluwe - 26 Shoma Hayashibara - 22 Roel Van Sintmaartensdijk - 21 Albin Stalberg - 20 Nicolas Heinrich - 11 Florian Lipowitz - 10 Ole Theiler - 10 Gal Glivar - 4 Karel Camrda - 4 Guangtong Ma - 2 Kazuto Minami - 2 Radoslaw Fratczak - 2
Some names are still missing from the scoresheet, and some results certainly fell short of hopes. But this season was about development, experience, and building foundations.
The future still looks bright.
See you in CT - stronger than the table suggests.
Next steps will then be managing the Renewals, that will be challenging but if I do it right our transfer season might be pretty relaxing too.
Also congrats to every team that reached their goals.
Good to see the expected outcome of the season didn't lead to frustration and with a GT stage win there clearly was a happy surprise! If you manage to get your talents into the salary cap the future looks bright, but otherwise there will surely be a market for those who don't fit in (or need a loan to buy some experience and/or time)!
I heard a certain French rider refuses to ride in CT, care to comment?
KB already mentioned it
And besides of that no comment on anything. But our team was not put together to make profit th next year it was build for the future.
