A busy first month of the season for us as we're present in four of the eight races that are being contested this month. Quite a few debuts as well as plenty of big ambitions for our first month of the year. Without much further ado let's jump into the action!

Our first outing of the year is the flat sprinter's classic where we took third place last year with Lionel Coutinho and whilst new addition Kennett took 5th here last year we have opted for Danny Van Poppel to lead the troops on the very short classic.

Nat.	Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz	76	66	70	74	72	75	77	70	81	59	67	79	68	74
	Danny Van Poppel	72	60	62	64	67	74	71	78	64	81	78	56	69	72
	Jonathan Milan	77	58	61	63	77	72	80	69	63	74	73	66	64	79
	Sergey Medvedev	77	61	63	64	70	77	77	75	68	71	70	78	66	72
	Josh Kench	71	63	64	65	68	70	73	67	68	67	71	75	74	68
	Jeremie La Grenade	70	57	59	61	59	71	70	60	72	68	63	59	72	61
	Marco Brenner	66	69	69	68	67	68	68	67	51	66	68	69	72	68
	Lukas Sulaj Kloppenborg	69	62	64	65	65	72	73	65	67	63	73	73	70	62

TDU has always been a bit of a weird tale for us as it's a race that has been suited to us but Meurisse was never able to really let his flag fly in the GC so we were close to making the decision to omit Quita from the planning process but decided to give him the chance to prove his predecessor's woes were his alone. We decided against bringing in a sprinter here since we didn't really like either sprinter's prospects instead some talent will get the chance to ride and wer're not expecting a whole ton of success from our trip around OZ.

Nat.	Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Ronnilan Quita	74	74	76	77	66	75	75	73	60	71	74	83	72	66
	Samuele Battistella	71	75	75	75	66	71	77	72	63	67	71	74	68	72
	Alexander Sulimov	72	63	66	69	64	75	69	65	78	64	69	76	74	64
	Jeremie La Grenade	70	57	59	61	59	71	70	60	72	68	63	59	72	61
	Marco Brenner	66	69	69	68	67	68	68	67	51	66	68	69	72	68
	Lukas Sulaj Kloppenborg	69	62	64	65	65	72	73	65	67	63	73	73	70	62
	Jakob Soderqvist	72	57	59	61	70	68	68	66	66	67	68	68	68	72
	Matisse Julien	69	56	62	67	62	66	69	66	63	67	70	68	71	69

Not much to say here we outperformed what we expected to do going into transfers as top 10 was our goal, as transfers progressed with plenty of our competition openly going big on talents and lacking the necessary strenght to properly challenge us this is still an amazing result.

Objectively speaking Benelux Challenge wasn't a failure but from a goals perspective we did not meet the mark failing to find GC success desipte very early success from Kaspa, alas we're sad to disappoint in one of our signature races.

One of Kaspa's better results of the season but not quite enough to satisfy our sponsors after the Pole was unable to keep up with the stronger puncheurs of the cobbles field on the day.

Despite Kaspa's top speed he failed to make it matter in the final sprint as a washed up Maxime Daniel took a surprise win. He was still in the vicinty of the expected result but still failed to meet the goal.

Deja Vú from the previous goal and kinda the outlook of our entire season being so close yet so far away from greatness, I guess it's Chamagne Problems now that we're in the upper class?

Let's get into the nitty gritty of it all. Some heartfelt farewells to the likes of GVK, who will sadly not be a part of the team he built from the ground up's first PT season as a rider. He might return in a different capacity should he not be picked up by another team in the off-season. Julien was a bit greedy in his requests and has been left to the way side and can now explore his options in free agency, there is still interest from both parties in getting it done but for now he's on the market. Some other farewells must be given to Sulimov who was an integral part in Kaspa's campaign last year but was always going to be a 1 season solution. Medvedev was a great rider last year but was always going to want more mony than we thought he was worth, and even after offering him a generous raise he's on the hunt for a new team. Potocki has been great for us ever since he signed in a deal in our record breaking CT season he has been a mainstay but his first decline has hit his abilities on the bike but not his demands. Last but not least the team believed in Van Poppel to do well on the Pro Tour but after three rounds our ends would not meet.

We promote with a metric ton of wage cap as a result of this culling, giving us plenty of ways to go in this off season. We're mainly looking out for a stage racer or a climber that can help us move to the next level, furthermore we have pieces such as Quita and Kennett that very easily can be traded or sold to both CT and PCT where they have proven their worth multiple times over. Marsman is a rider that doesn't really fit our team mold but will have a massive engine once maxed and a solid part of any TTT train. Battistella proved during last year's Eritrea that he can win races from breaks, which is a skill set we will be putting to the test in the PT but should an interested party come in for him we will be willing to listen to reasonable offers.

SotD wrote:

Quita as a likely farewell is interesting. He could be someone I would be interested in after losing Kinoshita.