cunego59 wrote:


I was happy to hear your positive assessment of Jago in the podcast and hope you're right!

I'm curious what you think of the choices of races where Bini rides in support of Jago. In hindsight, I think going for the all-out sprinter races may have been a mistake as Jago will likely not get a sprint train anywhere with all the top sprinters present, so Bini might be wasted, unless he sprints for himself, which I don't think that's likely. Maybe going for Britain or Langkawi might've been the better choice to give Willems a strong leadout when he might need it? But then there are quite a few race days (hilly/mountains) where Bini has almost no role. Not sure, but something to think about for next year I guess.

We start the season with the first race for maxed Jago Willems. It should give us a decent indication straight away how he'll perform against the cream of the PCT sprinting crop. He's got pretty much the best support we can give him with Bini Girmay, Habimana, De Buyst and Samu Mugisha. As mentioned before, I'm unsure if sending Bini to these flat classics alongside Jago was such a great idea, but again, we'll find out early. The hope is for a Top 10 result for Jago, anything outside of the Top 15 would be a disappointment.

Another debut, this time for new signing Valentin Madouas, who gets his first shot at team leadership. He should be suited quite well for the race, Top 10 in the GC is the minimum expectation, and he has decent support around him. Jago Willems is here, too, for the three flat stages.

Takeaki Amezawa also starts his season already. The Tour of the Middle East should suit him quite well and we're hopeful he can use his strong puncheur qualities to beat out nominally better climbers. In a crowded field, that's a bit tough to predict, but a Top 5 should at least be within the realm of possibilities. Less than the Top 10 would be a disappointment, and I'm hoping Tim Wellens could be able to score some depth points, too.

Madushanka Perera won a stage here last year, but the race was still C2 and he was in his prime, so that won't happen again. But he's got a chance to compete for points in the two sprint stages, so that would be neat.