I will blame Tom David for us missing out on the Top 10 once again!
Well. Maybe Bobridge can do a miracle on Tasmania (he used to do very well on home soil), but I'm not sure if it's even possible/realistic to re-claim 10th place.
Cavagna has been absolutely brilliant throughout the entire week here.
It was quite a long shot to develop him towards the Fabian route - which certainly wouldn't have happened if MO had remained irrelevant for puncheurs - and it paid off majorly in his first maxed season already!
A podium spot ahead of the world champion, three of the best puncheurs and Bewley is amazing for a 50k rider, although I very much doubt that he'll stay that cheap considering he'll get rather close to scoring 500 points total this year.
With Ganna and Weinstein adding unexpected GC points on top of that, the rankings look very intriguing going into the final stretch of races.
I have zero illusions of getting near Isostar, nor would that be anywhere close to being deserved, and Evonik easily has the scoring potential through Blythe and their hills duo to pass us again, which would also be much deserved.
Festina would need a massive Maroc from what I assume to be Bongiorno/Nizzolo and a surprise Koretzky performance in Lombardia, but while unlikely, I wouldn't rule that out entirely yet.
The big danger up there likely comes from Moser, who easily could have two 200-point races coming up in Rheden and Lombardia with Bewley and Sagan being favorites there, which would see our gap to them shrink to a quite uncomfortable margin considering we have very little scoring potential left to offset that.
cio93 wrote:
... is amazing for a 50k rider, although I very much doubt that he'll stay that cheap considering he'll get rather close to scoring 500 points total this year.
Plus likely the new OVL adjusting might see him go up a bit in OVL anyway. Just like riders like Malecki. Great allrounders without being top class in any category were kind of underrated yet.
cio93 wrote:
... is amazing for a 50k rider, although I very much doubt that he'll stay that cheap considering he'll get rather close to scoring 500 points total this year.
Plus likely the new OVL adjusting might see him go up a bit in OVL anyway. Just like riders like Malecki. Great allrounders without being top class in any category were kind of underrated yet.
It's a risky category of riders to fiddle with, as they could easily score next to nothing all season long as well.
For every Cavagna or Malecki, there's a Kuboki/Marzuki/Navardauskas who are down in the 200th-300th range in their respective divisions.
