Almost every single rider overperforming expectations so far - really a great sign for you. Very happy for you to see that
Seems like I once again underrated a tt depth team quite a bit. That is definitely one of my blind spots.
And yay to Chavanne already achieving his (low) expectations
Thanks After all, I'm not quite sure whether I'm just putting the bar very low, or whether they're all just so much better than they should be. The expectations are on the lower side; I guess according to PT predictions I could have upped them by 500-600 points in total. But most riders are definitely doing better than expected, except for Bol who definitely has been disappointing.
As for Gabby, not sure the expectations were extremely low. He was pretty lucky last year, and with Zmorka also in the division now the points are distributed among more similarly strong riders. But I'll happily take any points above the low bar
Thanks Indeed, more than satisfied with how the season has been going so far. Definitely hoping to roughly keep the pace up, although we've surely been on the more lucky side so far.
Week 2 of the Giro is in the books as well. And it's not only in "the" books - part of it definitely is in our team history book as well! But let's first make a short recap:
Week 1 Recap
- The hilly stages mostly weren't satisfying for us. Xuban Errazkin only got one good result out of them with a 5th place.
- Gergely Szarka was our Man of Week 1, not only getting a 5th place in a hilly stage as well, but also stage podiums on both flat stages!
- Another highlight was the TTT on stage 2, where we were able to claim 2nd place.
- GC-wise, Colin Stüssi sits in 4th place. Always at risk of getting dropped in the hills, he never was, and used our great TTT result well to get into a good spot.
Week 2
Stage 8 had yet another bunch sprint. And what would be the logical continuation of Gergely Szarka's results after getting 3rd and 2nd? He came to the same conclusion as we did - and took the stage win!
Gergely Szarka winning in San Benedetto del Tronto!
It was Gergely's first ever career win - and doing it right at a GT surely makes it even more special that it is anyway! And there was yet another bonus:
Gergely Szarka getting the Maglia Ciclamino after stage 8!
Like Cees Bol last year, we also got the honour to have the Maglia Ciclamino in our team for at least one day! It looks like the Giro is really a great race for us - and day 9 had yet another bunch sprint...
However, it was the first subpar sprint by Szarka. Well, not really the sprint - but the positioning. With 1km to go, he was barely even inside the Top 20, whereas otherwise he always was around 5th - 10th. But given that the sprint was uphill, and given that he likes that, he still stormed to another strong result:
Gergely Szarka finishing 5th on stage 9.
He was better than the other sprinters who were close to him in the points standings - unfortunately though GC leader Lutsenko discovered his sprinter genes and took over the Ciclamino. Definitely not something we saw coming, and slightly disappointing - although we knew we'd lose the shirt over the course of the 2nd week.
Because the 2nd week mostly was about hills. Stages 10, 12 and 13 were rated hilly, stages 11 and 14 had a mountain rating but still were pretty hilly ones. It's for all these hilly stages that we sent Xuban Errazkin to Italy. But he somehow didn't get the message. Neither did he try attacks, nor did he finish strong in any stage - a 15th place on stage 12.
For Colin Stüssi, this series of stages was all about damage limitation. And he did a decent job, although on stages 10 and 12 he finished pretty far down again (21st and 20th). On stage 11, the first mountainous rated stage, he ended up 13th, but lost his 4th place in the GC due to Tao Hart getting some bonus seconds.
However, on day 13 he finally stepped into action! He was very attentive throughout the final climb, and while he didn't time his sprint to perfection, he still was strong enough to claim a great 5th place on the day - in a hilly rated stage!
Colin Stüssi finishing 5th in Montalcino, right behind Latour.
He didn't get any bonus seconds, but he did gain some seconds against most of the other climbers (the Top 3 were puncheurs or extraterrestrials), moving him up to 3rd place in the GC! Instead of losing time, he even gained some, and also gained some GC spots - a great 13th stage for us!
The 14th stage was another medium mountain stage which suited the punchier riders better, and unfortunately, the GC riders couldn't control Olivier who ran away with a solo win - making Colin lose a GC spot. But as Colin Stüssi finished in the GC riders group (even though in ast place) and Lutsenko didn't, so he both gained and lost a spot and hence stayed in 3rd place going into the final week!
Summary
It was another historic week for us, starting with our first "proper" GT stage win (i.e. as a non-wildcard team), and Szarka's first ever career win.
Errazkin was once again disappointing, but at least Stüssi did his job and stayed with the best climbers - and even sits in 3rd place heading into the final week!
We're well aware that he's among the weakest climbers on paper among the current Top 15, but we hope that the cushion built with our TTT result and the potential ITT gains will be enough to get a good GC finish nonetheless!
Giro d'Italia - Week 2 | 
Xuban Errazkin only got one good result out of them with a 5th place.
Gergely Szarka was our Man of Week 1, not only getting a 5th place in a hilly stage as well, but also stage podiums on both flat stages!
Colin Stüssi sits in 4th place. Always at risk of getting dropped in the hills, he never was, and used our great TTT result well to get into a good spot.
