THE CHASE FOR EQUALITY - AND BEYOND (SEASON WRAP UP)
Time to look back on the season. During the year we have evaluated our chances for succes, based on what was lost in the off season. To sumarize, the team lost a massive pointscorer in Riccardo Ricco, but also strong riders such as Yoann Paillot, Laurent Pichon, Guillaume van Keirsbulck, Robert Bush, Enrico Gaparotto, Martin Hacecký and Tsgabu Grmay.
Our aim was to ensure that we didn't end up losing depth in either category while also strengthening our sprint setup. Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier naturally stepped up to take over from Riccardo Ricco as a GC rider, while Clement Koretzky stepped up to cover some of the lost points from Ricco being a strong puncheur. Olivier Le Gac stepped up to take the role of Laurent Pichon as a secondary strong puncheur.
Panagiotis Vlatos stepped up to take what was potentially lost from Yoann Paillot, while Yuriy Vasyliv stepped up to take over from Jakob Novak, while Piter Campero also stepped up. Also Jakub Novak was brought in to balance things for the team time trials aswell as GC races with mountains.
Our cobbled depth was lost, so we brought in the best 50K cobbler we could find in Nejc Kosic while Tom David developped to an even better rider. From loan we took on Grzegorz Stepniak and Marco Haller to supplement the sprint train after losing Enrico Gasparotto with also Charalampas Kastrantas developping into a decent powerhouse. Finally we took on Maxime Bouet on a permanent basis and Andreas Hofer on a one year loan option to strengthen the TTT depth, which was otherwise very limited. Pavel Potocki was loaned in while Alexis Gougeard were brought back to develop further
Finally, Jerome Coppel was trained to give our team a possibility to win races that we were not previously capable of (Tasmania in thought).
Seen below is the full table of riders scorings from 2015 to the 2016 season. Not included is the riders that left the team. Marked with red are the ones that did not reach their potential of the 2015 season, while marked with green are those who exceeded last season.
The other riders that lost value was Markus Eibegger, 32 points and Mathieu Bernaudeau, 17 points. Both are unsignificant and can probably be found in those added points that Andreas Hofer and Maxime Bouet scored in the team time trials, where especially Mathieau Bernaudeau could have scored better - He was even unlucky losing 15 points in Praha-Karlovy Vary-Praha due to positioning after a crash. So those are not worth calculating.
What else is relevant for the upcoming season is the fact that our loanies scored very unimpressive amounts of points, which means that they will be easily replaceable. Only Andreas Hofer scored an amount that can not be directly replaced with any rider in the database, while Potocki, Haller and Stepniak only managed to score in a total of 187 points from 262 spent racedays. Adding Andreas Hofer to the equation gives 317 points from 341 racedays. This gives 0,93 PPrD, which no other riders in the team have managed. The closest is Nejc Kosic who scored 55 points from 53 racedays = 1,04 PPrD.
What it also means is that I definately need to re-calculate the value of loaning in riders. Obviously we can't pick fully developped riders, and we also need to look into depth, but we need to score more than a total of 317 points when loaning in 4 riders. Each rider should be able to score atleast 100 points to be viable - or atleast cover a part of the team that is elseway going to be weakened significantly.
Let's look at our groups, that were listed in the first edition...
STATUS
GC RIDERS / PUNCHEURS
2015
2016
Riccardo Ricco
1192
0
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
561
996
Clement Koretzky
389
820
Laurent Pichon
271
0
Martin Hacecký
263
0
Yuriy Vasyliv
161
214
Piter Campero
107
195
Olivier Le Gac
0
148
Jakub Novak
0
229
TOTAL
2944
2602
Last time we evaluated ourselves to be 300-400 points behind, and we are. 342 points to be exact, but earlier in the proces we estimated that we would be 450-500 points behind.
SPRINTERS
2015
2016
Georgos Tzortzakis
634
688
Bryan Coqurd
62
277
TOTAL
696
965
We made a huge turn of events in this category outscoring ourselves by 269 points. Last time we expected to end up between 230-280 points ahead, while we early in the season expected to go + 0-50 points.
COBBLERS
2015
2016
Tom David
278
334
Robert Bush
126
0
Guillaume van Keirsbulck
123
0
Nejc Kosic
0
55
TOTAL
527
389
Tom David were very unlucky to lose around 100 points in TONE after a last stage crash, otherwise this pool would have been covered, give or take. We ended out losing 138 points from last season, but also lost two valuable riders. Nejc Kosic should do better next season, and may be able to score around 80-100 points. Tom David should be able to score around 500 points, which he didn't. Early in the season we estimated a loss of 100 points from this pool, which was pretty spot on.
DOMESTIQUES
2015
2016
Charalampas Kastrantas
142
191
Markus Eibegger
133
101
Tsgabu Grmay
55
0
Enrico Gasparotto
54
0
Zhihui Jiang
1
0
Andreas Hofer
0
130
Grzegorz Stepniak
0
71
Maxime Bouet
0
132
Pavel Potocki
0
63
Marco Haller
0
53
Alexis Gougeard
0
59
TOTAL
385
800
The domestiques pool is definately where things turned for us. Our depth was well and truly better than last season, scoring us an impressive 415 points more than last season. Last time we expected 350, so things have just kept on increasing from here, as we early in the season expected 150-200 points.
TT'ERS
2015
2016
Jerome Coppel
656
1317
Yoann Paillot
113
0
Panagiotis Vlatos
112
357
Mathieu Bernaudeau
95
78
TOTAL
976
1752
Also in the time trial region things were completely out of control, thanks to Coppel and Vlatos who both had significantly better seasons than what could have been anticipated. A staggering 776 points higher than last season, with Coppel doubling his digits while Vlatos trippleing his. Last time we expected a +500-550, while in the early parts of the season we expected 100-200 more.
CONCLUSION AND WRAP UP
Simon Spilak have already been covered in the early parts of this post, so let's have a look at things.
Last season we scored 7672 points. This season we scored 8315. So not only did we end up making up for what was lost, we also completely destroyed our previous high by 643 points. What a season!
We are well and truly happy with the turn of events, and are extremely pleased to have claimed to title two times running, and we will give it a go at a historical 3rd time! But we are also realitic and knows that our team might be torn very much apart, while also the season setup will change drastically in the off season. We are ready to adapt however.
To end this we would like to say goodbye, and thank you to a couple of riders:
Andreas Hofer - A great timetrial prospect, who are turning back to his former team with added experience.
Grzegorz Stepniak - A very strong leadout sprinter with good abilities in both cobbles and hills, will be very valuable to his owning team.
Marco Haller - Going back to my main rivals, Becherovka and ready to lead his own sprints now and again, but also help Sam Bewley be even stronger in the sprints.
Pavel Potocki - Getting back to the lower divisions where he will become a very strong climber. Who knows, maybe a KOM jersey or two.
And then a final farewell to one of our own riders:
Markus Eibegger - Have decided to step down, knowing age is a real struggle for a PT rider. Whether or not he will stay in the world of cycling as a riders is yet to be seen.
Coppel Really won it for you! Thanks a lot for developing Potocki, I liked him a lot at L'Avenir - despite the low points score he might have been at least valuable for the climbing races as a domestique
Thanks for taking Stepniak on loan to max out. He will be very useful, yes Disappointed in his performance for you, but 77 sprint is not the best stat for PT
Nice to see that Hofer scored some valuable points for you and earned his place on the team whilst he was learning.
It will be interesting to see how your renewals go, Spilak should be a little less but I imagine the youngsters might ask for more than he goes down by after how well they performed this year, especially Lecuisinier and Koretzky really stepped up this season.
Croatia14 wrote:
Coppel Really won it for you! Thanks a lot for developing Potocki, I liked him a lot at L'Avenir - despite the low points score he might have been at least valuable for the climbing races as a domestique
Indeed he did. But there went quite a lot of effort into planning him, so unlike last season I feel like he actually performed a lot more like he should. But he was definately lucky to just win the Tasmania within a second, and the opening TT in the Tour de France was probably a bit lucky aswell.
He did underperform in TONE and Vuelta al Païs Vasco though, where he was nowhere to be seen despite of him being an obvious top 20 candidate - maybe even top 10.
No problem with Potocki. I hired him in as a domestique for when I couldn't have 2-3 other climbers.
I'm sure he will become a very valuable part of your team next season. I definately hope to see him trained even better at some point
sgdanny wrote:
Thanks for taking Stepniak on loan to max out. He will be very useful, yes Disappointed in his performance for you, but 77 sprint is not the best stat for PT
No problem. He will be a top notch lead out rider, so if you can get a top sprinter he will do wonders. I agree. He was only loaned in for the HC races and to lead out Tzortzakis
sammyt93 wrote:
Nice to see that Hofer scored some valuable points for you and earned his place on the team whilst he was learning.
It will be interesting to see how your renewals go, Spilak should be a little less but I imagine the youngsters might ask for more than he goes down by after how well they performed this year, especially Lecuisinier and Koretzky really stepped up this season.
He definately did a good job. He will be a very good rider for you
I expect to have an overbudget of somewhere between 5-700K without changing a thing, so I am definately in need of selling some riders. Spilak should go down a bit, but I fear he won't. Lecuisinier was luckily not that cheap before the season, but I guess he will go up nontheless. Coppel is the big questionsmark for me, because he was actually rather expensive for the type of rider he is, but I think he will go up in wages. Koretzky was IMO too expensive already, so I can hope that he won't go up that much.
The big questionsmark for me is Panagiotis Vlatos, who had a great season - but he did similar to Kittel last season, and they are already on a similar wage, so I can hope he will stay there.
whitejersey wrote:
Really nice wrapup SotD. And congrats on the great season!
Thanks a lot
viking90 wrote:
Interesting update, always fun to compare with previous season.
Noticed your new jersey now aswell, looks great!
Thanks. Yeah I find it very interesting atleast
Thanks, I hope the new jersey will be visable in the peloton.
to Potocki: yet I think I have other working points than training Potocki, but instead having to focus on additions first...but surely, on a long term I'd like to see a "homegrown" guy going strong further, especially looking at the points he might score us being still white jersey eligable next year
Having had an amazing season with several riders performing, we have decided to give an update about where our riders have managed to position themselves among the rivals.
GC Riders:
1
Andy Schleck
LUX
Vesuvio - Accumalux
2570
2
Taylor Phinney
USA
RBC Pro Cycling
2309
3
Aleksandr Pluchkin
MOL
Metinvest-Dacia
2145
4
Robert Gesink
NED
eBuddy
2023
5
Simon Spilak
SLO
Team I-Gen - Festina
1807
6
Rein Taaramäe
EST
Bouygues Telecom
1710
7
Joseph Dombrowski
USA
Pendleton's
1680
8
Angel Madrazo
ESP
Gazelle
1429
9
Jose Alarcon
VEN
Red Bull - Huawei
1184
10
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
996
46
Jakub Novak
CZE
Team I-Gen - Festina
229
49
Yuriy Vasyliv
GER
Team I-Gen - Festina
214
51
Piter Campero
BOL
Team I-Gen - Festina
195
We always knew we had some great top level, aswell as some very nice depth within the team in this aspect, especially because Simon Spilak is so versatile. Simon should have been better than the 5th best GC rider, but to see Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier as 10th is a massive result. Novak, Vasyliv and Campero were all close to eachother and taking the chances they were handed throughout the season to position themselves around 45-50th.
Puncheurs:
1
Yuri Trofimov
RUS
Tinkoff Sport Academy
2242
2
Simone Ponzi
ITA
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
1652
3
Tejay Van Garderen
USA
Movistar - US Postal
1520
4
Jan Bakelants
BEL
Bouygues Telecom
1416
5
Edvald Boasson Hagen
NOR
Aker - MOT
1345
6
Jack Bobridge
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
1074
7
Wilco Kelderman
NED
Team Puma - SAP
1017
8
Toms Skujins
LAT
Evonik - ELKO
910
9
Francesco Ginanni
ITA
Gazelle
901
10
Clement Koretzky
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
820
35
Charalampas Kastrantas
GRE
Team I-Gen - Festina
191
41
Olivier Le Gac
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
148
102
Alexis Gougeard
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
59
The puncheurs ranking could have seen Spilak too, he would have been 2nd on the list, but as we used him far more as a GC rider, we decided not to. Instead we got Clement Koretzky as 10th, which is a fair bit higher than anticipated. Also greek rider Charalampas Kastrantas punched well above his weight to take 35th ahead of Olivier Le Gac, who is around where he should be, and an underpeforming - but still developping - Alexis Gougeard.
Timetrialists:
1
Jerome Coppel
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
1317
2
Lars Boom
NED
Aegon - Lavazza
732
3
Mikhail Ignatiev
RUS
Metinvest-Dacia
693
4
Luke Durbridge
AUS
Jayco'z Cycling Project
366
5
Panagiotis Vlatos
GRE
Team I-Gen - Festina
357
6
Emilien Viennet
FRA
Orange - KLM Cycling
339
7
Jasha Sütterlin
GER
Team Puma - SAP
335
8
Brent Bookwalter
USA
Movistar - US Postal
307
9
Kristjan Koren
SLO
Gazelle
295
10
Marlen Zmorka
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
288
24
Maxime Bouet
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
132
25
Andreas Hofer
AUT
Team I-Gen - Festina
130
47
Mathieu Bernaudeau
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
78
The timetrial aspect is always difficult, as several other types of riders have a very strong timetrial aswell. Riders like Taylor Phinney, Yuri Trofimov, Robert Gesink etc., but they have all been put into a different category. Jerome Coppel have always been the best "pure" timetriallist, and by "pure" i mean, that having his primary forces in the timetrials. He can also punch from flats or steep hills, but mainly he is a timetriallist. To have Panagiotis Vlatos in 5th on the ranking also shows that this was a key part of our season. Even our riders of depth have done well - some due to strong team time trials more than individual skills.
Cobblers:
1
Sam Bewley
NZL
Becherovka - Petrof
2549
2
Greg Van Avermaet
BEL
Evonik - ELKO
1586
3
Marcus Burghardt
GER
Jayco'z Cycling Project
801
4
Florian Senechal
FRA
Pendleton's
711
5
Adam Blythe
GBR
Team Puma - SAP
615
6
Matteo Trentin
ITA
Grieg - Eftel
592
7
Roger Kluge
GER
Pokerstars.com
578
8
Pieter Vanspeybrouck
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
575
9
Sep Vanmarcke
BEL
Vesuvio - Accumalux
476
10
Frederik Nolf
BEL
Metinvest-Dacia
357
11
Tom David
NZL
Team I-Gen - Festina
334
In the cobbles department we always knew that we weren't a favorite. Despite that, Tom David proved to be a reasonable cobbler. Had he gained the added 100 points that he lost on the final day of TONE he would have been close to Sep Vanmarcke. It definately shows that his skill set is not off for the division. Sam Bewley and Greg van Avermaet were in a league of their own, but also having some very strong skills on other terrains, much like Roger Kluge and Matteo Trentin. Nejc Kosic have not been included, as he rode an insufficient amount of racedays to be estimated.
Sprinters:
1
John Degenkolb
GER
Pokerstars.com
1924
2
Michael Van Stayen
BEL
Evonik - ELKO
1512
3
Ben Swift
GBR
Aegon - Lavazza
1448
4
Peter Kennaugh
GBR
Orange - KLM Cycling
858
5
Mark Cavendish
GBR
Red Bull - Huawei
844
6
Jacopo Guarnieri
ITA
Grieg - Eftel
814
7
Alexander Kristoff
NOR
Aker - MOT
780
8
Georgos Tzortzakis
GRE
Team I-Gen - Festina
688
9
Eduard Grosu
ROM
Metinvest-Dacia
542
10
Kris Boeckmans
BEL
Bpost - Vlaanderen
514
22
Bryan Coquard
FRA
Team I-Gen - Festina
277
Having two strong - but not top - sprinters have done us well. The one overperformed (again, one would say), the other did around what could be expected, maybe a little bit less. John Degenkolb showed that it can be a very interesting move to gamble for a top top sprinter. For several reasons. Their wages are never as high as GC riders, or top puncheurs, and there are always a lot of scoring options, despite saving riders from certain races. A quick versus. John Degenkolb wage 375.000€, Ben Swift 580.000€. The average wage of the top 20 (deducting those two): 1.014.000€...
Edited by SotD on 15-04-2017 10:31
Interesting to notice, the a team outscoring everybody this massive, doesn’t have to have the top scoring riders in every category, it comes down to depth with many stable scoring riders.
I said it before: I love all those updates. I reckon it was quite difficult to seperate all those riders to decide which category all those belong. I mean, Bernaudeau could also be top 30 or top 70 depending on where you draw the boarder for other riders
SotD wrote:
Quite interesting to see us having this many riders in the top 10 of each category. It is also the main reason why we won the overall PT I'd say:
Spoiler
1 Team I-Gen - Festina 6
2 Metinvest-Dacia 5
3 Gazelle 3
- Jayco'z Cycling Project 3
- Team Puma - SAP 3
- Evonik - ELKO 3
7 Vesuvio - Accumalux 2
- Aegon - Lavezza 2
- Orange - KLM Cycling 2
- Bouygues Telecom 2
- Red Bull - Huawei 2
- Movistar - US Postal 2
- Aker - MOT 2
- Pendleton's 2
- Grieg - Eftel 2
- Pokerstars 2
- BPost - Vlaanderen 2
18 RBC Pro Cycling 1
- Tinkoff Sport Academy 1
- eBuddy 1
- Kenya Airways - Dimension Data 1
- Becherovka - Petrof 1
On the first glance your conclusion looks nearly as obvious / straightforward as "We won the PT rankings because we scored the most points" and I-Gen on top seems to fit into it well. But the rest of the list doesnt seem to correlate to the PT rankings too well. The teams from #2 to #6 on the list finished 6/7/10/14/15 while all those teams with just one guy on the lists finished 2/8/9/16/21. The difference is strikingly small which suggests that the list doesnt say much.
As always, loving the forensic detail of SotD's updates both here in the I-Gen HQ and in discussions over in the various standings threads. This continues to be reflected in the success of I-Gen on the road.
In general hard to argue with the vast majority of the analysis. One area where I think you are perhaps being a little harsh is with regard to your loan riders. Although cold hard analysis of ppRD suggests that some riders fell short of expectations/requirements, as highlighted elsewhere, the lead sprinters in the squad far out-performed the previous seasons achievements. It would seem reasonable to attribute some of this success to the assistance of Stepniak and Haller either in pre-sprint positioning, or specific lead-out duties. These kind of riders (with current unmaxed stats) are unlikely to be good points scorers on their own merits in the PT, but can be very useful assistance to headline sprinters, hence enhancing the overall teams points scoring potential.
Anyway, not always had the chance to contribute to the discussions, but heartily enjoy catching up on the chat when time has allowed.
knockout wrote:
I said it before: I love all those updates. I reckon it was quite difficult to seperate all those riders to decide which category all those belong. I mean, Bernaudeau could also be top 30 or top 70 depending on where you draw the boarder for other riders
SotD wrote:
Quite interesting to see us having this many riders in the top 10 of each category. It is also the main reason why we won the overall PT I'd say:
Spoiler
1 Team I-Gen - Festina 6
2 Metinvest-Dacia 5
3 Gazelle 3
- Jayco'z Cycling Project 3
- Team Puma - SAP 3
- Evonik - ELKO 3
7 Vesuvio - Accumalux 2
- Aegon - Lavezza 2
- Orange - KLM Cycling 2
- Bouygues Telecom 2
- Red Bull - Huawei 2
- Movistar - US Postal 2
- Aker - MOT 2
- Pendleton's 2
- Grieg - Eftel 2
- Pokerstars 2
- BPost - Vlaanderen 2
18 RBC Pro Cycling 1
- Tinkoff Sport Academy 1
- eBuddy 1
- Kenya Airways - Dimension Data 1
- Becherovka - Petrof 1
On the first glance your conclusion looks nearly as obvious / straightforward as "We won the PT rankings because we scored the most points" and I-Gen on top seems to fit into it well. But the rest of the list doesnt seem to correlate to the PT rankings too well. The teams from #2 to #6 on the list finished 6/7/10/14/15 while all those teams with just one guy on the lists finished 2/8/9/16/21. The difference is strikingly small which suggests that the list doesnt say much.
I agree. I do, however feel it tells something about the depth of the teams, and what importance it actually have. That Becherovka only have 1, is probably the reason why they fell short in the end. And to be fair, this season have been quite close in terms of top 10 teams.
Scorchio wrote:
As always, loving the forensic detail of SotD's updates both here in the I-Gen HQ and in discussions over in the various standings threads. This continues to be reflected in the success of I-Gen on the road.
In general hard to argue with the vast majority of the analysis. One area where I think you are perhaps being a little harsh is with regard to your loan riders. Although cold hard analysis of ppRD suggests that some riders fell short of expectations/requirements, as highlighted elsewhere, the lead sprinters in the squad far out-performed the previous seasons achievements. It would seem reasonable to attribute some of this success to the assistance of Stepniak and Haller either in pre-sprint positioning, or specific lead-out duties. These kind of riders (with current unmaxed stats) are unlikely to be good points scorers on their own merits in the PT, but can be very useful assistance to headline sprinters, hence enhancing the overall teams points scoring potential.
Anyway, not always had the chance to contribute to the discussions, but heartily enjoy catching up on the chat when time has allowed.
Thanks a lot.
It wasn't meant as a bashing towards them, more a sigh og relief with the fact, that the points they scored wasn't hard to replace as I am definately going to struggle next season keeping my riders - something that I will probably need to take care of through clever loan.
I do agree that they had some importance in terms of positioning my lead sprinters. The points, however, can be found quite easily. Bryan Coquard maxed out from 79 to 81 SPR, hence going from almost no points to being a reasonable point scorer. He did what he should having helpers or not. Georgos Tzortzakis performed according to last season, but then had a fluke one day race win, which gave him something like 180 points. Had he gotten 8th or so, like he should, he would have ended up with a very similar points harvest as last season.
The sprinting leadout is, as far as I can tell, not that important unless your team actually forms a train, which my team very rarely did. Next season I hope that Coquard can sometimes get a train, as I would love to see what he could do with that high acceleration being lead-out from the front. So I definately needs sprinting assistance next season.
The season as we know it has come to an end, but once the season is over it's time for the world championships, and we will spend a little bit of time to evaluate on the results.
In the B World Championships, we had our greek legion present with Georgos Tzortzakis, Charalampas Kastrantas and Panagiotis Vlatos, well knowing that neither would have anything to do on the cobbled terrain - And we were right. The best result was 47th from Kastrantas, and with him were Vlatos in 49th. Georgos Tzortzakis pulled out of the race fairly early to take a break before the national championships.
In the U23 race we only had Yuriy Vasyliv present, and he did reasonably well to take 8th in the individual timetrial. Loanie Pavel Potocki was also present and ended on 24th overall. In the Road Race neither were relevant, but while Potocki disbanded, Vasyliv pulled through to make it 36th.
The Elite timetrial was our best shot at a medal, and while Taylor Phinney were massive favorite, Jerome Coppel, Panagiotis Vlatos and Simon Spilak were all in for a shout. In the end we had All three in the top 10.
Jerome Coppel had a bad race to take 9th, but Simon Spilak took silver while Panagiotis Vlatos took bronze, as the first ever greek Elite World Championship medal. Loanie Andreas Hofer and domestique Mathieau Bernaudeau both took place as a learning phase, but neither did anything noteworthy.
In the Elite Road Race we had no riders with a realistic shot at a medal. Tom David helped Sam Bewley to win, while taking a very respectable 6th himself, while almost all other riders either didn't participated, or quickly pulled out.
After the Worlds we can look back on a relatively effective campaign, with two medals and 5 top 10 places. Here is the recap:
Elite Road Race:
6th Tom David
Elite Time Trial:
2nd Simon Spilak
3rd Panagiotis Vlatos
9th Jerome Coppel
I can hardly keep up with all your fantastic updates, but dont slow down, you are one of the key souls of the MG world and as long as there are passionate and dedicated managers like you, the game will shine brightly!
I am really looking forward to yet another tough off season for you, but i have no doubts you will come out strong again, Good luck mate.
Disappointed in his performance for you, but 77 sprint is not the best stat for PT 
