Deserved win for Alarcon at last. Congrats dev! Just in time to pass Intxausti in the GC. A poor performance again from our leader. There isn't even a top10 to speak of. Well, just one more stage to go. Let's end this then.
Who would've thought the once-labeled sprinter team stands on the brink of a GT win now.
Briliant riding by the entire team these last two stages, not making Silvio spend too much energy to allow him to counter anything Phinney and Madrazo could hit him with tomorrow.
Especially Arndt went into his GT monster-form today and kept everyone in sight. That should've secured us the teams classification win already, and he might try to even break into the Top 20 tomorrow. A deserved stage result came on top of that.
The suspense is massive, the race a huge success already no matter what happens on the Angliru.
Well, Herklotz is just a beast. Phenomenal way to finish it off. Congrats, cio. What a rider you have in him. He's going to be close to winning the individual ranking I guess too.
Very happy with Martin securing 4th place. Easily his best performance of the season, and what impressed me most was how steady he was. Never a bad day really.
Dropped from 2nd to 3rd in the team GC after the last stage, but a good team team performance with an additional two riders top 30.
Congrats on the dominant win cio! Well deserved, but also very worrying. I can see Herklotz with +1MO next season being the new Schleck - at just 25 years of age. Unbeatable for 8-10 years.
A massive amount of stagewins also. It's becomming increasingly difficult to see past Puma as the Pro Tour overall winner. Becherovka are still doing well, and going strong, but these kind of results are always the decisive part of the overall ranking.
For us, we came for 450 points within the first 10 stages and then hopefully something from Chamorro in the mountains. We got the first (almost) but Chamorro did absolutely nothing (again), and van der Hugenhaben was the designated "attacker" always being the worst of the break. 36th from him is OK, but 38th from Chamorro is around 10-15 spots too little.
Also the lack of stagewins from Coquard means that we barely score any points after the race is over, so we will land on something close to 500 points in total. Not quite what we hoped, but not too far from it. 700 points was our realistic pre-race goal.
Unfortunately disappointing results for us challenging up into the GT. Eastman continues to be underwhelming, was hoping he'd at least fight for a top 10 spot, but was nowhere close.
The Colombian manages to keep his seventh place in GC, not a bad result for a wildcard team like Minions, but he has really Zubeldia’d his way to that spot.
Couldn't agree more. Seventh is a great result for a first-time GC, especially against this kind of opposition, but I can't remember an actual attack by Úran. I think he has been in seventh place ever since the first mountain stage?
Overall very content with this race. Marcos in the KoM jersey for a few days was nice, although I haven't seen any other Minions besides him and Úran. I did bring a comparably weak squad given PCT race clashes.
Herklotz the absolute dominating rider of the race. Congrats cio! Also congrats to every stage winner and everyone who left the race with what they wanted or even more. I see some might be disappointed with their results, and to those I hope they can bounce back in the Tour.
Finally, a big, big thank you to Aquarius97 for 21 amazing reports (while also doing Olympia's Tour simultaniously, kudos!)
Obviously pretty disappointed by Madrazo's performance here. He straight up got beaten in the mountains by two 83 climbers. Sure hope his OVL drops again after this season.
Still a decent amount of points, it could have been worse.
Congrats to cio! It's cool to see a multi-year project like Herklotz succeed in style.
And huge thanks to Aquarius for bringing this Vuelta to life. Very well done!
Congrats to cio, this has been an absolute Herklotz show!
I started to hate Alarcon so much. He ruined my race singlehandedly. My guys were in so many breakaways and deapite being amongst the better climbers in the group Alarcon easily dropped them. Thus no chance for kom or stage wins this time for once
Thank you for the race Aquarius, it was enjoyable to read even though my team did do much at all.
Congratulations to cio on the impressive win, Herklotz was on another level and will be scary in the future if this is what he can do already.
17th for Schelling is a little lower than I would have hoped, but I guess it could have been worse. He is clearly not a leader at the PT level, and I think if we relegate to the PCT he will at least have a chance.
I started six years ago with a quite unique concept, and with a vision. There has not been a single decision I regretted since.
A lot of work, a lot of waiting and putting faith in a game AI, and many euros spent on cruise ship wifi later, Team Puma-SAP has culminated today.
I'd like to thank everyone who helped us along the way in different forms.
From the managers who took in our riders as loanees, made great (and usually mutually benefitting) deals with us, or just were up for enjoyable chats in off-seasons and in the race discussions. All of you gave me the necessary motivation and help to strive for the creation of a team that could one day be capable of this.
People like SotD, knockout, roturn and many more have made this journey truly memorable, and SN, CT and everyone who got this game started, kept it running and always developing, and put so much work in reporting the amazing amount of races have my eternal gratitude.
In this particular case and on this particular day, thank you Aquarius for your efforts in reporting this race (among many others), making it an immersive experience with detailed reports that showed every detail of every race situation that needed to be gotten across!
Thank you tastasol, I am glad Martin rode such a consistent race and got you many points here.
Thank you SotD, as always I appreciate your honesty that comes along with our MG friendship.
I have never considered a 84+MO Herklotz before this season, as I really dislike the salary expectations of the top GC riders compared to how much I can get out of them throughout a season. After Herklotz' first stage win however, I started to see if I could give him one more MO without sacrificing Demare entirely, because I assumed that would be necessary to fight for a GT win down the road.
But after this performance, I wonder if he even ever needs that additional stat if planned well and when we factor in the imminent decline of some of the dominating riders. Moreover, I never intended to become a one-trick pony team.
However, I guess his salary demands this time around won't really look different to a 84mo rider anymore anyway, so who knows...
Thank you tamijo, that is entirely correct, if we grant Alarcon the KoM win to make up for his lacklustre GC performances this season.
Winning four of the five classifications is really crazy indeed. Nerz and Arndt deserve a lot of praise and credit for their work that got Silvio on the top step of the podium and added the teams classification to our palmares as well. I'm glad I got such riders around on great wages.
Thank you Marco, you were a good wildcard addition to the race even though I understand you wanted to see some more fireworks from Uran. 7th is a weird GC spot to be in for this AI.
Thank you DubbelDekker, and I understand your disappointment very well. Madrazo should've been much stronger here, not just compared to Herklotz. I hope he can bounce back somewhere along the way in his last couple of years on the top level.
Thank you knockout, as much as this race must've annoyed you at times!
I'm glad I got you around for a long-running rivalry that comes with banter I enjoy greatly. I'm sure your team will find ways to strike back.
Thank you Bushwackers, I hope your journey will be successful in the end and you will manage to firmly establish your team in PT again in the long run. Your concept certainly is commendable.
As I said above, I don't know if Herklotz will ever get better than this, or even just repeat efforts like this again. At least today, that doesn't really matter to me though.
Thank you Silvio, for your maturity and ability.
Thank you Nikias, for your crazy peloton-splitting efforts.
Thank you Dominik, for your long pulls keeping early GC attacks at bay.
Thank you Christian, for your versatility and endurance.
Thank you Conor, for your loyalty and Irish fighting spirit.
Thank you Clement, for never complaining about tedious orders and hard days.
Thank you Luca, for keeping your leader where he belonged on flat stages.
Thank you Jetse, for being in our team since day 1 and being reliable as ever.
Good, and long , post cio. Also thank you for a long line of great talks. This game has really given some fun connections abroad for me - and continues to do so. I am really happy to see you win a Grand Tour - although you have done so too early for my likings, seeing how many seasons I tried before finally getting one
I do agree, to some extend, that Herklotz doesn't necessarily need that +1MO stat, although (as you point out yourself) I can't see it meaning much in terms of wage. He is already on the 12th highest OVL in the game, and getting a Grand Tour win will surely see his wage increase to atleast the 1mio mark like Schleck, Pluchkin, Phinney, Spilak and Taaramäe used to be at.
In terms of winning I agree, that there will soon be a "shortage" of competition, in comparisson to earlier seasons with riders such as Schleck, Taaramäe, Spilak, Pluchkin, Madrazo, Gesink, Amador, Kritskiy and Alarcon going on the decline, next season or the season after that. (Madrazo might have another season I think, though).
But riders like Dombrowski, Morton, Phinney, Lecuisinier, Hirt, Barguil, Kudus and Carthy won't stay static is my guess...
Phinney, Dombrowski and Lecuisinier will be the easiest riders to train to same level or better than Herklotz, while riders likes of Hirt and Barguil (especially) could be pretty easy too if the money is sufficient (which I'm sure it will be looking at who owns them ), as they already have the proper stat combination to win a GT. Either of them at 84-85MO would be a serious threat to Herklotz at 83MO I'd say
If the OVL system doesn't change a +1MO stat gain wouldn't give him any less RD I believe.
Once more. Congrats on this massive win - it will be on of many. I just have to stay clear of him with Lecuisinier in the future
You'd think being so far down in the GC would make Brambilla or even Aru join some breakaways. You'd think.
Thanks for the reports! Nothing much to comment on for me except of course for Calmejane fantastic stage win and Lammertink first week breakaway efforts.
Congrats, cio! I guess now I have definitive confirmation of who Dombrowski has to avoid in the next seasons if he wants to bag a GT win
Wow, definitely massive to come back having missed the final two and a half weeks due to holiday and not being able at all to get online in that time. Got online yesterday evening, but I soon realized trying to catch up was a much bigger job worth much more than only one evening
For the final sprint stages, I'm happy to see Holst Enger found a way to fight for top 5 placings again. A Vuelta well done by him with his stage 9 result.
The TT was always going to be a struggle for anyone except Phinney, and Galta survived it well, I think. At least I couldn't expect better. Though, the following hilly stage, stage 11, was a blow to his overall chances, as loosing 3 minutes to stage winnes Borges was kind of okay, but loosing two minutes to the first big group most definitely wasn't.
Stage 12 - congratulations cio! Big, big win by Herklotz, while for my team, you can argue it was lights out, with Galta nowhere to be seen near the top 15. 21st in the GC with more than a ten minutes deficit, probably means we only got stage 15 and a sprint finish as our remaining hope to take something away from this race.
Stage 13 - Wow! Absolutely brilliant by Galta Huge stage by him, also taking the KoM lead, which hopefully sees him attack again and again and again on the upcoming mountain stages Also an epic stage in general, with surprising results and new leader in Madrazo.
Stage 14 - Big stage by Herklotz! Suddenly you can argue he's the overall favourite, with his punchy skills, in addition to his world class climbing. Fun to see Burr Ho as my best rider in that TT.
Stage 15 - Chance missed for Enger, but not much to do, I guess, when he was forced out in the early wind. Not sure if Galta surviving on the same time as the peloton is a good or bad thing, considering future breakaways.
Stage 16 - So close! Another big stage by Galta, just a pity he and Alarcon weren't allowed to fight for the win as well. But on the other hand a stage I'm very satisfied with, as I never thought Galta could actually challenge Alarcon for the KoM jersey, now that they both clearly chase it. Herklotz with another stunning win, which makes me believe he's ready for the overall win already now, and not next season.
Stage 17 - What a crazy guy Herklotz is. Congratulations, cio! Struggle to see anyone stopping him now. What a ride. Galta joined the breakaway fun dangerously late there, surely fatigue has a big impact on him now compared to Alarcon, which it should as well, seeing their climbing skills. Sitting just inside the top 20 overall and still fighting for a podium in the KoM classification, I'm very happy with Galta's racing
Stage 18 - This is the crazy Herklotz show Puma for the PT title as well, anyone? Congratulations again, cio! Galta doing the maximum too, fighting for breakaways and KoM points, but please slow down a bit, Herklotz, so that Galta can claim 2nd in the KoM classification
Stage 19 - Trying the early breakaway was a good approach by Galta, just unfortunate that it gave him nothing, really. Still nice to see him try Herklotz doing well to consolidate his lead, and nice to see Madrazo show his class. Congratulations, DD!
Stage 20 - Brilliant by Galta! Didn't have high hopes seeing his breakaway companions, but he fought very well to claim enough points to make 2nd place in the KoM realistic. Also nice to see Alarcon finally awarded with a stage win. A big Vuelta for him as well, despite the lack of an overall GC for him.
Stage 21 - Wow, a new King has been crowned. Congratulations, cio! What a way to do it, bossing the Angliru. Also a good stage for Galta, eventhough he didn't make it into the breakaway. But 2nd in the KoM classification together with very aggressive racing and a top 20 overall, makes this race a good one for us, at least better than expected, which was an anonymous top 15.
And thank you a lot for the brilliant reports, Aquarius97! It has taken me hours to complete, but what a joy it was to catch up and read all stages in one go. Big thank you for the work you put into this.
So Herklotz has come of age in the most extraordinary way possible, defeating possibly the most reliable rider in the history of the game, plus a handful of others worthy contenders.
Alarcon's first half of the race kinda disrupted this Vuelta too. With an 84 MO rider going on the offensive for every BOTD in the high mountains and one less guy in the final wave of attacks. A stage win, KoM jersey and a final top10 are mere consolation prizes for what could have been a very different race for Hugo Boss.
Intxausti with a strong final day and climbing two spots, thus achieving our goal, makes this a pleasing race for us.
So huge congrats cio. I'm looking forward to see what this means for the future of the game.
And thank you so much for all the reports Aquarius. Brilliant job throughout the whole ordeal. Massive kudos, man!
Thanks guys, nice to get one stage win together with the KoM win but it would be a stretch to call it a success still. Atleast he made it into the top 10 in the end.
Kinda feel for some of the other teams with breakaway hopes as Alarcon ruined it for them (especially knockout) as Gustav pointed out, one of the top climbers in the game going into the break every single mountain stage really messes up the balance of the game.
Herklotz winning the Vuelta in such fashion as this, competition against top GT-riders, is interesting to say atleast! Wonder how cio could keep such a team onto next year.
Awesome job covering all the action in great fashion for 21 stages aquarius, very much appreciated!
Herklotz though... Insane. Not really looking forward to his future seasons.. Congrats, cio, of course
Must admit that I haven't yet read all the reports except of the first 10 Haig hopeless in the mountains, definitely expected more after his somewhat solid TT effort in stage ten. But, fortunately, it didn't hurt our points score from this GT too much. Leigh Howard, what a beauty he was here! Didn't really convince me in his races for us so far, but he saved his best for the best possible moment. Kicking off a GT with a stage win is always great, but to score nine consecutive Top-5s and eight podiums in the first nine days is simply ridiculous. Awesome stuff. The second stage win after going 3-3-3-2-2-2 in those stages before.. A somehow logical consequence and a great way to conclude the sprint stages here.
Quite important to also survive the race and score bonus points all the way to the final stage. Too bad we had no breakaway success, it would have been an epic GT for Bennelong (to be honest, it already has been epic thanks to Howard). Looking at the PT standings, it's been some very important points from Howard. It will be a tough battle against relegation til the end, but without this score here, we would have been doomed (I believe). Now we still have some key races to come (no real hopes for Haig at the TDF, neither for Morton - but Bobridge should have a shot at good results in his stage races).
Thanks for the reports. Doing a GT is always special, well done! Not sure if I will read all the Herklotz wins now, but I will try at some point.
Very pleased with Kritskiy's 5th place in the end, too bad he couldn't win an stage (2nd stage 10/ITT, 3rd stage 14/ITT and 2nd stage 16). Also pleased with Samolenkov during the flat stages and Tinkoff 2nd place in the Team Rankings. Congratulations Herklotz: The new mountain Bewley!
Puma for the PT title as well, anyone? 
Haig hopeless in the mountains, definitely expected more after his somewhat solid TT effort in stage ten. But, fortunately, it didn't hurt our points score from this GT too much. Leigh Howard, what a beauty he was here! Didn't really convince me in his races for us so far, but he saved his best for the best possible moment. Kicking off a GT with a stage win is always great, but to score nine consecutive Top-5s and eight podiums in the first nine days is simply ridiculous. Awesome stuff. The second stage win after going 3-3-3-2-2-2 in those stages before.. A somehow logical consequence and a great way to conclude the sprint stages here.
