What a race it has been. Congratz to all the winners, but especially to Ekoi, who performed extremely well.
We had an awesome first half of the race, with a quieter second half. Quint 3rd in KOM, and Wippert fighting for points all race has been a pleasure to follow.
Looking forward to seeing who wins the last stage, and thanks for all the wonderful reports.
Tour of America is over! Here's a last recap for you
Stage
Stage winner
GC
Points
Mountains
Young
Teams
1
Reinhardt
Reinhardt
Reinhardt
Marte
Air New Zealand – Alfa Romeo
2
Burke
Reinhardt
Reinhardt
Burke
Marte
Manada Coyotte
3
Wippert
Marte
Reinhardt
Marte
Marte
Simba Cement – Tanga Fresh
4
Powless
Powless
Reinhardt
Marte
McNulty
McCormick Pro Cycling
5
Tivani
Powless
Tivani
Marte
McNulty
McCormick Pro Cycling
6
Eastman
Eastman
Tivani
Eastman
McNulty
Kraftwerk Man Machine
7
Sanikwathi
Eastman
Sanikwathi
Eastman
McNulty
Kraftwerk Man Machine
8
Felline
Eastman
Sanikwathi
Eastman
McNulty
Kraftwerk Man Machine
9
Chevrier
Eastman
Sanikwathi
Hermans
McNulty
McCormick Pro Cycling
10
Gaspar
Eastman
Sanikwathi
Gall
McNulty
McCormick Pro Cycling
11
Gall
Eastman
Sanikwathi
Hermans
McNulty
McCormick Pro Cycling
12
Gall
Eastman
Gall
Gall
McNulty
McCormick Pro Cycling
13
McNulty
Eastman
Gall
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
14
Glanbia
Eastman
Gall
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
15
Verschaeve
Eastman
Gall
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
16
Haller
Eastman
Haller
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
17
Eastman
Eastman
Haller
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
18
Powless
Eastman
Haller
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
19
Lammertink
Eastman
Tivani
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
20
Powless
Eastman
Powless
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
21
Silva
Eastman
Tivani
Gall
McNulty
Zwift Pro Cycling
It's been nice to report this Tour, even though the result might be tough for some loveable teams. I hope you liked it too!
Edited by Imladrik on 23-05-2024 23:22
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
I think the most important thing I can say is thank you Imladrik! This has been an absolutely fantastic race with amazing reports for every single stage. An honor to read and thankful for all the time I know it took putting into reports like this.
As for the Turtles, I could never have imagined that Tivani would take away the points jersey and I'm sure no one else could have either. An extremely lucky, but rewarding result for us. Very happy with how he performed here after an otherwise low-impact year for him.
Tivani also comes away with our only stage victory although we did not expect much here. Some other good stage results - Alarcon with a breakaway top 3 and Hamza with a strong early time trial are not forgotten either. Overall good stage results for us based on expectations.
On the overall side - what a thrilling battle between Eastman and McNulty. I could not pick a side after all the support from both teams. Both teams should be proud of the results although I know its heartbreaking to be on the losing side of such a battle. Zwift and Ekoi-Le Creuset are the clear other winners here. 5 and 4 stage wins respectively are some absolutely fantastic hauls.
Too many other highlights to list, but what an enjoyable race from start to finish. Thank you again!
At least we can all agree Jesus Roniel Marte was Rider of the Race! And as a team we ended how we began and persevered, in a fruitless breakaway effort I'm happy with the result for T3A, it beat my expectations with more breakaways and more Stage Top10's than ever before in this race.
And some huge points hauls for other CT teams! Proving the ToA continues to be a genuinely interesting non-PT GT where anyone can turn up and get something.
An incredible day in Glanbia history, thanks so much to Imldarik.
And thanks to Ulrich for a big scare and for designing a great race. I do think less mountains is more some time. McNulty's day will most definitely come
Well done to all the other winners
Silva joins in on the stage winning fun! Five stage wins (three in the last four days) is incredible. Shame to lose the points jersey on the last day, but Powless had a great GT regardless. Doing rough math in my head, I'm very excited about the point haul we are leaving here with. Hopefully it's enough to keep us in the division.
Finally, thanks for the reports! High quality stuff and every stage was a joy to read.
First of all, another thank you to Imladrik for the great reports!
Secondly, congrats to Mac for a historic win for American cycling (and for you, too) as well as Ulrich for a heart-breakingly close second place and to Mre for the final stage wins as well as completing the all-American podium.
Our own race was obviously above all expectations with 4 stage wins (equaling our win count of the season pre-September in this race alone), five more podiums, the KoM jersey and our entire team just being super-active in the breaks (which would have been fine by itself). The points haul here could even beat the one in San Luis and should us leave with two of the three highest scoring races of all teams in this entire CT season within one month. I probably said it before, this race (and month) was just insane for us!
Echo the thanks to Imladrik for doing justice to the race. Was really nice to see the parcours come to life.
Congrats to Mac and Glanbia for holding things together and taking the win. And Eastman is a great rider to break the American rider hoodoo, a real standard bearer for US riders below the PT level. The new gap is there has never been a South American winner.
Also congrats to Sean and Tivani on the points jersey (got a South American winner there I guess), always nice to see a former rider succeed. Both he and Eastman rode for NBCSN-Azteca so Kentaurus' American team legacy comes through.
Will save my final reaction to the McCormick outcome for an HQ post.
I do think the more balanced peloton with the pull from PCT and CT helps with the racing as you have less very similar riders in the top 15 of the GC. Would wreak havoc with the calendar but wonder if one of the other grand tours should be moved to PCT to create a similar dynamic.
+ Another great route from UU
+ Top quality reporting from Imladrik
+ Exciting finishes to both GC and points competition
+ First US winner
+ Haller getting his stage win to share the stage win record
Congrats to MacC and seancoll for the GC and points wins.
Given that this was the only GT relevant for two divisions, I decided to not provide the fully detailed race review in either the PCT or the CT ranking updates, but right here in the discussion thread.
Teams
One thing to note is that the top teams of both divisions didn't participate here - and at least in PCT, the ToA had zero impact on the promotion fight. It definitely did have some impact though in CT, as we'll see in the CT ranking updates.
But most of all, it was an incredibly important race for the PCT teams fighting relegation! And we can say that two teams did a great job, two did OK, and two weren't great (supposing that McCormick aren't in the relegation fight anyway).
Now, who did the best job points-wise? Nope, not Glanbia. Instead, it was one of the teams the Irishmen definitely hoped to make up ground against - the top scorers in the 2023 Tour of America are...
Zwift! This might not be obvious, with Powless "only" being the 3rd best scorer - but the American, who took 3 stage wins and 3rd in GC, wasn't the team's only big scorer. Obviously, his 244 points are unmatched by his teammates. But they were quite successful, too. Burke won the first hilly stage on day 2, adding a great 8th place GC finish on top of that - 111 points for him. Silva won the final stage (also adding 2nd and 3rd on stages 7 and 16), ending up 4th in points - 56 points. Zwift also had Tejada in 16 place in the final GC - and they won the team standings. All in all, the Americans scored 459 points during these three weeks! Which is just 7 points less than Philips scored with their GC win last year...
When speaking of GC win - Eastman and his Glanbia team ended up in 2nd place in terms of scoring. Their leader definitely did deliver, getting two stage wins (plus the TTT, where he crossed the line first), 15 days in yellow plus the GC win - 383 points for Eastman. But what must be even more valuable to him than the points is the honour to be the first North American ToA winner in history!
Sadly for Glanbia, the rest of the team didn't score a lot, apart from the TTT win. McKenna's 2nd place in stage 8 was the most precious result not scored by Eastman, and they also got a couple of points from the ITTs. All in all, it's 440 points and still a good points haul for Glanbia, still narrowly missing out on being the highest scoring team.
The 3rd team is another one led by a U.S. American GC rider. You'll have guessed it, it's obviously McCormick. In what has been the closest ToA GC decision so far, McNulty lost out to Eastman by a measly two seconds gap... Two seconds that could be found in many stages. Still, it was a great performance by the youngster, who obviously took home the white jersey - by a margin of more than 13 minutes. McNulty also won stage 13 - and had he beaten Powless in the fight for the win on day 18, the GC win would be his...
But even with "only" 2nd place, McNulty scored 347 points in this race, the 2nd highest amount. Just like Glanbia, the leader's teammates didn't score a lot - but they still had some pretty nice depth, with all of Warbasse, Kuss, Revard, Hoehn and Matte in the GC Top 50. Which brings McCormick's scoring total to a very solid amount of 410 points!
The Top 3 teams are separated by just 49 points - the next three teams by just 37 points! However, the gap between 3rd and 4th is almost 100 points, as we clearly go down one level of scoring.
In 4th place, we already have the next PCT team in Colombini. After stage 10, it even looked like Reis might challenge Eastman and McNulty - an impression that quickly changed after day 13. Reis even missed out on the podium, finishing 4th. And despite having some very solid stage results (2nd on stages 6, 17 and 20, 3rd on stage 18), he didn't quite get his win. Nor did his teammates, with Raileanu (2nd on stage 2) and El Sabbahi (3rd on stages 7 and 21) getting pretty close. Reis scored 192 points, Raileanu and El Sabbahi 38 points each - and Colombini took home a total of 312 points, losing a bit more than 100 points to their direct competitors Zwift and Glanbia.
In 5th place, we finally get our first CT team! And what an awesome race it was for Ekoi! Back-to-back stage wins by Gall on stages 11 and 12 - plus the KoM jersey win by the Austrian - plus stage wins by Chevrier (stage 9) and Lammterink (stage 19) - 4 wins was only matched (and bettered) by Zwift! Gall also finished 3rd in the U25 standings - and while the French team didn't get many GC points they racked up tons of stage and KoM points! Gall was the 5th best scorer in the race with 171 points. Le Gac, while not winning a stage, finished 2nd behind a teammate twice and scored 42 points, with Lammertink and Chevrier getting 25 each for their stage wins. All in all, it's a huge 281 points for Ekoi and this year's top score in CT, hats off!
If one team is inevitably linked to ToA, it must be Kraftwerk. They were one of the top contenders in the last couple of years - but sadly for them, Ranaweera's disappointing 2022 saw a repeat this year. Only 6th in GC, but Kraftwerk still had their historic moment: Haller won a stage to be tied for the ToA stage win record now, and is the only rider to have won stages in 5 different editions! The sprinter also finished 2nd in the points standings - although it looked like an easy win against Tivani... It wasn't to be.
Still, Haller (77 points) scored almost as heavily as Ranaweera (92 points) - and Ludvigsson, one of the surprise GC riders of the race, ended up in an amazing 9th place! Helme also got a Top 20 finish, and both Nerz and Ho ended up in the Top 50 as well. Despite not getting an outstanding result, the Germans racked up 275 points - not great compared to the last few years, but luckily they didn't need every point this year...
It's then another jump of more than 100 points down to 7th place, where we have the midfield spanning 6 teams from 7th to 12th. First are Babymetal, for whom Verschaeve did an amazing job by finishing 2nd in KoM and U25, plus 12th in GC! And to crown off his race, he also won stage 15 - definitely an amazing tour by the Belgian! With 106 points, he was the 9th best scorer in this race! Niu in 17th place did a great job as well, with Dzervus picking up a couple of sprint stage points. 160 points for Babymetal!
Next, we have two teams at 150 points. For Spark, this cannot be a satisfying result, being just the 6th out of 7 PCT teams. Madrazo did an OK job, finishing 5th in GC - but in particular Perera had a very disappointing race, scoring barely more than a handful points.
The second team at 150 points surely is happier about that outcome, as it's another CT team! And given that the Turtles even won a stage and the green jersey with Tivani, the ToA surely was a great success for them! 116 points scored by their sprinter is a lot, and already tells you that the rest of the team wasn't as great. Squire finished 24th in the GC, and Hamza took 3rd in the first ITT - these are the most notable results beside Tivani's.
We continue in this "midfield" block, was we arrive at 10th place - and the Manada Coyotes. Their race highlight definitely was Gaspar's stage win on day 10 - and Lemus Davila finishing 7th in the GC! The latter actually was the better scorer with 75 points, with the Brazilian picking up 60 points. All in all, the Coyotes take 146 points back home to South America.
It's then 143 points for the next CT team, Simba Cement. They were able to win two stages, with Wippert (stage 3) and Felline (stage 8). Wippert was their top scorer with 55 points, followed by Hermans, who gave Gall a good fight for the KoM shirt for a couple of days (even wearing it twice), ending up 3rd in that classification. 53 points for him and, as said before, 143 for the team.
And finally, finally, down in 12th place, we have the final PCT team - DuckDuckGo. Inkelaar was just a big disappointment, finishing way, way down in 13th place! Even behind Rachid, who took 11th place, scoring 43 points - just like Petit, who got the team three sprint stage podiums. But 134 points definitely isn't enough for a PCT team to justify the huge 21 RD investment.
7 teams left, with Caja being the final one above 100 points. Munoz did a pretty good job by finishing 10th in GC, considering that it was a very TT-heavy race - and he doesn't like these. Ablenado finished 14th, a good outcome as well. Overall, 102 points for the Spaniards.
Just below the 100 points mark, with 91 points scored, we have Strava. Their highlight surely was the stage win by Sanikwathi on day 7, followed by 5 days in Green. He scored 70 points, with Poljanski and Tarvis getting 10 each.
Only 4 points down, concluding the Top 15, are Hilcona. No stage win for them, with Keizer being their best scorer by finishing 15th in GC. Delco finished 2nd from a breakaway once, making him their 2nd best scorer.
Another 2 points behind are Adidas, who scored a big chunk of their 85 points right away on stage 1, won by Reinhardt. The German was in Green for 4 days, but only finished 10th in points.
Who's left? Air New Zealand, for example. Scully (2nd on day 1) and Zariff scored some points from the sprints; otherwise they had Shalunov and Fabbro in 26th and 27th in GC. 70 points in total.
Which is 2 more than Podium Ambition, who probably had more hours of television presence than they scored points. We'll especially remember Marte's BotD consistency, leading to him wearing the U25 jersey, the KoM shirt - and even the yellow jersey for one day! With 35 points, he's indeed the team's best scorer.
One team left. And it's a surprising name. But to be honest, Gjensidige sent none of their big leaders here, and they paid for it by scoring a measly 31 points. Yep, 31. Jacobsen scored most of them via breakaways, most notably on stage 12 where he finished 2nd. But will this be enough to keep their promotion hopes up?
Here are the full points:
Team
Points
1
Zwift Pro Cycling
459
2
Glanbia
440
3
McCormick Pro Cycling
410
4
Colombini Cycling
312
5
Ekoi - Le Creuset
281
6
Kraftwerk Man Machine
275
7
Babymetal Cycling
160
8
Spark-BNZ Racing
150
9
SEE Turtles
150
10
Manada Coyote
146
11
Simba Cement - Tanga Fresh
143
12
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
134
13
Caja Rural Cycling Team
102
14
Strava
91
15
Hilcona Racing Team
87
16
Adidas-Eurocash
85
17
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
70
18
Podium Ambition
68
19
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
31
Riders
The most important points were already mentioned above - Eastman, McNulty and Powless are the three top scorers. Big shoutout to Gall for taking a Top 5, plus Tivani who's right next and Verschaeve who adds a 3rd CT entry in the Top 10!
For our first GT, and considering our place in the rankings, this GT went off perfectly for us. Dzervus and De Laat overperforming, with Niu putting in some nice Top 10s. Verschaeve getting caught stage 10 made my heart sink for a second. But I am glad he was able to pull it off later on!!
Seeing that close GC race was a real butt clencher. Congrats to everyone for a fun and exciting GT! Glanbia can be proud to take this one home
Thank you Ulrich for the Nemo and Ulrich for the previews, and mega thanks to Imladrik for thoes high quality reports for such a long race. It must have taken quite some time XD
I'm happy with the result for T3A, it beat my expectations with more breakaways and more Stage Top10's than ever before in this race.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
