Avin Wargunnson wrote:
In the end, somebody will find the way to beat us both anyway.

Pellizotti2 wrote:
Seriously, though - much of the pre-season information posted in Metinvest and Privatbank's HQs makes me think the three of us will come across one another a fair amount of times - both during transfers and the actual season!

Pellizotti2 wrote:
Lets make this a season dominated by eastern Europe!

The team's made their first three signings of this season. We can say we're very pleased to welcome Vladimir Efimkin at our team. Together with Topchanyuk he should give us some points in mountainstages, something we don't really focus on. Another Russian who joined is Sergey Nikolaev, this sprinter can get over hills really well and will be part of the team which goes to C2 races. He'll also help our sprint leaders in bigger races. The third and final rider who has been confirmed to join is the Estonian puncheur Martin Puusepp. We paid 100.000 to transfer him from La Vie Claire. He'll also target the C2 races we have on our calendar.

Sadly we also had to sell some of our riders. Ricardo Mestre will join Simply Red Bull, where he should be a great mountain domestique. Moving with him is Oleksandr Prevar. He's only going there on a loan and it should be fun to watch him help their leaders whilst gaining experience. Cesar Andre Fonte will join Grupo Nutresa, who are having a fun transfer season so far. It's really sad to see a former leader go, but it gives us room to secure bigger names.

After a day full of things gone wrong we also have some positive news, as the team has two new members. First is Maciej Ulanowski, a sprinter from Poland, who is quite similar to Maksimov we had last year. We don't expect him to get great results, but some points would be nice. A second deal, which hasn't been officially closed yet, but is certain to happen is Alex Wohler who will join the team on a loan deal from the Oz. He is here to gain experience and hopefully he'll be active in breakaways throughout the season.

Since the last update we gave you, 3 more cyclists have joined us in Lviv. Kobe Vanoverschelde is our most expensive transfer ever. He's an excellent sprinter and will try to win a few races for us this season. Tomas Vaitkus, who is another signing will be the key to winning sprints. He'll probably be one of the best lead-out men in the division and we are thrilled to welcome him. We already guaranteed him he'll ride in his favourite Baltic Chain Tour. Last but not least Andris 'Smirnoff' Smirnovs will be on loan from Metinvest. He's here to gain experience and we hope the team, and Ansons in particular can help him develop nicely this season.

roturn wrote:
I hope your team will not fail by not making leadout trains. You might have the strongest trains, but your main sprinters might just be the 4th, 5th strongest.

Yes, you get that right, The Gorilla, aslso know as André Greipel has just joined our team. He'll have the highest salary of all our riders, and this'll be his last season at this high of a level. Despite of that we're very proud to have signed him, as he's an excellent sprinter. He's the one who's going to try and achieve three of our sponsorgoals, being the Down Under Classic, Interlagos GP and Race Horizon Park. And even with a strong sprintersfield in this year's PCT we're pretty confident he's capable of reaching our goals in those races.

André, Welcome!

After our update on signing Greipel, 3 more guys found a way to Lviv. Most noticable is Slovenian Robert Vrecer. The 34 year old climber will be a helper for Efimkin and Topchanyuk, and can try something himself in C2 races. Another mountaindomestique is Muradjan Khalmuratov. Not the youngest either, but he sure is a nice addition to our team, and will focus on mianly the same races as Vrecer. We can't have a future with only 30+ riders, and therefore we signed Kyriakos Skettos, Cyprus' most talented rider by far. We believe he can become just as fast as Polivoda and he'll become a part of our sprintingteam in a few years.

We now expect just a few more riders before our squad is complete.

With the last signings today we can announce our transfer season is over!

Today three more riders joined us, including The Hottest Thing On Wheels, Shaquille Sinclair. Shaq is Jamaica's most promising rider () and he should become as fast as another of our signings: Igor Abakoumov. Igor rides with a Belgian license, but he was born in Ukraine. He'll help Kobe adapt the Ukrainian way of life. The only rider left unnamed is Polychronis Tzortzakis, a promising Greek sprinter/time trialist. We're still actively looking to loan him out to a ProTour team, but if we don't succeed in doing so he'll be an excellent addition to our team.