Swapping an underperforming sprinter with one of the very top time triallists in the game, seems like you got the better out of that deal!
Always nice to see when a team of a particular country is able to sign a top rider from their though! You can safely guarantee at least one national champion for a while now, at least.
SportingNonsense wrote:
Swapping an underperforming sprinter with one of the very top time triallists in the game, seems like you got the better out of that deal!
Always nice to see when a team of a particular country is able to sign a top rider from their though! You can safely guarantee at least one national champion for a while now, at least.
He only underperformed last season though. And I don't really know whether or not that acceleration-problem is still in the game. It doesn't seem so bad I think. And Coppel is more than double in wage. So in terms of PPrD I'm not sure I did a good deal, but I wanted him
The transferperiod has been very slow compared to previous seasons in the Festina-era. Nonetheless, a few changes has been made in order to keep progres going.
The first rider we have received is another talented cobbler, Guillaume van Keirsbulck whom are joining us on a one year loan deal from Team BPost. With van Keirsbulck we now have three riders capable of going well on the cobbles. While we are aware that none of them are top riders, we do hope that they can snatch a few odd points here and there during the part of the season where we are very weak.
We are also very happy to announce that we have gotten our greek talent, Charalampas Kastrantas back after a year at Gazelle. We have some very good relations to Gazelle, and we are very pleased that not only did they save us from having to sack him last season, but also that they were willing to let him go back to us. We paid a bit more than he was originally worth as a special thank you for the kind natur of the team. Kastrantas will enjoy a season of learning, and should be ready for impact next season.
We have also managed to get hold of two Italian legends, Mauro Santambrogio and Enrico Gasparotto. We are extremely happy that both was interested in joining us with an extremely low wage. Both are strong men, and can survive a little bit of everything, while having the capabilities to finish off a break, or setup a nice sprint. We expect them to feature our Giro setup, where they will be given an opportunity to go for breakaways. In other parts of the season they will try to help Georgos Tzortzakis reach his potential.
In other news, we have loaned out two promising french talents, Olivier Le Gac and Alexis Gougeard. Both wanted to stay another season in the PCT/CT rankings because they didn't feel ready for the PT. We agreed that they could use a bit more maturing, so the two 22-year old riders have left the team for this season.
The team is almost ready for action, and as usual feel free to ask questions, comment on the team or the transfers.
Festina has announced their sponsor goals today, and unlike previously they seem much more rounded than normally.
..::Win Tour of Switzerland::..
..::Top 3 Tirreno-Adriatico::..
..::Top 3 Vuelta a Colombia::..
..::Top 10 Giro d'Italia::..
..::Top 10 Team Standings::..
Several medias are starting to speculate on which riders should be put in the races to achieve these goals, and while Simon Spilak stands out as the teams biggest star, pundits are not exactly agreeing that he should be riding all of these races.
The first post have been updated with information on the final roster.
As usual, we invite people to voice their oppinion on our team, aswell as ask questions.
Edited by SotD on 15-05-2015 17:03
The Schleck Fan wrote:
I can see all of them very acheiveable.Switzerland will be very hard with Madrazo though.
No matter what "win goal" I would have picked it would always be very difficult to achieve. I didn't know I had Coppel before the season, so I couldn't go for some TT race. And hopefully by chosing a nation that has no obvious national things around it, I hope to avoid a few riders. I hope so atleast
Bushwackers wrote:
We'll be butting heads in Switzerland!
I will be looking forward to that I guess Amador will be 85MO next season - And then he will be extremely difficult to beat
SotD wrote:
I will be looking forward to that I guess Amador will be 85MO next season - And then he will be extremely difficult to beat
Unfortunately I don't have nearly enough to train any of my big guns this year. But I expect it will be a really tough race, especially if SN sends Schleck to defend his title as well.
SotD wrote:
I will be looking forward to that I guess Amador will be 85MO next season - And then he will be extremely difficult to beat
Unfortunately I don't have nearly enough to train any of my big guns this year. But I expect it will be a really tough race, especially if SN sends Schleck to defend his title as well.
Hopefully he doesn't when he sees how many top riders are targeting the race
SotD wrote:
I will be looking forward to that I guess Amador will be 85MO next season - And then he will be extremely difficult to beat
Unfortunately I don't have nearly enough to train any of my big guns this year. But I expect it will be a really tough race, especially if SN sends Schleck to defend his title as well.
Hopefully he doesn't when he sees how many top riders are targeting the race
Schleck scared of other riders? Nah, it should be the other way around Edited by SportingNonsense on 15-05-2015 20:27
We caught up with a composed Spilak earlier today and had a chat about the future for the slovenian star rider. The elegant climber is the ultimate captain of the French-Greek, Festina-Canal+ team.
2014 Results:
Winner of Tour of Romandie
Runner up Criterium du Dauphine Libere
3rd Tour de France
4th Paris - Nice
Top Results:
Tour de France (Winner: 2011, 3rd: 2010, 2014, 5th: 2012)
Giro d'Italia (3rd: 2013)
Goals:
"I have won the Tour de France. I have podiumed the Giro d'Italia and I have some wins in smaller GC races. I know what I can do, and I know what needs to be done to succeed. I have always loved the ardennes, but I never did really well there. My best ardennes result is 3rd in Fleche Wallonne back in 2011. That is something I am very interested in changing, and because of that I have spent a massive amount of time training my competences on the steep hills. I WANT to win the biggest races, and I CAN win them. If I put my focus on it."
A keen and clearly motivated Simon Spilak went on to speak of his massive training sessions in the off season, and it seems evident that he will try to win one of the ardennes this season.
Rumours has it that bookmakers are putting Simon Spilak among the 10 best ardennes riders for the upcoming season, and while the top favorites have a specified number of 85, Simon Spilak comes out as a 82 placing him next to riders such as Simone Ponzi, Tejay van Garderen, Francesco Ginanni and ahead of riders such as former Milano-San Remo Winner Diego Ulissi, team mate Riccardo Ricco and superstar Damiano Cunego. Only three riders comes out as bigger favorites for the ardennes than Simon Spilak. Former world champion Edvald Boasson Hagen, last seasons individual Pro Tour winner Yuri Trofimov and belgian hard-hitter Jan Bakelants.
As a sidenote Simon Spilak declared his interest in trying to win another of the two Grand Tours, preferably the Giro d'Italia. Pundits are speculating as to whether this will be the year or if Spilak is indeed trying to beat around the bush.
We are happy to announce our 2015 Roster: Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (U23) Clement Koretzky Laurent Pichon Bryan Coquard Jerome Coppel Mathieu Bernaudeau Yoann Paillot Panagiotis Vlatos Charalampas Kastrantas Georgos Tzortzakis Riccardo Ricco Enrico Gasparotto Simon Spilak Yuriy Vasyliv (U23) Markus Eibegger Martin Hacecký Piter Campero Tsgabu Grmay (LOAN) Tom David Guillaume van Keirsbulck (LOAN) Robert Bush (LOAN)
Stagiares Zhihui Jiang - 10.000€ (U23)
Riders loaned out Olivier Le Gac (U23) Alexis Gougeard (U23)
Average Age: 26 years
As usual we are very interested in your oppinion.
Edited by SotD on 21-05-2015 22:21
Nice team with enormous potential for the future. Spilak looks deadly with those all around climbing abilities, i hope that they will avoid each other with Pluchkin as much as they can.
You also have some super strong time trialists, but you are potentially 1 or 2 two 73/74+ guys from having best TTT lineup next to Oz.
Spilak should win a GT to defend that investment, and he should be strong enough. I wondered if you would use a lot of money on him or Coppel, I thought Coppel with 76 Hill would've been a really interesting rider.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
Nice team with enormous potential for the future. Spilak looks deadly with those all around climbing abilities, i hope that they will avoid each other with Pluchkin as much as they can.
You also have some super strong time trialists, but you are potentially 1 or 2 two 73/74+ guys from having best TTT lineup next to Oz.
Yeah I decided to sell Tim Dees (76TT) because I knew I didn't stand a chance at winning TTTs anyway. So if I end up 3rd or 6th doesn't really matter much. Next season I am going to target TTT's though
The main problem for me concerning TTTs is that I needed to bring Spilak and Lecuisinier to be able to win those, and I don't think they will ride many races together. They are simply too good to use in races together. I guess Lecuisinier will be able to get a few GC top 10s of his own, and Spilak should battle for the win wherever he goes.
I am really looking forward to next season where my frenchies finally starts to kick in as leaders of the team. They are still basically domestiques - except for Coppel, but there really aren't a lot of races suited for him this season. The relatively flat races that he could potentially win have TT's of just 3-5km, which is rather pointless to use him on. I considered making Coppel 76HI, but I really don't see any race (maybe except for Tasmania) where that will really help him achieve better results.
But it is nice, for once, to have a rider who can potentially do a top 10 everywhere. I know it is a struggle to get top 10s in cobbled races, but having 3 decent cobbers (76) who are all pretty good at sprinting (68/69) I hope to get atleast one cobbled top 10 this season, and if not atleast fill up the top 20 with 2 of them to get a decent points haul. Last season I think I ranked up 70 points or so in total from the cobbled races (except for riders just finishing). Tzortzakis can, hopefully, do better than Guerao did last season (Really that should be possible), and then I should finally be able to do well in the ardennes. Ricco won the Milano-San Remo, which I won't this season, but besides that these were our hilly results last season:
This season I hope to top 5 in all of those, aswell as Giro di Lombardia.
We are tweaking our race planner ever so slightly this season to be competitive everywhere, instead of targetting specific races massively. I can only point out one race where we can't get a top 10 this season, and that is TONE.
Our internal goal is to win 5 races this season, whether it be Grand Tours, One-day races or small GC races. Last season we won 2.
Another major target this season is Tour de l'Avenir. Infact that is probably the most important race of the season for us. We want Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier to win (although it will be difficult) and we want Yuriy Vasyliv to make the top 10 aswell. It is going to be an interesting season, where we are capable of achieving all of our goals, if we get the amount of luck needed.
Heine wrote:
Spilak should win a GT to defend that investment, and he should be strong enough. I wondered if you would use a lot of money on him or Coppel, I thought Coppel with 76 Hill would've been a really interesting rider.
Before selling Tim Dees my plan was to make Jerome Coppel 76HI, but when the opportunity to make Spilak 82HI came up I had to go with it. I am really unsure as to what effect Coppel 76 vs 74 will have as most of the races with hills are either looking to go to a top HI rider or the TT's are to short anyway. I can't find races that really suit Coppel except for the TT one day race and Tasmania. Every other race have some problems for him to overcome, and I really don't think 74 or 76HI was going to make much of a difference in them. I will never know of course.
Spilak will go from getting low end top 10s in ardennes to top 5 I think, which gives quite a lot of points. If we take the average and say he moves from 10th to 5th in Badaling, LBL, AGR, FLW and Lombardia he will increase our points haul by 282 points. I don't think Coppel can get that by going +2HI.
Also Coppel would lose 3 racedays by going to just 75HI, while Spilak isn't affected. So the race planning I made with Coppel had to be changed rather drastically if I wanted him 76HI. If we have more races like Tasmania (only longer) next season, then I will probably regret it, but isolated on this season I just didn't think it was worth 1.850.000€ to make Coppel +2HI.
Welcome to the presentation of Festina-Canal+ 2015.
Leaders
This season we have four undisputed captains of the team. And while both Lecuisinier and Coppel will have a few races where they help the team as domestiques these four riders will be the major point scorers for the team this season.
Simon Spilak has been training heavily to make an impact in this seasons tough classic races, and while he is already amongst the very best climbers in the peloton he should strive to achieve perfection this season. Last seasons 10th place in the overall rankings aim to get inside the top 5 this season, and while it is not given, it should be possible. We are still putting the final touch on the calendar of Spilak, so we are not yet ready to comment on where we would expect him to ride.
Riccardo Ricco had a very mixed last season. He did fantastically well to win the Milano San Remo, and he also managed to get inside the top 10 of all races in the ardennes week. But while he did amazing in those races he really struggled in the stage races. Being 5th in the GC just a few days before hitting Milano, Ricco crashed out of the Giro d'Italia. He was looking strong and 5th was absolutely a possibility for him to achieve. But not only the Giro was difficult. Ricco also crashed in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, and instead of fighting for 7th or 8th he had to settle for 14th. From the Giro onwards Ricco had a long break in order to make sure he was OK after his crash, so it was horrible to see that his next, and final race of the season, Giro di Lombardia would also end in a crash where Ricco hit his shoulder pretty bad. Ricco is back, though, and looking strong as ever. He has his eyes firmly set on the Giro, and he wishes to make a charge for another top 10GC, which should be possible.
Jerome Coppel adds another dimension to the team with his amazing timetrial skills. Jerome has his eyes set for a few, unspecified races that he really wants to do well in. Because we never had a timetriallist that would actually be able to do well in a few races, we are listening to what Jerome feels he is capable of instead of forcing him into riding races he doesn't want to take part in. Having a rider such as Coppel opens the doors for several planning opportunities that we have not had in the past, and we hope to do well with him in both individual timetrials, team time trials and on a few other terrains.
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier is the final leader of the season. The young french rider came 2nd in Tour de l'Avenir last season, and we are aiming to put the maximum pressure on him this season to see what we can expect in the future. Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier will ride a Grand Tour as captain this season and a few other races, while he will help Spilak to achieve his goals aswell. Pierre-Henri had a decent season last year and he shows great promise whenever we are going for a team role - Especially in the mountains. This will be the season where Lecuisinier should show whether or not the team should gamble on him as a GC leader in the future, and we expect that the answer to that is: Yes.
Climbers
In the past we have struggled to help our GC leaders get the best possible results. With the assignment of some good climbers we hope to finally control the races and aid our GC riders for a sufficient amount of time, before he can launch the final kick.
Martin Hacecký is new in our team, and the Czech opens a delegation that Festina has never really had of very decent climbers. While Hacecký is mainly a helper he will have a few chances to lead the team. We are aware of the fact that the Pro Tour is booming with great climbers, but as Martin is extremely aggressive in his ridings we expect him to catch the leading teams of guard from time to time. He will be a perfect guy to send out front, to aid Spilak, Ricco or Lecuisinier - And he might be a good bet for a stagewin, or a KOM jersey during the season.
Piter Campero isn't exactly new to the team, and yet he is. Last season he was away for loan in order to get some experience. The bolivian national champ is strong whenever the climb goes hard. Like Hacecký he is very aggressive and we expect him to get itchy legs whenever we see mountains. While he is a great guy to send up the road he will have a few locked races where his only objective is to give the leader the best possible conditions. Piter is still developping and we are looking forward to see if he may actually get a chance to ride his own chances next season - we believe he will.
Tsgabu Grmay is another decent climber, and while he lacks the top speed going up mountains he will surely be a great domestique to put up a high pace early on in the high mountains. Grmay is in on a one year loan deal, and we are very happy to be able to loan him, and hopefully help him develop into a great climber. The talent is there, that's for sure.
Yuriy Vasyliv is our final guy for the mountains, and just like Grmay and Campero he is also yet to reach his full potential. Vasyliv is a great GC talent, and while he is not likely to win Grand Tours in the future he will be a very good bet for small GC top 10s. Being only 22 years old he is a good friend of Lecuisinier and those two are aiming to reach the top 10 of this years edition of Tour de l'Avenir, where Lecuisinier is in fact aiming for the overall win.
Sprinters
Last season we had a massive focus on sprints, but as Guerao severely failed to deliver we decided to step back a bit. We still want to be competitive in sprints, and really we are not much weaker than last season. Unlike last season we do, however have a few races where a sprinter would be handy, where we instead hope to target breakaway wins.
Georgos Tzortzakis is finally looking to reach his full potential. Last season he showed that he was among the fast men in the pack, also getting bronze from the B Worlds. This season Tzortzakis is set to lead the team in the flat stages, and while he will go for his own chances for majority of the season we are aware that he lacks the very top speed to achieve top results. A few stagewins is the aim, aswell as him getting a couple of top 10s in the sprint-friendly flat races.
Bryan Coquard is back after a season in the PCT where he did reasonably well, mostly as a leadout. This season will be a mixed season in terms of role for the french super talent. In quite a lot of races Coquard will try his best to keep Tzortzakis out of trouble and help him achieve his goals, but Coquard will get chances to shine himself aswell. Given his great abilities on short timetrials (prologues), we hope that he will somehow be able to get decent results in a few races.
Enrico Gasparotto adds a new thing to the team. We have never before had a road captain, but this season Enrico should have the overview in the races when they get a bit chaotic. We don't expect him to deliver results himself, although if positioned well he could make for a decent sprint result. While Gasparotto will aim to keep control of things we also expect him to leadout our sprinters so they will get the best possible result. While many teams have faster sprinters few teams have a better roadcaptain and leadout as the 2nd last leadout.
Puncheurs
One of our best sectors with Simon Spilak and Riccardo Ricco. We have some very strong helpers for those aswell, so we expect great results in the hilly classics and those small hilly stageraces. We can feature atleast 4 strong hilly riders that could potentially all do a top 10 which is very pleasant.
Clement Koretzky showed his strength last season winning no less than two stagewins in races where everything else failed. He is slowly progressing into a rider that you can expect great things from, and if he keeps performing like this we are likely to put a great amount of effort into guiding him towards great wins - Which could be ardennes f.e. This season Koretzky will mainly be guiding our top puncheurs Spilak and Ricco to victory, but he will have a few chances to shine himself, aswell as getting a free role in atleast one Grand Tour. We have really high hopes for this young rider.
Laurent Pichon is a very similar rider to Koretzky and they are going to support eachother for the majority of the season. While Pichon is not the classic puncheur that Pichon is, he does have an absolutely fantastic ability to dig deep and ride above abilities. We expect to see Pichon in breakaways often, and we think this might be the season where he finally hits a break that will award him with a win.
Charalampas Kastrantas seemed lost for us, when we had to sell him late on last season to Gazelle, but a great relationship with both Kastrantas and Gazelle sportif directeur made for a very happy reunion. Kastrantas has a bit of everything and will be a strong support rider. Not only this season, but especially next season where he will be even further developped. Kastrantas is one of just 3 greek riders, and while we would like to strengthen our focus here we also want the best possible greek riders. Kastrantas is surely among those.
Cobblers
Last season we ignored cobbles all together. This season have a higher cobbled percentage compared to last season, actually by quite a lot, so we had to up the ante here. Tom David showed that lesser riders can still do well, so instead of going all out for a leader we have 3 riders capable of doing decent results this season compared to 0 last season.
Tom David is our undisputed cobbled leader, and while that does not necessarily looks impressive Tom is an utterly talented rider, that can go well over hills and even better over cobbles. Last season Tom did a surprise top 10 in Gent - Wevelgem, and we are hoping for more of this. He developped greatly during the break and we can see that he is now gapping our riders with great ease, while last season he struggled a bit more to put time on our lesser cobblers.
Guillaume van Keirsbulck is on loan from BPost this season, and while Keirsbulck is not quite the talent that David is, he still posses great quality. van Keirsbulck should be able to get decent cobbled results himself, and even more important he should be able to keep David out of trouble. Last season Tom David was alone for those massive 200-250km that cobbled races often are. This season is much different as van Keirsbulck on a good day should be atleast as good as Tom.
Robert Bush is the final bit of our cobbled squad, and while he lacks a bit of strength when the hills arrive, he should be doing very well on the flat cobbled races. Robert is the fastest of our cobblers, and if he manages to get placed well in a group he should be able to sprint for a very nice overall result. Our cobbled sector isn't strong, but it has greatly improved over the past seasons, although we have often had one decent cobbler with no real help.
Timetriallists
With some heavyweight timetriallist, and talents we hope to be able to get a few strong results in timetrials, as well as doing a decent TTT from time to time. We don't specifically target the TTTs but we do aim to limit time losses there, and get a podium or two throughout the season.
Yoann Paillot is one of the biggest french talents in newer times. He is good at getting over hills and of course he is a massive timetrial talent. He is dubbed the next Jerome Coppel, and we can actually see what the fuzz is all about. He might not have the big engine of Coppel, but he really is not far of. We expect him to show up here and there this season already, and he is a very important part of our TTT setup. Next season Paillot should be able to lead races himself, but for now he should be a super domestique.
Panagiotis Vlatos is without a doubt our biggest TT talent. The greek wonderboy is already top 20 in terms of timetriallists in the Pro Tour, and next season he will jump inside the top 10. Being just 25 years he will also have a good shot at getting close to having a young riders jersey from time to time. He lacks the ability to climb like Paillot, but instead he is a pretty handy cobbler. We expect him to be constantly close to the top 10 of timetrials, while next season we hope to see him win one.
Mathieu Bernaudeau has been with the team for several years, and he is no stranger to timetrial top 10s. While this season sees a stronger competition we still believe that he will be there, or thereabouts this season. Mathieau is also an important rider for the flat sprint train. Mathieu knows how to power through a TTT well, and has done it with great succes previously.
Markus Eibegger could be positioned just about everywhere as he is a great allrounder. Assigning him the role of a timetriallist might not be the best fit, but he will be a vital part of the TTT setup, hence being categorized as such. Markus is a good climber, pretty punchy and is a great finisher. Overall he is the perfect rider for a breakaway, and we hope he will show that. Looking past cobbles Markus will be used all through the season, as a leadout rider for sprints, as part of the TTT train and as a hilly and mountain domestique. Rock solid.
Loaned out and stagiares
We decided to part ways for a season with two of our french talents, but we are looking forward to get them back. Also one stagiare has been signed, something we are not used to.
Olivier Le Gac expressed his hope that he could be loaned out this season, because he felt like he was too far down the ranks. We have to respect that and because of that he will not be in Festina this season. We are unsure as to whether he can actually develop well in the lower ranks, but he is just 22 years old, so it will not hurt his career much to have a season where he can lead a less strong team. In fact we are looking forward to see what he can achieve as a captain, as he would have been 5th-6th in line for us this season.
Alexis Gougeard is a similar case, although we decided that he had to take a step down for atleast a season. Gougeard will now lead a CT team which we are very happy with. Alexis has a great training motivation and is a very nice fighter, which is important having his role as a less talented puncheur. But where Le Gac is probably a more apt puncheur because he does well on the flat and on small mountains aswell as sprinting better, Gougeard needs to attack to win. We like him a lot, and he certainly has a future within the team, but he needs to get more experience despite it might hurt his development slightly in terms of maxing out.
Zhihui Jiang recently signed a stagiare contract with us. He was sacked by Oz Cycling Project in the off season, and while he lacks top talent, he is still too good to not give a contract. Jiang will help our team in the Tour de l'Avenir where Lecuisinier, Vasyliv, Le Gac and Gougeard is also present. We don't expect Jiang to really improve because he is with us for a limited amount of time, but we are looking forward to see what he can do, and if he can't perform well we will look to help him get a contract in the CT or PCT.
Last but certainly not least we want to say a big thanks to Roturn for helping us with these cycling cards. It is highly appreciated!
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (U23)
Panagiotis Vlatos
Riccardo Ricco
Simon Spilak
Yuriy Vasyliv (U23)
Markus Eibegger
Martin Hacecký
Piter Campero
Tsgabu Grmay (LOAN)
Tom David
Guillaume van Keirsbulck (LOAN)
Robert Bush (LOAN)
Zhihui Jiang - 10.000€ (U23)
