roturn - They are very hard but at least i still have a realistic chance and don't have to trust on a lucky break. Could have been worse. Other teams already speak about 0/5 goals after all...

jt - Thanks

Margh Norway - Ambitious goals were needed to get a budget large enough to make all those deals I made the last days. Will turn very difficult so i need the luck
Looking forward to challenge you in these races then

After Luis Leon "Lulu" Sanchez we can proudly announce our next leader signing: The one and only Tom Boonen has signed contracts with us. After two seasons in the jersey of Pokerstars he was ready for a chance. His impressive palamares include 5 victories in the Ronde van Vlaanderen wins, 4 wins in Paris - Roubaix, a Milan - San Remo victory and 14 Tour de France stage wins to just name the most important achievements.

Now, history will be continued in another division. But who says that he will never return to the most prestigious races around the world?

We are expecting quite a lot and hope that he can add a few more victories to his palamares! His lieutenant will be newly signed Latvian cobbler Andzs Flaksis who was previously at now disbanded Wikipedia.

Shonak - If I'd known that I'd get Boonen then I would not have sold Dupont so you can be happy to have him

jt - I sure hope so. He is expensive enough ...

After the transfers of star riders Tom Boonen and Luis Leon Sanchez we are back with another major coup. Minutes ago, the deal for 21 year old Slovenian wonderkid Matej Mohoric was confirmed.

The young puncheur joins a group of talents that also includes names like Slovenian Mark Dzamastagic, Evaldas Siskevicius, Lasse Norman Hansen, Andris Smirnovs and Michel Koch to name only some of the most known ones.

Fan favourites Yannick Stoltz and Aleksei Saramotins as well as recently acquired Marco Haller had to leave the team to fund this transfer but we are confident that it was worth it.

Ian Butler - Thanks. Mohoric is an awesome signing. Really glad about it.

Count - Yeah. Especially Boonen takes a big chunk of budget away and Mohoric isn't cheap as well but if one has the chance to claim a talent like Mohoric then you just have to do it.
My support on the hills should be good enough as I'm intending to keep Siskevicius instead of loaning him out this year but I'm not really satisfied with my cobbler depth.
Planing is not finished yet as both Koch/LN Hansen are still available for a loan (insert advertise) and i still need to sign some stagiaires to get into the allowed squad sized

But take a look yourself:

The management of Evonik - ELKO is proud to announce that several Pro Tour race organisateurs have invited our team to some of the world's most famous races.

In one of the first races in our jersey, Luis Leon Sanchez will lead our team in our first ever PT appearance in the Classique du Grand-Duché.
Lulu has quite some experience with the route from his two previous participations.
In the debut edition in 2011 he was part of a leading trio together with Yuri Trofimov and Patrick Sinkewitz. But his effort to catch up to the two favourites exhausted him too much so that a gap was created on the Groestain climb. In the end he finished as a strong 6th.
Just like in 2011, the 2014 edition was won again by Trofimov. Luis Leon Sanchez chosed a different strategy and stayed together with most of the favourites until the very end and sprinted to a solid 13th place.

We have hopes that he can repeat these results and with the abscence of some of the best puncheurs due to a clash with Paris-Nice another top 15 is not unrealistic this year.

A month later, we are invited to the East Midlands Cycle Classic. In the last 3 years this was the big duel between Tom Boonen and Sam Bewley. But will Boonen start again? We are still awaiting Tom's decision if he prefers racing this race or if he will start for the first time in his career in Flemish classic Dwaars door Vlaanderen.

We are sure though that Tom Boonen will be at the startline of Paris-Roubaix. With 4 wins he is still the record holder and he seeks revenge after being beaten by Sam Bewley the last two years. Can he extend his run of 6 years in a row on the podium? Or his even his 11th monument win possible? A lot of stories can be told and we hope that another one will be added on March 31.

Last but not least, we are glad to have Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha as one of our last races this year. The long sprint classic goes into it's 3rd edition and of course, first edition winner Tom Boonen will be back to end his season in Czech Republic. After his 6th place last year he surely wants to be positioned better this season so we hope that Dzamastagic will bring him in a better position as he was last season!

During transfers, we managed to convince both Latvian National Champions to join our team.

Gatis Smukulis, Latvian TT champ, was bought from Festina while Emils Liepins, Latvian RR champion, joined us from Metinvest.

We are very proud to see two of our riders ride in the national colors as we did not have a National Championship jersey in our team in the last season. Many thanks to our designer!

Sanchez is the man for our goals. He will be our leader in hilly stage races and hilly classics.
Legend Boonen is our star for every cobbled race and will lead us in some sprint races as well.
After last year, we could not take away Geschke's leading role. He'll target stage wins in races that are not suited to one of the other two leaders, will act as second leader in some cases and in some important races, he will be super domestique for one of the two other ones.

Wagner was a very late signing but an important one as he will be one of the main leadouts for Tom Boonen.
Flaksis is Tom Boonen's lieutenant. Most of the year, he will be the last man to help Tommeke but he will get a few chances to lead himself as well.
Ingels was already a domestique for Boonen in the last two years at Pokerstars so we are very happy to have him as another key domestique for him!
Smukulis is a great allrounder who was worth a lot to us. He races in most of our most important races and we hope that he can be a worthy domestique while still showing his own class with some attacks under the way!

Kulppi was loaned in to provide Boonen with some extra help on the cobbles. His only purpose is to serve and that's what he's going to do on all levels of cycling: From C2 races to Monuments.
Weiss was loaned in as we see a very useful riders for the morning break in him. The combination of a good sprint with decent skills over the hills can make him a valuable attacker and even if he does not feel like attacking he can still be a solid domestique on the hills for us.

It hurts to see that Siskevicius will have to wait another year before he reaches his full potential but he is already too important as lieutenant for LL Sanchez that we could loan him out for a year. Siskevicius will get some chances to lead on his own already and we are very sure that he can reach his full potential within our team in two years time (if we don't relegate this year).
Mohoric is the future star of our talents. He was expensive but we think he was totally worth it in the longterm. Only few punchurs have the same talent as him and we are looking forward to see his future in our team! This year, he will already be an important domestique for LLS.
Dzamastagic is one of the manager's favourites and despite many interested teams we wanted to see him staying at all costs. Just like last season in the jersey of Pokerstars.com he will often be part in a leadout train for Tom Boonen but we hope that he can show his attacking spirit as well.
Janis Dakteris or : The Boss of HC races. Dakteris is an interesting hybrid of sprinter and decent cobbler which makes him to one of the most interesting domestiques for Boonen. But he has one disadvantage: He nearly only wants to race in HC races as he thinks that they are best for his development. If he thinks so...
After we failed to sign him last season we could finally convinve Smirnovs to join our team. He's one of the most interesting latvian talents and his dual threat makes him a very useful rider already.
Bekmanis was out on loan last season at TeamTomTom and why he had a rather quiet year he nearly kicked us out of the Top Ten in the Team Ranking with a brilliant performance in the season final. This showed what he is capable of and we hope to see that kind of performance more often in 2015.
Bogdanovics in an upcoming Latvian sprinter who has his best times ahead of him.
Willi Willwohl may be one of our weaker riders but he surely wants more. He works hard to improve and we see a lot of potential in him to be part of the German sprinting elite.
Liepins is yet another future great from Latvia. He will turn out as a more than solid sprinter but it will take some time until then...

Prologue specialist Hansen is on a loan spell with Bacardi. Hansen will be a vital part of their TTT line-up and their classics team.
Many negotiations took place between Evonik and Metinvest during transfers. One of them saw Vosekalns moving to Metinvest for a year. The talented climber will be part of Pluchkins mountain support and perhaps he can even help him to win his first GT win.
Koch is on loan at Pokerstars.com. Last year we made great experiences with the loan of Dzamastagic so we were glad that we could find a deal with them again!


[quote]

Koch is a solid German puncheur who we want to give some experience.
Exner signed a one-race contract for Avenir.
Buchmann is here to get some experience in the Avenir with the hope that he suddenly finds some talent in the next off season.
Nappa is just here so we don't get fined

[quote]

[quote]

Team Overview

Simon Geschke	Andzs Flaksis
Michel Koch**	Gatis Smukulis
Robert Wagner	Janis Dakteris
Willi Willwohl	Andris Smirnovs
Jonas Koch***	Andris Vosekalns**
Fabio Nappa***	Indulis Bekmanis
Emanuel Buchmann***	Maris Bogdanovics
Kai Exner***	Emils Liepins
Martin Weiss*	Evaldas Siskevicius
Tom Boonen	Matej Mohoric
Nick Ingels	Mark Dzamastagic
Lasse Norman Hansen**	Luis Leon Sanchez Gil
Olli Kulppi*

* loaned in
** loaned out
*** Stagiare

With the Racing soon to begin we can now talk about our 2015 race calendar. Our main focus is on classics as well as shorter stage races for the upcoming season.

After promotion last year and a busy off season all eyes looked forward to the first races of the season. For the PCT teams the focus was on the Down Under Classic for a 75km flat criterium.

A startlist packed with superstars promised a lot. One man to watch was surely Tom Boonen with his debut race for our promoted squad.
But the Boonen show was interrupted by his own team mates. Despite having Boonen in a good position Smukulis and Dzamastagic followed an attack of Baugnies 5 kilometres away from the finish line.

Eventually, he won the sprint for 1st against super cobblers Baugnies & Summerhill and Sprinter Kvist. Smukulis (5th) and Boonen (8th) finished inside the top 10 as well delivering some valuable points.

239 points ( 140 for Dzamastagic, 61 for Smukulis, 38 for Boonen ) in our first ever race against PCT leaders are a great start:
Pro Continental Tour, we are ready!