I think you should be happy with the season. Seems about right for the riders you assembled, whilst some have underperformed they've balanced out with a couple of big overperformances from others. Did a nice job rushing around late-ish in transfers to put the team together.
And if Thomas wasn't in the division i expect Bush would have had a cracking season. #sorrynotsorry
Yip, Thomas has showed Bush who is boss this season. Knew that would be the case from the off, but would have preferred more 2nd's to Thomas than also letting some others get inbetween! At least G will be elsewhere than cropping up in CT cobbled races in 2017 (congrats!).
With so many development riders, and such a development rider focus, may well be difficult to aspire to getting out of the CT, although I think PCT is the 'best' division from which to run a heavy development focussed team from given the access to wide range of XP options, more RD's and fundamentally more cash to throw around. Hence I am expecting a fair bit of the WCC roster to remain quite static going into 2017 as riders continue to evolve. Most activity will probably be around trying to secure appropriate loans rather than lots of FA or transfer signings. Whatever the case, will always have Goodnews for the BoTD .
Ruta America del Sur
An important focus race for a Colombian registered team. A decent outcome was achieved with Rodriguez Galindo securing 4th overall by claiming 5th and then 4th on the two decisive hilly stages. No stage wins though, so in terms of sponsor goals a fail. RG lacking enough support to have other GC points scorers also meant this didn't return as good a points scoring outcome as would be hoped for given 8 RD's spent.
Tour de Faso
A race that should suit the teams characteristics with Bush leading and his cobbled back up crew of Naesen, Backaert and Clifford. The new stage design updating the race combined with hard riding from a number of teams (with WCC to the forefront) ensured the race was more selective than in 2015, but some good placings overall still snaffled by some surprising pesky breakaway riders. Bush finally (kind of) delivered a team goal, securing 5th= overall on time (although 6th due to countback). We are hoping the sponsors will view this as a goal achieved! In combination with a 4th and 5th on the two decisive stages, and compotent results from support riders, Faso turned out a good race for WCC.
Overall team standings
Not much to say here beyond the headline of securing the top 15 goal with 14th (quite safe from teams below). A number of teams not too far out of reach above in terms of points, but management is generally satisfied with meeting this goal. How the various riders contributed to meeting this target across the season will follow in a subsequent 2016 season round up post.
A steady first season in the professional ranks for the World Cycling Centre. No GC or one-day victories were achieved, the second being a bit of a disappointment. Nevertheless, the team generally kept the ppRD ticking over to secure 14th in the CT standings. Further disappointment that no rider on the books threatened the individual top 20 rankings, with Bush tipped to potentially achieve this feat pre-season. Rider standings as summarised below;
CT standings
Rider
Points
Wage (K)
£/point
29th
Michael Rodriguez Galindo
209
125
598.1
43rd
Robert Bush
156
200
1282.1
70th
Goodnews Clifford
104
50
480.8
87th
Muhammet Eyüp Karagobek
90
50
555.6
97th
Clement Venturini
76
50
657.9
133rd
Alex Ardila Cano
51
50
980.4
144th
Oliver Naesen
44
50
1136.4
152nd
Javier Moreno
38
50
1315.8
155th
Fabian Hernando Puerta
37
50
1351.4
175th
Salah Eddine Mraouni
31
50
1612.9
212th
Brenton Jones
23
50
2173.9
224th
Frederik Backaert
19
50
2631.6
243rd
Emiliano Contreras
14
80
5714.3
323rd
Alex Peters
3
50
16666.7
327th
Diego Antonio Ochoa
3
10
3333.3
357th
Flavio De Luna
1
50
50000.0
359th
Abou Sanogo
1
60
60000.0
419th
Gorgios Bouglas
0
50
420th
Juan Sebastien Molano
0
10
421st
Thanawut Sanikwathi
0
10
Senior riders are all expected to deliver a £/point ratio of less than £1000/point, so some riders missed performance targets, others met with better success. Colombian champion Rodriguez Galindo delivered a healthy return, particularly with respect to the inflated wages required to secure his services late in the transfer market. With an expected reduction in wages for 2017, if he can produce a similar overall points return, managment will be more than pleased. Having met with more success in stage races than one-dayers, this points towards a potential area to strengthen for the upcoming season with a puncheur high on managments wish list. On the other side of this coin, Robert Bush was also able to ramp up his wages for 2016, but failed to meet his performance target. Management is expected to play hard-ball with him during renewals, although are keen to retain his signature to lead representation of our second nationality focus in the US,, with a particular concentration on potential sponsors from this region. Karogobek and Clifford kept the Goodnews rolling in and can be happy with the return from their seasons. Ardila Cano and Moreno were signed strictly on one year contracts and did not disgrace their professional reputations.
From the perspective of the development riders, any points scored in their neo-pro season was to be considered a bonus. To this end, Clement Venturini turned out to be the break-out star, with a very healthy points return, including two stage victories (at C2HC and C1 level), as well as an overall KoM title (C2HC). His performance across the season was a particular highlight for the WCC organisation who look forward to seeing how this exciting attacking young rider continues to develop.
We complete this update with a summary of the victories for the season (sadly quite a short list!):
Having dispatched riders back to their homes around the globe upon completion of the 2016 regular season, WCC have been having a very successful National Championships campaign to date. With most riders having already raced, 3 road race and 4 time trial titles have been secured. Although in some cases the competition was mostly local amateur riders, our young pros have demonstrated the benefit of a year in the professional ranks in securing various national titles and podium finishes. Although disappointed not to defend our 'home' NC RR jersey in Colombia, the overall performance thus far has been exemplary. Only a few individual riders remain to compete, mostly in larger cycling markets where competition will be stiff. We wish our remaining riders well in their NC competitions.
Thanks as always to the various race organisers and media outlets for race coverage Edited by Scorchio on 25-08-2017 17:17
Scorchio Cycling Management (SCM) are delighted to announce that we have secured the future of the World Cycling Centre (WCC) team for the 2017 season and potentially beyond. We are grateful to our 2016 partners and excited to confirm that the majority will return. Fundamentally, the underlying support for the organisation continues under the auspices of input from a wealthy individual who continues to remain a (publically) anonymous benefactor.
The biggest change from 2016 sees us welcome Edward Jones Investments as a major sponsor.
Edward Jones Investments is a financial services firm headquartered in the United States and serves investment clients in the U.S. and Canada, through its branch network of more than 12,000 locations and currently have relationships with nearly 7 million clients and $914 billion asset under management worldwide. The firm focuses solely on individual investors and small-business owners. Edward Jones is a subsidiary of The Jones Financial Companies, L.L.L.P., a limited liability limited partnership owned only by its employees and retired employees and is not publicly traded.
Edward Jones take up the lead corporate sponsor position, but have agreed that the team will continue to operate under the World Cycling Centre banner in 2017. We will be reflecting Edward Jones input through adopting their corporate colours as our own in the new season. With that in mind, we are delighted to unveil our 2017 jersey:
Spoiler
As is obvious from the image above, we are indebted to the_hoyle for producing our new livery, and for putting up with multiple tweaking requests to get us to the final design solution! As the team continues under the WCC banner, I was keen not to give over much coverage on the jersey to the sponsors, hence this design focussed rather than logo focussed solution definitely meets the design spec request.
World Cycling Centre management will be revealing our plans for 2017 in the press conference to follow this sponsor announcement.
Nice one. Surely a nice project to keep following. And nice to see someone going yellow now that Jayco'z leaves this color behind it.. but that's other news
tsmoha wrote:
And nice to see someone going yellow now that Jayco'z leaves this color behind it.. but that's other news
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