Fl	Mo	Hi	TT	St	Rs	Rc	Cb	Sp	Ac	Fi	Dh	Pr
67	69	69	69	69	69	68	62	62	68	69	69	69
68	78	77	70	72	73	75	62	62	75	77	70	70

Last signing of this transfer season is Tao Geoghegan Hart and he has joned on a 145k wage and is our very first British talent on the team. Tao has already left the team again though and has left across the road to our Polish brethren in Kulczyk - DMTEX for a season in the CT. We hope that he'll be able to gain lots of experience. He will be at a fine age when maxed and will be a key to our future. It's great to once again own talent and we're sure Tao will join us next season with stronger abilities

This is the team will we hunt the PCT title with and with only 3 additions, that is quite a high goal to set, when its a team that failed at cracking the Top 10 last season. The opponents are stronger, too, so lots of fighting to be done with this season. We are back at our roots with sprinter gold in our pockets and now its important how we spend these vast amounts of opportunities. The locomotive is ready to start!

mistake: Lebris is no longer in the team

Booker wrote:
Thank you for the loan! We're looking forward to helping Tao reach his potential. Perhaps there will be no need to replace Roche with an established rider if all goes to plan?

The whole team has arrived to the annual training camp in Adelaide, Australia in preparation for the 2017 season and the first race Tour Down Under. The team comes here with a Top 5 goal like last year and in hope of another successful start to the season. Back in 2015 we got 2 stage wins and a 2nd place, thus starting our curse of not being able to win 3 straight stages in a row. Obviously we don't have an illusion of how TdU will turn out this year, but we go into this race; optimistic.

Nat.	Rider	Role
	FROOME, Chris	Captain
	ELIAD, Daniel	Lieutenant
	MARGALIOT, Ran	Lieutenant
	MOHS, Erik	Sprinter
	GUARDINI, Andrea	Leadout
	COHEN, Noam	Leadout
	SAGAN, Juraj	Helper
	ZIELINSKI, Kamil	Helper

The team is led by Chris Froome and is basically here to secure our Top 5 goal without much resistance and might be able to finally win this race. The opposition is unknown, but in the past it has been tiny marginals from becoming true. The Polish NC Kamil Zielinski is worrying the only Polish rider in this lineup, but as a former stage winner here and wearing that shirt, should be enough to represent our nation. Erik Mohs makes his first appearance together with Andrea Guardini with backup from Noam Cohen. It was a last minute decision to fill the last RD's for Mohs to come here, however this might turn into our favor depending on the opposition.

In a strong field with names like Van Garderen, Ulissi and Flügel it was going to be very tough to compete for the win in Tour of Pologne. A race that we at latest attempt didn't have a strong leader. Last year the race stayed in the CT division, so at our 2nd attempt we both had a stronger squad, but also something to prove.




The race started very poorly for our side, as we lost over a minute to key riders at the very first stage, but managed to stay with TvG and watching his movements closely were going to be vital. Here our team was able to set a strategy from a perspective of controlling the pace in the pack and eventually go out on attack.




The tides turned on stage 5, as Froome was able to stick with TvG and was able to use his 40 second lead on the GC favorite from stages before to keep it really close. In the end it was going to be decided on both luck and sweat, where Froome was able to hold of Ulissi by 7 seconds in the standings. Stage 6 was rather uneventful and Froome could celebrate his first stage race GC for us and our first stage race GC in the PCT.

1	Chris Froome	Fablok - Bank BGZ	22h25'49
2	Diego Ulissi	Generali - EDF	+ 7
3	Aleksandar Flügel	Kraftwerk Man Machine	+ 15
59	Ran Margaliot	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 12'33
79	Wojciech Pszczolarski	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 17'22
80	Kamil Zielinski	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 17'26
91	Bartlomiej Matysiak	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 19'45
129	Juraj Sagan	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 32'45
141	Giorgi Nareklishvili	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 36'38
147	Anthony Lavoine	Fablok - Bank BGZ	+ 40'25

Fablok - Bank BGZ tries to live up to their performance from last week home in Poland. This time we have traveled very short to Italy, where the team will participate in the annual classic that is Strade Bianche. The shiny gravel roads of Italy awaits, where Froome looks to continue his form, as he participates in his already 3rd race of this year. Rumors say that both EBH and TvG might be among the competition here, but a podium should be within our reach

Nat	Rider	Role
	FROOME, Chris	Captain
	FEILLU, Brice	Lieutenant
	POLJANSKI Pawel	Lieutenant
	ZIELINSKI, Kamil	Helper
	MATYSIAK, Bartlomiej	Helper
	SHAPIRA, Idan	Helper
	ELIAD, Daniel	Helper
	MARGALIOT, Ran	Helper

This is quite the nostalgic feel, as Fablok returns this early to one of the most memorable places for the team. Antoine Lavoine won our first GC here only 2 years ago and now he is back as leadout for Erik Mohs. There's a lot of expectations in the air and we can almost certainly only fail. The GC was close to the very final day last year, so its not like we won it by a big margin, but our heart is outside our kit when we take a trip to Africa.

Nat	Rider	Role
	MOHS Erik	Captain
	LAVOINE, Antoine	Leadout
	COHEN, Noam	Leadout
	STEPNIAK, Grzegorz	Leadout
	ZIELINSKI, Kamil	Helper
	MATYSIAK, Bartlomiej	Helper
	SHAPIRA, Idan	Helper
	SAGAN, Juraj	Helper

Chris Froome ended his nonstop schedule of January-February to finish off 3rd in the classic that is Strade Bianche. Thus getting the same result as last year and he can currently be found among the most scoring riders in the PCT at the moment. It wasn't a great day at the office for Froome however and we were lucky to get that 3rd place. Shapira in 11th is something we can't take away from our Israeli mountain goat and that performance should be applauded.

Nat	Rider	Role
	POLJANSKI, Pawel	Captain
	MATYSIAK, Bartlomiej	Lieutenant
	ZIELINSKI, Kamil	Lieutenant
	BIALOBLOCKI, Marcin	Helper
	PSZCZOLARSKI, Wojciech	Helper
	BODNAR, Maciej	Helper
	SAGAN, Juraj	Helper
	NAREKLISHVILLI, Giorgi	Helper

Our very first race of the PTHC ever will most likely go down in history as one of the more boring showings from our team. We have a big underdog in Poljanski to lead the team with minimal support. The reason for this was simply numbers trying to max up and we were able to take 3 extra RD's to our leaders. As PTHC is an unknown size and formula we had to make a safe bet and gamble on that we could perform outside of this race.

Nat	Rider	Role
	ROCHE, Nicolas	Captain
	FEILLU, Brice	Lieutenant
	LAVOINE, Antoine	Sprinter
	COHEN, Noam	Leadout
	STEPNIAK, Grzegorz	Leadout
	BODNAR, Maciej	Helper
	SAGAN, Juraj	Helper
	NAREKLISHVILLI, Giorgi	Helper

Nicolas Roche returns to Romandie to get a podium in a race that fits him okay, but in a field that only has become stronger it will be a hard thing to pull off for sure. Planning for this race went a little bad and its not the kind of lineup we would've preferred to start off with. We will have an okay TTT team, but basically everything depends on that one single hill stage and how we do.

5	5		Ferrero - Samruk	2702
6	8		Fablok - Bank BGZ	2688
7	6		Newton Foundation	2650
8	7		Orange Pro Cycling	2638
9	12		Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	2612

5	Ferrero - Samruk	st.
6	Fablok - Bank BGZ	-14
7	Newton Foundation	-52
8	Orange Pro Cycling	-64
9	Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ	-90

With only 1 racing day left of the season, it will come down to this years last PCT race in Japan, which Chris Froome won last year. It is set to be a 5 team struggle for the final promotion spot to PT in theory, but the advantage sides with Fablok and Newton. Froome did win the race last year, but not with the competition of either Hagen nor Van Garderen, whom the ladder will be the main opponent, as Grieg already have secured promotion. The news at the end of this announcement will cover the importance of this chance to promote into the ProTour for the first time and why this might be the last chance in a while.

Now lets see what the statistics are saying between Chris Froome and Tejay Van Garderen this season;

	Froome	TvG
Tour de Pologne	1	3
Tour of South Africa	2	1

Being a small statistic we can see that the current standing is merely only 1-1 in the tally of encounters between the two strong punchers. TvG's 878 points in the rider rankings shows that TvG has the upper hand there with Froome only managing getting 787 points through his season thus far. 101 points doesn't sound like much, but it is enough to suggest, that it will be decided by which rider comes first through the finishing line in Japan, that will decide the main battle for 5th place.

With only one race remaining for this season, its time to announce the possible departure of many of our riders, which in this case includes Nicolas Roche and Chris Froome. Both riders joined us in our very first season in the PCT, where they both managed to finish in the Top 15 of the Rider Standings last season and gave us a secure season in the top half of the division. Leading us ever closer this season to a chance to promote, age does not decrease however and therefore it is most likely that both will leave. Roche, whom were close to move to promotion contenders from Ferrero this past transfer season, has taken leadership on the team from day one, but his competitve streak seems over and ready to replace him, Pawel Poljanski will take over his role, promotion or not.

Roche won Nelspruit Classic for us and made stunning comeback moves to secure vital points in our first PCT season and sadly has taken a step down toward retirement with a decent season, but barely making it into Top 10's is a must for a team, that wants to win every race. Chris Froome won both Milano - Torino and Japan Cup last year, while adding several podiums with him that year and this year concluding with the win in Tour de Pologne. While we're sure Froome will continue being a force in the PCT next year, big steps has to be taken if he will continue on our team, as a high salary should take up the main points of a season. With the possibility of ProTour races, we will need an upgrade there.

Other than these two other ageing riders include Bialoblocki, Matysiak, Bodnar and Feillu, which still remain a mystery. While other riders will be left out of next years squad depending on whether we promote or not, or even if this year results combined with possible others are not acceptable to our future plans. One thing remains sure, Fablok - Bank BGZ will return.

In Short

7	Chris Froome	GBR		Fablok - Bank BGZ	798
20	Erik Mohs	GER		Fablok - Bank BGZ	608
42	Nicolas Roche	IRL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	374
71	Andrea Guardini	ITA		Fablok - Bank BGZ	241
96	Idan Shapira	ISR		Fablok - Bank BGZ	165
135	Pawel Poljanski	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	107
143	Anthony Lavoine	FRA		Fablok - Bank BGZ	100
176	Grzegorz Stepniak	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	80
245	Ran Margaliot	ISR		Fablok - Bank BGZ	47
265	Marcin Bialoblocki	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	39
304	Brice Feillu	FRA		Fablok - Bank BGZ	29
308	Kamil Zielinski	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	28
351	Noam Cohen	ISR		Fablok - Bank BGZ	20
361	Maciej Bodnar	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	18
412	Giorgi Nareklishvilli	GEO		Fablok - Bank BGZ	12
427	Julien Berard	FRA		Fablok - Bank BGZ	10
443	Juraj Sagan	SVK		Fablok - Bank BGZ	8
454	Daniel Eliad	ISR		Fablok - Bank BGZ	6
481	Wojciech Pszczolarski	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	7
491	Bartlomiej Matysiak	POL		Fablok - Bank BGZ	2

This is the end of the 2017 version of the pcmdaily ManGame and our 3rd year in contention of this scene of cycling. From the outside we have been a team, that have improved its progress from the start to now with ever improving results in the standings. While this being the first year, where we haven't won 3 races/classics in a season, this is the highest position we have ever been in. We're proud to say that we could've promoted on the very last day of the season, but instead our season wide incosistency was in the way.

While there were only 2 new faces in the squad this year, we still managed to improve our ranking from last season with 5 positions. We also had the fortune of having PT veteran Erik Mohs amongst us, but sadly expectations often didn't meet with the results for Erik and races like La Tropicale Amissa Bongo and Barbados Cycling Race, so there were a large amount of points missing there. The biggest leak however can be found in the width of the squad, where GC points would at the max be given to 2 riders and thus you can miss out on hundreds of points. Sadly next season will be harder to improve and will prove as a worthy test to see if new figures can take over and underperforming riders can return scoring high.

Cya next season,
Team Owner sgdanny