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Tour of Lithuania Discussion
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| SotD |
Posted on 17-03-2023 19:25
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World Champion
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Argh not ideal from Farantakis. Atleast Koretzky was alert.
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| SotD |
Posted on 18-03-2023 08:12
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Only just now realized that both Ioannidis and Kiriakidis lost time on Stage 1. This could be a zero-pointer given that Farantakis also can’t contribute. What a dissapointment…
Only chance for us to land a good result is to being Koretzky to the line with very limited time loss in the TTT, then he might be relevant for a top 10 GC spot.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 18-03-2023 10:12
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Ewan again dominating.So far it's been Tour of LithuanISA. Let the GC battle begin now.
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| quadsas |
Posted on 18-03-2023 16:20
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Small Tour Specialist
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More points by big dawg
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 18-03-2023 23:02
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I can't believe it! Zabel in front with 1k to go and manages to hang on for 2nd place, must have a secret supply of resistance in his pockets.
Congrats to ISA for the double and thanks again to Ulrich for a great report.
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| redordead |
Posted on 19-03-2023 06:11
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Very nice effort by the team to finish 3rd in the TTT 
We've done all we can to place Gaudu in a good position. Now I hope that he can follow the best puncheurs on the final stage.
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-11-2024 16:56
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| SotD |
Posted on 19-03-2023 06:53
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Not too shabby. Atleast Koretzky have alle the options in the world to finish around 5-10th now. Spanopoulos and Mavrikakis isn’t in a horrible situation either and could take some depth top 50 points.
Ioannidis and Kiriakidis again dissapointing in these type of races though.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 19-03-2023 08:47
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Good performance from our boys. Vesuvio and King Power stole the show though and dominate the GC. Let's see how it goes tomorrow.
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 19-03-2023 08:53
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Great, we dropped De Plus..
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| knockout |
Posted on 19-03-2023 11:46
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Grand Tour Champion
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We brought Lopez into a fairly good situation with one of our best team time trials ever, now he just has to deliver from it.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 19-03-2023 21:39
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Weird stage, but with what De Plus has been doing this year, I'll take it. Thanks for the reports and congratulations to ISA!
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| knockout |
Posted on 19-03-2023 21:57
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Grand Tour Champion
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After all the kamikaze attacks in other races, Lopez decides to not try anything here when its absolutely needed. Very annoying tbh.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| quadsas |
Posted on 19-03-2023 22:22
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Some extra points from Errazkin, dont mind if i do
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| roturn |
Posted on 20-03-2023 05:46
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Stage wise the race was decent.
Win by De Bie and two decent sprints by Groenewegen.
GC wise it was obvious that the TT would ruin all chances with the time trialists being at the Tour.
What annoys the most is that even when doing everything to gain time today, sprinters like Ewan still finish 3rd making it 10 s gain only for a 10+ hill rider. So 22nd in GC is not very nice of course.
It`s really hard to gain time on hilly stages unfortunately which hurts De Bie in races like this. Iirc it was one of the last 1-2 races though I added for him as I was running out of suited races.
And in the end he scored probably a lot more here than in the full Ardennes triple.  |
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| SotD |
Posted on 20-03-2023 05:55
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World Champion
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Oh wow. That was unexpected.
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| DarkWolf |
Posted on 20-03-2023 06:30
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Kump was very active in the stage finales and I'm pleased how he acquitted himself. On the other hand once again Chaves was a bitter disappointment. The way things stand I don't see him gaining a contract extension.
Congratulations to ISA and thank you for the reports!
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| redordead |
Posted on 20-03-2023 07:49
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Wait, what?! 
Really funky race, but to be honest it was set up for a strong sprinter to win it all if he got enough bonus seconds in the first two stages and had a good enough TTT. Ewan definitely filled those requirements.
Now on to my boys... Groselj 6th and Gaudu 7th overall!! 
Groselj finally found a race where he could use his massive engine, that was some powerful riding. Gaudu's FL stat also must have helped him along with his good energy stats
On the other hand I'm not sure how Christodoulos held on to that group, but he did!! 14th in GC and 2nd in U25 makes this the best race of his career 
And finally #TeamDepth is still here and going strong. Crncevic 28th, Borisavljevic 37th, Penko 43rd and Pavlic 49th means we have all 7 riders in the top 50 
Also 2nd place in the teams classification
We're somehow managing to score these huge amounts of points in races where I don't expect it. I'm either getting lucky or I don't know my team very well 
The PTHC points scale helps a lot also 
Thanks for the reports Ulrich
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 20-03-2023 21:56
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redordead wrote:
Really funky race, but to be honest it was set up for a strong sprinter to win it all if he got enough bonus seconds in the first two stages and had a good enough TTT. Ewan definitely filled those requirements.
Funky is a good word - I think it is a unique race now and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. If you have a strong TTT team you could win it with a tough sprinter, a rouleur, a puncheur or a TT rider with solid secondaries. The mangame loves predictability so I might be the only one who thinks that is cool but hopefully not. We will keep the parcours another year I think and see how managers adapt their strategy.
Also I like a GC the complete sprinters can win, instead of their only hope being in the flat GC races where they are at the total mercy of the sprint lottery.
In my testing before the season the last stage was a little more selective. I also reran it quickly with the actual field and it was also more selective as the puncheurs attacked earlier. So I think that last stage could have been more decisive.
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 20-03-2023 22:10
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I really like how this race works, and I like that we have races that are unpredictable (RIP Cyprus). I think those races need to be in the mix and I like that we have races with TTTs with meaningful impact, the fact that Caleb Ewan wins this is great too, maybe make a stage a bit more selective but on paper I think Lithuania is a super cool race.
Not the greatest race for us as the race for top 10 stabilization intensifies for us, eyes set on the future races as we we reach these goals. We aim to return next season with a stronger TTT squad when Milan & Baroncini have levelled up. Overall this season I think we have lost a few points to weak TTTs and hopefully it's something we can aim to improve come transfers!
Thanks for the reports and the route work Ulrich, I don't think anyone can realistically be mad at you for anything here.
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| knockout |
Posted on 20-03-2023 23:59
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Grand Tour Champion
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Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:
redordead wrote:
Really funky race, but to be honest it was set up for a strong sprinter to win it all if he got enough bonus seconds in the first two stages and had a good enough TTT. Ewan definitely filled those requirements.
Funky is a good word - I think it is a unique race now and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. If you have a strong TTT team you could win it with a tough sprinter, a rouleur, a puncheur or a TT rider with solid secondaries. The mangame loves predictability so I might be the only one who thinks that is cool but hopefully not. We will keep the parcours another year I think and see how managers adapt their strategy.
Also I like a GC the complete sprinters can win, instead of their only hope being in the flat GC races where they are at the total mercy of the sprint lottery.
In my testing before the season the last stage was a little more selective. I also reran it quickly with the actual field and it was also more selective as the puncheurs attacked earlier. So I think that last stage could have been more decisive.
Generally, i agree with this. This is a really nice route that has a lot of different outcomes that would look good and i like it a lot when different types of riders can win. Imo the biggest con against the constant reduction of race days over the years (not argueing against the necessity of it) is the reduction of those hybrid races and the effect a single race that "does not work well" has on the the seasons of individual riders. Thats where the predictability as a liked feature comes in.
Unpredictability is good as long as it is predictable unpreditability. What i mean with that is: Unlikely results or unpredictable races are good when you could predict that sth might be an option or when it makes sense in hindsight. E.g. Milan San Remo can end up in a mass sprint, a group of puncheurs / climbers getting away on the poggio or a solo rider attacking in the downhill and all of that can be good unpredictability. But when the entire peleton does a casual sunday ride until 1k to go where random positioning is deciding the race like that one terrible MG edition we had, thats bad unpredictability.
In terms of this race, sending a top star always was a gamble - the route basically announced that it wouldnt be too predictable. having a strong sprinter from a ttt unit win, is okay. To me the final stage looked too difficult for that to be a likely result, but you wont always get the most likely results over the course of a season (and you can easily disagree with that assessment). What i disliked about this edition was mainly not the result but that the puncheurs barely tried to make a difference. They were not riding to make a difference in the final stage but were just cruising along for the most part. (If i had gotten the exact same result after a 10km solo attempt by Lopez or if he tried to follow the attacks in the end but failed, i would still be a bit disappointed but it would have been a lot easier to accept the result.) That was imo the only issue with this race but id say its a "small-ish ai issue of this edition" and not a "profile issue" or sth that needs to be fixed from a calendar POV.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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