Looking great for Ekoi. JT has obviously found the magic this year but I think KB has to get a lot of credit for some really astute acquisitions.
Spot on, KB has been underrated.
Thanks for the kind words (also to Heine) and though I usually dismis any praise it's hard to deny we've done really well and quite above expectations this season
But I kind of have to correct Ulrich a bit here: while it's true that most of our acquisition have done well they are actually not the big difference to last season. Katrasnik and Rajovic are quite beyond the scoring of Hodeg and Oliveira last year, Zepuntke has 'only' scored 100 points more than Daniel did (and which was the expectation for him as well; in total this makes up a bit for the reduced sprinter points), Quispe (and the talents as well) hasn't really been a scorer at all and so it's mainly Küngs 300 points and Roosens 100 points that we actually acquired in transfers.
The main difference to the last season is actually Ranaweera and APP overperforming their scores from last season by 200+ points each and the surprisingly big scoring from our developing and freshly maxed riders. Garibian will end near to 300 points, Louvel scored more than 200 too and Vauquelin, Lapeira and even Costiou will all end between 50 and 150 points.
In total we just got the maximum out of most races while hardly disappointing anywhere where there was some reasonable scoring opportunity. Add some really favourable startlists and voila!
Spoiler
Or it really all came down to great transfers and ingenious planning, although I wouldn't think that's the whole story anyway.