Well I couldn't be prouder of my boy... no, my man Joseph Areruya. An absolutely heroic race, even if the final GC won't tell the full story he was amazing - animating the race on the biggest stage in just his first year maxed and first year in the Pro Tour - just his second race at the level too! His attitude was stunning to watch and I'm gutted he couldn't get the stage win he deserved with all those near misses - but a Top 3 in the KOM (and I'm sure a good placing in the combativity prize) as well as time in blue is also a nice reward for that. 9th on GC and the white jersey isn't mind-blowing but it is pretty good.
This will be and always should have been our top scoring race of the year one would suspect unless he or Bennett somehow do better in a GT with flat ITTs which I somewhat doubt And as we see in the other thread it's far from enough to save us. However as I said at the start of this race that wasn't what I was expecting and it would be pretty unfair to how amazing Areruya was to say this is a failure
Overall this race was super fun for us with us being a huge animator of the race and getting screen time, and a showcase that Areruya is quality and perhaps has some PCM intangibles, which are the two main things I wanted from this season, so I'm delighted! A lot of fun was had and that's a lot down to redordead's amazing reporting, thank you mate, I know it's a huge effort to do a GT and you didn't just do it, it was of an awesome quality
Congrats cio, as we've discussed before to have a home-grown rider able to take victories like this (at even a lower level, nevermind Grand Tours!) is what my team is hopefully building up to like yours has, I can imagine how sweet and satisfying it must be to see your work with your team and its most prized possession paying off after these years and lots of training. Enjoy it
Chiarello did absolutely awesome - a rider similar to Areruya doing a similar job (better GC...) in a completely different way But I was sad to see Evonik below their expectations, that Milan stage win is nice but as knockout said not taking his scoring to where he wanted. The PCT wildcard Carlsberg became a huge part of the race which is fun to see, congrats bbl, as you said I bet it was worth all the money and more And if Areruya couldn't get the free rein to defend his KOM jersey I'm glad Carboni could take it home and not see it go to Herklotz by default, that plus a stage win is nice reward for a brilliant ride in the last two weeks
cunego59 wrote:
jandal, just imagine how good it would feel for Areruya to achieve that or even more with a team from his home country ...
That's a really good point, I have been considering changing the primary nation if I ever bother making the switch to a new title sponsor - I guess I know where
Not much points from the Giro, but that was expected. Still, it was a joy to see sometimes Petit sprinting at the front (then fading ) and Preidler winning a stage. So im actually happy for the team, maybe if Preidler moved uo 2-3 places or some more breakaways from the guys was better.
Congrats Cio!
Thanks for the interesting reports redordead!
A shame Reis missed the top 10 so closely. Without his unnecessary time loss on that one hilly stage he wouldve been 7th, so it's already much better than he was last year. There is a GT coming which should suit him better so I'm looking forward to that.
Hsu was rather disappointing as he only contested less than half of the sprints. When he was sprinting he was always contesting for the podium so it could've been a really good race from him.
In the end Quiita is the one who salvages something from here with his stage win. So I guess in total we did not do much worse than what I could've expected.
Thanks for the great reports nemolito and congrats cio!
And as we see in the other thread it's far from enough to save us. However as I said at the start of this race that wasn't what I was expecting and it would be pretty unfair to how amazing Areruya was to say this is a failure 
