Nice to read that your sponsors will continue. Hope you can find another sponsor that's willing to help a hand in delivering you that extra PT million as well, but I'm sure that will be no problem
No surprise to see the main sponsors willing to continue after two greatly successful seasons. Looking forward to the future announcements with regards to the new sponsorship!
It's been a while since our last update, and lots of races took place in the meantime. We had a lot of administrative work to do, sadly not finding enough time to keep you up-to-date. Which is why this update includes no less than four races! Let's get started right away!
Race Review | Tour of Britain | C1
Five days in Britain, mostly on hilly terrain, and including one flat ITT stage - a perfect target for our "niche planning"! Unlike the other teams, we did send our top climber here, hoping for the hilly stages to be really selective. And we obviously had some TTers as well - just lacking a pure sprinter.
However, day 1 was the only stage being more or less suited to sprinters, which is why we didn't take one. Instead, we thought that Edward Theuns might have a shot at a great result, with the stage definitely not being pan-flat.
Our thoughts turned out to be correct, with e.g. Russo taking 2nd place - sadly, Theuns wasn't positioned well enough to compete for the podium, ending up 9th. He'd clearly have preferred some even tougher roads...
The difficult stages would come later, but on day 2 it first was the TTers' turn. The question was whether Dunbar or Gonzalez Salas would win the stage - but one man didn't agree with being labelled an outsider, and just went on to win the stage: Szymon Rekita!
Our Polish TT leader indeed pulled off a surprisingly strong performance, getting his first (and only) stage win of the year, at the same time taking over the yellow jersey!
And more good news from the team: Alexys Brunel also had a great day on the road and finished 4th on the day, taking the U25 lead after stage two. And we also took the lead in the team standings - not the least thanks to Stefan Küng's 10th place on the day. Given that there sadly are no pictures neither of Rekita nor of Brunel, we get to see Küng riding:
Stefan Küng on his way to 10th place.
Colin Stüssi and Fausto Masnada, our main GC hopes, lost 46" and 1'06" - slightly slower than expected, but still in the fight for 2nd in GC, with Dunbar easily being the top favourite.
And we definitely did show our strength on day 3 as well! Mauro Schmid - a tad too weak in TTs to be a GC contender - put in some huge shifts to destroy the pack, dropping the pure TT specialists. And even some pretty good allrounders like Küng or Brunel.
In the end, top puncheurs Stannard and Gesbert went clear on the final uphill. Colin Stüssi wasn't quite able to follow them - but he still did a great job to finish 3rd on stage 3!
Colin Stüssi ending up 3rd in stage 3!
Right behind Colin, we had Fausto Masnada taking 4th place! A great team result - but with a little bitter taste, as Fausto closed the gap that opened behind Colin, leading to everyone in the group behind getting the same time instead of losing a couple of seconds...
But with two stages to go, we still were in a great situation, with Stüssi now up to 2nd in GC, and Masnada 7th. Mauro Schmid then did more damage on stage 4, dropping some pretty good puncheurs early on. Colin Stüssi looked strong as well, even reaching the final KoM sprint of the day first. And he didn't stop there - in a head-to-head sprint against race leader Dunbar, Colin Stüssi came out victorious to take home stage 4 - our 2nd stage win of the race!
Colin Stüssi wins stage 4!
Fausto Masnada once again finished inside the front group as well, adding more points to his tally with a 5th place finish. Mauro Schmid had not much left after working so hard, barely making the Top 30.
Going into the final stage, we had Stüssi in 2nd and Masnada in 6th place in the GC - and we still held onto the team standings lead! Colin was just 26" behind Dunbar - given the final stage's profile, absolutely not impossible!
However, we somehow got our race strategy completely wrong. Instead of having Mauro Schmid working like in the previous stages, Colin Stüssi - wearing green in Dunbar's stead - set a frantic pace in the chase! Nobody really understood this move - nor did we in the team car.
Stüssi's move was even less understandable given that we still had 5 riders in the peloton tackling the final climb - and it was Stefan Küng leading the pack there. And indeed, instead of fighting for the stage and GC win, Stüssi was dropped on the final climb, having nothing left! What a disastrous strategy!
So it was up to the others to somewhat salvage this race that was looking so great for us - and now we were at risk of not getting much out of it! But once again, Fausto Masnada was right there when we needed him most. He was the only one to somewhat keep up with Gesbert and Stannard up front.
He wasn't quite able to beat them, with the Frenchman winning the stage 3 revenge. But Fausto Masnada still did a great job to finish 3rd - that's 4th, 5th and 3rd by him on the last three stages!
Fausto Masnada taking 3rd place on the final day.
And the team dispalyed their strength once again, with Mauro Schmid sprinting to 4th place! However, the disappointment of the day was Colin Stüssi finishing 17th on the day. We still think he could have won it, or at least kept up with the front riders - which would have been enough for the GC win...
Instead, Stüssi dropped to 8th in the GC! Fortunately, we did have two co-leaders in this race - and Fausto Masnada jumped up to 3rd place on the final day! What was looking really ugly when Colin was dropped turned into a still pretty good outcome - although everyone on the team knows that much more would've been possible with a decent strategy...
Mauro Schmid moved up to 21st in the GC - and 3rd in U25 - and the team ensured that we won the team standings for the 3rd time this year.
Yes, we did score plenty of points. But it still feels like a potential win thrown away - just like in South Africa, where it wasn't even a bad strategy breaking our race, but a simple inattention followed by a split... Fortunately, our roster is so amazingly deep that we can make up for this kind of big failures!
And to be fair, overall the race wasn't a failure at all; we got two stage wins, two additional stage podiums, a GC podium, the team standings win - and a total of 10 stage Top 10 finishes in 5 days! Amazing teamwork, congratulations to the entire Britain squad!
Race Review | Rheden GP | PTHC
The cobbled classic in the Netherlands was the final such race for Edward Theuns in his prime, as sad as it is... So up to him to leave a great final impression - and maybe add another win?
First, however, it was up to Felix Stehli to show our colours, up front in the breakaway.
Felix Stehli in the BotD.
As almost always, the break really just was to get some TV time, which Felix did well. They were caught with about 20km to go.
With about 10km to go, things got really serious, with Wisniowski and Stallaert attacking and getting away. Edward Theuns was in the strong chase group, still fully in contention for the win.
However, the chasers didn't work together well enough, and so the front duo took first and second. Pedersen also rode away from the chasing group, taking the final podium spot.
Edward Theuns was disappointed to not be in the fight for another podium anymore - maybe this was the reason he lacked a little bit of steam to at least hold onto 4th. He finally had to settle for 5th, narrowly behind Daniel.
Edward Theuns finishing Rheden GP in 5th place.
Not a bad result at all for our Belgian cobbles star - but we were hoping for slightly more in his farewell ride as a maxed cobbles specialist. Which still doesn't mean he's done racing, he'll likely be back on PT cobbles next season!
His domestiques also did a decent job, in particular Giorgi Tediashvili, finishing 28th. Nejc Kosic also picked up a couple of points with 47th place.
Race Review | Milano - Torino | C1
The end of September had the traditional hilly clash between Milano and Lugano - with the Italian race historically being our better one by far.
However, we no longer had Gianni Moscon on board, who finished 4th here last year. Instead, the weight of delivering a result was mainly on Xuban Errakin's shoulders.
And well, he was roughly where he needed to be going into the final uphill section. A tad too far behind to really fight for a top result, but 15th place is about what we could expect from our Spanish puncheur. No other rider finished even inside the Top 50.
Race Review | GP Lugano | C1
Our home race was always a disappointing one for us, with our best result being a 13th place. This time, we brought what we thought being a really competitive lineup, with Mauro Schmid for the "puncheurs-first" scenario, Cees Bol for a "sprinter-first" ending, and Edward Theuns for any kind of hybrid outcome.
But in the end, it looks like whatever lineup we bring, we just fail. Mauro Schmid briefly tried something, but didn't insist, and only finished 24th.
Edward Theuns did better, ending up 8th in the sprint of the peloton. However, what sounds pretty decent actually isn't, given that there were 6 breakaway riders left up front, so that's only a 14th place for Theuns and another (sadly traditional) Lugano disappointment for us.
Edward Theuns sprinting to 14th in Lugano.
Summary
The month started well for us, especially with a great Tour of Britain (which could've been even greater ^^), a solid performance in Balkans and some strong Theuns racing in Rheden.
The end of the month then was pretty disappointing, especially with our home race once again not being a good one for us. All in all, however, we scored 396 points in September, good enough for 7th place (being the 2nd best non-ToA team). More importantly, it looks like we're almost a lock for 2nd place by now, which is an absolutely amazing performance by the entire team!
We'll present scoring details after the final month of the year, which is already underway - but all we can say is that our riders did a fantastic job so far - and will rewarded with a surprise promotion to PT!
Nemo "No problem"? Well, even in Switzerland money doesn't grow on trees But yeah, I guess we might find another sponsor - and otherwise, the existing ones confirmed they can add some extra funds for one year of PT racing. Should we unexpectedly stay up, we'd definitely need another sponsor, though
Abhi Both sponsors were already supporting us when we relegated to CT, so they've also experienced some less successful days. Unlike Fiat, they didn't quit, though, and I'm happy they get rewarded for going through that situation alongside us!
Admittedly, it may feel a bit weird to still post a monthly preview while the month's most important race is more than halfway through. But we still wanted to share some insights concerning our lineups for the year's final races.
With promotion being pretty much secured - which is completely insane in itself, and even more so with one month of racing left! - our riders don't have too much pressure. Except for those who can't take a new contract for granted - and obviously, our riders are athletes, they always want to win. Or at least to learn...
Only three races are left, everyone being of a distinct category. Two stage races, sandwiching in a classic - and a calm final day of the season in front of the TV. That's our month of October - here are the details:
Oct 01 - 06 | Tour of Japan | HC
Profile
Lineup
Rider
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Mauro Schmid
72
74
77
68
71
77
72
69
70
77
76
74
66
Colin Stüssi
71
79
73
75
77
73
78
55
63
66
65
69
69
Dylan Page
75
57
66
60
72
72
75
66
78
79
62
55
59
Valentin Darbellay
69
77
71
75
73
75
77
64
67
64
70
67
76
Giorgi Tediashvili
73
66
69
65
74
76
72
74
69
71
70
66
65
Hugo Page
66
65
66
61
68
68
62
61
69
72
68
69
66
Scott Davies
64
68
66
69
67
68
68
55
61
68
63
65
69
Gustas Raugala
69
65
65
68
66
68
63
54
58
64
64
71
69
We are stoked to be back to the place where we celebrated one of our biggest victories in team history! When the race was held for the last time - two years ago - Nairo Quintana won the decisive MTT to Mount Fuji, and also took home the GC.
Winning the GC doesn't look likely given that the race has moved up to HC now, and we expect some of PCT's top stage racers to be there. But Colin Stüssi has proven that he's a very solid rider at this level as well (except for California), and a Top 10 should be a realistic target. Even more so given that ITT skills have become more important even for MTTs nowadays.
But given that there's also a pretty long prologue - which isn't Colin's favourite discipline - Valentin Darbellay will join him as a co-leader. He'll likely be ahead of Colin after day one - the MTT should then decide on who will really be our team leader for the decisive stage 5.
And then there's once again Mauro Schmid. So far, he has often struggled finding his position in the team. Although our directives are crystal clear: attacks! He could be a contender for the KoM jersey (once again...), and stages 2, 3 and 5 also look like they might suit him with his great punch. He won't fight for the GC de to his rather low TT skills, but we definitely want to see him try again and again!
The final rider we expect some decent results of is Dylan Page. One good result in two potential sprint stages would secure his season goal of 75 points - and if he does really well, he could even have a shot at being our 12th rider to reach 100 points this year... He might be the one rider most in need of some strong results here in order to get a renewal proposition - and he knows that.
The rest of the team consists of riders in need to gain experience for their further (or final) development. And yes, we tend to forget that Schmid still belongs to this category as well, given our high expectations for him...
A GC Top 10 would be great, plus another Top 20, and a couple of good stage results. Looking at you, Mauro and Dylan!
Expectations: 3x Stage Top 10, GC Top 10 Expected points: 80 Best result so far:
- Stage: Win (Nairo Quintana, 2021)
- GC: Win (Nairo Quintana, 2021)
Oct 9 | Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec | PTHC
Profile
Lineup
Rider
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Edward Theuns
72
67
74
65
76
73
74
80
77
76
64
67
70
Xuban Errazkin
71
74
78
70
76
75
76
64
63
73
69
67
70
Manuel Stocker
75
60
65
69
71
73
76
59
76
77
65
65
71
Giorgi Tediashvili
73
66
69
65
74
76
72
74
69
71
70
66
65
Felix Stehli
67
66
69
62
70
69
68
62
69
69
67
69
66
Cedric Bakke Christophersen
66
66
68
63
68
72
65
64
66
68
70
64
67
Christoph Janssen
71
63
65
72
68
71
70
55
59
66
64
65
72
Hugo Page
66
65
66
61
68
68
62
61
69
72
68
69
66
We said it before, we won't race on the last day of the season - so this is our final hilly classic of the year! And yes, in hindisght it probably wasn't a good move to send Mauro Schmid to Lugano instead of here, but alas...
Instead, our currently still best puncheur Xuban Errazkin will lead the team, hoping to keep up with the best for as long as possible. He'll get support from Edward Theuns - who would have had a better shot at a strong finish in Montréal, though. But who knows, GP Wallonie also had a rather long final uphill...
We also expect some of our youngsters to join the breakaway, but points from any of them would be a big bonus. Stocker is here to mentor them.
A Top 10 feels like a rather unrealistic target, given the huge competition we expect. A Top 20 should be achievable, though.
Expectations: Top 20 Expected points: 20 Best result so far: 4th (Simon Pellaud, 2019, as part of a stage race)
Oct 12 - 15 | Euskal Bizikleta | C1
Profile
Lineup
Rider
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Edward Theuns
72
67
74
65
76
73
74
80
77
76
64
67
70
Mauro Schmid
72
74
77
68
71
77
72
69
70
77
76
74
66
Xuban Errazkin
71
74
78
70
76
75
76
64
63
73
69
67
70
Dylan Page
75
57
66
60
72
72
75
66
78
79
62
55
59
Felix Stehli
67
66
69
62
70
69
68
62
69
69
67
69
66
Cedric Bakke Christophersen
66
66
68
63
68
72
65
64
66
68
70
64
67
Hugo Page
66
65
66
61
68
68
62
61
69
72
68
69
66
Gustas Raugala
69
65
65
68
66
68
63
54
58
64
64
71
69
The final race of the year! And one we do have some pretty good memories of, being our highest scoring C1 race last year!
And although Gianni Moscon - 5th in GC last year - is no longer riding for us, we still come back with some pretty high hopes. Why? Let's look at some names:
Mauro Schmid should develop into a very well-rounded puncheur, and he has already displayed his skills even at PTHC level. This race with three stages ending after a downhill perfectly fits his current skillset - aggressive, strong on downhills, and a decent sprinter. We - once again - hope for him to show his aggressiveness, be it to get strong results on his own or to drop some opponents to make things more promising for his teammates.
One of his teammates is Edward Theuns, in his final race at his peak. Although decisive moves could be made on the downhills, it isn't unrealistic either to expect four (reduced) bunch sprints. In this case, he doesn't have to fear many other riders (who will obviously be there as well). We're hoping for him to have some fun days in the Basque hills - a stage win would be a great end to his peak career.
For the unselective stages - which might be just stage 1, actually - we also bring Dylan Page, who is a tad faster than Theuns in terms of top speed. If Japan doesn't work out for him, this will be his final chance to make a bid for renewal. But we're fine as well if he decides to just be Theuns' leadout.
And obviously we also had to nominate Xuban Errazkin for his home race! Missing out on Pais Vasco earlier this year, we definitely want to give him the opportunity to have fun on home soil in this race. Expectations? Well, we know that he's a good puncheur, so we expect him to show it!
Last year's outcome was amazing with two riders in the GC Top 10. Both of them aren't here this time - and even if they were, that's not a result we can realistically expect. One Top 10 finish would be great, though, and a couple of good stage results.
Expectations: 3x Stage Top 10, GC Top 10 Expected points: 50 Best result so far:
- Stage: 3rd (Gianni Moscon, 2022)
- GC: 5th (Gianni Moscon, 2022)
That's all, folks. NCs and WCs will follow, and we're wishing all of our riders participating in any of these races the best of luck.
But first, we want to enjoy our final month of PCT racing for the time being, already looking forward to the great adventure a year of PT racing will be!
We still have some targets, though, and we'd love to see our riders achieve them as well! Just because we've been having an amazing year all around doesn't mean we can sit down and relax now - we can do so in November!
And, unlike the teams that are involved in promotion and relegation fights and are in need of every point they can get, we'll have a calm final day of the season, closely watching all the decisive moves on TV!
red If you say so
I'm happy (and still a little surprised) that we'll get that year in PT, but I don't think anyone needs to be afraid of my current team
We returned to Japan with some great memories of the last edition, which was held two years ago - where we won both the decisive MTT stage and the GC with Nairo Quintana!
We didn't quite have the same ambitions this time, with the race having been promoted to HC for its return to the calendar, and the competition therefore being quite a lot stronger. But we did still hope for a Top 10 GC finish, with Colin Stüssi having the right skillset to do well in this race - being a strong climber and a decent time triallist.
However, stage 1 wasn't for the pure TTers, but for those also handling well some shorter distances. And Colin isn't among them, which we obviously knew. Instead, our co-leader for the GC had a great start, with Valentin Darbellay taking a good 10th place - right behind our 2022 lead sprinter Aregger, by the way. Stüssi finished 58th, losing 23" - the expected handicap.
On day 2, our hopes for a strong result were on Dylan Page's shoulders - but it was the French Page, Hugo Page, who stepped into action first. Our future top sprinter joined the breakaway, winning two intermediate sprints and even a KoM sprint during the stage! He was 2nd in the KoM standings at the end of the day, another promising performance by our French neo-pro! Dylan Page did what he had to do during most of the stage - avoiding to get dropped, and then come to the front for the final couple of kilomters. And he actually did a great job, being in 3rd position with 400m to go, and having the highest speed of the three leaders!
Dylan Page fighting for the stage win on day 2!
Sadly, he just ran out of steam in the end and missed out on the stage win by a very narrow margin - taking another 3rd place, his 3rd of the year. Close to winning the stage once again, but not quite there - another chance left on the final day.
But first, the three GC-defining stages were awaiting the riders. On day 3, Hugo Page once again joined the breakaway - not caring at all that the undulating terrain didn't quite fit his strengths. He even won the first out of two KoM sprints, taking over the provisional lead in the standings!
Surprisingly, the break stayed ahead all day long. Only Higuita seemed to have the right intuition and chased them down on his own - ending up winning the stage. Hugo Page couldn't quite keep up with those who handle the uphills better than him, finishing 14th on the day - but taking over the KoM jersey! It might be the only time in his career he gets to wear one, so imagine the huge smile on his face after the stage!
Both of our main GC hopes, Colin Stüssi and Valentin Darbellay, finished safe in the peloton.
Day 4 then was the day we had very big hopes in, having observed that mountain time trials in general tend to suit strong TTers better than pure climbers nowadays.
Well, this wasn't quite the case in Japan - the climb likely was just too tough for TT skills to make much of an impact. Colin Stüssi still was able to beat all of the similarly skilled climbers, finishing 9th on the day. Valentin Darbellay ended up 19th, beating all other riders of his "weight category" as well. At the end of the day, Stüssi was 7th in GC and Darbellay 9th - an amazing result so far, with only one tough day in the Japanese hills left!
Colin Stüssi on his way to 9th place, right ahead of Schelling who started after him.
There's one rider we haven't mentioned yet - and who had been quite disappointing in this race so far. We're talking about Mauro Schmid, who inexplicably lost some time (instead of fighting for the stage win) on day 3. So the goal for him was to join the breakaway on day 5 and see what he could do.
And guess what? He did join the breakaway! Sadly, Hugo Page - still wearing the KoM jersey, in Eastman's stead - missed out, hence missing out on a big chance to get back the KoM lead.
But Mauro did what he had to do. He came 2nd at the first KoM sprint - and won the three remaining ones, taking over the KoM lead and already securing the jersey!
Mauro Schmid winning the final KoM sprint of the race and securing the KoM jersey!
But he also knew that he was the best puncheur of the group by far - and he also wanted the stage win!
Well, you can't have it all. The efforts spent on the KoM sprints proved to be too strength sapping to be competitive in the end, not even being able to cover an attack by Sossa, Burmann and Rossi... Who were caught as well in the end. We still believe that Mauro with fresh legs could've won the stage, but we'll never know - and we'll happily settle for the KoM win!
In the end, we didn't have any rider fighting for the stage win. Colin Stüssi and Valentin Darbellay however did what they had to do, with another safe finish inside the front group (11th and 19th) - holding onto their great GC positions!
Colin Stüssi and Valentin Darbellay easily finishing inside the group of favourites.
So, there was just the final stage left. The plan was to not do any dumb things - e.g. miss out on some random splits with our GC riders - and get another good result from our sprinter.
Well, we did easily achieve the former goal. The latter one, however, went out of reach due to the breakaway getting another stage win. Dylan Page only finished 18th, or 10th from the bunch.
But the stage points we were missing out on due to the breakaway win were easily made up for by a huge GC result! No Top 5 position, sadly - believe it or not, but we got none in HC in the entire season! - but with Yates being less lucky (or attentive) than our riders, Colin Stüssi and Valentin Darbellay gained one spot each on the final day, to finish 6th and 8th in the GC! Big congratulations to both of them, great racing to round off their season!
Mauro Schmid wasn't quite as smart on the final day, missing out on yet another split - there were far too many of these that he missed... He missed out on a possible GC Top 25, and also on another U25 podium (he finished 6th) - but most importantly, he took home his first ever KoM jersey - only our 2nd all year long!
Mauro Schmid winning the Polka Dots in Japan!
And let's not forget to talk about Hugo Page, who also led the KoM standings for one day - and ended up on a shared 4th place!
We also want to congratulate the whole team for ending up 2nd in the team standings - which meant some additional points for Stüssi, Darbellay, Schmid, H. Page - and Scott Davies, who scored for the 2nd team this year!
All in all, it was an awesome race for us - especially thanks to the two Top 10 GC finishes, something no other team achieved. Other teams may have top GC competitors, or top stage hunters - we have the depth, and the occasional breakaway success. We should've scored 200+ points here - not just a step, but another big leap towards a sensational 2nd place in the PCT final standings!
Race Review | Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec | PTHC
As expected, there's much less to write home about our second hilly PTHC classic of the year. Whereas Schmid got us a fantastic podium finish in San Sebastian, the startlist in Canada was far stronger, and the race much more suited to the pure puncheurs - which neither Xuban Errazkin nor Edward Theuns belong to.
The former had a truly disappointing race, getting dropped earlier (with some similar riders getting a Top 20). Theuns kept up with the peloton for quite a long time - but eventually ran out of gas, and got our best (and only scoring) result with a 29th place. Not good for the team, but decent enough given that San Sebastian far more than made up for a weaker result in Canada.
Edward Theuns close to the front of the pack, before getting dropped later on.
Sponsor News
We are happy to announce that we came to an agreement with a new sponsor! The details of the deal will be revealed on the final day of the season - while we won't be racing in Zurich at the traditional Züri Metzgete (which made no sense due to rider restrictions), we'll still be present to celebrate our great season with our fans - and to reveal our latest deal!
We can already say that we'll head into our PT adventure (which we assume is safe to say now) as Jura GIANTS, but we're trying to bring our new sponsor's logo to our jerseys next year - stay tuned for more news!
The final race of the year brought us back to the Basque Country, where we had quite some success earlier in the year, in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. This time, we also brought our Basque rider Xuban Errazkin, with this course suiting him much better. He's our best puncheur, but we also expected some points from Mauro Schmid, Edward Theuns and Dylan Page, all three potentially fighting for stage wins, the former two for the GC as well.
The first two stages were designed for the sprinters. And indeed, Dylan Page seemed to do a perfect job in the sprint preparation, taking Démare's wheel - but the Frenchman's leadout started far too early and he had to slow down, basically taking himself and Dylan out of contention. Page ended up 8th - a point, but it could have been much more.
Dylan Page finishing 8th on day 1.
Edward Theuns and Xuban Errazkin also did a good job, finishing 15th and 16th, never at risk of missing a decisive split.
However, Mauro Schmid once more did miss out. We don't understand how he still gets caught out in the final race of the year - he should be experienced enough by now to not make these stupid mistakes. So that's -1 potential GC rider right on day one - not a great day for us.
Stage 2 was another flat-rated stage, with a much more difficult profile though. With the finish line coming after a downhill, our plan was to try something with Mauro Schmid, given his great downhill skills and fighting spirit - but it looks like he wasn't awake during the pre-stage team briefing. He didn't care at all and barely finished in the Top 100 - another wasted race for him. Dylan Page, on the other hand, did exactly what we brought him for - he sprinted. And he sprinted well, from a much better position than the day before - and he actually got another stage podium in his final attempt of the year! 3rd place for Dylan, who definitely has found his legs in the last couple of races.
Dylan Page getting another stage podium, right behind Hayakawa and Démare!
Edward Theuns and Xuban Errazkin once more were positioned where they had to be, finishing 15th and 17th this time. For both of them, the next two days would be the ones that really mattered.
However, given that the finish line again came after a downhill and a short flat section, the bookmakers rather viewed Mauro Schmid as a stage favourite. But it looks like he not only doesn't care about team meetings, he also doesn't care about official favourite lists. We don't know what else needs to be done to motivate him to be active...
And sadly, Edward Theuns didn't have the strength either to keep up with the front group - rather surprisingly, given that far weaker uphill riders made the cut (and even fought for the stage win). At least we had Xuban Errazkin doing really well in his home race - not being a strong finisher at all, he still got a 5th place on the stage, which was pretty much the maximum he could get with two pure sprinters finishing up front. He also moved up to 6th place in the GC, being our only hope left. And given that both Mauro and Eddie didn't quite perform up to the expected level, the team standings were also gone, no repeat of 2022.
Xuban Errazkin getting 5th place on day 3!
The final day of the race also was our final day of racing in 2023 - a great opportunity to launch some final fireworks. Well, that was the plan - but you know what our plans looked like in-race this time. They weren't executed, that's it. No fireworks, no Japan-like KoM hunt, no breakaway presence, no late attack - nothing. Which was pretty disappointing, given that Edward Theuns and Mauro Schmid really had nothing to lose. But apparently they didn't want to win anything, either.
Well, Edward Theuns still got something, as he finished 8th on the final stage, getting our 4th Top 10 result in as many stages. And he moved up to 17th in the GC, with the front group being pretty small on the final day. For once, even Mauro Schmid finished up front - which didn't help us much in terms of scoring, though, as he missed out on GC points and only scored 2 points for finishing 4th in the U25 standings. We said it before, another wasted race for him - he'll need to do much better in the future to justify his huge paycheck!
But the rider we had our main focus on obviously was Xuban Errazkin. Unlike the two others, his only goal was finishing in the front group, and as high up as possible. He did finish up front, taking 12th place - another very solid result, having four Top 20 finishes in as many stages.
Edward Theuns (8th), Xuban Errazkin (12th) and Mauro Schmid (17th) all ending up in the Top 20 on the final day.
And given that 11 riders ended up with the same final time (behind surprise GC winner Lagane), stage ranks actually did matter a lot! Unfortunately, Dzamastagic and Houle were a little bit stronger - the latter expectedly, the former surprisingly, as he couldn't be expected to make all the cuts - but Xuban was right next. Getting a GC podium in his home race would have been amazing - now it's a 4th place, which actually is even one spot higher than we got last year! Xuban is a very unspectacular, yet rock solid rider - what's missing to get the big result is a little bit more punch. But we're definitely happy with his 2023 season - even outscoring Schmid!
Overall, we're not unhappy, but we expected a bit more given our lineup. But neither Schmid nor Theuns ever got involved in any attacks, even after having lost some time. Xuban's GC result is definitely satisfying - to get more, we'd have needed one of the punchier riders to care about the GC as well.
And we're obviously satisfied with Page's performance as well, which also got him 8th in points. We're not too happy with the overall team performance, but well, we can't exceed our own (high!) expectations in every race. We ended up scoring 80 points, which was the 3rd highest value among the PCT teams - not much to complain about, honestly. Even though we'd obviously have loved to repeat the 100+ points from 2022, as a CT team back then...
Ranking Update
As we're talking about points anyway, let's take a look at the pre-final PCT standings. And it's an overwhelming look for us, we can hardly believe our eyes! Sure, promotion was almost a done deal by the end of September. Which is amazing - we were secretly hoping to fight for the Top 5 (and our sponsors even made it an official goal) - but to be so far above 5th place that even a zero-pointer in the last month would have been enough to promote, wow!
Just to put in relation: Amaysim scored 3,955 points last year - it was the division winning score. We scored 3,938 points this year, as a newly promoted team! We're just 17 points off last year's winning score, how crazy is that! Our expectation - which was considered overly optimistic by some - was to get 2,850 points - we got more than 1,000 points more...
Sure, we did have quite some luck in several races. But we also had the other ones, having no luck at all. We do believe that yes, we generally were on the lucky side - but luck alone can't be the reason for this huge final score. We do believe we also found a schedule that was close to perfect for most of our riders - and we're definitely sure that our 100% commitment to our great TTT core fully paid off! We were lucky, yes - but we think we can also say that we were smart.
Anyway, the only thing that matters in the end is that we'll be riding in PT in the 2024 season - a huge challenge we're really looking for! And we're glad that the Swiss flag will be represented again in PT next year!
Congrats on the great season, and on being the first from the class of '19 to make the big time.
Over that many events I think the luck evens out and you are promoting with plenty of room to spare. The focus on TT teams feels like the key to that success but you put together competitive riders for every terrain. Have fun in the PT.
Congratulations to back to back promotions! Next ear in PT I probably would say it will be hard but with a well build team like yours it shouldnt be too hard for you to stay there. It can be seen that the success you have isnt by coincidence, the team is build for that over many seasons.
Yes, it's a really long time since the final races of the 2023 season took place. So why are we so late with our next update?
Well, we sadly had other obligations in the meantime. And yeah, we'll admit we're also a bit disappointed that none of our followers nominated us for the "Best HQ" award - sginalling us that we'll have to overthink our style and come up with something new. We'll see what we can do!
But for now, let's party! This is what we planned to do after CT's season-closing classic here in Zürich - and that's what we did! Whereas we'll come up with a more detailed performance analysis later on, the goal in Zürich was to celebrate our great 2023 success together with our fans!
First, we were obviously watching the race. Fausto Masnada, 2022 runner-up, commented:
Well, I'm happy I didn't have to ride against this Wackermann dude again. I don't know what it is, but he's definitely found something special in this race. Insane to see him go back-to-back - and good to know that I'm not the only guy who surprisingly lost out to him!
And post-race, we got the party started! And here's what we were cheering about:
PCT Final Rankings
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
Proj
1
1
Los Pollos Hermanos
4475
163
27.45
4474
2
2
Jura GIANTS
3938
163
24.16
3938
3
3
Xero Racing
3391
162
20.93
3412
4
4
Fastned
3271
163
20.07
3271
5
6
Assa Abloy
3233
162
19.96
3253
As crazy as it sounds - but we really did it! After promoting from CT to PCT last year, we again leave the PCT division after just one year - only to go to the highest division!
And it's not like we achieved back-to-back promotions just by pure luck - no, it wasn't even close! Just like ZARA last year, we ended up in 2nd place - with a fantastic final score! 3,938 points is just 17 points lower than Amaysim's division winning score last year, so we clearly had an absolutely amazing year overall!
Congrats to all the riders, but also to all staff members who made this possible! PT awaits us for the first time, and we're definitely looking forward to ride at the highest possible level next year!
Incidentally, this is our only sponsor goal that we fully achieved this year - and definitely one of the most optimistic ones we had! More on this later - for now, let's celebrate our promotion to the Pro Tour!
Sponsor News
There can't be a better place than a home race to unveil our latest local sponsor addition, right?
Without further ado, let's welcome Stadler Rail AG joining our sponsor ranks!
Stadler are among the world's Top 5 rolling stock manufacturers, almost level with Siemens Mobility. They're specialized in tailor-made engines, be it "normal" trains, narrow-gauge trains, or even tramways.
And it was thanks to this "customization" segment that we were able to strike a deal. It all started with the Centovalli railway having to replace their engines. And you've guessed it, it's Stadler who got the deal, manufacturing eight brand-new trains for the "Centovallina".
Peter Spuhler, former CEO and current president of the Board of Directors at Stadler, provides us some insight:
On one of our workshop days with the Centovallina directors, we had lunch together. As we were talking about other things than our new trains, CEO Claudio Blotti mentioned the Centovalli - Fiat project that started back in 2019.
I admit that whereas I had heard of Jura GIANTS - especially due to their success at the Giro d'Italia, and strong results at the Tour de Suisse - I didn't know anything about their history. But it was fascinating to learn how it all began, with Ticino Turismo and the Centovallina.
Following the team's 2023 more closely from then on, it became more and more likely that they would promote to the highest division by the end of the year - and would therefore be competing in all of the world's biggest races in 2024.
As a multinational company, this is a very interesting scenario for us. We're selling and maintaining trains all over the place in Europe already - but we're looking to expand even more. Sponsoring a cycling team that races everywhere - and whose biggest races are broadcast everywhere - looked pretty appealing.
And so, when we got news that Jura GIANTS were indeed looking for additional funds, we quickly got in touch - and we can proudly present our deal today!
Stadler join us on a one-year deal, allowing us to get a PT-worthy budget. We're glad to get another successful Swiss company on board - and with Stadler being among Switzerland's Top 100, they're actually the biggest company backing us now!
We've got talents!
Another reason to be joyful about is our talents taking their next - or their final - development step! Promoting Swiss cycling was one of our main goals when we started - and we're glad to announce that a total of 7 riders got to a new level by the end of the 2023 season!
Here are the details:
Hugo Page 1 -> 3 (Sprinter, Sprinter)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
66
65
66
61
68
68
62
61
69
72
68
69
66
2024
69
65
67
61
71
69
65
63
73
76
68
69
66
Max
73
65
69
62
73
73
75
63
78
80
68
70
71
Hugo was our only level 1 talent this year (besides the three loaned-in ones that we won't cover here) - but definitely not a bad one! We already had some highlights, as we'll see at a later point, and we're sure he'll have plenty of them in the future as well!
Obviously, he won't be the next Coquard or Démare, but he'll grow into a rock solid French sprinter, having everything it takes to be successful in particular in some shorter stage races. We're looking forward to that - but it's still two years until we'll be there.
Jan Sommer 2 -> 3 (Cobbles)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
70
60
63
65
68
68
66
68
66
69
70
65
66
2024
72
60
64
65
70
70
67
70
68
69
70
65
66
Max
76
60
67
65
74
74
69
75
70
70
73
66
66
First of all, big thanks to Kraftwerk for having Jan this year! Whereas his big development steps still are ahead, he gets back to us as a useful cobbles helper, and this is also what he'll end up as.
Jan isn't a potential future leader, but if we manage to acquire a successor for Eddie Theuns, Jan will have an important role on the team in the future! With his projected flat skills, he could also be used in a leadout train in the future - but for now, he'll still need some time to gain some more experience.
Felix Stehli 2 -> 3 (Climberv1)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
67
66
69
62
70
69
68
62
69
69
67
69
66
2024
67
68
71
62
70
70
69
62
69
71
69
69
66
Max
68
71
76
63
72
72
71
62
70
75
73
70
67
Points-wise, Felix was clearly our most successful lvl 1-3 talent this year, and even won a KoM shirt! And this is exactly the way to go for him, as we see some potential for a punchy sprinter in him. His sprint may not be sufficient for this, but with strong hill riding and acceleration, this could be worth some additional investment later on.
For now, we're looking forward to see how he fares in PT races, where competition will be even tougher than in PCT. But let's recall that he won his KoM jersey in a PTHC race... More to come?
Christoph Janssen 3 -> 4 (Stage Race)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
71
63
65
72
68
71
70
55
59
66
64
65
72
2024
72
65
67
74
70
73
72
55
59
67
65
65
74
Max
72
67
68
76
71
74
74
55
59
67
65
65
76
From the most to the least successful "low-level" talent - with Janssen not scoring a single point this year. But this is only half of the truth, as he was part of several race-winning TTT lineups!
And this is exactly the role we plan for him in the future. He won't be strong enough to compete for top results on his own, but he'll be a valuable team member for these special races against the clock. And we're pretty sure he won't end up with 0 points again next season!
Gergely Szarka 4 -> MAX (Track-Sprint)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
75
62
67
61
72
72
75
60
76
76
64
66
70
2024
77
62
67
61
72
73
76
60
78
78
64
66
72
Yes, Gergely has finally reached his maximum level! "Losing" a year as a stagiaire, he was then twice loaned out, making his final development step in our colours this year.
He doesn't quite have Peak's level - meaning he's only Hungary's second best sprinter - but he's still pretty close. Meaning that he should be able to compete for good results in smaller races, or be used in a leadout train for a top sprinter.
We don't currently intend to get the latter, so Gergely will likely get his own chances to shine - although he's clearly not a GT sprinter given his rather one-dimensional skillset. But his great skills on the flat definitely are a bonus - let's hope he can make good use of all the pan-flat races he'll get to ride!
Giorgi Tediashvili 4 -> MAX (Cobbles)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
73
66
69
65
74
76
72
74
69
71
70
66
65
2024
75
66
70
65
76
78
73
76
71
71
70
66
65
Just like Gergely, Giorgi has a particular story with us; he road his neo-pro season in our clours as a loanee, before joining us on a full contract this year. He was signed with the intention to get a top cobbler in the future, as we see Giorgi as a great domestique on this terrain.
Well, the top cobbler was signed before Giorgi was fully ready - but he still did an awesome job already, even getting a C2 classic podium. He won't be allowed to ride these anymore, but we're sure we'll find a fitting role for him! And who knows, maybe some future training could make him a "light" version of Eddie Theuns?
Mauro Schmid 4 -> MAX (Climberv1)
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
2023
72
74
77
68
71
77
72
69
70
77
76
74
66
2024
72
76
79
68
71
78
73
69
70
79
78
74
66
Without any doubt, Mauro is the biggest talent we've signed so far. MGUCI think so, too, as they rank Mauro in the Top 30 according to OVL in their pre-renewals update!
This obviously is completely exaggerated, as Mauro probably will barely end up in the Top 100 scorers next year - but what we can say is for sure that we're really, really looking forward to finally see him racing at his maximum level!
He already got us our best ever PTHC classic result this year, and we can obviously expect him to deliver some more really great results in the future! He should be among the better hybrid puncheurs - with his big weakness being his rather weak physical numbers, making him not really suited for longer stage races or longer classics.
But we're sure he'll be able to overcome his physical limitations from time to time and show us some great racing next year!
Mauro obviously is the outright star rider from this batch of talent; he's our strongest rated rider by a mile now. But we're also looking forward to see our other maxed talents in action - and to further follow the younger talents' paths!
What we can say is that we definitely want to provide a couple of roster spots for loan-ins; we've always been happy to benefit from cooperation with PT teams, and we definitely want to be among the cooperative ones, too!
But now, let's just party on and celebrate our great success, our new sponsor, and our talents! Have fun!
Ulrich Thanks
At some point, I thought you might make it as well, but I guess you had most of your luck used up after the first season half already. Still looking forward to follow McNulty's path, and hoping to not meet him too often next year
Good luck in PCT, where you should be well set for a promotion challenge already in 2024!
Laurens
Thanks! Yeah, looks like we're successfully avoiding each other in most cases for now - not unhappy to not have seen Chiarello often in C1
Looking forward to your PCT rebuild, too![/i]
Ezee Thanks! Yeah, it will definitely be hard. I don't intend to replace half of my team to have a better chance to stay up, so it might be too much of a challenge this time. But I certainly do have some plans in mind - even though I know that having plans going into transfers is mostly useless
And yeah, part of my team was definitely built up with the future in mind - but other things like the Theuns trade "just happened", completely unplanned. You have to adapt, I guess that's the key
Congrats on the great season and going back-to-back! Great news with the new sponsor coming onboard for the PT adventure. Also, a great bunch of talents coming through, with a maxed Schmid finally unleashed this season.
A fantastic season and well deserved promotion. Been amazing to watch your project here in my first year and see your (role-modeling) of success in the TTT and throughout all aspects of the game.
Maxed Schmid should be incredibly exciting as should the future of all your talents! Looking forward to what a change of divisions should bring you this upcoming season!
Congratulations on a massive season and well deserved promotion! Schmid is maxing just in time and it should be fun to see what he can do at the highest level this year, then maybe with some training later on. With the expanded budget it should be an active transfer season for you, looking forward to seeing what you will put together
First of all, congratulations again on that well deserved promotion with the very nice teambuilding. One could say you were the Cedevita of PCT when looking at this year's PT division. Nice to see the new sponsor coming in to give you that extra bag of money, and interesting to read how they got to know the team as well
Most fun part for me is always to look at how the talents are developing, Three of them will be (future) leaders in PT, so I think it's fair to say you got quite some names. Not saying Szarka will win Qatar or a PT classic just like that, but I can see him winning stages in a GT and showing you it was worth to keep the faith in him and not dropping him after the stag season. Also, Schmid has great sprinting skills so go with the pure hilly classics and stay away from the more mountainous puncheur races. For more free tips and tricks you can message me on here in private. Also available on Skype.
Congrats again on the super easy promotion to PT. As Nemo mentioned, I think you can take over my spot there this coming season
Schmid has been hyped up for years now and with good reason. I think he'll be very good, but the most intriguing talent for me is Tediashvili. I didn't realise he had such a nice stat combo
And yeah, we'll admit we're also a bit disappointed that none of our followers nominated us for the "Best HQ" award - sginalling us that we'll have to overthink our style and come up with something new. We'll see what we can do!
First of all, big congrats on the season. Well done!
Very interesting pool of developments, all across. Some solid leadout types, that can pick their own chances, aswell as some of those domestiques that everyone wants with the right nationality along the side - Aswell as two monsters. Tediashvili is such a cool rider type, and while he isn't a leader for now he does have all the training potential to become if you wish. And Schmid is just massive. He will obviously become one of the worlds best riders if you want him to be.
After the big party, where we celebrated our huge success that is the promotion to the MGUCI Pro Tour, we now have to take a step back and analyze our performance. Whereas the PCT standings suggest that we did a great job overall, this is not the case for every race and every rider.
Let's start with the most important part - at least budget-wise - our sponsor goals:
Goals Outcome
Country
Race
Goal
Outcome
Team Standings
Top 5
Success (2nd, Jura GIANTS)
Tour de Suisse
Win
Failure (8th, Colin Stüssi)
Tour of Slovenia
Top 5
Failure (16th, Stefan Küng)
Deutschland Tour
Top 10
Failure (28th, Stefan Bissegger)
Tour of South Africa
Top 5
Failure (8th, Xuban Errazkin)
For a team that easily reached promotion spots and had quite some success, the goals analysis looks simply awful. And indeed, our sponsors aren't overly happy with our performances in the goal races, whereof especially Tour de Suisse and Deutschland Tour were really important to them.
So, what went wrong? Well, being a new team in the PCT division without any top-level PCT leader, we had to imagine what might happen during transfers. Our goal was to sign a stage racer with strong ITT skills, or at least a top-level TTer. Tour de Suisse, Slovenia and Deutschland would have been covered with those planned additions.
You know what happened - despite trying to get at least five different stage racers and about 3 TTers, we couldn't sign any of them. Instead, we got a top cobbler, who - had we known about this transfer before - would definitely have led to different goal races.
But it is what it is - and not everything was bad to be honest. Of course, Colin Stüssi never got close to the Tour de Suisse win, but his Top 10 GC result was still appreciated by our sponsors.
In Slovenia, we didn't do a great job; we still believe that with smarter racing, Küng or Masnada could have had a shot at the Top 10. For reaching the Top 5, we didn't have enough quality, though.
And this was even more the case in Germany - where we also didn't have any luck GC-wise. We actually had a great race there, with two stage podiums and the KoM win - but none of our riders were strong enough to realistically compete for a Top 10 finish.
That leaves us with ToSA. And this one, definitely, was a big failure by the team. Masnada was inattentive on stage 2 and completely unnecessarily lost some time and - in hindsight - the GC win! The team also decided to drop Errazkin in the TTT stage, where he lost more than a minute - and ended up 24" behind the Top 5... So, with some marginally smarter tactics, we could have easily reached the Top 5 goal which we considered being the easiest to reach by far...
All in all, we only managed to achieve a single sponsor goal - the really important one, the PCT standings goal! Our sponsors - and even some of our staff members, including team manager Fabianski himself - indeed did dream of back-to-back promotions and therefore a Top 5 finish. We knew we would need to have a great season to get there - we ended up having an awesome one! No-one would ever have expected us to finish 2nd, totalling almost the same amount of points as last year's PCT winner!
So whereas we failed our race goals, we exceeded the PCT standings expectations - needless to say that the sponsors are still happy overall, but they definitely do expect more from us in their goal races next year!
Rider Performance Analysis
We'll obviously do an in-depth coverage for each rider, but for those who don't like to - or don't have the time to - read all the details, here's the overview, sorted by total points:
Rank
Rider
Points
Wage
RDs
Ppk€
PpRD
20
Edward Theuns
689
€ 380’000
41
1.81
16.80
30
Fausto Masnada
496
€ 150’000
50
3.31
9.92
36
Colin Stüssi
451
€ 190’000
48
2.37
9.40
58
Szymon Rekita
330
€ 100’000
65
3.30
5.08
68
Xuban Errazkin
297
€ 160’000
48
1.86
6.19
72
Mauro Schmid
274
€ 210’000
44
1.30
6.23
76
Cees Bol
263
€ 145’000
49
1.81
5.37
86
Valentin Darbellay
233
€ 100’000
55
2.33
4.24
87
Stefan Kung
231
€ 250’000
55
0.92
4.20
88
Alexys Brunel
229
€ 100’000
55
2.29
4.16
137
Stefan Bissegger
126
€ 105’000
54
1.20
2.33
173
Dylan Page
87
€ 80’000
55
1.09
1.58
190
Krzysztof Marchewka
73
€ 60’000
71
1.22
1.03
202
Giorgi Tediashvili
58
€ 50’000
43
1.16
1.35
266
Felix Stehli
37
€ 50’000
58
0.74
0.64
279
Hugo Page
34
€ 100’000
93
0.34
0.37
347
Manuel Stocker
18
€ 50’000
56
0.36
0.32
431
Scott Davies
5
€ 50’000
57
0.10
0.09
444
Nejc Kosic
4
€ 60’000
28
0.07
0.14
471
Cedric Bakke Christophersen
2
€ 85’000
80
0.02
0.03
484
Gergely Szarka
1
€ 50’000
30
0.02
0.03
504
Christoph Janssen
0
€ 50’000
65
0.00
0.00
505
Gustas Raugala
0
€ 50’000
84
0.00
0.00
It's pretty obvious who our star rider this year was, both in terms of total points and PpRD. However, Theuns wasn't quite our best "value per wage" rider - this honour belongs to first-year signing Masnada, with Rekita being almost on par with the Italian.
Generally speaking, while we didn't have one of the division's top stars - our best rider finished 20th in the individual standings - our true star definitely was the team! We have no less than 10 riders in the Top 100 - all of them scoring above 200 points! Whereas we couldn't quite match Cedevita's 12 100+ scorers (we ended up with 11), we believe that this is a really, really big achievement as well!
Only two of our riders ended up without any points - Raugala, a level 1 rider, and Janssen - who was part of 3 winning TTT lineups, but was unlucky to never finish inside the Top 5 of the team... So yes, we really did have a great season - and those who want to get more details can just read on now!
Edward Theuns
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
20
32
€ 380´000
77.79
41
689
16.80
552
Highlights
Win
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
Win
Le Samyn
Win
Lillestrom GP
---
3rd
Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne
3rd
Ronde van Vlaanderen
---
4th
GP Kigali
---
5th
Rheden GP
---
6th
Strada Appia Antica
---
7th
GP Wallonie
7th
Roma Maxima
7th
1 Jour de Dunkerque
---
8th
Euskal Bizikleta, S4
---
9th
Tour of Britain, S1
For the first time in our team's history, we had a top cobbler - and this clearly shows in Eddie's results! Whereas we had won three classics in total in our four preceding years of existence, Theuns equalled this count on his own, winning both cobbled HC classics plus the C1 Lillestrom GP in the early season.
A podium in K-B-K also came in spring - and also what surely is his most prestigious result of the year, 3rd place in Ronde van Vlaanderen! 6th in Appia and 11th in Macskako were his other PT wildcard results - a strong campaign without any doubt.
However, the second half of the year didn't work out quite as well, with no other podium. 4th in Kigali - where he definitely was the top favourite - was closest to the Top 3, but he had clearly lost his great early shape. Still, getting Top 10s everywhere bar Macskako - plus taking a strong 7th place in Wallonie, a hilly classic without cobbles - perfectly meets our expectations and even exceeds them!
We were hoping for slightly more in some other hilly classics and in stage races, but it wasn't to be. Still, we think we provided Eddie a good program for his final maxed year - and who knows if he might even stay with us for another year of PT racing? His wage would have to go down considerably to make it happen, so we'll see...
Fausto Masnada
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
30
30
€ 150´000
76.10
50
496
9.92
302
Highlights
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
---
2nd
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, GC
---
3rd
Tour of Norway, S4
3rd
Tour of Britain, S5
3rd
Tour of Britain, GC
---
4th
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S5
4th
Tour of Slovenia, S4
4th
Tour of Britain, S3
---
5th
Tour of Slovenia, S3
5th
Tour de Vineyards, GC
5th
Tour of Britain, S4
---
7th
Tour de Pologne, GC
Fausto is our Swiss Army Knife - or our "niche rider", if you want. It may be a bit surprising that he was our second best scorer - and actually our "cheapest" rider, with the lowest cost per point - but this just shows that we got him a really great planning.
He was obviously greatly helped by our fantastic TTT lineup, giving him the chance to get a great GC result both in Pais Vasco and South Africa, where he was part of the stage-winning TTT squad. And in Pais Vasco, he really made the best out of this launch pad, finishing 2nd overall!
South Africa on the other hand was one of his lowlights of the year - getting dropped on a random split on the easy stage 2, he was out of GC contention early on. And this was truly frustrating, as he would actually have won the Tour without this stupid inattentiveness...
Otherwise, though, he was really solid - especially in C1 races, where he got 3 of his 4 highest scores from. In Britain, he showed all his value by jumping in for Stüssi, who was burnt due to the most awful team strategy ever - Fausto simply got himself another stage podium to end up 3rd overall.
7th in Pologne was his most valuable GC result in the "higher category" races - there were more stage Top 10s, but you can check them out on the first page of our HQ if interested. All in all, an awesome season by Masnada - and we realize once again how difficult it will be to find a "replacement" rider for him in two years time!
Colin Stüssi
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
36
30
€ 190´000
76.49
48
451
9.40
421
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of Britain, S4
---
3rd
Tour de Romandie, GC
3rd
Tour of Britain, S3
3rd
Giro d'Italia, S19
---
4th
Tour of Norway, S4
4th
Tour de Vineyards, GC
---
6th
Tour of Japan, GC
---
8th
Giro d'Italia, GC
8th
Tour de Suisse, GC
8th
Tour of Britain, GC
We were actually pretty surprised to see that Colin wasn't our second best scorer this year. Six GC Top 10 finishes - thereof his podium finish in Romandie as the highlight - definitely a great performance!
However, it's that final entry in the table - 8th in Britain - that made the difference in Masnada's favour. Being on track for a GC podium finish - even within reach of the win - the team decided that he had to work like crazy on the final stage, and he subsequently ran out of gas and dropped down to 8th. Otherwise, he'd definitely have outscored Masnada.
But his season still was rich in highlights. Although he (expectedly) got less individual wins than last year, he still was part of two TTT winning outfits, so at least 1/8 of these wins belong to him as well.
Another highlight surely was his 3rd place in a Giro stage - and also his 8th place GC finish in Italy. Unfortunately, he wasn't very consistent in time trials this year, otherwise he could have scored even higher.
In any case, he once again was our best stage racer in the high mountains, and we expect him to be an important part of the team even in PT; the Giro has shown that he does have the potential for lower Top 10 spots.
But like Masnada, he's also ageing, and we'll have to watch out for a successor sooner rather than later. Maybe he still has enough time to finally get a Swiss NC title, after being beaten by inches this year...
Szymon Rekita
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
58
29
€ 100´000
73.75
65
330
5.08
303
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of Britain, S2
---
3rd
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S4
3rd
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo, S5
3rd
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo, GC
---
4th
Tour of California, S1
---
6th
Arab Tour, GC
6th
Post Danmark Rundt, GC
That's quite a lot of Wins there - actually the most of any of our riders! Szymon "only" got one stage win - the one in Britain, surprisingly beating Dunbar - but as our strongest TT rider he definitely contributed a huge amount to our four TTT wins this year!
We knew before the season that he'd likely struggle in pure TT races, given that there were 5 stronger TTers in the division - but as mentioned before, he proved his great worth in TTTs - but also had some great individual results!
Besides the stage win in Britain, 3rd place in the Amissa Bongo ITT and the final GC must be his most precious individual result; but let's not forget about the two 6th places in HC stage races Arab Tour and Denmark, either.
All in all, Szymon was our second "cheapest" (or second most efficient) rider, behind Masnada, showing that despite not being among the top specialists his level is good enough to do well in PCT. However, PT will be a different story - we'll see whether he'll stay with us, or whether he'll be part of a trade for an even stronger TTer. He knows that in PT he'd be one of a plethora of similar riders, whereas in the lower divisions he can shine - we'll see what himself and our team prefer.
Xuban Errazkin
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
68
27
€ 160´000
76.46
48
297
6.19
539
Highlights
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
---
4th
Tour of Lithuania, GC
4th
Euskal Bizikleta, GC
---
5th
Euskal Bizikleta, S3
---
6th
Paris - Nice, S4
---
8th
Tour of South Africa, GC
---
9th
Paris - Nice, GC
Our highest hill-stat puncheur also ended up being our highest scoring one - only just. And it could actually have been even better, but we're definitely satisfied with Xuban's season.
Why could it have been better? Well, he was part of the TTT-winning lineup in South Africa, and easily held onto the front group on all other stages. The issue is, he was dropped early in the TTT and lost more than a minute there... So instead of winning the race, he only finished 8th.
And he also didn't excel in the typical puncheur races, where he was just lacking something against the top puncheurs. Sure, he's still young and could definitely be trained - but with Schmid maxing and being better everywhere except for TTs, we'll have to see if we can still find a niche spot for Xuban next year. Probably yes, but if we get a great offer, who knows...
But before considering next year, let's still mention his highlights - which must be on one hand the stage win in his first home race, Pais Vasco - and the 4th place GC finish in his other home race, Euskal Bizikleta. Also his 9th place in Paris - Nice definitely shows his big potential, in particular in hilly races with some (but not too many) TT kilometers!
Mauro Schmid
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
72
24
€ 210´000
77.19
44
274
6.23
766
Highlights
Win
Tour of Japan, KoM
---
2nd
Clasica San Sebastian
---
4th
Viana do Castelo
4th
Tour of Britain, S5
---
5th
Giro d'Italia, S10
5th
Tour de Suisse, S3
So, here he is - our biggest talent signed so far. And our 2nd highest valued rider according to MGUCI. However, it turns out that he was massively overestimated, as he was nowhere close to the five previous riders all costing us just about or below € 500 per point.
Mauro's PpRD is OK-ish, but it could have been higher - his best stage result all year long being a 4th place in a C1 race is a pretty big disappointment. And comparing his scoring to the rider who's pretty much a copy of him stat-wise clearly isn't in Mauro's favour.
We knew that we couldn't optimize his scoring this year, given that he still had to gain quite a lot of experience. But we were still hoping for a lot more active racing. Not necessarily points-wise, as he just reached his personal target, but a rider with his fighting spirit and punchy skillset could be so much more fun to watch.
Anyway, he saved his highlights for pretty late in the year - an amazing 2nd place in San Sebastian, showing that tough hilly races are his favourite terrain - and the KoM jersey win in Japan, thanks to one of his (way too) rare breakaway appearances.
Mauro will no doubt stay with the team - but we clearly expect him to be much stronger next year, and we also expect MGUCI to somewhat rethink their rider ratings...
Schmid also was less successful than we were hoping in U25 standings, winning none of them all year long. He got 3rd three times - and the good thing is that he's still eligible next season. Will he finally take home a white jersey? Certainly not a GT one, but maybe somehwere else, we'll see...
Cees Bol
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
76
28
€ 145´000
76.26
49
263
5.37
551
Highlights
Win
Giro d'Italia, S5
Win
Giro d'Italia, S15
Win
Circulo de Juárez, S2
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
---
2nd
Giro d'Italia, Points
2nd
Giro d'Italia, S9
2nd
Paris - Nice, S1
---
3rd
Tour Down Under, S2
3rd
Paris - Nice, S2
---
4th
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo, S4
---
5th
Giro d'Italia, S4
5th
Tour de Vineyards, S1
---
6th
Tour Down Under, GC
---
7th
Circulo de Juárez, GC
---
9th
Great Ocean Road Classic
Yes, Cees did a good job this year, at least comparing his outcome with the points target. But the list above makes it very clear why we cannot be fully satisfied:
The first part of the season was just awesome. A stage win in Juárez, contributing to a strong 7th place GC finish. A strong PTHC classic start in GORC. A great and unexpected GC run in TDU.
And obviously some amazing results in PT wildcard races. Two podiums in Paris - Nice, resulting in the yellow jersey for a day. And then, of course, the Giro. Two stage wins, another podium - and only narrowly beaten in the fight for the Ciclamino win. Awesome.
However, not much after these highlights. 4th in Amissa Bongo was the best he got from the entire rest of the season - which were more races than in the first part. This was really, really disappointing - especially given that we knew by then that he was capable of so much more.
His early season results suggest that we should just use him in longer stage races next season - something we'll definitely consider for him. But he could also be on our selling list - we'll see how transfers pan out!
Valentin Darbellay
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
86
26
€ 100´000
75.21
55
233
4.24
429
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
---
6th
Tour de Vineyards, GC
---
8th
Tour of Japan, GC
The highlights table clearly shows what Valentin mainly was in his debut season for us: a team player! Part of 3 TTT-winning lineups, including the home one in Romandie, he clearly proved his worth.
Otherwise, he was mostly helping Colin in the mountains - but even managed to get a GC Top 10 at two occasions! Both in Vineyards and Japan, he finished two spots behind Stüssi, getting a great result on his own.
What is remarkable is that he generally performed better than Stüssi in the time trials, which is likely due (or at least partly) to his far stronger skills in short TT stages. Given this year's success of a certain Mr. Eastman, Valentin could actually become a nice training target for us - something we didn't really consider given his lack of skill on the hills. But who knows? We know we need a successor for Stüssi anyway, so...
Stefan Küng
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
87
30
€ 250´000
75.19
55
231
4.20
1´082
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
---
6th
Hong Kong Challenge, GC
---
10th
Tour of Norway, GC
10th
Post Danmark Rundt, GC
We get to the first rider who didn't quite meet our expectations, as Stefan's target were 250 points. So the outcome is rather disappointing, in particular given that he was quite a lot higher last year with the Crabpack.
And this is even more remarkable given that he didn't have a strong TTT squad around him in 2022; this time, he was part of all four TTT winning lineups. But: he cannot be faulted for not getting another shot at his highest scoring 2022 race, the Benelux Challenge. We simply didn't participate there, so that's a big source of potential points gone.
And given that his Benelux win was by far his biggest scoring race last year, he actually didn't do a bad job this time around, either. 6th place in Hong Kong was rather surprising - even more so given that we had clearly better suited riders on the startlist. The 10th places in Norway and Denmark were exactly the kind of GC results we signed him for, so that was a job well done.
Given his four TTT wins, it's also clear that he was important as a teammate, enabling his leaders to do well in Pais Vasco, South Africa and Romandie. In the two C1 races, we ended up having a rider on the GC podium, and although Küng don't get any points for that, this is also partly thanks to him. So the couple of "missing" points don't hurt that much to be fair.
Next year, he'll surely be looking forward to some of the races, and it should be safe to say that he'll be doing more cobbles than in 2023. And it should be the first time in a couple of years that he won't ride for a new team - or will he?
And just to say, the fact that he was a pretty "expensive" rider - costing more than 1k per point - is mainly due to the fact that in 2022 he had a 400k wage which was already greatly brought down this year - and will hopefully be further reduced...
Alexys Brunel
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
88
25
€ 100´000
75.24
55
229
4.16
437
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
Win
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo, U25
Win
Post Danmark Rundt, U25
---
4th
Tour of Britain, S2
---
8th
Post Danmark Rundt, GC
---
10th
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo, GC
We notice that it's pretty interesting that three very similarly rated riders - Küng at 75.19, Darbellay at 75.21 and Brunel at 75.24 - had an almost identical score this year, taking 86th through 88th in the individual standings.
So, it could be supposed that Brunel actually met the expectations. He didn't quite, just like Küng. We thought that we had pretty conservative expectations, comparing him to some of last year's PCT TTers who did really well. But TT competition was a bit lower in 2022 - and the stronger TTers were far more consistent this year, with surprises being the exception.
With that in mind, we think that Alexys did a good job. Being part of 3 TTT wins shows that he was important for these lineups, so he did TT well, despite getting only one Top 5 individual stage result.
He got two of our three U25 jerseys - points that we'll be missing next year, clearly. But he also got two GC Top 10s, both in a pan-flat TT stage race and in a hilly one. We believe Alexys is ready for greater things - with some twists and tweaks. Will we get the funds to offer him the training he deserves? Or will someone else do it? We don't intend to let him go - but you never know how transfers (and renewals before that!) play out...
Stefan Bissegger
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
137
25
€ 105´000
75.39
54
126
2.33
833
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
Win
Deutschland Tour, U25
---
5th
Giro d'Italia, S8
It probably doesn't come as a surprise that our B&B duo, Brunel and Bissegger, are next to each other in the team hierarchy, given that both of them have a very similary skillset.
However, what is very disappointing for the latter, Bissegger, is that he scored over 100 points less than Brunel! Yes, we have to call it a bad season by Bissegger - even so bad that our training strategy for him must be heavily questioned now.
Sure, Stefan was another crucial member of our TTT lineup, but he didn't have a single race where he did as well as we were hoping individually. Only a single stage Top 5 - in a race where it didn't actually matter - simply isn't enough. He was almost always slower than Brunel, sometimes even slower than Küng. No GC Top 10 all year long is simply disappointing, period.
He still got his personal highlight, winning the white jersey in Germany - our "highest value" U25 win, if you want. It was the one race where he was even able to beat stronger TTers - but given the insane competition, it still wasn't enough for a decent GC result.
Whereas it's sure that his future is on our team (barring insane offers), it's more open than ever what it will really look like. Will he just be a "depth piece" in PT, or will he indeed grow into one of the world's fastest TTers? Would it be money well spent or money wasted? We'll find out over the next couple of seasons...
Dylan Page
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
173
30
€ 80´000
75.26
55
87
1.58
920
Highlights
3rd
Deutschland Tour, S2
3rd
Deutschland Tour, S4
3rd
Tour of Japan, S2
3rd
Euskal Bizikleta, S2
---
4th
Tour de Pologne, S4
---
5th
Tour of California, S5
Yeah, Dylan is another one of those riders around 75.20 OVL. But given that there are far too many similarly strong sprinters - and given that sprints often are pretty random - we couldn't expect the same productivity from him as from the likes of Brunel, Küng or Darbellay.
And so, his points target was far lower than the one of the previously mentioned riders. We expected him to get 75 points - he scored 87, check. Of course, we'd have loved him to make it 100, just to match Cedevita's 12 100+ scorers from last year.
But Dylan's start of the year just wasn't good enough for this. All of his four podium spots came in the last couple of months. And it was in particular his performance in Germany that saved his season - and he actually almost won the points jersey there!
No win, but four podiums, six Top 10s in total - could have been better, could have been worse. As Switzerland's best sprinter (by a mile), he'll very likely stay on our team for another year. But if both Bol and newly maxed Szarka stay as well, Dylan might as well be listed for trading, we'll see. But first, he has to be renewed - something he failed at in the last 3 seasons.
Krzysztof Marchewka
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
190
30
€ 60´000
72.82
71
73
1.03
822
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
---
7th
Tour de Pologne, S1
Unlike in CT, Krzysztof couldn't realistically hope for individual glory in PCT anymore. But like last year, he still was one of our main driving forces in the TTTs, being among our Top 5 time triallists. Unsurprisingly, he was in the squad in all four TTT wins.
Individually speaking, his lone highlight was 7th place in the prologue of his home tour. Nothing outstanding, but a very solid ride - and his only (individual) Top 10 result of the year.
Krzysztof isn't getting any younger, and with PT being yet another level higher, it remains to be seen whether we'll keep him around just for the TTTs, or if we'll sell him to a lower division team that could make better use of his skills. In particular looking at the low number of (potential) TTTs in the PT schedule, teams interested in signing him could be optimistic to get him, whether we'll renew him at all or not.
Giorgi Tediashvili
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
202
24
€ 50´000
73.71
43
58
1.35
862
Highlights
3rd
Geraardsbergen - Bosberg
---
9th
Gent - Wevelgem
Once we signed Giorgi, we made him our captain for C2 races - and hence went for 3 cobbled competitions, something we'd never have imagined before!
And boy, did he do an amazing job! 9th place in G-W was already a great result - but a podium in Geraardsbergen - Bosberg definitely must be his career highlight so far!
Unfortunately, he had an off-day in the race that should have suited him best, Lincoln GP, but overall he still achieved his rather ambitious goal of 50 points.
In most other races, he was Theuns' most important domestique - and looking at the top of our internal rankings, it's safe to say that Giorgi did a great job!
He has now reached his maximum level of experience, and whereas he'll never be quite as versatile as Eddie - we can't train all of his hills, cobbles and sprinter skills - he might still grow into a rock solid cobbler. He'll be here to help Eddie for another year (or a potential replacement?), but maybe next year he'll ready for more?
Felix Stehli
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
266
23
€ 50´000
69.73
58
37
0.64
1´351
Highlights
Win
Deutschland Tour, KoM
Felix only had one true highlight this year - but what a highlight it was! On the final day of the Deutschland Tour, he joined the breakaway and scored enough mountain points to take home the KoM jersey!
A great success in his first season, and one that reflects his future (intended) skillset pretty well - he's developing into a puncheur with some sprint skills. We're already looking forward to see more such moves in the future!
Hugo Page
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
279
22
€ 100´000
68.87
93
34
0.37
2´941
Highlights
3rd
Circulo de Juárez, U25
---
4th
Tour of Japan, KoM
Yet another youngster who had an impressive neo-pro season! Given that he's a future great sprinter, it makes sense that he got his most valuable result in Juárez, a sprinter stage race. Although we have to admit that he got 3rd in U25 and a decent GC result thanks to a breakaway appearance - where he did well in the sprints, though.
Surprisingly, he also got a good result in the Tour of Japan KoM, where he even had the lead for two days. Plenty of hidden skills to look forward to - we're happy that he took his first development steps now, with a year in PT surely allowing him to make another big move forward!
Manuel Stocker
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
347
31
€ 50´000
73.79
56
18
0.32
2´778
Highlights
20th
Arab Tour, GC
After being our key leadout rider in the first two seasons, Manuel's role is different nowadays, as we don't have a strong enough sprinter to provide a leadout train for.
So what he does now is using his experience to score points where you wouldn't expect him to. This year, his only points came in Arab Tour - where he did a solid ITT, and then was on the right side of a late split on the final stage. 20th place there, plus 3rd with the team - unexpected, but a good job!
Objectively speaking, there's no room for Manuel in our current setup, and he knows that. But he's the only rider left who has been with us (i.e. has ridden for us) ever since our project started, and so our desire would be to keep him around for his final maxed year. If however another team is in need of a really powerful leadout - check out Guillén's and Reinhardt's results in 2019 and 2020 - he might actually find a better suited home.
Scott Davies
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
431
28
€ 50´000
67.63
57
5
0.09
10´000
Highlights
2nd
Tour of Japan, Team
---
45th
Veenendaal - Veenendaal
Scott is a very late bloomer, joining the world of professional cycling only at the age of 28. But he's got some potential to grow into a solid domestique. Or an attacker. It's by an attack that he got a Top 50 in Veenendaals, whereas in Japan he was among the team's top 5 finishers, scoring some more points like this.
Scott will now return to his home team Lidl, and we wish him all the best on his future journey!
Nejc Kosic
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
444
33
€ 60´000
72.12
28
4
0.14
15´000
Highlights
25th
Gent - Wevelgem
25th
Geraardsbergen - Bosberg
---
47th
Rheden GP
The only reason we made Nejc our final signing during transfers was to provide Theuns an additional domestique. And Kosic did his job. He also was a specialist for the final scoring position, taking 25th twice in a C2 race, plus 47th in a PTHC one.
Turning 34 and declining again, Nejc knows that he's very unlikely to get another contract - even more so after Tediashvili's final development step. But maybe another team could use a cobbles domestique for C2 races?
Cedric Bakke Christophersen
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
471
22
€ 85´000
69.02
80
2
0.03
42´500
Highlights
46th
Great Ocean Road Classic
Cedric was our 2nd loanee from Lidl, and just like Davies managed to score in his neo-pro season. Cedric's two points came very early in the year; in the GORC, he joined the breakaway, and managed to get a Top 50 finish after being caught.
Generally speaking, Cedric was a very fun rider to have, very aggressive - and certainly our rider with the most breakaway appearances. He couldn't translate his active riding style into lots of points yet, but we're sure that he'll do a great job with a little more experience!
Gergely Szarka
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
484
25
€ 50´000
73.62
30
1
0.03
50´000
Highlights
7th
Tour Down Under, U25
Gergely's development journey finally comes to an end! Being a stagiaire in his first year, then loaned out twice, he finally completed his development path with us.
As we've already experienced with Stocker, a 76 sprinter isn't really a big scorer usually. So we didn't expect lots of points from Gergely, either - even more so given that we only let him race 30 RDs.
But he got one point - pretty unexpected to have him in the U25 scoring positions in a hilly stage race, but we'll take it. Starting from next year, we'll obviously expect some more points - even though it's clear that PT might be a little too competitive for him, and we'll certainly not send him to pure sprinter races...
We're positive though that his great speed on the flat should help him, as we've already seen in the early season with Bol. Maybe three sprinters on the roster will be too much, we don't know yet - but we believe that with a pretty heavy-loaded PT calendar it should do no harm. After all, we want to find out if our development investment ends up paying off!
Christoph Janssen
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
504
23
€ 50´000
68.91
65
0
0.00
n/a
Highlights
Win
Isle of Man TTT
Win
Tour of South Africa, S4 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Romandie, S1 (TTT)
Win
Tour de Vineyards, Team
Several wins, zero points - the highlights list makes it clear what Christoph is: a team player. In all of the winning TTT lineups he was part of, and also in Vineyards (also with a decent TTT result) where we won the team standings, Janssen never was among our first five finishers, and hence was denied any points.
His scoring isn't very likely to change a lot in his career, except if some day he goes down to CT. But we're glad to have him around - a Top 10 in the U23 ITT World Championships definitely shows that he does have some potential! And maybe he can even get some U25 points in PT next year?
Gustas Raugala
PCT
Age
Wage
OVL
RDs
Points
PpRD
€/P
505
22
€ 50´000
66.51
84
0
0.00
n/a
Highlights
Win
Post Danmark Rundt, Team
84 race days, no points - what would be horrible for a team leader, is something you absolutely can't blame a talent for. Gustas was our third loan-in this season, and returns back to Zalgiris as a more experienced rider who will hopefully find his first career points soon as well.
As is needed to gain the most experience possible, Gustas was sent to a variety of races, in particular witnessing many of Theuns' great results as a teammate on the road. He learnt a lot, and that's the main goal of the year achieved. We wish him all the best for his future - and maybe some day he'll "do a Tediashvili"?
And that's the year almost wrapped up - we're just updating our team history and we'll share it with you soon, before we'll finally close our 2023 thread and move over to 2024, with transfers quickly approaching! Stay tuned!
Abhi Thanks Yeah, really looking forward to see maxed Schmid as well - although he'd probably have made more of an impact in PCT for the time being
sean I always loved ITTs/TTTs, but that was definitely not reflected in my first year roster You did a better job there
Bushwackers Thanks I don't really have an idea of what to do yet, but I know that I have several 30+ riders now - thereof really important ones - so I guess the task will be to get a chance at staying up, plus replace one or two of the older riders this year and the rest of them next time
jaxika Thanks, glad to join you - not so glad to ride against Gabby, though
Nemo Guess who were my role models? Indeed, Cedevita with their great depth was one team I tried to imitate, along with ZARA who rocked the TT races last year. The latter wasn't possible to the same extent, given some stronger competition and - more importantly - more consistent results of the best TTers. And while I didn't quite achieve Cedevita's 100+ scorers mark, I guess 10 above 200 points isn't too shabby, either
I hope you're right with the future leaders in PT. Schmid for sure, although PCT would currently be the best fit for him. CT, no way with the current OVL formula. Szarka will be one among a ton of 78 sprinters, but at least he's a great rouleur. And the 3rd one, I guess you mean Tediashvili - not sure what I'll do with him, will surely prioritize more local riders with training. But we'll see...
Thanks for the tips, do you think I should even send Schmid to Qatar? Guess we'll need to work on his PRL skills a bit before... But yeah, he probably should avoid Lopez, Areruya and Higuita whenever he can - for the time being
red Super easy, that's what it looks like because a lot "just" fell into place. Maybe in hindsight I should've left Theuns for you and used the money for training, given that we surprisingly didn't even need his points to promote bvious
For Tediashvili, I also just realized how versatile he is when quadsas put him up for sale, he should indeed be a nice part of the cobbles squad Never as strong as Theuns, but he can become decent indeed.
And thanks for nominating my HQ, it wasn't to be
SotD Thanks for the congrats! It's an open secret that I'd love Schmid to become of the world's best, but I guess with the way PCM's puncheur handling changes over time I'll need to find a smart training path for him to get there...
Given our - rather surprising - promotion to PT, one might think that we just had our most successful season ever. Which is definitely not wrong - but it isn't the whole truth, either. There are domains where we did a great job, and others where we failed. Let's take a final look back, and compare our 2023 numbers to the past!
Wins
Let's start with the best news. Which is the classics. In our first 4 years, we won 3 classics. This year, Theuns alone won 3 classics - and the team won a 4th, with the IoM TTT. Definitely an awesome job - and quite a transition from the GC-heavy team we were last year...
Stage races in general weren't overly successful - at least not in terms of top results. Stage Wins? All-time low. We only got 6 of them, which is lower than the 8 we got in our first three years - including our first attempt in PCT two years ago. If you count Bol's Giro stage wins, we get the total up to 8 as well, but we decided to not count them. So it definitely wasn't our best year stage-wise - it's actually 7 wins less than last year!
And GC-wise, we were as bad as in our first year in 2019, where we didn't get a GC win - we didn't in 2023, either. Which isn't unexpected, but still a tad disappointing.
So, that's an all-time low in two categories - and in terms of total wins we weren't awesome, either. It's actually surprising that we did worse in terms of stage and GC wins than back in 2021, where we relegated in the end. The difference is that we had a Gianni Moscon in great form back then, and team legend Reinhardt also did pretty well.
So, how does it come that we still promoted? Well, the keyword is "depth" - we may not have taken tons of wins, but we were often close - and almost always in the Top 10. This is reflected by the next category:
Points
Before looking at the numbers, let's just recall that we did have more race days back in 2021 - our first PCT attempt - which makes the difference in total points even more impressive:
The diagram definitely had to be rescaled compared to last year, with our new points record - 3'938 points - being almost twice as much as the previous highscore of 2'158 which we got last year!
And in terms of PpRD, due to the aforementioned race day reduction, we're actually more than twice as high as in our previous PCT adventure - 24.16 vs. 11.45! We were already talking about a fantastic season last year with new points and PpRD records - this year with PCT point scales, we literally smashed this record, which really feels great!
So, whereas we didn't have a team winning a lot, we did have a team scoring a lot. All over the place, adding up to a ridiculous total that would almost have meant the division win last year... We had no chance against the flying Chicken this time, but cruising to a clear 2nd place and back-to-back promotions is awesome - our team history confirms that we really had a fantastic year yet again!
But, well, after the last season we were talking about not being PCT-ready. We probably were, not the least thanks to the addition of Eddie Theuns, plus Brunel and Bissegger maxing, Schmid developing, Errazkin arriving, and Küng scoring. Last year, we were afraid that we wouldn't do well enough in particular in the higher category races - so let's take a look at our success per category:
Race Categories
Last year, the lowest race category was our most successful one by far, in terms of wins, points, and PpRD. This obviously wouldn't be the case this year, given that we only had three C2 races, and some pretty tough restrictions of who we could send there.
Let's take another look at the wins we got - this time including the special jerseys:
Wins by race category
PTHC
HC
C1
C2
Classic
-
2
2
-
4
Stage
-
2
4
-
6
GC
-
-
-
-
0
Points
-
-
-
-
0
KoM
1
1
-
-
2
U25
1
1
1
-
3
Team
-
2
2
-
4
Total
2
8
9
0
19
From 25 wins last year - thereof 13 stage wins - down to 19. Well, 21 actually, including the two Giro stage wins. Doesn't sound great, but it isn't awful, either.
Well, we might have hoped for a couple more white jerseys - in particular from Schmid, who didn't win a single one - but it's still a new record. No green jersey this time, but two KoM ones - and, what we're most proud of, four team standings wins! 3 wins last year were great already, but we managed to better that - it's pretty symbolic for our team strength!
Because individual strength mostly came down to Eddie Theuns, who won no less than three cobbled classics. Given all the points scored with these wins, we can easily live with fewer stage wins than in other years - even though we recognize that we could improve in this domain again.
While we didn't win a lot, we often weren't that far off, meaning we had quite some Top 10s - here's the overview:
Top 10s by race category
PTHC
HC
C1
C2
Classic
4
3
6
2
15
Stage
16
23
39
-
78
GC
2
10
12
-
24
Total
22
36
57
2
117
We were already amazed by the huge amount of Top 10s last year - put in relation to RDs - and so are we this time again! We actually aren't much worse off, which is a huge performance given the far stronger competition in PCT! We had 103 Top 10s in 140 RDs last year - or 74% - and we have 117 in 163 RDs this year, which is 72%. So in almost 3/4 of our race days we got a rider in the Top 10 - pretty awesome!
However, as last year, we can see that the lower the race category, the higher our chances for a good result. Which clearly isn't optimal for scoring. But when you look at these 10 Top 10 GC spots in 8 HC stage races, clearly we weren't awful even in the more competitive categories.
Where we definitely do have some work to do is in PTHC. We still don't have a stage or GC win in this category, and next year it definitely should be time to change that! We were actually more successful on PT and PTM level, with two stage wins in the Giro, two GC Top 10s in the Giro and Paris - Nice, plus a 3rd place in Vlaanderen... So we know we're on the right track, and it often just comes down to daily form. Let's hope that form will often be just as good in PT races as it was this year!
Finally, we take a look at what really counts in the end: Points.
Points & PpRD by race category
PTHC
HC
C1
C2
Classic
334
395
374
43
1146
PpRD
27.83
32.92
20.78
7.17
23.88
-
-
-
-
Stage Race
538
1159
1095
0
2792
PpRD
17.93
25.76
27.38
n/a
24.28
-
-
-
-
Total
872
1554
1469
43
3938
PpRD
20.76
27.26
25.33
7.17
24.16
Whereas last year the PpRD was higher the lower the race category was, we could kind of stop this trend this year - which clearly is a factor for promotion. Not the only one, though, given PTHC scoring average would have been enough for promotion...
And the difference clearly isn't as huge as it was last year, where HC and C1 were below 10 PpRD, and C2 above 20... In 2023, the highest race category still had the lowest reward, but 20 PpRD is pretty much what you want to get to have a shot at promotion. Some may say if you barely make this mark in the highest value races, you won't get there - but we still made it thanks to great scoring in particular in HC races!
Sure, a lot of those 33 PpRD in HC classics comes from Theuns' two wins - 280 out of 395 points. Still, the others did a decent job as well. And Theuns wasn't quite as useful in stage races, so other riders were responsible for these points.
All in all, we had a very solid outcome from all kinds of race categories - kind of exluding C2, which can't be as high even just due to rider restrictions. But we did well in all of PTHC, HC and C1 races - even though the former didn't feel like this at all.
So, what can we say now? Are we ready to tackle PT?
Well, maybe kind of. Our 2023 PpRD wouldn't have been enough to survive in PT, but we would at least have been in the mix. So we believe that with some good additions here and there, and maybe some rider training, we could actually have a shot at staying up.
However, we also know that our roster is ageing, and that we'll eventually have to find some new leaders. Not necessarily replacing all of them right now, but getting some younger blood would definitely be a good idea. It's going to be an interesting transfer period for sure...
But before getting there, let's finally take a look at our updated rider history - where we actually have a new top scorer once again...
Rider History
67 riders from 24 nations have been under contract (full, stagiaire or loan) in the last 5 years. Considering our team history, it's not surprising that most of them (20) are Swiss, and the 2nd most often occurring nationality is Italy (9).
Despite the plethora of Swiss riders, it's an Italian who was leading the standings after the 2022 season - now, we even have two Italians at the top! Let's take a look:
Rider
Total
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
1
Fausto Masnada
1171
183
L
166
326
496
2
Gianni Moscon
1049
459
383
207
3
Colin Stüssi
857
406
451
4
Theo Reinhardt
846
596
250
5
Edward Theuns
689
689
6
Szymon Rekita
647
26
291
330
7
Nairo Quintana
563
563
8
Mauro Schmid
378
61
43
274
9
Marco Guillén
303
303
10
Xuban Errazkin
297
297
11
Andrea Manfredi
263
105
93
65
12
Cees Bol
263
263
13
Mirco Saggiorato
258
115
128
15
14
Krzyztof Marchewka
248
175
73
15
Gino Mäder
242
37
37
L
168
16
Marcel Aregger
239
239
17
Alexys Brunel
234
5
L
229
18
Valentin Darbellay
233
233
19
Stefan Küng
231
231
20
Cyrille Thièry
193
90
50
53
21
Tom Scully
179
179
22
Hermann Pernsteiner
158
110
48
23
Stefan Bissegger
156
12
18
L
126
24
Grzegorz Stepniak
130
130
25
Leonardo Basso
129
L
62
40
27
26
Alfredo Balloni
108
108
27
Benedikt Mundle
97
70
27
28
Jan-André Freuler
94
94
29
Issiaka Cissé
93
34
59
30
Manuel Stocker
88
12
13
33
12
18
31
Dylan Page
87
87
32
Gabriel Chavanne
77
77
33
Giorgi Tediashvili
66
8
58
34
Mikiel Habtom
63
63
35
Fabian Lienhard
58
L
52
6
36
Simon Pellaud
54
54
37
Thomas Boudat
39
L
L
39
38
Felix Stehli
37
37
39
Hugo Page
34
34
40
Gian Piero Signorini
25
25
41
Erick Rowsell
25
25
42
Max Walscheid
17
4
13
43
Christoph Janssen
14
14
0
44
Pedro Merino Criado
11
11
45
Nico Brüngger
11
11
46
Emmanuel Morin
11
11
47
Robin Froidevaux
10
0
10
48
Alexandros Matsangos
10
10
49
Pascal Eenkhoorn
8
8
50
Miltiadis Giannoutsos
8
8
51
Patrick Gamper
6
6
52
Gergely Szarka
6
5
L
L
1
53
Aaron Van Poucke
5
5
54
Panagiotis Karatsivis
5
5
55
Scott Davies
5
5
56
Ioannidis Kiriakidis
4
4
57
Nejc Kosic
4
4
58
Noam Cohen
3
3
59
Aimiliano Vila
2
2
60
Cedric Bakke Christophersen
2
2
61
Riccardo Minali
0
0
62
Alessandro Fedeli
0
0
63
Andrea Vendrame
0
L
L
64
Brent Van Moer
0
0
65
Jason Tesson
0
0
66
Gustas Raugala
0
0
67
Jan Sommer
0
L
He did it! Fausto Masnada, the last of our remaining first-year FA signings, takes over the lead from Gianni Moscon, who was traded to Zalgiris last offseason. And that's a pretty surprising new leader - even reaching 300 points would have been great for Fausto (we expected 250), but he got almost 500! Easily enough to overtake Moscon, who drops down to 2nd.
Another team legend in Theo Reinhardt even loses his podium spot, with Colin Stüssi surprisingly improving on last year's total as well, and narrowly claiming 3rd place for now. And then we already have Eddie Theuns, for whom a single season was enough to enter the all-time rankings in 5th position! He also bettered Reinhardt's points record for a season by almost 100 - although we have to mention that Reinhardt got his fantastic score when we were down in CT!
Rekita was able to hold his 6th place, overtaking Quintana and in turn being passed by Theuns. All of these Top 7 riders either are no longer riding for us - or are aged 30+ by the start of the 2024 season, so several of them might actually be traded in an attempt to rejuvenate our roster.
This will definitely not be the case for Mauro Schmid! Our first fully homegrown rider (i.e. without loaning him out) is already in 8th place - and he has only maxed now! Despite the almost 200 points gap to 7th, he should be in a prime position to jump up some spots already next year - and in a couple of years become our new all-time leader!
Given that we're now going to PT, where much more points are available than in our previous seasons, it's probably the last time that we see team legend Marco Guillén in the Top 10. The Costa Rican was our top scorer in the inaugural season, and we still have great memories of him! Once again, thanks for bringing a winning spirit to the team, Marco!
With Xuban Errazkin, another new signing enters the table right in the Top 10, taking exactly this 10th place. He did quite a lot better than expected as well, and even though his future on the team is unsure, it was a pleasure watching his consistent riding!
Cees Bol isn't far outside the Top 10, either, and with another Giro similar to last year's, he would easily enter them. Valentin Darbellay and Stefan Küng also join the list in the Top 20 - even though you may argue that the former actually is the same rider as Gino Mäder, who would then have almost 500 points in total.
Whereas leader Fausto Masnada has an entry in every column - he was loaned out to Generali in 2020 - only one single rider actually was riding for us every single year. You find him in 30th position - Manuel Stocker. He's never been a big scorer, but he's done a huge job as a leadout rider in his first two years, sadly not getting a top sprinter to support in recent years. His career is slowly coming to an end as well, though, as he'll enter his final maxed season. Still riding for us - or getting another chance to actually show his leadout skills?
It's actually worth noting that during our 5 years of existence, we only had 7 riders not scoring any points for us. One of them is Vendrame, who was under contract for two years - and loaned out the same number of times. Jan Sommer also didn't get a chance to score for us so far, being loaned out to Kraftwerk in his neo-pro year. So it's just 5 riders actually riding for us and failing to score - we believe that's a pretty low value!
So, that's the 2023 season definitely wrapped up now. Expect this list to look quite different after one year of PT racing by the end of 2024 - with hopefully enough total points to actually hold the division!
See you soon in the 2024 HQ with our renewals update - stay tuned, and thanks to all for following this year!
Tour of Britain | 
Edward Theuns might have a shot at a great result, with the stage definitely not being pan-flat.
Szymon Rekita!
Alexys Brunel also had a great day on the road and finished 4th on the day, taking the U25 lead after stage two. And we also took the lead in the team standings - not the least thanks to 
Stefan Küng's 10th place on the day. Given that there sadly are no pictures neither of Rekita nor of Brunel, we get to see Küng riding:
Fausto Masnada, our main GC hopes, lost 46" and 1'06" - slightly slower than expected, but still in the fight for 2nd in GC, with Dunbar easily being the top favourite.
Rheden GP | 
Giorgi Tediashvili, finishing 28th. 
Nejc Kosic also picked up a couple of points with 47th place.
Xuban Errakin's shoulders.
But yeah, I guess we might find another sponsor - and otherwise, the existing ones confirmed they can add some extra funds for one year of PT racing. Should we unexpectedly stay up, we'd definitely need another sponsor, though 
Tour of Japan | 
Nairo Quintana, 2021)
Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec | 
Euskal Bizikleta | 
Gergely Szarka 
GP Kigali
Tour de Vineyards, GC
Isle of Man TTT
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo, S5
Tour of California, S1
Arab Tour, GC
Post Danmark Rundt, GC
Viana do Castelo
Circulo de Juárez, S2
Tour Down Under, S2
Hong Kong Challenge, GC
You did a better job there 
bvious
