We had sent a strong group of climbers to the race only to find that it wasn’t quite as hard as we had hoped.

Colex showed his Mexican champions jersey nicely in the break, but the others disappointed massively when the climbing really began. In every way a disappointing race!

1	Phillip Gaimon	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	5h18'19
53	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	+ 8'25
70	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 9'48
77	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 10'16
127	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 11'56
132	Mateusz Taciak	Team Live Nation	+ 12'29
137	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 13'35
150	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 17'37

In this mainly flat stage race we had high hopes for Renäng due to his TT-skills.

He put in a solid effort on stage 1 getting an 8th place that he would hold in the GC throughout the race.
For sprints we had hoped that Westling would be able to do something, but even the slightest hill seems too much for him. Good thing that Lindau with some nice aggressive riding made sure to show the jersey.
Getting close to the climbers jersey and taking 6th place on the final stage makes it an approved race from the young Swede!
Also he helped us getting only 1 second short of winning the team competition, which is pretty close to a success!

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Viktor Renäng	8th	+ 37
Stage 2	Essa Khalifa	65th	+ 50
Stage 3	Mattias Westling	23rd	s.t.
Stage 4	Philip Lindau	6th	s.t.

1	Ian Stannard	Team ASDA-Savers	10h18'58
8	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 37
24	Jussi Veikkanen	Team Live Nation	+ 55
65	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 2'10
83	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 12'11
94	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 16'59
96	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	+ 17'05
120	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 18'20

Our last race in January was this Australian sprinters classic.

Once again Westling proved unable to stay with the peloton in anything more hilly than an unusually flat pancake.

1	Sarawut Sirironnachai	Siam Cement - Lenovo	4h26'53
66	Sami Tiainen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
69	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	s.t.
91	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	s.t.
118	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	+ 17'09
119	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	s.t.
126	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	s.t.
130	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	s.t.

Paavo started his season in the HC-race Down Under Classic, where neither him nor the team made much of a result.
After that he stayed in Australia for the Tour Down Under, which should suit him much better with some hills along the way. Being on a team that mainly focused on breakways didn’t give him many chances to shine as a helper though.



Samuel only raced one race this month, but being the PT-opening TT Chrono des Herbiers that was quite a debut for him. Not that he achieved much of a result but it truly was a huge learning experience for him.

In spite of the somewhat limited success from the team one rider both tried the hardest and got the most of it:

Philip Lindau

All in all not a very impressive month for the team…

We might only be racing two races but those two being Benelux Challenge and Tour of the Middle East gives us a lot of race days.

The overall goal is to look like a professional cycling team this month…

Renäng and Dabrowski will be racing both race with Viktor obviously aiming for the TT’s and Dabrowski as a Lieutenant for Cioban in Benelux and Chris Anker Sørensen in the Middle East.
Westling will be aiming for the sprints in the desert while Dahlberg is to try his luck in the Benelux sprints.

Even though Sergiu Cioban got a few half-decent stage results this was a terrible race for us in general as our jersey was only seen when looking at the rear end of the peloton.
No attacks for stage wins and no chasing early breaks. This is just not good enough!

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Linus Dahlberg	20th	s.t.
Stage 2	Sergiu Cioban	15th	s.t.
Stage 3	Sergiu Cioban	37th	s.t.
Stage 4	Sergiu Cioban	21st	+ 4'39
Stage 5	Sergiu Cioban	13th	+ 2'08
Stage 6	Linus Dahlberg	11th	+ 9'06

1	Marcel Wyss	Team Vontobel	26h15'01
18	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 4'38
72	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 11'38
75	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 13'31
104	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	+ 19'05
112	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 20'31
150	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 46'41
152	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 47'54

We had high hopes for this to be the race where we would finally get a good result.
Stage 1 was spent getting used to the warmth and already on stage 2 we saw Chris putting in a very strong effort finishing 3rd.

Sadly the rest of the race was postponed. It kinda feels like someone wants us to fail…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Chris Anker Sørensen	15th	s.t.
Stage 2	Chris Anker Sørensen	3rd	s.t.

1	Yasmani Martinez	Team Nordeus	7h58'58
8	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 12
20	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 20
39	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	s.t.
109	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 12'21
110	Serafin José Blanco	Team Live Nation	s.t.
112	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	s.t.
113	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	s.t.

In South Africa he helped Shujins on the way to a good race finishing 2nd in the GC.

Again in Mallorca his captains rewarded him for his bottle-duties with Seeldrayers getting a GC 5th. Skujins continued Swedbank’s tendency to get solid results when bringing Paavo by taking an 8th place in Gisborne GP. All in all a good month for Paajanen helping out the team.


Samuel only had one race this month, but that being Paris – Nice certainly put him on a challenge.
In the opening TTT he did his best to pull the team to minimize it’s time loss, but it’s obvious why they were so happy to get some TT-depth by including Pökälä in their squad.
I don’t think I’ll offend anyone by claiming that the general output for Aker – MOT in Paris – Nice showed that they could do with a bit more depth elsewhere as well…

One rider did something worth a mention so it wasn't hard to decide to give the award for February to

We have a busy March starting in the Swedish C1 race Scandinavia Open Road Race and continuing in Ireland for Seskin Classic. In both races we will be led by Cioban and Sarabia.

From there Cioban will go to Algarve alongside CAS while Sarabia will be travelling to Canada for Tour de Beauce.

Himmerland Rundt is a target race for us, though our first couple of month makes the win goal look more like impossible than hard. Still we have brought out strongest flat line-up hoping to do something.

We will be ending the month on Corsica where CAS and Renäng will be looking for some solid stage results while we have a lot of youngster going here to build experience.

Up against the PCT teams we didn’t expect much from this Swedish race, but still had hopes that we could show ourselves on home soil. We didn’t…

1	Cesare Di Maggio	Venchi - Ferranti	5h06'43
54	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 41
62	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	s.t.
66	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 1'58
102	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 4'02
119	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 6'35
120	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 7'29
123	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 9'40

Sarabia showed some good spirit in Ireland by being the one to open the real attacking part of the race.
Unfortunately he couldn’t be part of the final attacks though…

1	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	Team ASDA-Savers	4h50'32
29	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 2'19
43	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 4'58
87	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 5'42
107	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	s.t.
111	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
119	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	s.t.
121	Jussi Veikkanen	Team Live Nation	+ 7'51

On the first stage we made ourselves noticed when Renäng failed to hang on to the peloton at the small climb, but he is mainly here for the TT anyway. Stage 2 waas pretty much a copy of that…

Stage 3 was much better with Jaroslaw in the early break and CAS showing himself with several attacks towards the finish line.
On the TT we were back to the theme of Renäng disappointing massively. He must have caught some sort of exotic virus – perhaps he’ll even be a GT winner when he gets rid of it?
Also CAS failed to impress so the GC hopes went down the drain as well…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Krisztian Lovassy	44th	s.t.
Stage 2	Krisztian Lovassy	32nd	s.t.
Stage 3	Chris Anker Sørensen	8th	+ 1'22
Stage 4	Sergiu Cioban	32nd	+ 1'28

1	Jose Mendes	Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	15h19'16
24	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 3'30
27	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 3'32
29	Mateusz Taciak	Team Live Nation	+ 3'33
62	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 6'03
103	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 11'41
114	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 16'06
128	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 44'11

Lindau made a move early on stage 1, but in vain. That was all anyone noticed of us until the result list showed that Ignacio is ready from the start. On stage 2 we were even more invisible.
We had high hopes/dreams for Sarabia on the uphill finish of stage 3, but alas…
Colex put in a solid but unempressive TT on stage 4
Stage 5 was for the break so naturally my guys made sure to stay in the peloton where Linus did OK to finish 7th in their sprint.

Our breakaway king Lindau tried again on the final stage, but didn’t have the legs to hang on all the way in spite of the break stealing the stage once again.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Ignacio Sarabia	10th	s.t.
Stage 2	Linus Dahlberg	26th	s.t.
Stage 3	Ignacio Sarabia	25th	+ 3'47
Stage 4	Bernardo Colex	22nd	+ 47
Stage 5	Linus Dahlberg	13th	+ 5'49
Stage 6	Linus Dahlberg	27th	+ 1'05

1	Vegard Robinson Bugge	Risa - Ergon	18h02'47
26	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 3'56
82	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 11'30
85	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 11'55
91	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	+ 12'13
132	Sami Tiainen	Team Live Nation	+ 22'03
133	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 22'30
153	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 51'38

At the start of the season this was meant to be a big highlight and we even made it a goal to win here. Recent results in mind we didn’t expect much at the start though and through most of the race we were as invisible as everyone expected.

But then on the last few km Westling appeared at the back of the main train built by Ameriabank.

Great positioning and an even greater sprint giving him the win on the day he was signed for given that he needs a route as flat as this one to do anything!

1	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	4h06'10
2	Kevin Peeters	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	s.t.
63	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	s.t.
65	Sami Tiainen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
66	Jussi Veikkanen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
70	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	s.t.
97	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	s.t.
98	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	s.t.

Again we are up against the big teams. We don’t expect much else than experience and hopefully a TV break.
Chris tried on stage 1 but was denied.

Renäng did his best and set a provisional best early on in the ITT and a stage 19th in this peloton isn’t too bad for him.
On the final mountain stage we went back to invisibility…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Krisztian Lovassy	33rd	s.t.
Stage 2	Viktor Renäng	19th	+ 24
Stage 3	Chris Anker Sørensen	42nd	+ 5'08

1	Domenico Pozzovivo	Kappa-ENI	6h14'44
46	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 6'03
86	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 13'50
110	Serafin José Blanco	Team Live Nation	+ 23'16
115	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 27'22
123	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 27'45
135	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 33'05
140	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	+ 33'42
145	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 41'23

It was a great honour for Paavo to be selected for his team’s home race and he did a good job helping his captain Skujins to be part of the final selection and getting a 5th place.

In Ukraine the captain was called Ben Hermans and Paavo continued to put in some really good work as a helper.
As a thanks for all his hard work he was allowed to chase the break on the final stage. He managed to get away, but was caught again before the finale. Still a good showing though having used a lot of energy he ended up finishing behind the main bunch.



The cobbled season was supposed to be one of the times Pökälä should shine, but in Omloop he wasn’t quite sharp enough and with Breen out in front all day (eventually finishing 3rd) he was locked by the team tactics.
Köln is not even worth talking about while Gent – Wevelgem was even worse for both him and his team.
In the Basque Country he restored a bit if his honour being part of the team that helped Boasson Hagen to a GC 3rd.
He was thrown into the fire at Ronde van Vlaanderen to help mainly Sibilla. Sadly he crashed and Samuel finished far down after having waited for his leader.

This is an easy one:

Finally someone seized the day and got us a win.

Renäng will get another chance to shine in Windhoek ITT where he ought to be among the favourites.
In GP Oudenaarde we have selected Sarabia in case the hills decide, Lovassy and Kullpi for the cobbles and Westling in case it comes down to a bunch sprint.
Sarabia will also go to Brasil for Ruta America del Sur where he will be our undisputed leader though Renäng will be aiming for a good ITT-result. Both here, in Tour de Bretagne and Istrian Spring Trophy he will be supported by Cioban while Dahlberg should go stage hunting.

Off all the races on the calendar this is one of the few where we are considered among the favourites.

As usual when we have started having hopes we get a disappointment as Renäng has a very bad day - just as his team mates you could say. Must have been something they ate at the hotel?

1	Ian Stannard	Team ASDA-Savers	55'23
9	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 51
18	Mateusz Taciak	Team Live Nation	+ 1'31
19	Jussi Veikkanen	Team Live Nation	+ 1'38

Lots of cobbled hills today so not really our speciality.
Nevertheless Westling jumped into the break, which is always something when the sponsor is starting to get grumpy.

He fought to hang on, but this was not a day of miracles. It was great however to see both Lovassy and young Kulppi hanging on to the second big group where Krisztian finished 2nd in the sprint for 10th.
We have had many worse days this season…

1	Aleksei Saramotins	Evonik - Signal Iduna	5h54'10
11	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 1'32
17	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	s.t.
41	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	+ 3'32
89	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 11'08
91	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	s.t.
103	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 13'50
109	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	s.t.

After a disappointing race in Namibia Viktor Renäng redeemed himself by winning the prologue here.

First Reis went in the break on stage 2, but then he was called back as we needed him to pace the peloton. Renäng has no chance of winning the race but we want to do it properly anyway. In the finale we had Dahlberg perfectly placed but his legs were very far from perfect...
Stage 3 was the first one with real hills. Not too decisive but more decisive than Ignacio had hoped as he rode it defensively and lost a bit of time.
They say we were at stage 4 as well but quite frankly I'm not sure I believe them. Ignacio didn't lose any time though so it's not all lost.
Stage 5 was another stage designed for the brave attackers so obviously we kept calm and out of sight.
On stage 6 we finally had a bit of luck if you can call the crash happening right behind Linus and Ignacio instead of right in front of them that.

On the pancake flat stage 7 Linus and Ignacio tried their luck as psrinters agin, but they really should start being a bit more proactive since they fail to do much if they wait to the final km.

Final day and Linus sees if he's better at uphill sprinting. He's not…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Viktor Renäng	1st	- 1
Stage 2	Linus Dahlberg	12th	s.t.
Stage 3	Ignacio Sarabia	22nd	+ 25
Stage 4	Ignacio Sarabia	37th	s.t.
Stage 5	Ignacio Sarabia	17th	+ 2'43
Stage 6	Linus Dahlberg	16th	s.t.
Stage 7	Ignacio Sarabia	22nd	s.t.
Stage 8	Linus Dahlberg	19th	s.t.

1	Bruno Borges	Bonsucro	30h02'31
18	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 2'43
48	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 2'59
58	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 4'19
74	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 9'03
94	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 14'53
127	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 44'32
128	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 49'35

We had a goal of doing well here but have to say we're less than optimistic considering the complete lack of spirit shown by our punchers lately.
On the first stage Olli showed the fighting spirit we want as he went in the break and took averything along the way putting him in lead of both the mountain competition and the young riders classification.

Stage 2 was very chaotic, especially in teh finale where the wet roads made it some very dangerous conditions. Fortunately that's one of Lovassy's specialties so he got us a top 10, while Olli hangs on to the KOM jersey for another day.
Stage 3 was worse as Sarabia proved that he's not really here mentally when he got dropped.
On stage 4 it was time for the real racing with a small uphill finish. And finally one of our punchers bothered taking part in the fight.
Before stage 5 we was mentioned among teh faourites, which really is the worst thing that can happen to us it seems…
So the next day no one counted on us - and rightly so.

On the final stage we decided to take things in our own hands and keep the break under control along with Carlsberg - apparently no one else can be bothered?
It didn't really help us getting a top result though, but I guess that's not for us anyway.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Linus Dahlberg	12th	s.t.
Stage 2	Krisztian Lovassy	10th	s.t.
Stage 3	Sergiu Cioban	16th	s.t.
Stage 4	Sergiu Cioban	7th	+ 16
Stage 5	Sergiu Cioban	36th	+ 6'44
Stage 6	Ignacio Sarabia	2th	+ 2'33
Stage 7	Sergiu Cioban	17th	+ 4'05

1	Timothy Duggan	Team TomTom	26h42'09
14	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 2'12
54	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 6'18
57	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 7'06
60	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 7'50
69	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 9'11
74	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	+ 10'32
88	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 13'37

Our final race of the month was this Croatian hilly stage race. Hopefully it'll be better than all the other hilly stage races…

As usual we had high hopes for Renäng on the opening prologue, but once again he did not quite live up to the high expectations. Taciak did great though ending up on a surprising 4th place.
It's starting to get trivial with Sarabia and Cioban finishing calmly inside the 2nd group with a minor time loss.
Nevertheless they continue to refuse attacking and avoiding that we have to very equally skilled riders.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Mateusz Taciak	4th	+ 1
Stage 2	Ignacio Sarabia	13th	+ 31
Stage 3	Ignacio Sarabia	8th	s.t.
Stage 4	Linus Dahlberg	7th	s.t.

1	Gracjan Lejman	FCB - Polska	10h52'31
12	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 1'02
25	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 1'05
44	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 2'03
65	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 2'07
72	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	+ 2'14
95	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 6'49
99	Mateusz Taciak	Team Live Nation	+ 8'27

In Taiwan Paavo helped Skujins to an 8th place in the GC, though he didn't quite impress enough to take much of the honour.
Race Horizon Park was a day of fetching bottles inside the peloton, which he then did without much hazzle.
Paavo rode Romandie in support of Löfkvist and Hoogerland without impressing much.



Roubaix was a mixed experience for Samuel, while it's great to take part in one of the biggest races on the calender and seeing your captain getting a solid result it's never fun not being able to finish a race.
From there he went for another weeks hard work in Tour de Romandie where the team got some really good results.
On the TTT finishing on a small mountain he worked very hard on the flat for his leaders as it was never the plan that he should finish with the others. The team finished 6th so that was a good effort from Samuel.

All-in-all a good weeks work from him.

So who have deserved this award this month?
Almost everyone have disappointed and only one rider tried - and that only once.
Still getting one of our very rare wins makes the difference for:

Viktor Renäng

The boys really need to try harder than that to get teh results we need.

May is a very quiet month for us with only two classics and the finish of Tour of the Middle East planned.

When the race was interrupted Chris was sitting on 8th place in the GC. Now it's time to defend and improve.

He tried but it quickly became clear that he have lost the great form he had when the first two stages were raced.
Surprisingly enough Westling came over teh first few mountains in decent conditions allowing him to sprint to a few top 10's.

On the queenstage we tried doing something clever by putting on some pressure and then sending out Dabrowski. At first it looked good, but in the end it was a wild goose chace and Jaroslaw cracked too soon to be useful for Chris.
The following day it was Sørensens time to crack dropping all our hopes after the great dtart on the sand.
Both Jaroslaw and Chris tried to reddem us, but all in vain.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Chris Anker Sørensen	22nd	+ 21
Stage 2	Chris Anker Sørensen	9th	+ 1'41
Stage 3	Mattias Westling	9th	s.t.
Stage 4	Chris Anker Sørensen	9th	+ 1'41
Stage 5	Mattias Westling	9th	s.t.
Stage 6	Mattias Westling	7th	s.t.
Stage 7	Mattias Westling	5th	s.t.
Stage 8	Chris Anker Sørensen	18th	+ 2'51
Stage 9	Chris Anker Sørensen	26th	+ 8'18
Stage 10	Chris Anker Sørensen	27th	+ 3'00
Stage 11	Bernardo Colex	20th	+ 2'19
Stage 12	Chris Anker Sørensen	48th	s.t.

1	Vitor Rodrigues	Siam Cement - Lenovo	45h25'02
25	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	s.t.
26	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 17'24
31	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 21'13
69	Serafin José Blanco	Team Live Nation	+ 1h20'07
DNF	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	-
DNF	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	-
DNF	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	-

As usual we missed the early break and as soon as things got tough Westling missed the crack of the peloton.
Sadly that left us pretty much completely without options. At least when no one fels like attacking to mix things up…

1	Lluis Mas	Bonsucro	4h54'34
47	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	s.t.
56	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	s.t.
84	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 2'20
98	Sami Tiainen	Team Live Nation	+ 6'09
111	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	s.t.
118	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	+ 8'19
122	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	s.t.

Hainleite was much better as we saw both Kullpi and Lovassy joining the break after having misswd it the first time around.
That's the spirit we want from the team and the spirit that Olli delivers almost every time.
Of course the break didn't make it to the end and as usual no one felt like attacking for us in the real finale.
Still Linus got a 4th place in the peloton's sprint which could have been worse.

1	Michal Golas	Grupo Nutresa	4h29'26
17	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 1'28
22	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	s.t.
38	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	s.t.
108	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	s.t.
116	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	s.t.
131	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	s.t.
146	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 7'46

Samuel had one race in May: The Tour of California, where he helped Boasson Hagen to some very good stage results incl. a win and a overall 5th in the GC.
Though he didn't look as strong as on some previous occasions.



Paajanen did a good job in Dunkerque always being one of the last helpers for his captains.

In Berlin Prorace he was given a free role and took full advantage by being at the front for the finish and taking a great 8th place

In Onda-Boavista it was back to usual for him as he helped Skujins towards a 3rd place.

Another month where everyone disappointed, we have to give the award to Westling as the only rider doing slightly better than expected.

Mattias Westling

This month we'll try some reverse psychology as the last songs doesn't seem to have had the right effect:

We were off to a good start with Reis joining the berak on stage 1 and Linus sprinting to a good 5th place.

On stage 2 the terrain got a bit more challenging and as usual Sarabia made sure not to draw any attention.
For the TT on stage we had high hopes for Renäng but he has yet anoteher off-day…

As to underline the story of our season Linus crashes on stage 6. The only rider, who have done anything worth mentioning for us here.
With him gone we ran out of half-decent attempts…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Linus Dahlberg	5th	s.t.
Stage 2	Ignacio Sarabia	18th	+ 52
Stage 3	Viktor Renäng	11th	+ 47
Stage 4	Ignacio Sarabia	44th	s.t.
Stage 5	Linus Dahlberg	21st	+ 1'06
Stage 6	Ignacio Sarabia	42nd	+ 1'27
Stage 7	Ignacio Sarabia	32nd	+ 54
Stage 8	Bernardo Colex	44th	+ 6'44

1	Jaroslav Kulhavy	ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	21h08'41
35	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 6'27
70	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	+ 15'28
81	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 20'54
98	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 29'45
130	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 47'18
144	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 56'31
154	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 1h18'38

Linus is turning into a bit of a stage 1-specialist as he rewards the teams work with a 5th place on the opening day.
On stage 2 the team didn't work quite as hard but still he managed to get a 6th place

On the final climb of the first mountain stage CAS tries to get away, but is caught on the descent. Still Cioban was able to benefit from not having to work and got us another top 10.
Next day Chris tried again. This time with more success as he gets us a very valuable podium.

On stage 5's mountain time trial his hard work started to show in his legs. Luckily only small time differences appeared.
On the final day it was Cioban's time to show some spirit with a late attack. Didn't get him much but a very nice effort.

All-in-all a good race crowned with Chris' GC 6th place.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Linus Dahlberg	5th	s.t.
Stage 2	Linus Dahlberg	6th	s.t.
Stage 3	Sergiu Cioban	7th	s.t.
Stage 4	Chris Anker Sørensen	3rd	+ 1'38
Stage 5	Chris Anker Sørensen	28th	+ 19
Stage 6	Sergiu Cioban	19th	+ 49

1	Jose Mendes	Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	16h44'46
6	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 1'39
34	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 3'08
60	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 7'39
74	Jussi Veikkanen	Team Live Nation	+ 10'19
94	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 15'02
98	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 16'58
115	Serafin José Blanco	Team Live Nation	+ 29'32

The two first stages went by without us discovering almost, but on the final day Chris made sure to stay near the front securing both a decent stage and GC.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Krisztian Lovassy	28th	s.t.
Stage 2	Sergiu Cioban	35th	+ 35
Stage 3	Chris Anker Sørensen	8th	+ 1'28

1	Perikles Ilias	Magna - Ryanair	10h51'32
9	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 1'58
28	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 2'54
68	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
95	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	+ 5'48
96	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	s.t.
139	Olli Kulppi	Team Live Nation	+ 14'06
144	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	+ 15'34

Once again Lehtinen showed himself by going in the early break. That's the only thing there is to say about out Rutas de America.

1	Cameron Wurf	Eddie Stobart Pro Cycling	4h16'00
39	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
44	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	s.t.
112	Sami Tiainen	Team Live Nation	s.t.
116	Krisztian Lovassy	Team Live Nation	s.t.
123	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	s.t.
126	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	s.t.
152	Rasim Reis	Team Live Nation	s.t.

With a strong effort on the flat and in the TTT he helped Contador towards a GC 4th. A solid effort from Samuel.



Paavo started off with a less than impressive race in Tour des Pays de Savoie.
He looked much better in Bulgaria, where the favourites couldn't really be bothered to try anything.
In the extremely mountainous Tour d'Andorra the climbs were just too tough for him to really show himself.

This month Chris Anker finally started producing some results.

Chris Anker Sørensen

Finally this spirit is starting to spread on the team:

Dabrowski was sent to his home country to make an impact.
However Sarabia was the first to show our jersey when he was part of the opening attack on the first stage.

After complete anynymity in the five following stages Sarabia went in the break again on the final day, where it even lasted long enough for him to get a nice podium spot.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Linus Dahlberg	41st	s.t.
Stage 2	Linus Dahlberg	26th	s.t.
Stage 3	Sergiu Cioban	28th	s.t.
Stage 4	Sergiu Cioban	18th	+ 48
Stage 5	Sergiu Cioban	33rd	s.t.
Stage 6	Sergiu Cioban	17th	+ 2'22
Stage 7	Ignacio Sarabia	3rd	+ 12

1	Eduard Alexander Beltran	Grupo Nutresa	33h17'15
25	Sergiu Cioban	Team Live Nation	+ 5'22
50	Ignacio Sarabia	Team Live Nation	+ 19'23
60	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 21'23
68	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 21'29
119	Philip Lindau	Team Live Nation	+ 45'03
136	Essa Khalifa	Team Live Nation	+ 54'09
145	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 1h00'03

Starting with a prologue we had high hopes for a good stage result from Renäng, which he lived up to by crushing everyone else taking the stage with a five second advantage.
Linues followed up with a solid sprint on stage 2.
With the mountains coming on the following day we changed main character once again, in fact Renäng even abandoned the race completely.
Good thing Bernardo was there to continue our spree of good results.
Had the break been caught on the last day we aould have gotten another top 10…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Viktor Renäng	1st	- 5
Stage 2	Linus Dahlberg	9th	s.t.
Stage 3	Bernardo Colex	8th	+ 5'27
Stage 4	Linus Dahlberg	13th	+ 1'15

1	Yasmani Martinez	Team Nordeus	12h35'07
8	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	+ 5'45
15	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 9'04
48	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 16'49
55	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 21'28
59	Serafin José Blanco	Team Live Nation	+ 27'22
82	Linus Dahlberg	Team Live Nation	+ 36'33
DNF	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	-

Samuel got to ride the Tour de France in search of stage glory, which took him most of the month.
Things did no go as dreamed for neither him nor his teammates, who were all completly invisible the entire race.
Still only 4 Aker-Mot riders finished the Tour and Samuel was one of them so that's something I suppose…



In Manx International Paavo did his best to protect his leaders in teh first part. With Skujins finishing 3rd he must have done OK at that.

In the Tour of Southland TTT he gave his all to help the team finish 5th on the stage and on the queen stage he was second best on the team so all in all a decent effort from Paavo.

It goes to the only one who tried, and even was rewarded with a stage podium.

Ignacio Sarabia

A song about where we are. Occasionally someone jumps out, but in general the race reports give the impression that we are Down In A Hole.

On the first stage Lehtinen found his way into yet another break. Good to see the youngster so active.
In the end it didn't bring him much except a nice show of spirit and on top of that Dabrowski found himself wrongly placed and lost a good bit of time.

On the second stage things looked peculiar as the guys created an actual sprint train for Chris in the hard finish.
Some brilliant work that saw him take second place and Jaroslaw round of the top ten.

On stage three Sakari once again went in the break chasing sprint along the way.

Again we were invisible in the finale, but CAS made sure to saty out of trouble.

Stage four was expected to be the downfall of Sørensen, while we had our hopes set in Renäng, who put in a solid ride finishing fourth.
Also worth noticing Taciak on tenth place. A good result from the Pole.

Having a TT means that Chris needs to find time in the mountains so on the final mountains stage he went offensive.

He didn't get as much as both he and we had hoped but he did build the foundation for Dabrowski to follow up on to take second place on the stage making this one of our best races all season.


A good race that was made better by Hasta winning the young riders classification and us finishing second in a very close team competition.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Chris Anker Sørensen	37th	s.t.
Stage 2	Chris Anker Sørensen	2nd	s.t.
Stage 3	Chris Anker Sørensen	14th	s.t.
Stage 4	Viktor Renäng	4th	+ 17
Stage 5	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	2nd	+ 1'22

1	David Arroyo	ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	15h40'23
7	Mateusz Taciak	Team Live Nation	+ 3'02
19	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 4'28
25	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 4'46
30	Jaroslaw Dabrowski	Team Live Nation	+ 6'10
61	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Live Nation	+ 16'43
81	Serafin José Blanco	Team Live Nation	+ 25'12
84	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 26'17
Youth	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	WIN

Live Nation has announced that the team has been much less entertaining than they wanted it to be this year.
Therefor they will not be extending their sponsor contract with us.

As of now the future of the team is uncertain, but a so far secret, Finnish company has promised us that they are willing to pay the salary of our Finnish riders next year if we can get another company to cover the rest of the costs.

We will now work on getting together a plan that will satisfy both the UCI and potential sponsors. Most likely we will be focusing more regionally on the area around the Baltic Sea and less international. Nothing is certain at the moment though except that our HQ will remain in Finland and that Live Nation is leaving.

Now we focus on getting a decent finish to the season, which is needed in order to secure the team another season.

The TTT went much worse than we had hoped and expectedm especially since they dropped both our GC-hopes before the finish making them loose even more time…
Chris tried with an attack the next day with no real gain to show for it.

On stage 3 Chris said he was ready so Gökhan Hasta spent a lot of time in front of the peloton controlling the break.
He does a good job and Chris rewards it by riding with the big names in the finale. Great to see some real racing.

On the Queen stage Chris repeated that effort putting him in a good place before the final flat stage.

The final stage went by without any drama whatsoever and CAS got us another solid GC result this month.

Going on sponsor hunt really seems to have given the boys that bit of extra motivation.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	TTT	9th	+ 18
Stage 2	Chris Anker Sørensen	16th	+ 42
Stage 3	Chris Anker Sørensen	5th	+ 1'19
Stage 4	Chris Anker Sørensen	5th	+ 50
Stage 5	Bernardo Colex	100th	+ 1'00

1	Vitor Rodrigues	Siam Cement - Lenovo	16h00'25
6	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team Live Nation	+ 2'05
65	Mateusz Taciak	Team Live Nation	+ 14'13
84	Bernardo Colex	Team Live Nation	+ 22'13
88	Gökhan Hasta	Team Live Nation	+ 22'42
118	Jussi Veikkanen	Team Live Nation	+ 41'25
121	Matti Manninen	Team Live Nation	+ 42'29
160	Viktor Renäng	Team Live Nation	+ 1h05'20

Optimism is spreading on the team after recent results and as everyone feels certain we'll survive the oncoming main sponsor have allowed us to start teasing a bit for them.

As earlier mentioned it's a Finnish based company and here comes the first clue as to which company we're talking about: