We came to the first race of the season with Jose Mendes, who was considered top favourite. Therefore we did not send any rider to the break and the whole team was relaying to give him the best chances to win the race.
With 1,5km to go Jose made his crucial attack right out of the front group of favourites. He kept his strong kick until the finish line and therefore secured us the first win of the season!
Winning the very first race we participated in is probably a good sign of what is yet to come from our team. We will try to go on like this in the upcoming races of course. Mendes has surely shown he is the strongest puncheur in the whole CT.
@Jakstar: Thanks. Hopefully we'll be able to go on like that.
Recap:
Tour of the Middle East (C2)
Bringing Bole as our leader here, we were especially going for the hilly stages. Hirt as our leaders in the mountains was supposed to shine in the mountain stages - and of course everybody might show himself in breakaways.
Stage 1 was already a good one with Bole winning the sprint of a reduced bunch - unfortunately two guys escaped earlier, so it's a podium spot in the end.
In the second one, Bole unfortunately did not survive the climbs, but Hirt finished 3rd in the sprint.
The same just happened to him in stage 3. A silent stage for our team.
Very active again our guys were in the first mountain stage. Kasa got in the break and was caught as the last escapee just 1km from the line. Hirt however delivered a third place again, which also made him sneak into 2nd place in the GC.
Flat stage 5 saw Foliforov going into the break. It was catched before the finish though. Bole contested in the bunch sprint and finished in 8th.
The sixth one was a sprinter's stage again, but with some speedbumps near the line Bole fancied his chances. He made a 5th place out of it.
Foliforov joined the breakaway again on stage 7. Bole finished 10th in the sprint then.
Stage 8 featured a crazy hard mountain-top finish. Hirt followed the important attacks and surprised everybody by keeping his 2nd place in GC by making it a 3rd place over the line.
In the second consecutive monster-mountain-stage, Hirt then dropped to 4th in GC, but was able to limit his losses - and again he let some stronger guys behind.
The last mountain stage was another huge fight for Hirt, but he managed to stay with the best. The fight for the last spot on the podium was still open between four riders. Kasa was in the break and finished in 3rd, behind two of his companions.
In the ITT then, Hirt was the best of this four and secured the third place overall. Kasa was the fourth fastest in this stage.
Stage 12 was uneventful for us - a flat one, where the break was not catched. Unfortunately none of our guys was included.
To sum things up: Hirt really surprised us. He was able to stay with the best in all the mountain stages and delivered a decent TT-performance. This made him grab the last GC podium spot - and the U25 jersey, which he kept since the beginning, with quite a margin.
Bole disappointed a bit. He won the sprint in the first stage, but that was not enough for the win. He then got dropped in all the harder stage, where we had hoped he could score in the sprint of a reduced bunch. His participation in the sprints in flat stages was highly appreciated, but he lacks the speed to keep up with the best here.
Gabor Kasa did also ride strong - which is not only displayed by his 4th place in the ITT, but he also just narrowly missed out on on a breakaway win in a hard mountain stage, where he was catched less than 1km before the line. The next time, he crossed the line in third, behind two of his breakaway companions.
Finally we are happy that Foliforov joined the break twice, although that did not enable him to score any points.
Jose Mendes was our dedicated leader here. We wanted to see if he would be able to compete on slightly longer climbs, which are not yet hard enough for the real mountain goats.
To make it short: That failed. Jose couldn't keep up to the expectations and never finished near the front. As the sprint stages 1,2 and 7 didn't bring us anything good as well, one could expect San Luis was a big fail for us.
But it certainly wasn't! Gabor Kasa is the man who made us proud. Keeping up with the first big group in hilltop-finish stage 3, he was in a good position prior to the ITT. There he absolutely overperformed coming in 3rd on the stage and grabbing the yellow jersey!
As stage 4 had a very tough climb not far from the finish, we were in fear of losing it just again, but with great teamwork and Kasa's tremendous legs, he kept it. However, in the next stage, featuring an uphill finish, he couldn't hang on with the best. Still, due to his big fight, he held on to place 3 in the GC, which is both great for the team and him personally. We are truly celebrating that!
Kasa fighting to keep his yellow jersey.
Luka Pibernik went into the break in sprint-stage 1, but couldn't hang on until the end. Still a good effort by him. And we are very thankful to the whole team for the big sacrifices they made in order to protect Kasa. It really paid off!
There has been a post-June rankings update recently. As this is also the (rather late) mid-season evaluation point for our main sponsors, both Severstal and Mercator made a public announcement.
"This is ridiculous. We made tons of money available and not only did the team primarily invest in non-Russian leaders, but those wanna-be-pros who should show our colours in the front don't deliver either", Severstal commented. "A 13th place overall, Ignatiev as the team's best Russian in 58th position and there are no less than three riders from Russia who are better placed." Such results were called "highly unsatisfying". Severstal also made public that they already think about withdrawing their investment after the season in case things don't change.
On the other hand, Mercator rather supported the team's way: "Mostly the mediocre results are due to our overambitious expectations. Especially Jose Mendes and Grega Bole could not live up to those yet - which is, truly, fine with us. We're flattered that Jan Hirt takes his intermezzo in our team serious and is therefore our best points scorer." Not many negative words came from Mercator's side. Insted they stated that there is still "hope for the chance to promote to PCT. But no matter if we will or not, supporting Eastern-European cycling will stay our duty."
The team's staff expressed that they trust in all the riders and are still confident going into the next races.
The season is almost finished. Still, there is still much to hope for in our upcoming home race, GP Yekaterinburg. We're also looking forward to Ruta America del Sur and Züri Metzgete.
The last months have been hard filled with hard work and as we are coming closer to the off-season now, we already start to plan for our second season in Pro Cycling. Starting this process, we had a look on what happened throughout the last year. We won't evaluate our first year in the CT though before the last races are finished. However, you can find our updated results and goals evaluation already in the HQ introduction.
Furthermore, we have to tell you that, sadly, Severstal won't prolong its sponsorship. We are very thankful for the chance to build up this team - Severstal certainly contributed much to this process. Although we tried our best, we couldn't quite fulfil the high expectations, so we have to see our main sponsor withdraw now. We are still looking for a replacement, but talks in this case already started and we are looking forward to it.
At this point, there won't be any major information on the upcoming season, because we are not sure ourselves yet. We are still able to provide the stat increases. Our riders trained hard all the time - therefore you can see below how we estimate their strength for the next season. (Remember that Adrian Honkisz was loaned out, while we loaned in Jan Hirt from Becherovka and Alexander Foliforov from Tinkoff.)
Josè Mendes wins GP Yekaterinburg
2nd win this this season | on home soil
We headed to GP Yekaterinburg with high hopes. Though Severstal won't prolong it's sponsorship, we were going to satisfy its interests by doing well in the only Russian race this season. So we brought our top guys in order to perform well.
The whole team worked hard the whole day in order to give our leaders the best chance for winning the race.
Josè Mendes was our leader for the hilly race and he showed his interest in doing well pretty early by placing an attack already with 25km to go. Though he was catched by the chasing pack soon, he tried again when entering the final hill about 2,5km from the finish.
He kept his high pace all alone until the finsih. The team supported Mendes the whole day and he gave it all in order to win the race. Not allowing anybody to catch him, he won the race in the end giving it all.
Thanks to our strong team supporting him, Mendes was able to win our only home race. That's not only a huge result for the team and the sponsors, but also for him personally.
Looking forward to the last two races (Ruta America del Sur and Zuri Metzgete) we are hoping to deliver some more good results. Thanks everybody cheering for us and believing in the team!
Sponsors Announced and Jersey Revealed
Severstal-Mercator becomes Live Healthy ProCycling
Dear friends and supporters,
we are glad that after some hard work we are now able to present our sponsors for the upcoming season. Although the season is not entirely finished yet, we managed to secure a solid financial background - and we are also assured that it will be adapted in case we make the cut for the PCT.
So now we are proud to present the sponsors for next year:
Mercator will stay as a sponsor. You already know the company, which prolongs its contract.
Agrofert, a Czech producer of agricultural products will be joining in.
Podravka will step up from a secondary to a main sponsor next year.
Our forth main sponsor will be Sojaprotein, a Serbian agribusiness company.
So we are going into the next season with a number of no less than four main sponsors. But there's even more good news. We agreed with all our sponsors that we will try to keep delivering a message through our racing. In pursuing that, we chose to change the team name to:
LIVE HEALTHY PROCYCLING
With big thanks to Marsupilami, we are able to present our fancy new shirt:
Our main focus will stay in Eastern Europe as that is where all our sponsors have their biggest business. Of course, most important is the quality of our riders though. We will certainly go on with developing talents as granting young riders chances is important to us.
For now, we will leave you with that big set of information. As soon as we go on with the planning, you will hear from us again. Thanks for supporting the team to all of you!
oh damn it I´ve just seen that you go full Slovenian and stay in CT, if I get my application through we will get so much trouble containing the fight for Slovenians
@Croatia: As you see above, I'm interested in all of Eastern Europe, that's why I have four main sponsors
I just couldn't make that fit for the form, so that's why I have Slovenia as only Nation.
