|
[PCT] ONCE-Eroski 2015 HQ
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 14-06-2015 12:27
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Calender Revealed
| January | | 22-31 |  Vuelta a Tachira | C1 |  | | February | | 3-8 |  Tour of Eritrea | HC | | | 15-20 |  Volta a Catalunya | C1 | | | March | | 14 |  Duo Differdange | C1 |  | | | 27-29 |  Corsica International | HC | | | April | | | 1-21 |  Giro d'Italia | GT | | | 1-7 |  Tour of Vancouver | HC | | | 23-28 |  Tour of Romandie | HC | | | 30 |  Dutch Food Valley Classic | HC |  | | | 30 |  Interlagos Grand Prix | HC | | | May | | | 4-9 |  Tour of Japan | C1 | | | | 8 |  Volcan de Agua Classic | HC | | | 16 |  Berlin ProRace | HC | | | 22-28 | Olympia's Tour | C1 | | | 27-31 |  Tour of the Czech Republic | HC |  | | June | | 20 |  Nelspruit Classic | HC | | | 25-29 |  Tour d'Andorra | HC | | | July | | 5 |  Isle of Man ITT | C1 | | | | 7 | Manx International | HC | | | 18-21 |  Tour of Bulgaria | C1 | | | | 26-30 |  Post Danmark Rundt | HC | | | August | | | 1-8 |  Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt | HC | | | 1 | Clasica San Sebastian | HC | | | | 5-15 |  Volta a Portugal | HC | | | | 14-18 |  Baltic Chain Tour | HC | | | September | | 2-22 |  Tour of America | C1 | | | October | | 1 |  Colombian Venteaux | C1 | | | 9-13 | Tour of Beijing | HC | |
Bold: Goal races.
Pink: Giro wildcard.
|
| |
|
|
| Ian Butler |
Posted on 14-06-2015 12:29
|
Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
PCM$: 400.00
|
Congrats on your double in Tachira so early in the season  |
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 14-06-2015 12:42
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
@Ian Thanks mate, you've had quite some results down there yourself
First victory of the season!
Blaz and Marco celebrating our sweet double!
After a fairly quiet and mediocre start down in Tachira for the first 4 stages, which was our season opener. We finally delivered! And what a day it was for us! It all started out with Blaz joining the BoTD and with a long range sprint he managed to keep everyone behind him! Also Guillén were visible for the first time in this race, with his spontanious late kick which nobody are able match, when he's 120 % ( ) made this to a day we will never forget!
| 1 | Blaz Bogataj | ONCE-Eroski | 3h03'27 | | 2 | Marco Guillén | ONCE-Eroski | s.t. | | 3 | Bjorn Selander | Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions | s.t. |
|
| |
|
|
| sgdanny |
Posted on 14-06-2015 12:57
|
Classics Specialist
Posts: 3591
Joined: 18-03-2014
PCM$: 200.00
|
What a good start for Blaz, which is just setting his name in MG  Hopefully he can do this again somewhere in the future
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 14-06-2015 14:09
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Yeah, definetely. A result like this is already much more than expected from him! 
Blaz is actaully a quite important man for ONCE's sprint train(he's the teams 3rd best sprinter afterall) So hopefully will feature there aswell when Guillén decidets to sprint again
|
| |
|
|
| knockout |
Posted on 14-06-2015 15:26
|
Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
Joined: 21-12-2010
PCM$: 400.00
|
Wow. And suddenly your team delivers! Amazing stage right there and I'm stunned by Guillen. This guy is simply unpredictable!
Very nice calendar. It is impressive how few flat races your team is racing despite of the HC bands and calendar reduction. This also means that our schedule clashes rarely
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
| |
|
|
| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 15-06-2015 06:06
|
Team Leader
Posts: 5533
Joined: 12-06-2013
PCM$: 500.00
|
Well, of your 28 races (including the Giro), we will see you in 24 of them! Although the Giro doesn't count for points so 24 out of 27.
So at least the Spanish rivalry will stay strong 
|
| |
|
|
| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 23:35
|
Bot Agent
Posts: Countless
Joined: 23.11.09
|
|
| IP: None |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 15-06-2015 10:10
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
@Knock Yeah, the day Guillen stops suprising is the day MG becomes uinteresting
Yeah, basically went all out on MT's and a few TTs and flat race as C1 race fillers.
Didnt expect us clash too much either - I guess we are gonna face LS.Sanchez on a few hilly/mountanious parkours though, bit annyoing, as he's probably gonna smash us there
@LLS Would be suprised if we didnt alot tbh, but that we actually clash that much, is just, wow  . And yeah, hugely looking forward to repeating our spanish rivalry from CT, with now the 'addition' of Buff aswell
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 09-07-2015 19:18
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Tachira Review
The venezuelian season opener for us started out so great for us, yet with such an dissapointing ending.
The first flat stages were anynomous for us. Where he hardly could be spotted during the first four stages. Then the amazing 5th stage where Blaz held on from the break-away to take the victory while Guillén got 2nd with a superb sprint from the peloton.
The race continued great from our boys with Pantano Goméz finishing great on every mt stage. He had several top 5 finishes and kept climbing on the overall GC day by day. He even finished on podium on the 8th stage and were at that point at a solid 5th place in GC and within reach of the 4th place of Txurruka...
Then disaster striked on the next stage where poorly placed into the final climbs and he only managed a weak, weak 28th place on the stage and finished well over 3 minutes behind. From there the race only went downhill. On the last hilly stage Pantano Goméz even managed to drop further down in the GC, ending in an extremly dissapointing 16th place, after 5th place looked like minimum...
Race rating: 4/10 The loanee 'saved' the race.
Tour of Eritrea
Seemed like we carried the bad form the last stages of Tachira over to Eritrea.
Okay, we couldn't expect much from Guillén and we didnt get anything either, which is fair enough. But the performance from Pantano where just heart-breaking. Finishing on a poo(r) 17th place on the mountain stage, around the same time as kinder-garten cyclists. He then literally gave up on the hilly stage next day and managed to finnish over 7 (!) minutes behind the winner. We were literally invicible for the rest of the race aswell. Mikel Landa not doing anything either although he was one of the best puncheurs is really dissapointing aswell, when he was expected to fight for some stage wins.
Race Rating: 1/10 Were we even here?
Volta a Catalunya
First time our two biggest riders where present and expectations were great. Janez and Igor had prepared for a long time and started the race in great fashion.
Both riders finished within the front group on the mountain stage while several strong competitors lost time. The next hilly stage didnt go much after plan though. Not only did Janez lose lots of time, he even managed to lose a whole minute (!)
to Conta and Machado, he also got dropped by Keizer in the end who's a much weaker puncheur, aswell as Contador.
The race after the poor hilly stage went better though. Brajko finished on a strong 2nd place after Keizer in the the tt and kept his 4nd place all the way to the finish. On the last mountain stage Anton decidet that 11th places in GC weren't something to collect on and dropped to 19th place in GC instead.
Race Rating: 6/10 Can't be satisfied with a 4th place when Brajko could easily have won if he performed according to his stats on the hilly stage. Also the fact that Anton decidet give up his 11th place made the race drop a further rating.
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 18-07-2015 20:39
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Brajkovic with a huge win in France!
It was the 27th of march, and the race who were about to turn season downside-up were about to start. It was time for the prestigous french stage race, Corsica Internacional!
Corsica attracted the finest riders of the pro continental division and we were hoping to snag a top 5 in the strong in the strong field.
The first 2 stages went as expected by the lads, no time loss by Brajko and he delivered a strong timetrial to give him an advantage over the rest of the GC-contenders.
But it all came down to the final stage, Janez stayed calmed and followed the crucial move. Then he was simply the strongest of the group and attacked again with 1.7km to go, the rest is history:
This easily the best race of the season so far by a mile, and not only because of stage win + GC, but Brajko also managed to sneak away with the points jersey and aswell as being an important domestique Ablenado got 17th in GC and with that being the best youth rider aswell!
Final GC:
| 1 | Janez Brajkovic | ONCE-Eroski | 6h12'33 | | 2 | Jurgen Van den Broeck | Team BPost | + 1'03 | | 3 | Alberto Contador | Bonsucro | + 1'13 | | 4 | Martijn Keizer | Aegon - Lavazza | + 1'17 | | 5 | Tiago Machado | Prio - Porto | + 1'21 | | ... | | 17 | Aberlardo Ablenado | ONCE-Eroski | + 3'14 |
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 18-07-2015 21:51
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
GT Debut - It's Giro time!
It's finally time for our first GT and it's actually our first PT race aswell!
The GT we decidet to go for will maybe be slightly surprising for some, but with plenty of spanish stars and big spanish teams in PCT, getting a Vuelta invitation is easier said than done! Anyway we are happy to be present at this huge event and we are ready to set our marks on Italy!
The squad we are sending are being led by the main man himself - Janez Brajkovic, supported by super domestique Antón and luxury helper Ablenado.
The rest of the squad is very young and aswell as being helpers for Brajkovic, they are here for experience reasons.
Anyway, without further introductions, here's the Giro-lineup:
 | Brajkovic, Janez | (32) | 79,44 | | Antón, Igor | (32) | 76,61 | | Ablenado, Aberlardo | (24) | 73,29 | | Minguez Ayala, Miguel | (27) | 71,91 | | | Landa, Mikel | (26) | 74,60 | | | Bonnin, Thomas | (25) | 69,56 |  | Carapaz, Richard Antonio | (21) | 72,34 | | Cuasquer, Klever | (25) | 70,64 |
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 01-08-2015 13:07
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Giro adventure - Big hit!
Our giro-debut has been a huge hit. It all started out nicely with a strong TTT by the lads. Then the team held the leaders, Anton and Brajko out of trouble on the first flat stages. It was at the hilly stages our boys started to do massive jumps, especially our biggest star, Janez Brajkovic, who shocked all, including our sports directeurs, with his incredible perfomances in the hillier stages. Gaining valuable time on almost every GC-contender, except Riccó, who got a healthy lead going into the harder mountain stages.
Even in the high mountains Brajko did great. It was early clear that this was going to be a three-way battle, with currently Riccó sitting in prime position.
Schleck was always the first one to attack and then Madrazo would come tumbling after. Due to Ricco's team, Festina being so weak, almost all the mountain stages would go to the early escapers. Some of the breaks would get horribly big gaps aswell. It was a tight giro between the top 3 and it all came down to the final 3 stages. In the last and only flat ITT, Brajko did a great timetrial getting second behind the new TT -wonderkid Madrazo.
Then it was all going to be settled in the final mountain stage. Schleck attacked early, far out from the finnish, Festina was cooked, and a few of the strongest GC-contenders joined Schleck, including GC's 6th place Guldhammer who was the biggest threat for Brajko's top 5. Janez, who missed the move, seemed to finally get a bad day aswell, unfortunatly. In the end he lost well over 6 minutes to Shleck
who won the stage and the GC with that superior move. And with his agressive riding throughout the entire Giro - he was clearly the deserved Giro champion. Madrazo got second this giro - again. Giro is a race he can't seem to master. And Giro-legend Cunego got the final podium spot, leaving Ricco for 4th after collapsing completly today. Brajko got 6th in the end which is still a massive result for the wildcard team. We also got 7th in the Team's competition which was suprisingly won by Aker. Anton got 21th in GC after helping Brajko in the mountains for the last week of the Giro. If it wasnt for the high amount of Breakaways - he would surely have endet top 15 aswell.
Final GC:
| 1 | Andy Schleck | Vesuvio - Accumalux | 80h35'36 | | 2 | Angel Madrazo | Quickstep | + 46 | | 3 | Damiano Cunego | Meiji - JR East | + 4'10 | | 4 | Riccardo Ricco | Festina-Canal+ | + 6'43 | | 5 | Rasmus Guldhammer | Aker - MOT | + 10'29 | | 6 | Janez Brajkovic | ONCE-Eroski | + 12'06 | | ... | | 21 | Igor Antón | ONCE-Eroski | + 39'04 |
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 08-08-2015 10:43
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Brajkovic on Fire lately
After recovering from Giro - It was Janez turn to race again. We had some rough races lately with the week showing in Romandie for instance. But there's one man we always can count on to deliver - and thats Brajko! After Conta puncturing in the early slopes it was going to be a battle between Sella, Rujano and Brajko. Janez were much stronger than the other two and put in the decisive attack 6 km from the finnish line. He came solo. Anton made this a perfect race for us with his 6th place.
| 1 | Janez Brajkovic | ONCE-Eroski | 5h41'22 | | 2 | José Rujano | Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo | + 31 | | 3 | Emanuele Sella | Siam Cement - Lenovo | s.t. | | 4 | Ryan Eastman | Project: Africa | + 1'16 | | 5 | Jurgen Van den Broeck | Team BPost | + 1'40 | | 6 | Igor Antón | ONCE-Eroski | + 2'27 |
Landa gets his first big result
After a really bad start to Tour of Japan while everyone on our team lost +15 mins on the first hilly stage and all GC-ambition aswell we thought. But we were wrong. Things startened to brighten up a little with Pantano Goméz getting 4th on the mountain ITT. Then Landa joined the break on 5th stage. Since everyone was so tired from the extremly hard days of racing the break got a big gap and had over 9 minutes with 10 km's left. It was clear that it was going to become a breakaway win atleast. Landa then stayed calm and waited till 2 km's left before he attacked and nobody was even close to following him. Because of the huge gap down to the peloton, Landa even moved up to 7th in GC aswell, which is brilliant. A position he held on the final stage aswell.
| 1 | Dario Cataldo | Team Vontobel | 15h11'17 | | 2 | Michal Kwiatkowski | Team Kenya Airways | + 22 | | 3 | George Bennett | Project: Africa | + 3'11 | | ... | | 7 | Mikel Landa | ONCE-Eroski | + 8'20 |
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 17-08-2015 18:37
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Future Outlook
Our team is a team made mostly for the future. And this is a brief review of how our experts review how our riders stats are valued for next season already.
While most riders have already reached their max, there a few including future superstar Carapaz who are yet to reach their final level.
Edited by dev4ever on 17-08-2015 19:01
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 28-09-2015 10:41
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Olympia's Tour
One of few bright spots in Guillen's 2015 season. Including a joint season best performance by him finishing 2nd in stage 2! In stage 4 he followed up with a similar strong result with 4th place, but this time behind two break-away riders aswell, so again he was the second strongest in the pack! Later we followed up with a great TTT with even our strongest TT-rider, Brajkovic lacking, which I think impressed us and everyone else. Unfortunatly no good GC-placements here either because of splits on the sprint stages.
Race Rating: 7/10 Happy too see Guillen do something for a change, especially when he finishes on the podium in this strong company. Also a great TTT consindering our strenght.
Isle man ITT
As known, time trials has never been a event to our strenght. We got very few guys including our most expensive rider, Janez B, who fares well in this disiplin, so we had some hopes of a top ten atleast.
While Salas and Erviti didnt sweep us down from our feets, Brajko impressed once again and endet in a solid 6th place!
Race rating: 7/10 Satisfied with Janez's performance, but slightly let down by our two other guys.
Post Danmark Rundt
A really little worthwile trip to Denmark. Guillen did asbloutlely nothing in the sprint stages(which there was plenty off). Our TT'-ist's all got caught in splits or lost time elseway in the flat stages stages and therefore lost every opportunity for a decent GC-placement. When take all those factor combined you get a 0-pointer.
Race Rating: 2/10 Small expectations, big hopes of something, result even lower that our expectations(which is impressive!) therefore very low rating!
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 29-09-2015 16:07
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Goals Review
We started out the season with picking our goals, at the end of race planning it was clear that 1 goal was gonna be impossible(I mean, literally impossible since we werent even there) 1 goal who was gonna be really though considering our team strenght, and 3 goals who were gonna be relatively possible considering our strong leader.
Goal #1 -  Kenya Mountain Challenge - Win
Turns out management was drunk when picking the goals, so we werent even invited to one of our most important races this season.
-/10 Cant give this race any rating since we wasnt there.
Goal #2 - Tour d'Andorra - Top 5
Now this was truly dissapointing. One of the strongest and expensive riders in PCT and he cant even finish top 5 in a mountain stage race including a TT. Eventhough he finished 8th, this is still far below expectations and one of the easiest goals to actually fullfill.
5/10 The minimum was top 5, and Brajko couldnt even manage that. Barely edging top ten is really, really poor.
Goal #3 - Tour of Bulgaria - Top 5
First goal of the season achieved, good stuff! Not the strongest performance by Brajko finished 5th behind some much weaker riders, but atleast he made the goal this time, and thats what matters the most.
8/10 Great team performance here with 3 lads top ten gives plenty of points. Overall strong race, only Janez making poor tactical decision costing him the podium or even the win here.
Goal #4 - Int. Österrech Rundfahrt - Win
Second and the definetely the last goal we complete this season!
A race that suited brajko perfectly on paper, and that its just so fitting he does so well in the physical part aswell! Brilliant teamplay and Brajko finishing it off with a comfortable GC win!
10/10 Brajko won the GC with over, the queen stage and nabbing the points jersey aswell. Total domination, coudn't have worked out any better.
Goal #5 -  Overall Team Standings PCT- Top 10
Poorly picked goal considering how one sidet our team is. We know that the season still isn't finished but we can already tell pretty safely that we won't even end top 15. We had a few letdowns this season but this is mainly due to our riders not matching PCT competition more than anything.
5/10 Guillen not good enough for PCT, Landa not, Pantano not, Anton has been unlucky or worked for someone else and + our youngsters and the rest of our team members have barely scored anything all year, we were never gonna come close to top 10 with only realing on óne guy.
|
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 30-09-2015 10:39
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Brajko delivers - yet again!
It was time for Int. Österreich Rundfahrt after a few mediocre races for Janez Brajkovic and the rest of the team. Österreich was one of the most important races for the team pre-season since it was a sponsor goal - the sponsors demandet no less than a win here!
Obviously with huge pressure here to also score well to make sure we werent gonna get relegated, stage 1 took place. The team did everything perfectly there with cancelling every attack and Brajko followed Conta when he went and got a gap to the rest - not a bad start!
Stage two was the queen stage with finishing up Kitzbüheler Horn, a lot could happen here. Brajko stayed calm until the final climb as planned and then went wiith his major contenders (Conta..). They worked well together to increase the lead to the slightly worse climbers of the GC-contenders. It worked and with 2k's left Brajko put in the decisive move and nobody could follow yet again! He almost finished a minute ahead of the next group. From there on he never had trouble defending the GC lead and held it all the way to stage 8 was finished! Well done lad!
Given his consistensy he won the points jersey aswell, bringing important points to the table after us struggling to get out of the relegation zone all season.
| 1 | Janez Brajkovic | ONCE-Eroski | 29h46'41 | | 2 | Alberto Contador | Bonsucro | + 1'37 | | 3 | David Abal | Buff - Polska | + 3'11 | | ... | | 22 | Jarlinson Pantano Gómez | ONCE-Eroski | + 11'57 |
|
| |
|
|
| The Rider |
Posted on 30-09-2015 10:42
|
Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4543
Joined: 29-02-2012
PCM$: 200.00
|
Very nice race for us both. Yep, ONCE sky-rocketed away from the relegation battle after that one. Goes a long way to making up for that Goal#1 !! |
| |
|
|
| dev4ever |
Posted on 30-09-2015 12:12
|
Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2282
Joined: 13-03-2011
PCM$: 200.00
|
Yeah, pretty successfull race for both of us indeed.
Think I will never get over picking Kenya as goal But very nice to get atleast 1 win goal completed and hopefully being out of the releagation battle for good now aswell
|
| |
|
|
| tastasol |
Posted on 30-09-2015 12:46
|
Classics Specialist
Posts: 2889
Joined: 11-09-2010
PCM$: 200.00
|
Nice to see Brajkovic getting such a huge result, should move you up many places in the rankings and probably make you safe in the relegation battle.
|
| |
|
