Aquarius97: I am happy with him only moving to Lvl 2. His development would obviously be quicker had he made the jump all the way but I still had to get results this season
Croatia14: He will be for the National Championships But other than that, he's definitely part of our long term plans!
knockout: If I remember correctly, Borisavljevic was indeed with us in that debut CT season! He becomes the first rider to fully develop with us which is great in its own regard. Obviously he's not of PCT leader material but he should provide strong support to a stronger climbing leader
Booker: I hope he is useful for us and I only plan on bringing in even better long-term plans. And thank you for taking Mas and Novak into your Avenir team. They both thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to ride with your team and that may even be possible again next season?
jandal7: I sure hope I get the most out of all 3 in the future! And Cv1 does produce great spirited attacking climbers which is the Euskaltel way after all
The Euskaltel team survived the PCT once again! We left it a bit tight again but ended up surviving fairly comfortably in 19th with 1881 points. This saw us finish 281 points clear of the best placed relegating team in 22nd.
It was a season with many ups and downs but 520,000 of our wage cap was taken up by Novak, Mas and a loaned out Borisavljevic so we are happy with where we have finished. The renewals and transfer season will give us a chance to ensure the team has a solid base for the years to come! A brief summary of our season is provided below.
In regards to the rest of the division, we would like to send our congratulations to everyone for another fine season and especially to those who have fought their way up to ride in the PT next season. We are very glad to see Mre's Newton Foundation back in the PT and we hear they are coming back to this side of the world which is great news! Our commiserations go out to those managers who are going to be fighting their way back into the PCT through a year in the CT. All of your teams can be adjusted for a quick promotion back up!
It was a season where we didn't really have a stand-out rider but instead saw vital contributions from many of our riders. In the end it was Nacer Bouhanni who was our top scorer after a season which included stage wins in Vancouver & Barbados, 4th in the GC in Barbados and a very important 3rd in the Dutch Food Valley Classic. He had great support in the sprints from Juan Jose Lobato who himself picked up a stage podium and a bunch of Top 10s.
The second top scorer was Jurgen Van den Broeck who was our bargain of the transfer window. He consistently picked up points which included GC 5th in Romandie and 7th in Corsica & Osterreich. The remainder of our climbing team failed to score points with Edoardo Zardini failing miserably.
Dominique Cornu also had a season to remember. Our TT man picked up 300 points thanks to stage wins in Romandie & Olympia, a 4th in the GC in Denmark and a vital classic win in the Isle of Man ITT. He was consistent enough but could still have scored more.
Our Hills department also picked up very vital points. Damiano Caruso only just outscoring the impressive Olivier Le Gac. Caruso managed his only stage win in South Africa and saw the majority of his points come from Top 10s in Nelspruit Classic, Ringerike GP & Japan Cup. Le Gac was very impressive given his wage. His points came from a KOM win in Pais Vasco & KOM 2nd in Beijing as well as winning the U25 classification and finishing Top 10 in the GC in South Africa. The other puncheur in our trio was Romain Zingle who managed to tick over the 100 point mark.
The other stage win in the team came from the talented Domen Novak in Osterreich. He also finished Top 10 in the KOM in Olympia & Japan and Top 10 in the U25 in Romandie & Japan to scrape together 40 points for the season. The final stage win & our GT moment of the season came from Eduard Prades when he won Stage 13 of the Vuelta a Espana from the breakaway, remember he didn't score a point in the PCT this season!
Edited by Luis Leon Sanchez on 07-05-2018 02:37
Win, Tour of Beijing
16th was the best Damiano Caruso could do against quality opposition in what was an optimistic goal. This goal was only going to be possible if we were able to sign a World Class Puncheur in the transfer window which isn't what we managed to do.
Top 5, Tour of Eritrea
Jurgen Van den Broeck was able to finish 7th in the GC in Eritrea which was close to the goal so we can only congratulate him on his performance. We hoped to sign a stronger Stage Racer but we weren't able to do so.
Win, Isle of Man ITT
We had Dominique Cornu prior to setting our goals for the season. This goal was therefore set in the hope that he would get the necessary result in this race. Cornu did exactly what was needed of him by winning the race by 37 seconds.
Top 5, Kenya Mountain Classic
Van den Broeck was bitterly disappointing and only managed 42nd here but a Top 5 was highly unlikely anyway. We had hoped to sign a better climbing leader.
Top 15, Team Standings
The team managed 19th and finishing in the Top 15 would have been a challenge, even if our riders all over-performed. Signing that World Class Climber/Stage Racer would have made this goal much more possible.
