The 2021 MGUCI is now in the month of August, but there were some earth shattering announcements that left most of the MGUCI community speechless. In the last few weeks there was a wave of teams announcing that they'll cease operations once the season concludes. Heine's Mapei was the first to announce that they'll leave the MGUCI system, followed by the_hoyle's Eurosport x GCN team. And now it has been revealed that Festina - OAKA will also cease to exist after the end of the season.

This in turn led to some managers and sponsors re-evaluate their involvement after of the news that 3 well established teams will no longer exist caught them off guard. BWT Hyundai N Cycling is one of those teams that monitor the situation. Hyundai Motor Europe has majority ownership in the MGUCI's franchise, but it was revealed by insiders that the German-based enterprise is re-evaluating its presence in the MGUCI and that there's a clause in the agreement that allows ivaneurope to buy majority ownership back. When asked about the news of the colleague exodus and the rumours surrounding his team's fate, ivaneurope did confirm that such a clause exists, but refused to give any other details:

"Yes, there's a clause that allows me to regain majority ownership, but as far as my team is concerned, Hyundai Europe has assured me that they'll keep their involvement for 2022"

While a funding is secured for 2022, he did confirm that the partnership is going to be be reviewed beyond 2022 and "decisions will be made on yearly basis". Meanwhile it was revealed that the contract with BWT is for 2 years and there's an option for a 3rd year. All other sponsorship deals - including Scott, TeamViewer, DataMap etc., are 1-year and will expire at the end of the season. The team is currently negotiating to renew their partnerships, but at that paoint nothing is confirmed yet.

With the MGUCI season entering its final phase the standings are beginning to take their final form. In all divisions candidates for promotion to upper division or relagation to a lower division are now narrowed down. But some teams are in the so called "no man's land" - not good enough to battle for the top and not bad enough to be at the bottom.

One of those teams for the entire duration of the season up until this point has been BWT Hyundai N Cycling. This team is in the position of getting a good result here and there, but not good enough to be a major threat. The month of June was a good one - 2 of their season objectives (Top 5 in Vancouver and Monterrey TTT win) were accomplished, but in Trentino the good start was followed by a sharp fall. Still, this was their best month and most likely will remain that way as the months of July and August were back to the usual formula - mediocre at best with some good results sprinkled here and there.

Perhaps riding on the success in Monterrey, the team surprisingly claimed another win in a one-day race as Max Losch won a chaotic Uppsala Classic after attacking in the final kilometers. But the rest of the month was a total wash. In the Tour of Middle East they've sent a really pedastrian lineup and it showed with only 3 teams being worse ranking points wise. BWT Hyundai was one of the only 2 CT teams scoring poins in the Celtic Chrono, but the points weren't that much to make a difference. Then it was a long break, while other teams were competing in Kenya and Hungary. The team's final race of the month was Tour d'Andorra, but even with Will Barta at the lead, it was a total disaster even though among the CT teams the team was 3rd in the ranking points.

The first race for the team in August was the Sakartvelo Trophy. The team sent it's best option Kozhatayev and though he didn't reach Top 5, it was another Top 10 performance by the Kazakh rider. Kozhatayev will be again the leading force in Tour de Langkawi. This has been by far one of the most pro-active races for the team this season. In the prolouge Tormod Jacobsen was the pleasant surprise by finishing 2nd behind Luke Keogh. Then it was a back and forth battle for Yellow between Keogh and Louis Visser, who took part in breakaways in the first 4 stages. In Stage 4 Kozhatayev finished 2nd and kept that position in the GC until the end, bringing a solid points tally for the team. The team also had a trip to Denmark, but it was really anonymous race.

Overall the team has 930 points and is currently in 10th place, 510 points behind the places granting promotion. 9th placed Strava is 137 points, but given the projected points even the 9th place is out of reach. Glanbia, which is currently 11th is just 60 points behind and from the looks of it, the battle will be for a consolation Top 10 finish, which seems a downgrade for two teams who had higher expectations. In the individual rankings all riders on the team this season with the exception of Fredrik Ludvigsson have scored points. Kozhatayev jumped to 17th place, while Barta fell out of Top 20 and is in the lower part of Top 30. Visser, Jacobsen and Losch also gained few places.

The resolution on the sponsors front is also gaining traction. Both BWT and Hyundai will remain on the team til 2022, though Hyundai may be looking to scale down their stake with talks being in progress. DT Swiss - one of their longest serving partners, have announced their continuation with the team and that the team will receive their latest products through the company's loyalty programme. On the bike supplier front however, the team is considering their opitons.

After the new ranking updates were published, the team droping to 11th place and with no signs of improvement in the final race of the season come Zuri Metzgete this will be the third worst season for the operation that has been running since 2016. But on the organization front itself there are preperations for new structure as Hyundai Motor Europe announced that they're opting-out of their majority ownership. But what does this mean?

In the 2019-20 off-season, Hyundai purchased a controlling stake in the team for the next 2 years with an option to extend it for 2 more years. However, this 2-year period was anything but successful - their first (and so far only) season in the second tier ended in relegation and the next one was even worse ranking wise. This wasn't received well by the Hyundai Europe bosses and they've decided to decline the option, resulting in looking for a buyer of their stake. In the end thanks to a clause in the agreement, ivaneurope is now again majority shareholder with 80%, while Hyundai retains 15%. DataMap Europe, one of the first sponsors of the team back in 2016 holds the remaining 5%.

As far as sponsorship goes, Hyundai's 15% and DataMap's 5% stake means that they're locked as sponsors for next season. So is BWT, which announced their intention to support the team in 2022. Equipment sponsors such as DT Swiss, Uvex, Northwave and Rotor will also remain with the team. On the bike front it was announced that they'll not renew their agreement with Scott and will instead look for an alternative supplier with talks with some have reached advanced phase. TeamViewer's sponsorship will expire at the end of the season and will not be renewed.

On the roster front there are some talks of releasing most of the riders with this time no particular names being mentioned this time.

...repeat. Well, that was the best description of our 2021 MGUCI season. What was expected to be a promotion challenging season, instead turned a unmittigated disaster. While it's not like 2016 or 2017 where the team ended up dead last (of of 24 or so teams) 11th out of 14 teams is not better either. And again the questions will be where, when and what went wrong?

Well, looking from the rankings only four riders scored more than 100 points with Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev being the only rider to cross the 200 point mark (26th overall). Will Barta was some 14 points away from crossing that mark as he finishes the season in 35th place. Uppsala winner Max Losch ended up 66th with 109 points. 109 points also has Robov, who had a late season surge with two 6th place finishes - both in Swiss races coincidently.

Bermuda's Chequan Richardson slumped below Top 75 with 94 points, but given the lesser focus on cobbles from the team in general, 6 points shy of the 100 point mark is great result given the calendar. In 79th place was the utalitarian rider Tormod Jacobsen with 87 points. And this group of six is the only one in the team to reach above 50 points as the rest of the roster disappoints.

A benefit of a doubt can be given to riders on loan such as Visser, Stokbro, Lauk and Szarka as their goal was development, similar was the case with Kiskonen. Jasper Philpsen on the other hand didn't deliver as expected unfortunately and to be quite honest it wasn't his fault either. The other riders - Kochetkov, Valgren, Vink, Stoenchev, Lilovski, Barbier, Thill, Marchewka and Ludvigsson, were either average at best, or way below expectations at worst. One of the silver lignings is that at least all team memebers have manged to score a point at least once, meaning that everyone has contrubuted 1154 points won across 150 days.

But what's the direction now? The renewals will be near once the worlds conclude, but what will be the roster looking next season. We have to keep Kozhatayev as he was the best rider on the team all season. But he may command a hefty price and so is Barta. And would this result in a sticky cap situation if the team decides to keep both. Not to mention that other riders may want a pay raise. Or we will re-sign most of the riders to keep the band together and keep spinning the wheel? So many questions that for now are unanswered

Race	Category	Goal	Result
Volta a Catalunya	C2HC	Top 5	5th (Kozhatayev)
Tour of Vancouver	C2HC	Top 5	5th (Kozhatayev)
Giro del Trentino	C2	Win	9th (Kozhatayev)
Monterrey TTT	C2HC	Win	1st
Team Standings	CT	Win	11th

*Green - Goal Achieved. Red - Goal Failed.

Unfortunately we were way off the mark in the team standings. However we've managed to accomplish 3 of our 4 race goals set for this seasons which could be considered as small consolation prizes. The biggest disappointment was in Trentino where a good start in the TTT unfortunately ended in collapse at the final stage. And as a Win goal surely it stings, but what you gonna do - stuff happens.

Our best races were the C2HC races with Tour de Langkawi being the race that netted the most points for us, followed by Tour of Vancouver. Then, there are the two one-day race wins with Volta a Catalunya being the 5th best scoring race. Only in 3 races we didn't finish in the points - Badaling International, Coppa Placci and Olympia's Tour.

The second half of the season was far more productive than the first 5 months. And without surprizes, June was when we've hat the most points as this was the month when three of our goals were, achieving two of them. August was our second strongest month due to our performance in Langkawi. And even though only 79 points were won in September, it has the third best PPRD ratio and is the month with the least RD spend. The month of May was our worst with only 42 points and 2.8 PPRD ratio.

Kozhatayev was in a league of his own - he was the only rider to reach the 200-point mark and is the biggest contributor with 5.08 PpRD ratio. Will Barta has been the second biggest contibutor with 3.21 PpRD and while he had fewer points than other riders, Chequan Richardson only raced in 33 days (mostly in cobbled races) to give him the 3rd best PpRD ratio. All of our riders have managed to score atleast one point during the course of the season.

Richardson scored 94 points and given thay he was on the minimum wage his Wage/Point ratio is around similar level to that of Barta, who scored double the points and his wage is double of what the Bermuda rider earned. Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev has Wage/Points ratio of 610.