Bjartne wrote:
Kudos for turning your team regional as well as having such a competetive squad at the same time. I tried to be asian, but the market has changed a lot, and there are some tough battles for riders, so now my team is a melting pot of african, asian and europeans, which basically is the three continents related to the middle east. Will however try to be even more strict with my region preferences as I exactly like you, feel a greater passion for my team in that way.

You sacked your team's regional preferences

Bjartne wrote:


Well, I bet I can't lie either. It's true.
I did it to get Iranian Hossein Alizadeh though, but he slipped away at €300,000. The annoying part is that I would have gotten him, hadn't I rushed to buy 20 FA's the first day....

sammyt93 wrote:


Here at Sauber we're very happy about that and look forward to meeting your team and showing them what they've missed out on

Bjartne wrote:


Right now, I just want to avoid your team at all cost, but it's pretty impossible due to the fact that nearly all I've signed up for is asian races....

SportingNonsense wrote:
Interesting to see how Bpost go. A lot of pressure on Cornu to deliver, and Gautier once trained. You ought to improve on last year, but Im not sure how within reach a Top 4 position would be. Could be an interesting battle with various similarly strong teams

SportingNonsense wrote:
I guess Gautier will be a slightly better version than last year's Froome. Froome overperformed to be 9th in the Individual Standings, but if Gautier can manager say Top 25 at the end of the season, and Cornu can score well then you should comfortably make the Top 10.

SportingNonsense wrote:
It could hinge on how well your mountain based rivals perform - Alarcon, Taaramae, Dekker, Pozzovivvo, Kritskiy etc If a couple of then dont do well, then that really opens the door.

Our only race in January was the opening stage race of the season, the Tour Down Under. It is a race which suits the puncheurs in GC while having plenty for the sprinters to enjoy the rest of the time. We went here hoping for a strong performance from Romain Feillu on the sprint stages, while also holding out the hope that his good ability on the hills could see him get a good GC position too.

Stage 1
Things did not get off to the start that we hoped for, as our young up-and-coming puncheur Romain Zingle attempted to get into the break. His group was caught, however, and when things came down to the bunch sprint Feillu was poor placed and could only manage a 16th.

Stage 2
This was one of those key stages which was expected to go to the puncheurs. Zingle made another attempt to get into the break and this time he succeeded. Not only that but he took 4� in time bonuses at the first intermediate sprint, as well as tying for first in the mountain competition thanks to winning a mountain prime. Feillu just lost time at the end of the day and thus his GC hopes were well and truly over.


Zingle wins a mountain prime

Stage 3
Back to the flat land, so once again we put our hope in Feillu. It came down to a sprint and this time our leader managed to save himself quite well and spurted out of the bunch for a nice 5th place, our first top 10 result of the season.

Stage 4
This was a good stage for Feillu on paper, with a fairly tough climb towards the end. Once again, however, poor positioning cost the Frenchman and he could only manage a 9th in the bunch sprint.

Stage 5
This was the absolute queen stage of the race, with the hilltop finish up Willunga. Our plan was to work for Zingle, who was sitting in 7th overall thanks to his bonus time, and if he could just finish with the bunch then that would be fantastic for us.

Unfortunately, Zingle lost time on the first ascent, dropping back into the second group. This left us with very little hope for the GC, so we started planning for tomorrow already. However, Zingle came back from this and managed to work his way back up the front group again, putting himself in with a real chance!

With the tough final climb ahead of him, Zingle just managed to hang on to the group, finishing near the back but with the same time as the leaders. This gave him a remarkable 5th place on GC and thus exceeded all possible expectations that we had.


The race to the line at the top of Willunga

Stage 6
Only one stage ahead of us, a short criterium around Adelaide. Kris Boeckmans decided to show himself to the world and popped out into the break for the day and in fact he put in a huge effort, being the last man caught with only 5km remaining to the line. Finally, in the bunch sprint Feillu put in another top performance, taking 5th place.


Boeckmans fights until the end

GC Results

1	Alex Dowsett	Jaguar - Eritel	18h50'29
2	Aleksandr Efimkin	Cisco Cycling Team	s.t.
3	Francesco Gavazzi	Team UPC - Boehringer-Ingelheim	+ 12
4	Rui Costa	Team CSC-Orbea	+ 16
5	Romain Zingle	Team BPost	+ 28
6	Ben Hermans	Swedbank-PEAB	+ 32
7	Dietmar Mehr-Wenige	Adira-Isq Project	s.t.
8	Yusuke Hatanaka	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
9	Fabian Wegmann	Sram-Riboxx Cycling Team	s.t.
10	Simon Gerrans	Oz Cycling Project	s.t.
...
55	Mathieu La Lavandier	Team BPost	+ 12'42
58	Romain Feillu	Team BPost	+ 14'37
64	Sven Vandousselaere	Team BPost	+ 15'48
77	Kris Boeckmans	Team BPost	+ 17'45
92	William Maesen	Team BPost	+ 19'36
100	Joeri Stallaert	Team BPost	+ 20'54

In Summary
A brilliant race for us. Even without any of our big name leaders here we managed to score a 5th place on GC. Feillu was disappointing but the quality of opposition was high and we are confident that if he places himself well in future he can come away with some top results.

jph27 wrote:
Great result for you. Can't believe how cheap you got Boeckmans, although you priced me out of the two French sprinters

We came to this flat sprinter’s classic to work for Romain Feillu. He came here with some decent form and with a fairly tough course with some climbs we were hoping for a top 10 result from him, with anything higher being brilliant.

We decided not to throw anyone into the break, instead keeping ourselves around Feillu to keep him protected. As we predicted the climb proved too tough for some sprinters with several outside favourites dropping behind with two climbs remaining. Finally, as the bunch crested the climb for the final time 31 more riders dropped, meaning that Feillu was one of the last big sprinters left.

But there was some disaster as Vueling, who had been leading the chase, decided to stop chasing. The peloton slowed up and it is then that we took our chance. Pieter Vanspeybrouck, starting to come into form ready for the cobbled season, launched an attack. In his wheel was Romain Feillu! A couple of others went with them too.



This attack were about to catch the break as the sprint opened up with 2500m to go. But they were hurting and so our two guys started to sprint well.



But we were forced to open our sprints too quickly and while Vaitkus took the win for airBaltic, Feillu took 5th and Vanspeybrouck took 7th.



Well we went in hoping for a top 10 and we ended up with two. This was a great result for us and it once again shows how Vanspeybrouck can perform magnificently over multiple different types of terrain.

Results:

1	Tomas Vaitkus	airBaltic - Endura	3h31'47
2	Nariyuki Masuda	Japanese - Korean Cycling Project	s.t.
3	Phucong Sai-Udomsin	PFG-Armavia	s.t.
4	Kristian Dyrnes	Risa - Ergon Cycling Team	s.t.
5	Romain Feillu	Team BPost	s.t.
6	Tomohiro Kinoshita	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
7	Pieter Vanspeybrouck	Team BPost	s.t.
8	Giovanni Visconti	Oz Cycling Project	s.t.
9	William Ford	Oz Cycling Project	s.t.
10	Peter Kennaugh	Team Vueling Airlines	+ 2'04
...
51	Joeri Stallaert	Team BPost	s.t.
79	Kris Boeckmans	Team BPost	s.t.
82	Sven Vandousselaere	Team BPost	s.t.
97	Mathieu La Lavandier	Team BPost	s.t.
102	William Maesen	Team BPost	s.t.

We came to the Tour of South Africa hoping that Cyril Gautier could hit a top 10 finish overall, maybe even a top 5. With this being a HC race that was absolutely crucial. Not only that but we brought Mathieu Drujon here for his first race in our colours to try to take a sprint stage.

Stage 1
This was a flat stage with only a couple of smaller difficulties, so we were working for Drujon here. We didn’t send anyone in the break, just happy to sit back. It came down a bunch sprint and Drujon was positioned on about 6 or 7 back so we knew he had a chance of a podium here. He was blocked by Gatto, however, which ruined his chances of the win. He managed to extract himself from behind him and was clearly the fastest at the line, managing to get all the way up to 2nd place behind Hoffman! Not bad for his first day on our team.



Stage 2
A bit more climbing than yesterday but nothing that should cause too much trouble was on the menu today. Mid-way through the stage we decided to send Vansummeren up the road to bridge up to the break with a few other riders.



They managed to bridge up to the break and Vansummeren contested a sprint and a mountain prime, getting points in both. This group was brought back, however, and Gautier finished the day in 15th as our best rider. Vansummeren got some bonus seconds and moved up to 10th on GC.

Stage 3
This stage was a descent almost the entire way to the end. It was always going to be a sprint finish and while Drujon didn’t position himself well he managed to recover and sprint for third place, his second podium thus far in the race.

Stage 4
This was a fairly flat stage but with an interesting ride in the final 10km which could mix things up. Drujon wasn’t well positioned going into this climb but still managed a 9th place in the sprint. This unfortunately dropped him to 4th in the points classification, which had quickly become an option for him.

Stage 5
The first true day for the GC riders was today, with many thinking that Hoffman would lose his leader’s jersey. We were going to give it all for Gautier here, hoping to take him to the final short, sharp climb to the finish line. We contributed to the pace throughout a rather hectic day with lots of small attacks. Five riders attacked away from the bunch and we set Vansummeren off to chase them with 4km to go, using the fact that we had two puncheurs here to our advantage. Metinvest pulled him and his companions back, so with that we hit the final climb with the small group still having a small advantage.

As some of the favourites attacked Gautier went with Flugel to ensure that no gap opened up to them.



Roche took the win, managing to sprint right past the small late attackers. Gautier finished in fourth, just missing out on bonus seconds. Not only that but no gap was recorded to most of the group, so 33 riders finished together, including our own Vansummeren, Zingle and Cousin as well. Vansummeren moved up to 9th and Gautier into 11th.

Stage 6

This was another key GC day with the puncheurs being highly tipped. There was a steep climb right near the end with a long but fast descent to the finish. The early attacks went but with 14km to go, at the base of the climb, the break was in sight and things were looking good. Realising that we needed to make an impact Gautier was the first big attack on the climb.



Bellis and Froome went with him, then Roche, but everyone was brought back by Roy. There were some attacks after this but Froome was the only one who could be a small advantage. Remarkably, the bunch stayed mostly together. Gautier took fourth on this stage as well, once again just missing out on those crucial bonus seconds.

Stage 7

It was another flat stage today so great for Drujon, particularly because there were a couple of difficulties on it. Given that we needed some glory once the sprint came we decided to set up a train. This is something completely new for our team this year. Stallaert was designated as the final lead-out man and set Drujon up in a fantastic position.



Bellis and Park overtake him, however and he finishes a close third. We were pretty happy with this result, however, given that this was our first sprint train in quite some time.

So that was the race. We ended up getting our top 10 – Vansummeren held on for tenth thanks to his 2� time bonus. Gautier’s great stage placings but lack of bonus seconds meant that he could only manage 11th place – we thought that he deserved more and were disappointed with this result. Cousin and Zingle also get honourable mentions for being in the top 25. We were also pleased by the 3 podium places from Drujon, which make us hopeful for the rest of the season.

Results:

1	Nolan Hoffman	Metinvest-Emirates	29h03'15
2	Aleksandar Flügel	VolksWagen-Mapei	+ 18
3	Nicolas Roche	ING Cycling - Project	+ 26
4	Jonathan Bellis	Rothaus - Aegon	+ 32
5	Maurice Schreurs	Team Vueling Airlines	+ 36
6	Chris Froome	Jaguar - Eritel	+ 44
7	Grega Bole	Pivovarna Lasko Cycling Team	+ 52
8	Hassen Ben Nasser	Pivovarna Lasko Cycling Team	+ 56
9	Thomas Lebas	Team Vueling Airlines	s.t.
10	Johan Vansummeren	Team BPost	+ 1'02
11	Cyril Gautier	Team BPost	+ 1'04
...
21	Jerome Cousin	Team BPost	s.t.
25	Romain Zingle	Team BPost	s.t.
61	Eliot Lietaer	Team BPost	+ 22'10
80	Jonathon Dufrasnes	Team BPost	+ 36'38
96	Joeri Stallaert	Team BPost	+ 43'06

This was a great race for our new leader Dominique Cornu, who started his season here. The 20km time trial was going to determine things and we were confident that he could hold on with the two hilly stages. David Zabriskie seemed like his only massive competition to us. Feillu was here as our sprinter, but he had a lot of competition in that field.

Stage 1
A long and flat very simple stage. It came down to a sprint, as expected, and ultimately Feillu wasn’t particularly well placed and could only finish 11th.

Stage 2
A slightly tougher day was in store for the riders today, but certainly not super hard. This was going to favour Feillu more, as he was a much better climber than most sprinters here. Feillu tagged onto the back of Avelino’s wheel this time, 5 back on one of the trains. This was a great position. He looked like challenging for the win but went just a fraction too early and lost some speed. Still, he ended up with 3rd behind the winner of the stage, Greipel.



Stage 3
This stage was a slight rise to the finish so it was all about protecting Cornu and avoiding losing time. Mendes put in the first big attack on the final climb, with Pineau and Barredo also noteworthy for their big efforts. All of it was for nought, however, as there were no time gaps in the first 68 riders, with Cornu firmly ensconced in there.

Stage 4
So now we had the key time trial. Cornu needed a podium here and anything less than that would have been a huge disappointment. And podium he did, with a time of 26’05�, 28� down on the winner Zabriskie. This gave him a decent gap on Van Winden in third and an even better gap on the rest of the race. Vandousselaere also managed a top 20, putting him in second in the young rider jersey.



Stage 5
So this was always going to be the toughest day, with a climb up the Mirador del Sol. We did some work during the day to help ING, knowing that we needed a calm day. And that is exactly what we go. With 1km to go everyone was together... but the top 10 finishers managed to open up a gap to those behind! Cornu was in the second group with Zabriskie and because of this he lost 52� and dropped to fourth place overall.

Stage 6
This was a bit of a rolling sprint stage and thus Feillu had all our faith placed on him. Once again he managed to place himself as 5th wheel on one of the two trains behind Vasylyuk. He could only sprint to 8th place, however, which was a real disappointment. What was more disappointing, however, was Cornu losing 1’43� due to a split in the peloton! We could not believe this and it dropped him well out of the top 10, down to 23rd. What was going from a strong race for us just had a massive disaster.



Stage 7
We went into this stage with deflated spirits after the previous day’s farce. There were three climbs in order today on a tough circuit that looked like a chance for sprinters. Today Feillu positioned himself as 3rd wheel behind Greipel, who was forced to go long due to his train not being strong enough. With 700 metres to go Feillu launched his sprint against Geschke.



But it was not to be as Geschke proved faster and Bazajev also overtook him, leaving him with 3rd as a consolation prize. This wasn’t too bad but overall his sprinting here was disappointing.

So that concluded the race. As said, this should have resulted in many more points for us but it was not to be and we will move on and lick our wounds.

Results:

1	David Zabriskie	ING Cycling - Project	25h13'24
2	Kristijan Durasek	Alstom-RBC	+ 26
3	Sérgio Paulinho	Team WWE	+ 33
4	Ion Izagirre	Hollister Pro Cycling	+ 39
5	Rubén Plaza	Prio - Porto	+ 47
6	Carlos Barredo	AMEX Pro Cycling	+ 48
7	Jose Mendes	Prio - Porto	+ 49
8	Jesus Tendero	Rothaus - Aegon	+ 1'08
9	Carlos Betancourt	Hollister Pro Cycling	+ 1'20
10	Alessandro Proni	Hollister Pro Cycling	+ 1'22
...
19	Sven Vandousselaere	Team BPost	+ 2'00
23	Dominique Cornu	Team BPost	+ 2'11
25	Pieter Vanspeybrouck	Team BPost	+ 2'12
59	William Maesen	Team BPost	+ 5'54
76	Romain Feillu	Team BPost	+ 11'54
106	Mathieu La Lavandier	Team BPost	+ 25'27
107	Kris Boeckmans	Team BPost	+ 25'30

So the moment we had been waiting for... the first cobbled race of the season began! It was the almost completely flat Bahir Dar, which had a ton of cobbles along it and a small rise to the finish line. We obviously had brought our best cobbled team here, with Vanspeybrouck aiming for the win or at least a podium.

We helped with some early work on the front of the group and it was only marred by Broers hitting the deck.



He got back into the pack (now only 90 riders). Perhaps because of the small size of the bunch, Baugnies put in an attack early with Steegmans, Ostergaard and Veelers following him. There were still 50km to go but this looked serious, so we sent Vanspeybrouck up the road after them.



This was brought back by us, because we thought that it was too early and wanted to cause some more attrition in the peloton first. We reduced the bunch to 58 and, knowing that that result would probably get us more points at the end of the day, Vanspeybrouck launched an attack with Baugnies and Steegmans behind him. Gaudin came up to them too.



Meanwhile Maes, Eisel, Jacobs and Sieberg formed a bridging group and we put Albert in this group to ensure that, if they did get back, we would be in a position to have our secondary leader as an option as well. As it happens they did get back and so we had a new leading group of 9.



Lots of attacks followed and Vanspeybrouck managed to mark them all, keeping the group together. Steegmans was dropped and sadly so too was Albert. We got to the finishing climb with this reduced group and Vanspeybrouck was int eh unenviable position of leading out the sprint.



But regardless Vanspeybrouck held on and took the win! What a show of power at the end of the race.



So we took our first win of the year and it was in a cobbled classic so we were doubly pleased! Albert held on for 8th and Vansummeren conducted a long solo chase to take 10th. 3 in the top 10 including the win is a magnificent effort.

Results:

1	Pieter Vanspeybrouck	Team BPost	4h26'03
2	Marcel Sieberg	VolksWagen-Mapei	s.t.
3	Nikolas Maes	Allianz-BMW Cycling Team	s.t.
4	Bernhard Eisel	AMEX Pro Cycling	s.t.
5	Jérôme Baugnies	HTC Nieuwsblad	s.t.
6	Damien Gaudin	VolksWagen-Mapei	s.t.
7	Pieter Jacobs	Bouygues Telecom	s.t.
8	Niels Albert	Team BPost	+ 1'10
9	Gert Steegmans	Banco Nacional de Costa Rica	+ 1'56
10	Johan Vansummeren	Team BPost	+ 3'16
...
36	Tim Declerq	Team BPost	s.t.
41	Remco Broers	Team BPost	s.t.
49	Guillaume Van Keirsbulck	Team BPost	s.t.
56	Joeri Stallaert	Team BPost	s.t.

This was a race for the puncheurs for sure and given that it could well end in a handful of riders sprinting it out against each other we had high hopes for Gautier. The early part of the day saw 15 riders in the break, and we had Mathieu La Lavandier up there.



We still provided some help in the peloton to keep this large group under control, as Gautier was one of the favourites today. In fact it was fortunate as La Lavandier was dropped from the front group.

There were numerous attacks along the course, too many to really describe in this wrap-up. Gautier showed himself in a small group of 5 favourites who were chasing Ben Nasser, Flugel and Bellis but soon afterwards the bunch caught up to all of them.

Gautier was completely anonymous in the finale and we can’t say much else about his performance. He ended the day in 16th place – a tremendous disappointment.

Results:

1	Aleksandar Flügel	VolksWagen-Mapei	5h03'36
2	Jonathan Bellis	Rothaus - Aegon	+ 41
3	Aleksandr Kolobnev	Tinkoff Bank - Rosneft OJSC	s.t.
4	Guillaume Levarlet	Bouygues Telecom	s.t.
5	Jose Mendes	Prio - Porto	s.t.
6	Nino Schurter	Sauber Petronas Racing	+ 1'37
7	Sander Armee	HTC Nieuwsblad	s.t.
8	Maurice Schreurs	Team Vueling Airlines	s.t.
9	Zsolt Der	Pivovarna Lasko Cycling Team	s.t.
10	Fabian Wegmann	Sram-Riboxx Cycling Team	s.t.
...
16	Cyril Gautier	Team BPost	s.t.
41	Jerome Cousin	Team BPost	s.t.
45	Johan Vansummeren	Team BPost	s.t.
48	Romain Zingle	Team BPost	s.t.
80	Jonathon Dufrasnes	Team BPost	s.t.
81	Francis De Greef	Team BPost	s.t.

With our season still hanging in the balance on the edge of promotion we need to put out two separate press releases – one regarding what we plan to do if we remain in PCT next season and one for what we plan to do if we promote to the PT. This one is what we currently plan on doing if we remain in PCT next season.

Guaranteed to stay with the team, don’t even think about asking
Dominique Cornu
Pieter Vanspeybrouck
Joeri Stallaert
Tim Wellens
Romain Feillu
Romain Zingle
Kris Boeckmans

No major surprises here I guess, but yeah don’t even bother asking about these guys unless you are planning on offering several million for them (and even then I may say no).

Likely to stay but could leave for the right offer
Cyril Gautier
Niels Albert
Welle Jallays
Remco Broers
Sven Vandousselaere
Mathieu Drujon
Dion Beukeboom
William Maesen
Jerome Cousin
Mathieu La Lavandier
Maxime La Lavandier
Tim Declerq
Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
Eliot Lietaer

Gautier and Albert are very likely to stay, and I particularly like the idea of keeping Vanspeybrouck and Albert together for the third season in a row. However, for the right price either of them could leave, but they would still have to be very good offers and I would certainly need to have a replacement for Gautier available to make him viable. Drujon would be viable if I could also secure a different sprinter. Most of the young guys here are available for the right money and I wouldn’t need any rider to make up for it.

Looking to transfer out
Johan Vansummeren
Ben Curfs
Francis De Greef
Jonathon Dufrasnes

Vansummeren is a great asset to any team – he is equally good as a hilly and cobbled domestique and has even grabbed great results on his own. He would be brilliant on a CT team in particular. Certainly Curfs would be good as a CT leader or co-leader or as a super domestique in any division. De Greef would work as a super domestique anywhere and Dufrasnes is another brilliant workhorse over pretty much any terrain.

Not renewed
Arnaud Godet
Frederik Frison

Looking to loan
Joeri Stallaert
Tim Wellens
Romain Zingle
William Maesen
Mathieu La Lavandier

These are just the definite loans and I’m sure one or two more young guys will be loaned out too.

This list is just provisional and, like I said above, is entirely dependent on us not promoting. I would be happy to pay the wages in most cases and would be looking for cash coming in if the loan system remains the same.