Gautier has a great track record in Tour Down Under so we decided to go even though this edition might be a bit more sprinter friendly than past editions.

The first two stages went on quietly with Gautier keeping himself out of trouble finishing right behind the bunch sprint.

The third stage had the classic corkscrew hill in the finale but this time so far out that many had expected it to end up in some kind of sprint.
Cyril had other plans though and attacked with about 11 km to go.

He quickly caught up with the two remaining breakaway riders and on the descent Froome came up from behind.

In the end no one could challenge our French master though!


No problems on the flat stage 4.

Having the leaders jersey we took on the responsibility early on the Willunga-stage.

Happy to get some help from Generali though, who ended up tearing things apart on the hill so that Cyril ended up in a small front group with as many as four Generali-riders.

Nevertheless he put on the pressure and only Ulissi managed to keep up with him over the top.
At this point the GC was pretty much secure if he could just keep the Italian under control.

So Gautier placed himself nicely on Ulissis wheel to make sure the fast Italian didn't surprise him with an attack.

He was even able to take the win in the final stage.

The final stage for us was all about keeeping out of trouble while showing the world that this is a team to b counted on this season.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
St. 1	Cyril Gautier	21st	s.t.
St. 2	Cyril Gautier	20th	s.t.
St. 3	Cyril Gautier	WIN	-18
St. 4	Cyril Gautier	12th	s.t.
St. 5	Cyril Gautier	WIN	s.t.
St. 6	Cyril Gautier	15th	s.t.

1	Cyril Gautier	Valio - DeLaval	16h52'38
2	Diego Ulissi	Generali - EDF	+ 38
67	Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	+ 6'19
78	Kari Brynjolfsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 8'00
79	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 8'01
80	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 8'02
95	Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	+ 8'03
106	Aleksi Hänninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 11'47
142	Sasu Helme	Valio - DeLaval	+ 16'43

Shonak wrote:
Gratz to the win, Valio on the right tractor for a nice harvest

First outing for König in our colours, but also the race all year where we have the lowest expectations for him as he isn't favoured by the classics format nor by the PCT competition here.
That also reflects in the fact that we entered the race with the minimum allowed riders.


He was where he needed to be when the peloton was down to 24 riders.

Sadly that was all he had in him and he joined forces with our old rider Anacona up the mountain to finish 18th.
Not that bad, but also a bit worse than we had hoped for seeing the startlist.

1	Sergio Luis Henao Montoya	Philips - Continental	6h52'09
18	Leopold König	Valio - DeLaval	+ 8'15
50	Sakari Lehtinen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 12'49
56	Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 14'16
63	Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	+ 16'46
100	Sasu Helme	Valio - DeLaval	+ 31'11
DNF	Aleksi Hänninen	Valio - DeLaval	-

We were looking quite a bit forward to seeing the first outing for our sprint team.

In the end it became a quite horrible race for us to be honest.
Two lone riders were allowed to just ride of the front and take the first two spots despite crazy racing in the peloton.

No trains were to be seen anywhere and having been left to fend for himself Manninen only managed an 18th place.
This one goes down as a training race!

1	Johannes Schinnagel	Oberfranken	4h37'48
18	Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 2'29
73	Risto Aaltio	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
89	Aviv Yechezkel	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
95	Emils Liepins	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
103	Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
122	Olli Kulppi	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
125	Kari Brynjolfsson	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
127	Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.

Gautier mae sure that we are off to a good start by first taking 2nd place in Cuba and then dominate against PCT-teams Down Under.

It was no huge surprise that König couldn't follow up on that in Pico Basile, while Manninens lack of sprint in the Great Ocean Road Classic was very disappointing for us.

No choice really:

A shot from Australia

In Langkawi the focus is on a good GC from König with Manninen being given the task of chasing stage results.

Manninen will then go up against the PCT sprinters in Ireland with full support.
König will be staying in Asia to race Hong Kong at the end of the month.

Kuurne will be Kulppis first outing as a leader in what is likely to be his carreer defining season as the last one he can be expected to lead anything.

Gautier is back in action with Gisborne GP while the PCT punchers might start to get worried knowing that they will have to face Cyril again in Etoilde de Besseges.

Start		Race	Days	Cat.	Leader
01-Feb		Tour de Langkawi	7	C2HC	König/Manninen
07-Feb		Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne	2	C2	Kulppi
10-Feb		Ras Tailteann	3	C1	Manninen
22-Feb		Gisborne GP	2	C2HC	Gautier
25-Feb		Etoile de Besseges	3	C1	Gautier
25-Feb		Hong Kong Challenge	3	C2	König

Australian sign warning for immensely strong cattle.

This season have been one of ups and down, contrary to last season, which mainly consisted of downs.

Looking at leadership level Gautier won the individual rankings after some stunning performances, but also after more than once having thrown far too much energy in reckless attacks leaving him tired in the real finale despite him being one of the top favourites.
Great result, but could have been even better!

König did just about what was expected of him taking a very nice 5th place in the rankings. Very happy with his season overall.

Manninen on 16th place looks solid, but in reality our sprint train was horrible all season. We had a great seyup on paper but just never got it working properly.
Matti did manage to scrape together some points so I'm actually mainly looking at his designated leadoutman Liepins when complaining. 17 points while not doing your main job is just not good enough.

On the cobbles the hopes were on Kulppi, but once again he proves that while he is a beast of a cobbles-domestique he just isn't leadership material.

Another rider performing below expectations is Pökälä. While he wasn't one of the absolute top TT-dogs of the division he did have a lot of bad days and often weren't even our best TT'er.

We can't really complain about finishing 2nd in the division and taking a relatively easy promotion but having been on top early in the season and seeing so many riders not live up to their full potential it's hard not to be a little disappointid to miss out in the title run.

Pos		Team	Pts	PPRD
1		Delvaux	2591	17,27
2		Valio - DeLaval	2184	14,56
3		Compal-Merida	1854	12,36

Pos		Rider	Team	Pts
1		Cyril Gautier	Valio - DeLaval	772
5		Leopold König	Valio - DeLaval	636
16		Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	335
66		Olli Kulppi	Valio - DeLaval	120
85		Sakari Lehtinen	Valio - DeLaval	86
432*		Awet Gebremedhin	Berg Cycles	54
128		Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	52
442*		Joni Kanerva	Volvo acc. by Spotify	47
141		Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	42
147		Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	40
187		Aviv Yechezkel	Valio - DeLaval	26
225		Sasu Helme	Valio - DeLaval	18
233		Emils Liepins	Valio - DeLaval	17
235		Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	17
309		Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	6
322		Aleksi Hänninen	Valio - DeLaval	5
324		Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	5
335		Kari Brynjolfsson	Valio - DeLaval	4
348		Risto Aaltio	Valio - DeLaval	3
463		Kristian Aasvold	Valio - DeLaval	0
464		Oskari Vainionpää	Valio - DeLaval	0

* PT Rankings