A boring final stage was perfect for Kuss, lost one place on the GC due to bonus seconds but 5th on the GC is definitely better than I had hoped when we started.
Add that to the Green jersey and a stage win and pretty sure we scored more points than in the rest of our season combined (not that it was a high bar).
Congrats to Bbl, Warbasse and Lief and Holgaard on the wins.
9th is much lower in the GC than I was hoping for Keinath, and we didn't score with anyone else GC-wise. But two stage wins and some minor points from the other classifications is still a decent haul from this race, so we can't it was a failure.
Congrats to lief and BBL on the stage and GC wins respectively Thanks to Gustav for for all the reports!
First of all, very enjoyable reports Gustavovsky, thank you! Similar to bbl, I was on the edge of my seat in that final stage, when Ndayisenga was coming closer and closer to the front ...
While finishing one second behind the winner, and then not even second place, hurts a little, it is still much more than I had anticipated going into the race, especially with the stage win on top, so I'm happy with our performance here (though not so much with Selig, or someone like Khederi for that matter, but that's water under the bridge). Congrats to bbl as well, happy to see you succeed!
Congrats to bbl, good to see you winning after last season's disappointments!
And thanks for the great reports to Gustav! You did really well in bringing the tension to the screens, although that last stage wasn't anything to be proud of for my team.
All in all, we have very mixed feelings leaving Eritrea. There was that great 2nd place by Saggiorato on the mountain stage, which obviously was beyond expectations. Not being in the front group one day later however cost him a GC podium, or even the (unlikely) win.
Same for Pernsteiner. Great performance on the mountain stage, a sub-par showing on the hilly stage the next day. Launching the sprint way too early on the final day is somehow symptomatical... He should have tried to break away earlier, I'm pretty sure he'd have been able to drop several of those ahead of him in the GC in the end.
And then, there were the sprints... We did leadouts this time, which sound good - but it was very poorly done in 2/3 of the stages. We'll take that 2nd place from stage 5, hoping it will mostly work out like that in CT races for Reinhardt. He has the legs and the support to win flat stage races, that's for sure. But to reach his goal in Eritrea, the green jersey, he'd have needed one more top-level finish.
In conclusion, the "season of almosts" goes on. We're rarely really far away from a big win, but we haven't arrived there so far - while many other teams already have. So while we once again get a very solid points haul of >10 PpRD, this lack of top results might cost us dear by the end of the season. But well, not even 1/3 done, so there's still plenty of time to achieve big things. But it's nasty to wait more than 3 months to actually win something...
Thanks to Gustav for for all the reports!
