Our regular transfer season is now over, and we have gone from 13 to 25 riders.
As before, younger riders have not been prioritized as we wish to be competitive right now, in order to maybe hold our place in the division. If we manage to survive in the PCT for some seasons, younger blood will eventually be brought in, but for now, old is gold!
Our main goal this season was to be a force to be reckoned with in the sprints, and we needed a new dedicated sprinter for that purpose. We are delighted having acquired one of the best nordic sprinters in Sondre Holst Enger, along with what we hope will be a decent sprint train.
We have signed two loanees from our friends in Gjensidige, with young scandinavians Fjellheim and Wandahl in. They will be racing a lot this season and get the experience needed from the PCT-field.
Lastly, our biggest (and youngest ) free agent signing is Pascal Ackermann. He was targeted early, due to his exciting combination (HI77,SP77). We look very much forward seeing him in action.
Unfortunately, Enger was the only leader we managed to sign this year, so we are a bit vulnerable in the mountains, without a GC-candidate, but we hope that our depth in the other domains may be enough to score some points and avoid relegation in the end.
Without further ado, here is the Tafjord squad for the upcoming season
Looks like a very versatile and competitive squad on any terrain. Except Enger you might not have the top riders in their discipline, but the depth approach has definitely been working for some teams, so hope to see it work for you as well!
Enger did very well for me without a dedicated sprint train, so perhaps you can give your cadre of other sprinters a chance to look for their own results elsewhere.
Ackermann seems like the other key rider. If you can both him and Enger scoring well then you should have a decent season.
Thanks for all the nice messages Nemo, red and Laurens!
We hope and believe that our squad depth will be the key to surviving the PCT division
We are also very proud to have 3 national champions on board this season.
Belevics renewed his Latvian TT-jersey, with Guldhammer and Ackermann being new additions to the squad.
We hope that all these jerseys will be very visible in the PCT-field this year.
A huge thanks for all the shirt designers we have co-operated with through the years, espescially to hillis91 and alexkr00.
Will be worn by everyone else!
Made by hillis91
Will be worn by Rasmus Guldhammer
Made by alexkr00
In some hectic final hours deadline drama, Tafjord was involved together with several other teams, fighting to get under the wage cap.
We have successfully done so, with the help of our wonderful Ethiopian friends.
They will receive Frederik Frison at a fee of 50K. While we acquired Eipor Eiriksson at the very last minutes on a 10K stagiare contract.
To be honest, he is utter garbage in every discipline, but he is the icelandic double champion and we figured out that alone was worth 10K salary
We will post his jersey here, together with the updated squad at the end of transfers:
Is prioritizing older riders truly the best strategy for long-term success in competitive cycling?
While the immediate goal may be survival in the PCT, could this approach hinder the development of younger talent and innovation within the team? What are the potential risks of relying too heavily on experienced riders at the expense of nurturing the next generation?",
"refusal
No, it's definately not a long term strategy, but as you say, our immediate goal is to stay in the PCT-division and right now we figured out this was the way to go. As a promoted team, we are already lagging behind, quality wise, and the old riders we have acquired this transfer season will probably bring way more points than the 22-23 year old talents we looked at.
Everything we have done this transfer season was in the hope of staying up for another year. If we still relegate in spite of that, this was an horrible decision.
No, it's definately not a long term strategy, but as you say, our immediate goal is to stay in the PCT-division and right now we figured out this was the way to go. As a promoted team, we are already lagging behind, quality wise, and the old riders we have acquired this transfer season will probably bring way more points than the 22-23 year old talents we looked at.
Everything we have done this transfer season was in the hope of staying up for another year. If we still relegate in spite of that, this was an horrible decision.
It might be anyway
I'm sorry to say, but I'm like 90% sure that's a bot.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
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