Amazing to see such a devoted geographical team, in a "obscure" cycling nation.
You have like 75-80% greeks in your total line up and you are still competitive?
That's just mental!
Love your Farantakis training too. Will folloe you with interrest
sammyt93
I hope it's worth it, but I must admit that I have my doubts, given his extremely poor track-record in actually winning stuff. He has a total of 4 stagewins over the course of his entire season - I signed him when he was a stagiare! 1 stagewin in a PT race, the other 3 in PTHC. He couldn't even win in C1 or HC races last season.
Laurens147
Me too. I hope he will deliver both as leadout and lead sprinter. I think he have a good an balanced statbase to do so here and there.
Bjartne
Thanks a lot mate. Indeed it seems that a pure Greek base is somewhere in between divisions, but with a bit of help can survive the PT - Whether I managed to sign the proper help this season is yet to be seen. Could very much be a bit under the line.
TheManxMissile
Hehe that would be highly unreasonable, although those monuments are something we still haven't locked in, through out all those years. So fingers crossed he will find some magic
Goal Time! We have gone for 5 easy goals, in order to get the funds needed to make sure we could train a rider - or buy a leader...
Giro d'Italia
Win
TBA
TBA
TBA
Milano San Remo
Win
TBA
TBA
TBA
Rund um Köln
Top 3
TBA
TBA
TBA
Tour of Qatar
Top 3
TBA
TBA
TBA
Team Standings
Win
TBA
TBA
TBA
Realistically we aim to get 2/5, and with a large amount of luck, Milano San Remo could be an achievable goal - more likely though, a top 10 or worse. Regardless, let's have a look at how we aim to achieve the 4 race goals!
2025 is waiting just ahead of us, and we are back in the Pro Tour, trying our very best to survive! Let's see what to expect from the first of 4 quarters!
January Racing
Only 2 races in the first month back in the Pro Tour. Both are races that could see us perform to a mediocre part of the division, maybe slightly higher. But we also need a good start, as we are soon to ride races where our chances are very limited.
Start
End
Race
Category
08-Jan
10-Jan
Tour of Tasmania
PT
Expectations: We bring Stylianos Farantakis as a hope for the early lead. He should be among the top favorites, but mostly we are eager to see whether or not he works in our setup. Besides Farantakis we bring a lot of depth, hoping to maximize our potential in the outskirts of the top 10-20.
Start
End
Race
Category
23-Jan
28-Jan
Tour of Qatar
PT
Expectations: Where we brought Farantakis for some early gamble in Tasmania, he is here as our undisputed leader, with the best possible help he can get. We supplement with a bunch of solid PRL riders in the hope that a break appears somewhere in the race and that we can get the better of those splits.
February Racing
While January was race light, February is exactly the opposite with 6 races in total. It's a good mixture of race combinations, and this should hopefully talk into our depth side, where we have something to play for in all races, but not a winning move by any means.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Feb
Roma Maxima
PTHC
Expectations: It's time to see what our new cobbled leader, Marcos Altur can do. We bring the best possible setup around him, and with the solid amount of domestique firepower we hope to see him fight for a top 5, or just outside.
Start
End
Race
Category
05-Feb
11-Feb
Tirreno - Adriatico
PT
Expectations: We bring everything we can to help Giannoutsos get a solid result. The domestique strength might be underwhelming in the mountains, but should be sufficient in the TTT to land a somewhat solid playground for him. Giannoutsos is the weakest in the TTT train however, so it may backfire.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Feb
14-Feb
Paris - Nice
PT
Expectations: We gamble in the triple-header to get the best of Kinoshita by adding him to the highest amount of racedays possible, where our hopes is that the better puncheurs will make Grand-Duche their priority. If not, chances are slim for a result. Farantakis is here however to see if he can snatch a stagewin.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Feb
Classique du Grand-Duché
PT
Expectations: Expectations are low in Luxembourg, where we bring the 3rd tier climbers to the party and hope for some sort of mountainous selection. If there is harly any selection we may dream of Soulious or Koumpetsos fighting for something, but realistically this is a write-off.
Start
End
Race
Category
22-Feb
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
PT
Expectations: Last season we fought to win all TTT's. This season is very much a different outcome, but we still hope to have enought strength to give the top 5 a go.
Start
End
Race
Category
28-Feb
Milano - San Remo
M
Expectations: Milano San Remo is always a bit of a gambles race. We try to cover every scenario from a sprint, to a late attack or a puncheurs final. Likely we will be around the top 10, but whether or not we will get a good result is up to luck.
March Racing
After a mixed setup, we are back to sprints, cobbles and timetrials - which is, on paper atleast, our speciality. We expect to score a decent amount of points during March before moving into a much more difficult Q2!
Start
End
Race
Category
01-Mar
03-Mar
Ronde van Nederland
PT
Expectations: We have solid experience and fond memories from Coquard in Nederland, where also Koretzky have done reasonably well in the past. We hope to see something similar from Farantakis and Kinoshita, and to atleast break into the top 10 GC.
Start
End
Race
Category
20-Mar
22-Mar
Tour of Ukraine
PTHC
Expectations: Ukraine is, on paper, a very good fit for our riders. The main issue being, that a lot of other teams can say the same, and most are present here. Much like in Tasmania we hope to see our depth department roll into the lucky side of the GC battle, and maybe sneak a guy into top 10.
Start
End
Race
Category
20-Mar
E3 Prijs
PT
Expectations: Altur is ready for his second real leader performance, and yet again we have the team setup around him, to see if he can land somewhere between 5-10th, and with some luck break into the top 5.
Start
End
Race
Category
31-Mar
Ronde van Vlaanderen
M
Expectations: Similar as to E3 Prijs we hope to see Altur fight for a top 10. Ronde is a much harder race, however, and doesn't suit him quite as well.
After a pretty awful Tour of Tasmania, with only Farantakis showing a glimmer of hope, we hurried to the Tour of Qatar, where expectations were significantly higher.
In the shadows we expected a scoring around 250-300 points from the race we previously won through Bryan Coquard in 2021, and historically with Thor Hushovd in 2009. Throughout the years we have consistantly performed well here with a total of 9 stagewins, 11 GC top 10s and a single pointsjersey.
Stylianos Farantakis showed his capabilities within the race structure in both 2021 and 2022 getting 12th and 8th respectively, in both occassions working for the team star Bryan Coquard.
And thus, began his role as a leader within the team at the highest level ever, with an immidiate expectation that he could push for a GC podium given his strong abilities against the clock. It would require a somewhat consistent performance, to keep snatching up seconds before the final battle against the clock. Alternatively time it just right on a couple of occasions to take the big chunks.
On stage 1 he delivered the consistency we were hoping for with a 5th place, but on stage 2, he hit it just right and took his only 2nd ever Pro Tour stagewin! (Having previously won a stage in Tirreno-Adriatico in 2022)
From there on, it was more of a struggle, despite getting a great piece of leadout at times from the new signing Axel Zingle. On stage 3 it was a complete miss, getting 14th - even some spots behind his leadout rider. It was somewhat better on stage 4, but he couldn't quite get it right after the enourmous burst of energy from Zingle. In the end 7th gave a bit of extra seconds, but the chances of GC succes slowly began to fade, with just one shot left to keep things under control.
Yet it didn't happen, and a new subpar performance getting 8th saw him being in a bit of stress before the epilogue. Fortunately his main rivals had secured even less points throughout, so when it came to the final day, he won the race with considerable ease! Getting 13th on the day was enough to push for a rather dominant win, and make a small jump to a shared 2nd in the points competition.
In the end the win was as big as 23 seconds down to a surprising 2nd in Frederik Rodenberg from Carlsberg - Danske Bank. 25 seconds deficit is the largest gap in modern day of the race, slotting Farantakis in among the more definitive victories! We have to go back to the early days of Daniele Bennati dominance to see a significant increase. In 2010 he won the race in ease 1'12 ahead of Maxime Vantomme.
To add a bit of sugar to the result, both Remy Cavagna and Martinos Moutsios had a good final day, and added to the score sheet. In particular was it great to see Moutsios score 2nd in the U25 result, which is in fact our best result since Coquard won the U25 in 2017.
In the end, we managed to score 419 points from the race, putting January in +120 pts in total! A very good start to the season in a very important month for us! And even more importantly - A goal achieved!
We are now ready for a very important february, starting in Roma Maxima with big expectations to fight for a top 5 result.
Giro d'Italia
Rund um Köln
Tour of Qatar
Team Standings
Tour of Tasmania
Paris - Nice
Classique du Grand-Duché
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
Ronde van Nederland
Tour of Ukraine
E3 Prijs
