With the Tour of the Middle East being postponed, February ended with only one race for the Nomads. In contrary to that, March will see a whole five race participations on a variety of categories and terrains, including our first season goal, the Tour de Langkawi!

Hubert Schwab	Leader
David Vitoria	Sprinter
Viatcheslav Dyadichkin	Domestique
Stefan Schafer	Domestique
Manuel Fumic	Domestique
Patrick Bercz	Domestique
Jack Haig	Domestique

Being a partly mountaineous stage race, the Tour de San Luis is an interesting aim for our team. Hubert Schwab is our leader here, but his lack of time trialing limits his possibilities for a top overall ranking. If the mountain stage proves to be very selective, a Top 5 may be in reach. Apart from him, David Vitoria is our joker for the less tougher stages. He showed promising performances and we'd be happy if he can continue that.

Happy:	Stage win and/or Top 5 overall
Disappointed:	Less than a Top 10 overall and no stage Top 5

Maxim Iglinski	Leader
Bereket Yemane	Free Element
Artur Gajek	Sprinter
Alex Diniz	Domestique
Adil Jelloul	Domestique
Aurelien Passeron	Domestique
Heinrich Berger	Domestique

Our ambitions are higher for the Tour de Langkawi, and they have to be: Before the season, we've set a Top 5 overall here as one of our season goals, and everything but achieving that would be a massive disappointment. Hence, we brough Maxim Iglinski, who's surely one of the three best climbers of the division. He has decent support by Diniz, Yemane and Berger. Gajek will try his luck in the sprints but faces tough opposition. Jelloul and Passeron are here for breakaways and controlling the field on the flat stages.

Happy:	Overall win by Iglinski
Disappointed:	No Top 3 overall

Markus Fahner	Co-Leader
David Vitoria	Co-Leader
Adil Jelloul	Free Element
Bereket Yemane	Domestique
Manuel Fumic	Domestique
Stefan Schafer	Domestique
Jack Haig	Domestique

The Seskin Classic is a completely different terrain. A hilly classic, the race is not necessarily our strong terrain, but with a solid, well-rounded team led by the duo Vitoria and Fahnert, we hope to make the best of it. Vitoria surprised with a nineth place at the season opener San Cristobal, and we hope to repeat that result.

Happy:	Top 10 and/or break of the day
Disappointed:	No appearance at all

Maxim Iglinski	Leader
Bereket Yemane	Domestique
Alex Diniz	Domestique
Viatcheslav Dyadichkin	Domestique
Adil Jelloul	Domestique
Stefan Schafer	Domestique
Jack Haig	Domestique

The Giro del Trentino is the second C1 race we enter this season. After Schwab in the Tachira, it's Iglinski's turn to take the lead, and the squad is entirely devoted to his overall ambitions. We figure that he should be able to do quite well at the hilly and mountaineous stages, but we fear to lose too much time in the TTT. Therefore, a prognosis is uncertain.

Happy:	Top 10 overall
Disappointed:	Less than a Top 15

Artur Gajek	Leader
David Vitoria	Free Element
Markus Fahnert	Domestique
Ralf Matzka	Domestique
Mathias Flückinger	Domestique
Patrick Bercz	Domestique
Heinrich Berger	Domestique

We finish the month back at C2 level with our least favorite kind of race: A completely flat classic. Artur Gajek is our man here, but we don't really expect anything from him, especially after his performances so far. Maybe, Vitoria can do something, but again, we wouldn't be sad if not.

Happy:	Top 15
Disappointed:	-

The Maloja Mountain Nomads would officially like to apologize for more than four months without any official team updates or contributions in the public discours. There's really no excuse for this, so we won't try to give any. Instead, we announce the return to activity and underline that with a complete recap of what has happened in our time of absence.

With the Middle East Tour being re-scheduled, the hopes for a first good overall result were high in Argentina. Hubert Schwab was expected to achieve at least a Top 10 result, being one of the strongest climbers present. And the race started solid, with Viatcheslav Dyadichkin claiming the mountain jersey on stage two, and a fantastic performance of Manuel Fumic on stage three, where he finished second after a gutsy attack.


However, stage three already indicated that Hubert Schwab was not on top of his game. And the stage five, the queen stage, confirmed that in the worst possible way: The Swiss lost more than thirteen (!) minutes. And Fumic, who had still been in fourth position overall after the time trial, lost all his hopes for a higher rank as well.

But you have got to give Schwab some credit for what he did on the last two stages. Having been crushed, he fought back, first finishing seventh on the hilltop finish on stage five, and then even going into the break on a flat stage seven, holding on just to be caught on the line and finishing fourth.

1	Pedro Nicácio	Bonsucro	23h07'49
2	Eduard Alexander Beltran	Grupo Nutresa	+ 9
3	Carlos Castaño	ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	+ 44
4	Francis De Greef	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	+ 1'33
5	Sergey Rudaskov	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 1'38
...
22	Manuel Fumic	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 6'48
34	Hubert Schwab	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 10'47
53	Stefan Schafer	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 16'00
75	Viatcheslav Dyadichkin	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 18'43
78	Jack Haig	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 19'19
85	David Vitoria	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 20'20
90	Patrick Bercz	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 22'02

The Tour de Langkawi was our first goal of the year - a Top 5 overall -, and it was Maxim Iglinski's first race for the team as well. He was one of the top favorites, with two mountain stages to decide the overall. But let's start from the beginning:

The race started out great with Aurelien Passeron as a sole attacker on stage one, taking the mountain jersey for the team. He secured that jersey for another day being part of the break on stage two as well. But the setback came, just like in San Luis, with the mountains. While Nariyuki Masuda took a surprise win, Maxim Iglinski only finished 10th, losing quite some time already - time he could take back on stage five, the second mountain stage. While he rode more actively and was rewarded with a fourth place, that was only enough for sixth overall, thus narrowly missing our goal.



As for the remainder of the flat stages, Artur Gajek did the best he could in a crazily strong sprinting field. With a 9th and an 11th place, we can't complain here. In conclusion, we have to be disappointed to have missed our goal, but it wasn't all bad and we got some heavily-needed ranking points.

1	Vitor Rodrigues	Siam Cement - Lenovo	34h15'10
2	Nariyuki Masuda	Grupo Nutresa	+ 45
3	David Arroyo	ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	+ 47
4	Alberto Losada	Bonsucro	+ 1'15
5	Diego Gallego	Team TomTom	+ 1'27
...
6	Maxim Iglinski	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 2'06
11	Alex Diniz	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
30	Bereket Yemane	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 8'40
35	Heinrich Berger	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
50	Adil Jelloul	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 20'16
83	Artur Gajek	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
84	Aurélien Passeron	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 30'57

We didn't have many expectations for this race, and really, there's nothing to say about it. Why? Because the Nomads didn't make a single move in Ireland.

1	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	Team ASDA-Savers	4h50'32
2	Marcel Wyss	Team Vontobel	s.t.
3	Phillip Gaimon	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
4	Guillaume Boivin	Evonik - Signal Iduna	s.t.
5	Bjorn Selander	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
...
38	Stefan Schafer	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
42	Markus Fahnert	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
45	Bereket Yemane	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
48	Manuel Fumic	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
53	Adil Jelloul	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
68	David Vitoria	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
94	Jack Haig	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.

Following the Seskin Classic, a second update on the Continental Standings has been published. Unfortunately, the Nomads weren't able to better their 19th place.

			Team	Total	RD	PpRD
1	10		Grupo Nutresa	441	39	11.308
2	1		In-n-Out Racing p/b Auchan	431	36	11.972
3	3		Team Vontobel	387	40	9.675
4	6		Team ASDA-Savers	320	22	14.545
5	5		Team TomTom	314	36	8.722
6	4		Fletcher-Garneau	302	29	10.414
7	20		Bonsucro	289	24	12.042
8	14		Siam Cement - Lenovo	277	31	8.935
9	25		ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	273	39	7.000
10	2		Eddie Stobart Pro Cycling	266	38	7.000
11	12		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	248	32	7.750
12	7		Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	228	28	8.143
13	9		Team Nordeus	227	36	6.306
14	8		Evonik - Signal Iduna	193	24	8.042
15	21		Sauber Petronas	171	29	5.897
16	13		Azteca-NBCSN	155	24	6.458
17	26		Euskaltel - Bavaria	136	21	6.476
18	11		Team Ameriabank-Novatek	134	31	4.323
19	19		Maloja Mountain Nomads	132	39	3.385
20	17		Team Chiquita-Universal	120	28	4.286
21	16		Wounded Warrior	116	29	4.000
22	15		Risa - Ergon	112	33	3.394
23	24		Alpina - Avianca	101	40	2.525
24	23		Dell - 361° Racing	74	31	2.387
25	22		Team Carlsberg - Danske Bank	67	24	2.792
26	18		Team Live Nation	47	19	2.474

The gap to place 10, our season goal, has roughly doubled since the last update, the Tours de San Luis and Langkawi weren't the expected success.

The Giro del Trentino provided the second opportunity for our team to perform on C1 level. After Hubert Schwab finished 14th at the Vuelta a Tachira, Maxim Iglinski wanted to confirm that result in Italy.

The race began great with a fifth place of Bereket Yemane after a late attack on stage one. In our very first team time trial, the team managed to limit the losses, finishing 15th of 19. Then, the action in the mountains began. Maxim Iglinski performed great and finished 8th, third best of the main bunch behind the succeeding breakaway.


Unfortunately, though, he couldn't quite hold that level on the following two stages. Being badly placed, he lost a chunk of time on the final ascent of the race, dropping back in the GC but still finishing on a solid 15th place.

Apart from Iglinksi, Alex Diniz and Viatcheslav Dyadichkin made appearances in breakaways, and eventhough they were both dropped before the final of the stages, they contributed to put our stamp on this race, and we're happy with how it turned out.

1	Janez Brajkovic	Heineken-Cal Giant	17h58'35
2	Fabio Duarte	Venchi - Ferranti	+ 1'17
3	Domenico Pozzovivo	Kappa-ENI	+ 3'10
4	Dario Cataldo	Magna - Ryanair	+ 3'15
5	Marco Marzano	Kappa-ENI	+ 4'20
...
15	Maxim Iglinski	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 7'58
42	Alex Diniz	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 19'47
47	Viatcheslav Dyadichkin	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 21'45
87	Jack Haig	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 44'00
88	Adil Jelloul	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 44'06
89	Stefan Schafer	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 44'08
111	Bereket Yemane	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 1h14'00

We came with little hopes to the Himmerland Rundt. Flat classics really aren't our strong terrain, but we had Vitoria and Gajek there, so who knows. But it was another rider that brought home a decent result today: Matthias Flückinger.

The Swiss joined the break that would only be caught in the last couple of hundred meters! In a tight finish, the sprinters managed to catch riders of the break but Flückinger still managed to hold on to a strong 12th place as Matthias Westling took the win. With Vitoria and Gajek both in the Top 20, this made for a much better result than we had hoped for.

1	Mattias Westling	Team Live Nation	4h06'10
2	Kevin Peeters	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	s.t.
3	Aleksandr Serebriakov	Team Ameriabank-Novatek	s.t.
4	Michael Matthews	Risa - Ergon	s.t.
5	Michael Vingerling	Team TomTom	s.t.
...
12	Mathias Flückiger	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
16	David Vitoria	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
20	Artur Gajek	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
33	Markus Fahnert	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
42	Patrick Bercz	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
59	Ralf Matzka	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
72	Heinrich Berger	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.

The Tro-Bro Leon was one of only two races for us in the month of April, an we didn't expect much. Ralf Matzka, our only hope in cobbled races, had an underwhelming season so far, so every single point would have made us happy. And indeed, finally, he was able to score. The German finished on a decent 13th place, that's all we can ask for.

1	Yohann Gene	Azteca - NBCSN	4h20'45
2	Joseph Cooper	Risa - Ergon	s.t.
3	Shengjun Wu	Team ASDA-Savers	s.t.
4	Willi Willwohl	Evonik - Signal Iduna	s.t.
5	Kevin Barclay	Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	s.t.
...
13	Ralf Matzka	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
27	Artur Gajek	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
45	Patrick Bercz	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
63	Heinrich Berger	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
83	Mathias Flückiger	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
85	Stefan Schafer	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
90	Manuel Fumic	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.

Another ranking update was due, and since we didn't have any major results since the last one, we slipped considerably. In fact, we slipped as low as you can:

1	3		Team Vontobel	885
2	5		Team TomTom	685
3	14		Evonik - Signal Iduna	653
4	22		Risa - Ergon	644
5	1		Grupo Nutresa	624
6	6		Fletcher-Garneau	580
7	7		Bonsucro	574
8	4		Team ASDA-Savers	529
9	12		Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	505
10	11		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	502
11	2		In-n-Out Racing p/b Auchan	494
12	16		Azteca-NBCSN	486
13	13		Team Nordeus	381
14	9		ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	376
15	8		Siam Cement - Lenovo	370
16	10		Eddie Stobart Pro Cycling	339
17	18		Team Ameriabank-Novatek	327
18	24		Dell - 361° Racing	301
19	20		Team Chiquita-Universal	291
20	17		Euskaltel - Bavaria	283
21	25		Team Carlsberg - Danske Bank	276
22	21		Wounded Warrior	221
23	15		Sauber Petronas	197
24	26		Team Live Nation	193
25	23		Alpina - Avianca	192
26	19		Maloja Mountain Nomads	167

It looks and feels desastrous, the Top 10 goal recedes into the distance and our pride suffers as well. But let's look at the bright side: The only way is up. And our potential big points are still coming.

The Istrian Spring Trophy, a hilly race including a time trial, was as expected not our race. Markus Fahnert scored a tenth place on stage two and Manuel Fumic showed himself in the break on stage three, and that was about it. Nothing of value, but since we had no expectations, that's fine.

1	Gracjan Lejman	FCB - Polska	10h52'31
2	Jose Mendes	Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	+ 23
3	Grega Bole	Team Nordeus	+ 25
4	Marcel Wyss	Team Vontobel	+ 26
5	Simon Geschke	Evonik - Signal Iduna	+ 40
...
23	Markus Fahnert	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
24	Bereket Yemane	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
27	Stefan Schafer	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
71	Manuel Fumic	Maloja Mountain Nomads	s.t.
76	David Vitoria	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 3'56
84	Adil Jelloul	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 4'58
104	Artur Gajek	Maloja Mountain Nomads	+ 11'33