By the order we're going, Gabor Kasa is next guy in our 'Meet the Squad' initiative. Kasa is teams best Time Trialer and very good domestique. It's enough to just look at Gabor's stats and to tell that he's one great all arounder. Great on flat, even better on mountains and hills and great on TT bike, he's one great addition to the team.

[img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/1L/wS/245Ym7AH/kasa.png[/img-l][img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/1r/vj/19MS1K68/theblankspace.png[/img-l]Gabor isn't very young, but surely isn't the oldest guy in the peloton. He's 26 currently and we're sure he'll be riding for our team in next few seasons. Sadly, he's maxed out, but I am sure our next years sponsor will allocate some budget for his training. For the end, Gabor will mainly ride mountainous stage-races this year, as well as few Time Trials such as Duo Differandge.

FL	MO	HI	TT	STA	RES	REC	CO	SP	ACC	FT	DH	PRL
70	71	72	74	74	70	71	58	63	66	67	65	74

Type of rider: All Arounder

Wage: 90k

Role: Free Element

Yup, he can be great domestique and rider who can really score some points from TTs and breakaways.

Aldo Ino Ilešić is next guy that found his place in Nordeus 2014 team. Pretty much useless sprinter with bad support stats, Ino will surely try something from breakaways and mainly will help our leaders. His 76SP sounds really good, but he can't really do anything with it, except maybe take part in creating of sprint train, at some C2HC races.

[img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/O/tA/4MuCSOuo/ilesic.png[/img-l][img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/1r/vj/19MS1K68/theblankspace.png[/img-l]Although having bad stats, getting him for 50k wasn't really the worst deal this season. He's not old, so we as team decided to give him a chance to prove himself this year, he can maybe even turn out to be a good signing if he brings team points from breakaway or something like that. At the end, he'll ride all the races our main sprinters ride, so he doesn't really have any chances of leading the team.

FL	MO	HI	TT	STA	RES	REC	CO	SP	ACC	FT	DH	PRL
69	53	55	59	67	68	71	54	76	72	59	62	59

Type of rider: Sprinter

Wage: 50k

Role: Helper

He disappeared in October/November 2013 iirc and never logged in again. Who knows what happened there...

Emanuel turned out to be the only Croatian guy that is part of our team in 2014 season. Pretty strange yep, but as all others already had a contract or were overpaid, we couldn't choose. Anyways, Emanuel is surely great addition to our team, especially as main helper and domestique for our leader, Yasmani Martinez.

[img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/2y/Ns/XyTUYhD/emanuelkiserlovski.png[/img-l][img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/1r/vj/19MS1K68/theblankspace.png[/img-l]As Yasmani is leading almost every mountain race we ride this year, Emanuel will be in his shadow pretty much, but it doesn't mean he won't shine at some points. He also leads our team in one or two unimportant races for our team, this year. He's 30, so it means he won't be too long since he start decreasing. He's surely one of the rider that needs to prove himself, otherwise he will stay without team next year. Emanuel is on maxed out.

FL	MO	HI	TT	STA	RES	REC	CO	SP	ACC	FT	DH	PRL
68	74	71	66	73	67	70	57	55	69	75	67	66

Type of rider: Climber

Wage: 50k

Role: Free Element

Just a quick info - i'll continue MTS soon, but its tempo is not really important, as it can be done throught the season.

We're a bit late with first of the years month preview, but whole team were working hard on preparing the guys for only 2 races that they're going to race in month of January. 13 of our 17 guys that are available in January were going to race in these 2 races and that's why they're important to us. Nothing to wait for, so let's start with little previews for both of them.



The first race and season opener for guys from CT division is Classico San Cristobal. Raced in Cuba, the country where our leader Martinez were born, the race is surely important for our guys. All best puncheurs from CT world are here, but with the squad we have, we really hope we can meet our goal for this race. Martinez and Bole are both our leaders, here.

Yasmani Martinez	Leader
Grega Bole	Leader
Emanuel Kišerlovski	Free Element
Esad Hasanović	Free Element
Boris Borisavljević	Helper
Eugenio Alafaci	Helper
Julian Alaphilillipe	Helper

Race Goal:

Top 10 with Bole/Martinez and having a guy in break.

Our second and last race in January is flat one-day classic in Australia, called Great Ocean Road Race.



As this race is first challenge for all the sprinters to prove themselves, we don't expect anything here, since our sprinting squad isn't really the strongest one in division. However, a Top 10 place would be great for a start of the season. Our squad is almost totally different here comparing to San Cristobal, except Alaphillipe who's taking part in both of the races. We once again don't have defined leader, as the team will be lead by two guys (see below).

Tiziano Dall'Antonia	Leader
Nico Schinker	Leader
Bojan �urđić	Free Element
Marko Stanković	Helper
Aljaž Ho�evar	Helper
Blaž Bogataj	Helper
Julian Alaphilillipe	Helper

Race Goal:

Top 10 with Schinker/Dall'Antonia.

And the time for Clasico San Cristobal, first CT race of the year came. Newly established Balkanic cycling project, our team - Nordeus took a part in it. As you could see from the January Preview (post above), our goal was Top 10 here and havinga guy in a break. It isn't one of most important races for us, but with having Bole and Martinez, it was quite normal to expect that.

Anyways, race started and break were made quickly. We really didn't expect this, but our 2nd goal (getting into the break) were fullfilled quickly. Boris Borisavljević was one of many riders to get in it. The youngster is already starting to prove himself!







It's not like he sat and wheelsucked all the time. He also tried to attack few times. At the end, Boris finished as 35th, which is great for so young guy. At least he showed new Aero helmet!



It wasn't really good day for all of our guys. Martinez was one of biggest disappointments today, as local guy definitely didn't meet the expectations. He dropped early, with huge group of outsiders there. He finished on disappointing 54th place. Lucikly we still had few guys left in front at that time.




Our riders were passive during the second half of the race as they only followed what the big group done. Kiserlovski and Bole finished in last group, as 13th and 18th. Could've been better sprint for Bole, but he certainly got blocked. Surprisingly good result from Kiserlovski (71HIL!)




At the end, it wasn't so disappointing result for us, but it would've been much better if Bole got Top 10.

13	Grega Bole	Team Nordeus	+ 1'24
18	Emanuel Kiserlovski	Team Nordeus	s.t.
35	Boris Borisavljevic	Team Nordeus	+ 3'16
54	Yasmani Martinez	Team Nordeus	+ 8'41
90	Eugenio Alafaci	Team Nordeus	+ 10'23
96	Esad Hasanovic	Team Nordeus	s.t.
110	Julian Alaphilippe	Team Nordeus	+ 11'30

Full results, as well as the report can be found here.

Bojan is next one in MTS series for our Nordeus Team this year. As it's very obvious, �urđić is one pretty solid sprinter that can be used mostly for lead-outs for Dall'Antonia and Schinker. All in all, can be used in great way although he's a bit too weak for leading the team.

[img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/w/eZ/vRarxiR/djurdjic.png[/img-l][img-l]https://www.dodaj.rs/f/1r/vj/19MS1K68/theblankspace.png[/img-l]Bojan used to be MTB rider, but his MO stat is still pretty bad. He's 30 y/o and maxed out, so it's not like he has bright future. He has some pretty good supporting stats, such as STA , PRL and REC, which can help him alot. He won't have a chance to lead the team in any race this year, but the team will definitely need him. All in all, pretty solid guy for 50k wages we have to pay for him.

FL	MO	HI	TT	STA	RES	REC	CO	SP	ACC	FT	DH	PRL
70	57	64	56	72	68	73	61	75	74	61	63	70

Type of rider: Sprinter

Wage: 50k

Role: Free Element

5th consecutive post. I am having some fun being alone here.

Not much passed after our first CT race and pretty much disappointing result from Grega Bole (finished as 13th). We're now moving to the Australia for our first flat race this season and last January race in the Calendar - Great Ocean Road Classic. As you probably saw in the preview, we brought our very-best sprinting squad here, but we definitely didn't hope for something huge, perhaps Top 10.

Break was created on the start of the race and once again, one of our youngsters took part in it. It was Blaz Bogataj this time, one of our young sprinting prospects.




As peloton didn't really want to chase the breakaway group in first half of the race, guys in front could enjoy the coast of Australia. It was sunny, but still very cold.




As the finish was getting closer, it was more and more obvious that the winner is some of the guys in front. Tenses were high and everything could happen. 20 kilometers to go, all the riders that created BOTD group are still there.




In the meantime, Schinker dropped as well as around 10 more fast men. Definitely not what we expected, but seems like Nico had a really bad day.

Schinker struggled all day. The best decision was to just drop and save the energy for next races.

However, 6 kilometers to go, there was an attack in E1 group. No one decided to chase that. Precisely, no one had enough power. Bogataj was just sitting back there and watched Sirironnachai, the possible winner of this stage going.




At the end, it really was like we predicted. Sirironnachai won the stage and our Blaz Bogataj finished as 5th at the end, just in front of the pelotons mass sprint. He was really close to the podium, but he's very young still and we're sure there's a plenty of time for him.




We're very satisfied with this result, as we never hoped we can get this result with our leaders, and definitely not with 20 y/o helper. Tiziano Dall'Antonia was our next guy on the finish line, passing it as 27th. Pretty disappoiting result from Schinker, who finished in a group behind as 106th. It can only get better for him, now.

5	Blaz Bogataj	Team Nordeus	4h26'53
27	Tiziano Dall'Antonia	Team Nordeus	s.t.
51	Bojan Djurdjic	Team Nordeus	s.t.
89	Julian Alaphilippe	Team Nordeus	s.t.
106	Nico Schinker	Team Nordeus	+ 4'31
128	Marko Stankovic	Team Nordeus	+ 17'09
129	Aljaz Hocevar	Team Nordeus	s.t.

Full results, as well as the report can be found here.

I like it much more this way, actually. Thanks for your comments, guys!

I was just kidding, I do understand that this is a HQ and the results aren't so great so far, so there's not really much to comment about here. I have no problem with having many consecutive posts - as far as I am active and want to do this, I'll do it. It's maybe something new to MG (this many posts in HQ for a short time), but as you guys already said that there's no problem in that and it's always welcome, I'll keep it up!

I am more or less satisfied with the results in January. 13th and 5th - could've been better, but could've been much, much worse. I won't complain about it. Let's hope you're right about possible good results in future, TMM.

Welcome to the January Review of Team Nordeus! After we posted reviews of only 2 races for our team this month, we're now about to post recap of the month, with some statistic stuff and comment on our results so far.

So, let's start with screenshot of the month. As our team didn't score any significiant result, we can't really bitch around that we was part of every screenshots. However, we found our riders in few of them and it was pretty easy to decide which screenshot will be "Photo of the month" for Team Nordeus.

Photo of the month:




Yeah, you can only guess how poor this month was for our team when our best result was taking 5th place from breakaway on GORC. When we're already talking about results and statistic stuff, it would be nice to post some numbers in our statzone.

Statzone:

Races	3
Race Days	4
Points	To be updated
Points Per Race Day	To be updated
Rider of the Month	B. Bogataj

And for the end of this monthly recap and review, we would like to give our comment on what has been happening in past 31 days in Cycling World.

Final Word:
All in all - solid month for us. 5th from Bogataj in Australia, 13th from Bole and 21st from Emanuel in Cuba gives us a hope that we can do something more in next few months, as our leaders couldn't really show themselves on these 2 races and their profiles in January.

After pretty bad month of January, our guys are entering February with a bit higher expectations than last time and hopefully first podium and maybe even win this time. We'll see!



The first race of this month is our first challenge, Benelux Challenge. As you can see, the route is really hilly, so with the startlist we have below, our expectations are pretty high. The only problem might be the cobbles on stages 4 and 6, but if our guys manages to somehow neutralises all of that, we might even get in chance for some general podium, but it's not our primary goal here, definitely.

Grega Bole	Leader
Gabor Kasa	Free Element
Nebojša Jovanović	Free Element
Marko Stanković	Helper
Boris Borisavljević	Helper
Eugenio Alafaci	Helper
Julian Alaphilillipe	Helper

Race Goal:

Podium place by Bole and at least one breakaway.

Our next race, 2nd of 3 that we will race in this month is Tour of the Middle East, longest C2 race in calendar and definitely one of the toughest challenges for climbers.




The race features, as it is visible from its profile, 4 tough mountain stages, 3 tricky hilly stages, 1 48 long time trial which is definitely going to decide alot of things and few flat stages for some sprinters, that we crazy enough to spend 12 race days on this. As last years 2nd, Yasmani Martinez is in our team, it gives us definitely a right to hope for Top 5 here this year, which is our goal. With great supporting mountain squad, we definitely think that is possible.

Yasmani Martinez	Leader
Emanuel Kišerlovski	Leader
Esad Hasanović	Free Element
Gabor Kasa	Helper
Aljaž Ho�evar	Helper
Blaž Bogataj	Helper
Boris Borisavljević	Helper

Race Goal:

Top 5 from Martinez and a stage win.

And the last race for our team this month is first of our two HC races this year, Strade Bianche. Not much to hope for except successful breakaway or Bole doing some miracle, I guess.




Not much to say about this legendary Italic race, who is definitely one of most popular ones with gravel parts. As pretty experienced rider, Bole should enjoy them and maybe even bring some good result to the team, if breakaway doesn't do that. Our must-do goal is a guy in a breakaway and then, we can just sit and hope the break will be successful, otherwise, Bole will have to turn his magic powers if we wants a great result here.

Grega Bole	Leader
Tiziano Dall'Antonia	Free Element
Nebojša Jovanović	Free Element
Nico Schinker	Helper
Bojan �urđić	Helper
Eugenio Alafaci	Helper
Julian Alaphilillipe	Helper
Klemen Å timulak	Helper

Race Goal:

A guy in a breakaway

Yeah, I really hope that Bole will do what Oss did in South Africa, as they both has some similar stats. That's of course, unlikely to happen, and I'll probably make mistake, but I can always hope, right?

ToME will be very interesting. All of the top climbers in CT are pretty bad time trialists, while Martinez has 73 TT and some great supporting stats. I really hope AI gods will be in our favour this time and we'll get at least Top 5 there.

Thanks on kind words on layout, I'll try to update this more, as soon as I get a chance. I didn't forget about Meet the Squad, but I just feel like it can be done over the season, so it's not a priority at the moment.