March is coming and it's one of our key months so we look forward to racing:

Even Thomas Taylor is a better TTspecialist than our TT team lol

2016:

Last season Bagdonas performed above expectations to grab a top 25 result. This season while Bolivar and Grand beat the control team - and Matala Seboka.

23

Gediminas Bagdonas

Evonik - ELKO

+ 2'37

After the disappointment in Qatar in January this is Van Stayen's chance to show that he can still compete with the best sprinters. The clash with the other "SAA" race weakens his support a bit but Dzamastagic as his usual leadout is still in line

2016:



Van Stayen was our leader and after a slow start on stage 1 he got very close to a victory on the second stage. After two solid stages to finish the race he ended up 7th in GC. A botched leadout train attempt on the final stage helped Janis Dakteris to move up to 18th in GC.

7

Michael Van Stayen

Evonik - ELKO

+ 44

The clash with the other "SAA" race hurts our support for Greg a bit but even a 7-man team should be quite good. Neilands and Stoltz are the two regular domestiques for Greg who joined the sprinting squad in Africa instead due to their strengths on the flats and due to having more RDs available to spend on the double header while Smirnovs and Bekmanis were added to the usual cobbles core. Smirnovs is quite good over the cobbles as well and is left out of most other cobbled races because he is so good on the hills but he could use two RDs to ride here while Bekmanis will be the rider to chase the break and catch water bottles from the team car during the first half of the race including the mountain

2016:

Marzuki and Kulppi chasing Burghardt, Bewley and Vanspeybrouck

Our team made the race hard on the cobbles and chases down multiple attacks by the top contenders without GVA using his own energy. Van Avermaet placed a dangerous attack with three kilometres to go but it came down to a sprint where Bewley was slightly better than Van Avermaet. again.

2

Greg Van Avermaet

Evonik - ELKO

s.t.

The race route doesnt suit Skujins with a TTT and an individual time trial but with selective racing on the hills he can still fight for a strong result.
His support for the hills is excellent as we've brought nearly everything we have - and Neilands for a reason that surely has to do with RD usage - but i cannot really remember that^^.

2016:

On a similar route Skujins saw the same situation after Evonik finished the opening TTT as 24th of 24 teams. But he fought hard to get back into the competition and earned a stage win and finished the race as 10th only 3'14'' down despite losing 3'04'' on the two TT stages.

10

Toms Skujins

Evonik - ELKO

+ 3'14

Greg Van Avermaet is back to challenge Sam Bewley once again and his complete usual support (Dakteris-Taubel-Nooytens-Potts-Neilands-Stoltz) is with him.

But surprise - surprise we have a special guest appearance: Toms Skujins completes our team to support Greg Van Avermaet. When having to decide where to spend the final two RDs we decided that Skujins would not play an important role in Milan San Remo and Lisbon Classic as Michael Van Stayen should be the 100% clear-cut leader there and another co-leader might hurt the team in some scenarios so we decided that a participation in the Ronde Van Vlaanderen could be a good idea. He has a decent ability over the cobbles and having most cobblestones on uphill passages will surely help him. As a rider who knows who to ride races of 250 kilometres he will be a great benefit in such a long monument and most important: He perfectly accentuates Greg Van Avermaets strength on the hills in the hope that we can pressure our rivals.

2016:



As so often last season two riders were clearly the strongest: Bewley and GVA.
42km before the finishline the duo attacked together with Vanspeybrouck who later lost contact. The duo worked together to keep the gap intact but in the end Bewley outsprinted GVA again.

2

Greg Van Avermaet

Evonik - ELKO

s.t.

Similar thoughts behind the selection strategy as in Vlaanderen but this time Smirnovs replaces Skujins as this is a slightly less important race than the monument.

2015:



Boonen was our cobbles leader in 2015. The race was won by Grashev out of the morning break while Boonen missed the crucial attack by Vanspeybrouck who finished second. Together with Baugnies he tried to chase down the groups before him but ultimately failed with that. He could stay clear of the peleton by finishing 6th. Dakteris and Nick Ingels also finished inside the top 30.

6

Tom Boonen

Evonik - ELKO

+ 2'30

Even Thomas Taylor is a better TTspecialist than our TT team lol

Long story short, Skujins will of course lead the team and the usual support is attending with Siskevicius and Bekmanis as lieutenants.

2016:


Twice a group of favourites including Skujins could escape but was caught again shortly after but on the penultimate climb a group of 22 formed that would last until the end. Skujins finishes the Mur sprint as nineth.

9

Toms Skujins

Evonik - ELKO

s.t.

The team line-up of the Fleche Wallone is changed slightly as Greg Van Avermaet replaces Emils Liepins. As a classic specialist he will be a big support to Skujins with his ability to perform in long monuments.

2016:



In the race that will forever be remembered for the most obscure winner (Sven Fritsch) Evonik could celebrate its fifth monument podium in the fifth monument participation. Bakelandts launched an attack 6 km out and Skujins was the first to get to his backwheel again. The duo worked together and secured second and third place behind BotD member Fritsch.

3

Toms Skujins

Evonik - ELKO

+18''

Vosekalns and Koch will co-lead the second GT of the year.
The hope is that they will be active in the breaks and can fight for the KoM classification. Also a top 25 GC result could be possible by one of them. The rest of the team can be summed up with the words "experience" and "filler".

Last season's Vuelta was all about chasing stages with our leader Toms Skujins. Skujins performed well, often cooperating with Tejay Van Garderen on the hilly stages and won stage 6. Sadly, he had to abandon the race on stage 14 after a painful crash - one day before Tejay won his third stage of the year.

29

Michel Koch

Evonik - ELKO

+ 1h09'06

Due to the ongoing Giro and the small number of riders within the team we only send a 7-man squad north but it is filled with quality.
Skujins, Siskevicius, Smirnovs and Bekmanis will be competing for a podium spot.

2015:

This was hardly a memorable race for Evonik and only few will remember that we actually raced this race already. In fact, there wasnt a glimpse of an Evonik jersey seen in the highlight video although a live ticker mentioned that Kulppi was part of an early breakaway attempt. Siskevicius was our leader and he is the only one finishing inside the top 140.

43

Evaldas Siskevicius

Evonik - ELKO

+54''

This race is the one time all three leaders will race together as both Greg Van Avermaet and Michael Van Stayen support our hilly team to form arguably the strongest hilly line-ups you will see all year long.

It has been a while since the season started so it's time for us to look back to what happened in February.

In the one cobbled race that arch rival Bewley didnt ride this season everyone looked at Greg Van Avermaet. To the surprise of everybody else, we sent Yannick Stoltz into the breakaway to avoid the sole chasing duty. But the pace in the pack was low so we entered the pacing efforts in the last 100 kilometres. The break was ultimately caught but the pace stayed relatively calm until Senechal, Baugnies and Vanbilsen surprised with a sudden acceleration. Van Avermaet bridges to the trio shortly after. However, the quartett didn't cooperate well enough so the catch happened 2500m to the finish line. A 16-men group sprinted it out and Boeckmans had more reserves than Greg Van Avermaet and took the victory.

2	Greg Van Avermaet	Evonik - ELKO	s.t.
13	Christoph Taubel	Evonik - ELKO	s.t.
39	Yannick Stoltz	Evonik - ELKO	+3'43''

The mountainous race of the triple header was completely disappointing. The gamble to send Siskevicius failed. Vosekalns and Koch both finished the GC outside of the top 50 and we could not get even close to the targetted stage win. Highlight were breakaway attempts as Sergis was attacker of the day on stage 3, Nooytens was part of the break on the mountainous stage 4 (admittedly, that was just a tactic to make the time limit) and Vosekalns joined a mid-stage attempt on stage 6.

21. Evonik - ELKO	Stage 1
10. Evaldas Siskevicius	Stage 2
11. Evaldas Siskevicius	Stage 3
60. Michel Koch	Stage 4
17. Andris Vosekalns	Stage 5
32. Andris Vosekalns	Stage 6
22. Evaldas Siskevicius	Stage 7
35. Evaldas Siskevicius	GC

Michael Van Stayen and Greg Van Avermaet were our two leaders and both did solid with a top 20 each. They were not capable of following the decisive attacks but fought till the end for a result.

14. Michael Van Stayen
18. Greg Van Avermaet

Neilands wins an intermediate sprint (S6)

Paris-Nice was the race in the triple header that we looked forward the most as Toms Skujins was our leader. Skujins rode a rather silent but consistent race towards a top ten finish which closely matched our pre-race ambitions. He added a second place from a group sprint finish on the last stage to his palamares.

30. Toms Skujins	Stage 1
41.Toms Skujins	Stage 2
20. Indulis Bekmanis	Stage 3
10. Toms Skujins	Stage 4
13. Toms Skujins	Stage 5
4. Krists Neilands	Stage 6
6. Toms Skujins	Stage 7
2. Toms Skujins	Stage 8
7. Toms Skujins	GC
22. Andris Smirnovs	GC
39. Miguel Angel Lopez	GC

Unlike the previous edition we concentrated all our strategies on Michael Van Stayen to achieve our top 3 goal. The race didn't start well as Siskevicius was involved in a crash early. But he makes it back easily to work for his leaders. Throughout the final 50 kilometres multiple dangerous attacks by puncheurs and rouleurs took place and Evonik had a huge part in stopping all those attempts. In particular, Smirnovs and Dzamastagic were praised for their work but also Dakteris was aside Van Stayen until halfway through the Poggio. Due to the constant attacks and the high pace in the pack only a select group of 23 riders - mostly puncheurs and a few classic specialists - survived the Poggio and both Van Avermaet and Van Stayen were in there. Van Avermaet played the perfect team mate and performed a perfect leadout after 299 km raced and Van Stayen finished it perfectly for our first monument victory after five monument podiums.

1. Michael Van Stayen
11. Greg Van Avermaet
28. Janis Dakteris
56. Mark Dzamastagic
62. Yannick Stoltz
68. Andris Smirnovs
72. Evaldas Siskevicius
135. Sven Nooytens

Croatia14 wrote:
Van Stayen saved a difficult month with the awesome MSR win...

Evonik - ELKO announces that the entire team will not participate in the National Championships. Unfortunately, there has been a scheduling conflict as Robert Judkowiak invited the entire team and staff to celebrate his 59th birthday together with him in Poznan for the same weekend. Robert who was born and raised by his polish parents in Dortmund has been driver of our MAN team bus since 2014. We value him and all other staff members as equal members of the team and have accepted his invitation. After an excellent season our team deserves a good polska-style party to celebrate all those fantastic results. We wanna thank him for the invitation and we also want to thank our sponsor to allow us attending his party over further exposure in NC events.