Sprinters Sam Bewley 390.000 € - Sprinter - LOAN Blaise Sonnery 180.000 € - Sprinter Anthony Lavoine 90.000 € - Sprinter Roman Maksimov 23.000 € - Sprinter - LOAN Michael Vingerling 0 € - Sprinter - LOAN Vladimir Bileka 50.000 € - Sprinter Thomas Vedel Kvist 0 € - Sprinter - LOAN
Cobblers Frederik Nolf 140.000 € - Northern Classics Francis Mourey 50.000 € - Northern Classics
Timetriallers Jurgen van Goolen 80.000 € - Time Triallist Kristof Goddaert 50.000 € - Time Triallist Patrick Gretsch 50.000 € - Time Triallist Lucas Schädlich 27.500 € - Time Triallist - LOAN Ramunas Navardauskas 50.000 € - Time Triallist Mathieu Bernaudeau 50.000 € - Time Triallist Wen Hao Li 50.000 € - Time Triallist
Away on loan: Georgos Tzortzakis - €50.000 - Sprinter Jonathan Castroviejo - €50.000 - ClimberEdited by SotD on 03-04-2010 22:26
..::Wins::.. Diego Ulissi - Giro d'Italia, stage 7 Diego Ulissi - Giro d'Italia, stage 12 Mauricio Ardila - Paris-Nice, stage 7 Carlos Castaño - Deutschland Tour, stage 4 Sam Bewley - Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, stage 2 Steve Morabito - Vuelta a Asturias, stage 5 Carlos Castaño - Vuelta a Asturias, stage 6 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez - Tour of Northern Europe, stage 1 Sam Bewley - FBD Éire Tour, stage 3 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez - Criterium International, stage 2
..::2nd places::.. Carlos Castaño - Giro d'Italia, stage 8 Sam Bewley - Tour of Romandie, stage 2 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez - Vuelta a Asturias, stage 4 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez - Tour of Northern Europe, stage 4 Sam Bewley - FBD Éire Tour, stage 6
..::3rd places::.. Mauricio Ardila - Tour de France, stage 17 Carlos Castaño - Giro d'Italia, stage 7 Blaise Sonnery - Paris-Nice, stage 3 Anthony Lavoine - Tirreno-Adritatico, stage 3 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez - Vuelta al Pais Vasco, stage 4 Sam Bewley - Tour of California, stage 2 Sam Bewley - FBD Éire Tour, stage 4 Sam Bewley - Criterium International, stage 1 Patrick Gretsch - Tour of Qatar, stage 3
Team standings top 5 - Achieved (4th) Tour de France top 10 - Achieved (8th) Giro d'Italia top 10 - Achieved (5th) Vuelta a España top 10 - Failed (17th, Contador crashed) Monumentum (Milano San Remo) Win - Failed (2nd)
Riders in and out has been fairly slow this season as we already had a very strong team coming into the transfer period.
Alberto Contador, Mauricio Ardila and Carlos Castaño features as the climbing spine of the team, while Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez and Diego Ulissi takes care of the hills... Anthony Lavoine has grown to become a fairly strong sprinter, while the TT squad of Gretsch, Navardauskas and Bernaudeau has finally gotten themself within a reasonable quality.
This means that the foundation of the team has been rock solid this off season, but there has been a little bit of action. To sum it up:
Georgos Tzortzakis has arrived from the free agents list, he is a very interestiing sprinter, that could become valuable in the forthcoming years. We did, however decide to loan him out for the CT this season, so no new face within the Festina crop. Georgos signed a one year loan deal with Falcon-Husqvarna. We recieved a 50.000 fee for the deal, aswell as Falcon-Husqvarna agreed to pay his wages.
A list of small farewells has arrived aswell, as danish sprinter Christian Ranneries has decided to try something else. He is now figuring at the Falcon-Husqvarna team alongside Georgos Tzortzakis. Christian left with a small 50.000 wages, while we got ourself 200.000 out of the deal.
French rider Francis Mourey, has been contracted for 1 year for the wage of 50.000. Mourey is a strong cobbled rider, which we hope can be of help in the cobbled season, but Francis also is a fairly strong climber why he is an almost certain card for the Tour de France squad.
Two new riders signed for this season. Both riders are at only 50.000 wages:
Ruben Bongiorno is an Argentine sprinter with 79 sprint. Perfect lead out man, or perhaps leader in some smaller races. Could possibly be loaned out for a CT team if anyone should be interested.
Vladimir Bileka is the perfect rider for our team. We have been looking very much into a lead out sprinter that can also TT. Bileka can do both. With an average of 73 he will make a very strong 50k rider. 71 Flat, 66 Mountain and 67 Hill will make him survive plenty of different types of races, and as he is also 72 Timetrial and 76 Sprint he could become the perfect leadout for Thor or Lavoine.
A lot of things has happened since we said hello to Castroviejo and Kreder...
Michel Kreder has decided to leave us again, but if nothing else, he did give us 150.000 in earnings.
Jonathan Castroviejo has also left, but in a different type of deal. We have loaned him out, but in return has recieved the favours of Angel Madrazo. We are looking forward to see what Madrazo can do as a strong helper in the mountains. He definately has the talent to become valuable.
In another news we have loaned the strong russian sprinter Roman Maksimov. With 79 sprint and 69 TT, he will suit our team extremely well, as he does not come shot on the Timetrials, and features quality to win sprints himself.
Out biggest deal of this season leaves a goodbye that hurts. Thor Hushovd has left the team, but instead we have gotten the services of Sam Bewley. Sam is quite equal to Thor but we believe that his ability to do hills and cobbles a bit better than Thor could become very important. His sprint is quite similar, but we believe it can be just this edge that could take us withing top 3 of the PT yet again.
Ruben Bongiorno have left the team again. He was a very strong rider, but instead we traded our way into the qualities of Blaise Sonnery, a rider we really wanted. We believe the combination of Blaise Sonnery and Anthony Lavoine could become very potent in the flat stages of the Tour de France.
As i final move in the transfer window we managed to loan Michael Vingerling, a talented dutch sprinter. He will be used as a lead out man, and we are really pleased that he has signed for our team this year.
This also means that our team is complete, unless something very good turns up.
It has been difficult to know exactly how to spend the teams amount of money, but in the end we have decided to let them all go towards training Alberto Contador. Last season he was very dissapointing. Mainly because of the manager who decided to let him race the Giro and the Tour, instead of the Vuelta. This gave some lower ending top 10 placements, and the remaining racedays was almost splashed away.
This season is different. Spending 3 million euros on Alberto Contador making him 83 climbing sees the opportunity for him to become a class act rider. His average will not rise, giving him a decent amount of racedays. His nationality, however will probably benefit the chances of him doing a very nice Vuelta a España. We hope so atleast.
This announcement also gives an indication of what our team will look like for the 2011 season. Have a look in post 2.
The team for this seasons Tour de France has been announced, and with very little surprise. It's seeming to be a very strong squad going, and as there are places that might change slightly the main base has already been finalized:
As mentioned above, slight changes can be made according to form and injuries, but the overall formation will be similar to this. We are very much looking forward to battle for overall Top 5 this year, as Alberto Contador has improved drastically, while Mauricio Ardila will try to go for top 15 himself. Lavoine and Sonnery will do their best to achieve a stagewin, while Bernaudeau and Bileka will be the train for the 2.
Hopefully yes :-) He should now be one of the best climbers in the game. Last season he couldn't match the riders that also had a great TT, hopefully this will make him get the edge of those riders :-)
Maximka wrote:
no, but you can change it to .png by any graphics editor
I don't have any and I can't download one on this computer. Just got back from surgery so I'm not using my own computer. Is there any chance that you can help me do it? :-)
