Joel Wallin | Finished
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Atlantius |
Posted on 05-02-2014 14:55
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Spoiler Technical info:
The save is a continuation of that used in my Nordic Cycling Story which means that it originally is based on PCM-Daily's 2012 DB with the addition of a good few races along with a few CT-teams focused on smaller regions cycling-wise.
Joel Wallin is basically a game-generated regen.
My name is Joel Wallin and this is the story of my journey through the world of cycling. You may know me from my time at Novo Nordisk – SAS, but more about that later.
First I want to tell you a little about my background as a rider and person.
I grew up just north of Ystad on the southern coast of Sweden in March 1993. My father is a farmer and my mother works on the ferry to the Danish island of Bornholm.
I have embedded in me a love of the countryside best seen from a bike as well as a sense of longing for the distant lands on the other side of the water. So now my dream is to see as much as possible of the world from the comfort of my bike.
As you probably have sensed already I can’t claim to have had an extraordinary childhood. We rarely went outside Skåne except for the occasional trip to Bornholm since my father had to stay home with the animals and my mother had to work extra on the ferry in the holidays.
So I spent my time on the bike exploring pretty much every single road in the entire Skåne and sometimes my mom got me a free trip to ride the hills of Bornholm by joining her for the first trip of the day and coming home on the last ferry. Most of the time I rode an old mountain bike, so when I got my first real racing bike at the age of 16 things suddenly went fast.
Literally! Since I had trained so many years on the heavy bike chasing down every other cyclist I saw on the road it was a revelation to get on a bike with half the weight. And that really showed on my speed.
I signed up for the Malmö Velo Classic and finished as the fastest of my age group in 2012, 2013 and 2014
And then in 2015 I was invited to join the Swedish National U23-team and things really started moving for me…
Edited by Atlantius on 21-04-2014 10:24
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Atlantius |
Posted on 05-02-2014 14:55
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Fiskars Cykling
Cat. | Race | Result | Best Day | Comment | 1.1 | GP La Marsaillaise | 48 | - | Closed down | 1.1 | DanCake Classic | 39 | - | In Break | 2.1 | Bornholm Rundt | 84 | 37 | Best Climber | 1.1 | GP Vejle | 18 | - | | 1.1 | Post Cup Køge | 2 | - | Late attack | 1.HC | Himmerland Rundt | 59 | - | | 2.HC | Giro di Midtjylland | 89 | 98 | Best Climber | 1.1 | Scandinavian Race in Uppsala | 12 | - | Team mate 2nd | 1.1 | Rogaland GP | | | 2.1 | Spring Tour of Norway | | | 1.1 | Post Cup Harridslev | | | 2.1 | Jylland Rundt | | | 1.1 | Post Cup Sønder Vilstrup | | | NC | Svenska Mesterskapen, RR | | | NC | Svenska Mesterskapen, ITT | | | 1.1 | Ikea Cup Svedala | | | 1.1 | Ikea Cup Grevie | | | 1.1 | Ikea Cup Kungsäter | | | 1.1 | Ikea Cup Nybygget | | | 1.1 | Ikea Cup Hillerstorp | | | 1.1 | Post Cup Thorsager | | | WT | Post Danmark Rundt | | | 1.1 | Post Cup Praestø | | | 1.HC | Copenhagen Classic | | | 2.HC | Autumn Tour of Norway | | |
Edited by Atlantius on 04-04-2014 09:50
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Atlantius |
Posted on 05-02-2014 14:55
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Season | Team | CQ Rank | CQ Points | WT | CT | Days | 2017 | Fiskars Cykling | ? | ? | ? | ? | 47 | 2016 | Novo Nordisk - SAS | 617 | 57 | 0 | - | 57 | 2015 (2) | Volvo - SAS | - | 0 | 0 | - | 7 | 2015 (1) | Sweden U23 | 6 | 381 | - | - | 17 |
2017 Stats and Results
2016 Stats and Results
2015 Stats and Results
Edited by Atlantius on 27-02-2014 17:46
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Shonak |
Posted on 05-02-2014 15:00
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15615
Joined: 16-07-2013
PCM$: 350.00
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Looks like pure quality already, the one that the readers expect of you. Count me in! (well, d'oh, of course... I guess that goes without saying ) Excited to what you have in store for us.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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Ian Butler |
Posted on 05-02-2014 15:30
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
PCM$: 400.00
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Awesome, back so soon
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Ad Bot |
Posted on 23-11-2024 15:54
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Bot Agent
Posts: Countless
Joined: 23.11.09
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IP: None |
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sutty68 |
Posted on 05-02-2014 15:32
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 34654
Joined: 22-08-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Yay, nice to see you back with what will hopefully be another Epic |
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The Rider |
Posted on 05-02-2014 17:09
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4543
Joined: 29-02-2012
PCM$: 200.00
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'From the ashes of the Nordic Cycling story comes another gem by the looks of it.'
Enjoying the graphic accompaniment already. Will be interesting to see what type of rider Joel turns into after sneaking into the top 10 in the last few races of the Nordic cycling project.
Spoiler
When the Qatar Optics story comes to an end, I was also thinking about making a one rider story.. probably with the Kiribati cyclist who rides for the continental team.
Best o' luck anyway, ie hope there is no database problems.
Edited by The Rider on 05-02-2014 17:09
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Atlantius |
Posted on 05-02-2014 18:25
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Shonak: Thanks. I hope I can live up to expectations. At least I'm quite exited about it
Ian: Well it was just an ordinary season change and I could easily have finished Nordic cycling a bit sooner if I hadn't gone for timing the ending with the inteview
sutty: I hope so. IT will be different, but the world is as you know it.
The Rider: Literally from the ashes in deed. I hae just cleaned up the DB quite a bit and the game seems to move smoother after the clean-up so I'm optimistic about avoiding DB-trouble.
Joel has the heart of a fighter. Stats will follow.
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Mresuperstar |
Posted on 05-02-2014 18:35
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8059
Joined: 22-06-2009
PCM$: 650.00
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Welcome to the dark side. The one-rider stories.
Wish you the best of luck.
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admirschleck |
Posted on 05-02-2014 18:40
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Team Leader
Posts: 6690
Joined: 11-10-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Best of luck.
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Atlantius |
Posted on 05-02-2014 20:44
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Mre: haha, thanks. It will certainly be different from writing a team story!
admirschleck: Thanks. Hopefully I won't need to much luck to make it work
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Jakstar22 |
Posted on 05-02-2014 21:23
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Team Leader
Posts: 7295
Joined: 11-04-2012
PCM$: 200.00
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Good luck!! Looks really good
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MrUfo87 |
Posted on 05-02-2014 21:35
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2803
Joined: 06-01-2012
PCM$: 700.00
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Hope this one will be as great as Nordic! Good luck!
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welker3257 |
Posted on 06-02-2014 04:32
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2336
Joined: 29-05-2013
PCM$: 200.00
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It will be interesting to see how this goes
Gig 'em Aggies
Fast N' Loud Cycling Project - ICL
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Atlantius |
Posted on 06-02-2014 13:11
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Since I expect most of you haven't followed me that closely the last couple of years I'll start by telling you how I got to where I am today.
2015 part 1: The U23 Season
This first installment isn't so colourful as I haven't been able to find any photo coerage of the U23 races I raced.
It was thrilling for me to be invited to join the Swedish national U23 team and I was determined to get a permanent spot on the team in my first race.
That race was Grand Prix de Portugal. I didn’t know at the start how things would fare, so I just went with it and in the end I was allowed to go for it in the final uphill sprints. You see all three stages was a lot of flat followed by an uphill sprint. It turns out I’m rather good at those as I finished 6th on the first stage, 3rd on the second and 4th on the final stage giving me a GC 4th in my first real race!
After that I was sent to Ronde van Vlaanderen Espoirs as well. Turns out there’s quite a big difference between my local gravel roads and the cobbles in Belgium. It will certainly take some training to get used to!
Fortunately things improved in Liège – Bastogne Liège Espoirs with a 25th. Not flashy I know, but those really were some nasty hills!
When we came to La Côte Picarde I agreed to do a leadout for my new found friend Hannes Nordberg. He finished 3rd, so that was nice! Then in ZLM we changed roles and I only managed a 5th place in spite of Hannes doing a great leadout. I’m still not a sprinter I guess…
ZLM was actually the first race of the season to not get won by a Belgian – they really have some massive talent downthere!
April was a busy month for me, but that in only a good thing since Giro delle Regioni gave me my first win on the first stage. Crossing the line first and getting on the podium to pick up jerseys really was amazing.
I followed it up with a 4th and a 3rd from some aggressive riding, but when the real hills came around I found my limit just as I did in L-B-L. I finished the race of with another podium on the final stage so in spite of “only” finishing 21st in the GC the race really helped change me into a proper racer.
With that effort in mind I was sent to France for Ronde d’Isard where I had a great time finishing 2nd in the first bunch sprint and winning stage 3. For some reason they had decided to put a mountain on stage 4. Turns out I’m not that good at the big mountains…
After Ronde d’Isard I was placed 3rd in the U23 rankings so I went home a happy man looking forward to chasing stages in Tour de l’Avenir in the end of August.
That never happened though as I one day got a call that changed my life. It was from the management of the by far biggest Nordic teams Volvo – SAS, who wanted to offer me a contract – me who hadn’t even raced a proper race half a year ago!
And they were even so eager to sign me that they wanted me to join them already at the start of August.
Naturally I accepted…
I'll just give you this overview of my U23 career:
Cat. | Race | Result | Best Day | Days | Comment | U23 | Grand Prix de Portugal | 4 | 3 | 3 | Uphill sprints | U23 | Ronde van Vlaanderen Espoirs | 114 | - | 1 | | U23 | Liège – Bastogne – Liège Espoirs | 25 | - | 1 | | U23 | La Côte Picarde | 13 | - | 1 | Leadout | U23 | ZLM Tour | 5 | - | 1 | Flat | U23 | Giro delle Regioni | 21 | Win | 6 | Three Podiums | U23 | Ronde de l’Isard | 51 | Win | 4 | Two podiums |
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Ian Butler |
Posted on 06-02-2014 13:16
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
PCM$: 400.00
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Just a question: had you been planning this since he joined or decided to use him later on? |
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Shonak |
Posted on 06-02-2014 13:24
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15615
Joined: 16-07-2013
PCM$: 350.00
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He sure showed his talent in the U23 races. It was clear that the team would want to get his hands on him.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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Jakstar22 |
Posted on 06-02-2014 13:26
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Team Leader
Posts: 7295
Joined: 11-04-2012
PCM$: 200.00
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Seems like you've been planning this for ages.........I LOVE IT!!!!
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Atlantius |
Posted on 06-02-2014 14:13
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Ian: Not quite since he joined, but fortunately I still had weekly saves to refer back to in order to get his results from 2015.
Shonak: A Swede doing this well in the U23 races really is rare, so it was about getting him before someone else signed him
Jakstar: Since about the start of the Tour de France 2016, where I started giving a bit more focus than he actually deserved in "Nordic Cycling"
Glad you like it!
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Atlantius |
Posted on 06-02-2014 18:37
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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2015: Part 2 - The New Kid in Town
The first thing they did when I joined Novo Nordisk – SAS was to test me in different ways resulting in the following data. Not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with that, but I guess that’s the difference between being a random youngster from Southern Sweden and a rider on one of the world’s best cycling teams (felt completely crazy at the time).
Of course transitioning to the World Tour just after I had gotten used to contesting for the wins was tough - even though the team bosses gave me a soft start in a couple of smaller races and told me that if I was able to collect bottles for just the first half of the race that was perfectly fine.
I worked hard and was completely beat everyday by just trying to keep up with the peloton, but I must have done something right as I was chosen for the World Tour race in Québec. And to build on that I even managed to help the team to a win in my first ever WT-race!
Yeah, I know I probably wasn’t the deciding factor – far from it actually – but it was good for the morale nonetheless. I felt that it was a team of winners and with hard work I should be able to do something here. I was even allowed to chase the break at the start of the race!
Tour of Britain became my first pro stage race, which was another hard experience. Fortunately I did well enough to be selected for the last big race of the season: Il Lombardia.
In that race I managed to collect bottles once and then it was pure survival the rest of the day. It was an amazing experience nonetheless thanks to the fans and that I could hear on the radio that our new world champion Breschel and the rest of the team did great and even ended up taking the win!
Tough as it was it also helped me a lot to build some more physique, which resulted in my first professional top 100 in Coppa Sabatini a week later only to finish the season of getting destroyed in Paris – Tours.
For some reason I seem to thrive in the Italian races...
So to sum up:
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