The real Team Christina Watches, was a Danish professional cycling team formed by main sponsor Christina Hembo and rider Michael Rasmussen. Rasmussen, wearing the yellow jersey in 2007 and well on his way to winning the Tour de France, had his contract terminated by his team Rabobank and was removed from the Tour, due to suspicion of doping.
The Team had its first season in 2011, and was closed down in 2014, according to Rasmussen, due to the fact, that they were not invited to the tour of Denmark.
In this story I will try to recreate the team, the goal is first and foremost to keep the team alive, but off course I hope also to advance into the higher leagues.
Setup :
PCM.daily Expansion Pack
Difficulty : Hard - from 1/4-2016 Extreme
Edited by Tamijo on 30-07-2016 11:05
Our Main riders are :
Francisco José Pacheco Torres – Born 27 March 1982. Sprinter
Constantino Zaballa Gutiérrez – Born May 15, 1978, Climber
Stefan Schumacher - 21 July 1981, All-rounder
Rasmussen :
Hi, it is the 29/1 2013, our team have just finished the first race of the season, New Zealand Classic, and I think we did fine; just hope Christina feels the same way.
Christina : Hi, it is the 3 February, Now it is time for the first important race of the season the Vuelta a Mallorca, this is an important race and i got high hope that my team will do good in this race, my expectations is a top 5, but i hope that they will do even better, maby get some stage wins, and a Jersey ?
Rasmussen : Boys, we need to preform in this race, to keep Christina happy, I know we are not in best shape yet, but lets just hope the other teams a not feeling too good eiter. Its only four stages with just a little bit of Mountains, so lets do our very best.
The first stage was uneventful, Hester had good legs and was in a break, but with a short 95 km stage like this, the break had no chance, in the end our sprinter train was unsuccessful, we just couldn’t follow the pace, but somehow our lead-out man Furlan, made a great sprint, and got in at 4.place.
(sorry no pic, I messed up)
Rasmussen :
A longer stage, so a break was possible, and we decided to try that, but we was not able get in the first break.
With 125 km left, the break had 2,36 min. the riders was :
Kerby had good legs, so he asked me, if he should try and catch the break, i just said "go for it son"
He had good legs, and was able to catch the front Group without losing to much power.
The poleton was moving relative slowly and the front group had more than 5 minutes when Kerby cought up.
But there was still another 100 km to go, and the stronger teams took over, steadily increasing the speed, the break was reeled in near the last sprint.
Again the frantic speed made it hard for us to organize a sprint train, but in the end we got Francisco at the wheel of Furlan, and even though the was totally empty when he crossed the line, he came in second, a very good result !
Use Christina Watches in my game to, but as Christina Watches-Onfone. They are doing it quite good. They signed Simon Gerrans, he should get them some Points.
Edited by hanspetter61 on 11-08-2015 11:09
Stage 3 Vuelta a Mallorca
Again I messed up my Photos (sorry i wil try to do my best to fix it in the future)
Rasmussen : A very bad day for the team, any early attempt to get one of our riders in a break failed. But worse than that, when we got to the climbs, the team was not strong enough, the best rider had a hard time sitting in the front of the peloton, and the others fell out of the back quite early, fighting to just finish the race. Francisco did quite well, finishing at 18. But the better climbers Stefan & Zaballa was a big disappointment. This was a day for the UCI World Tour riders. Not a day for us.
Right from the start Stefan attacked with a group of other riders
They ended up establishing a break of 8 riders.
The Break had more than 6 minutes when they hit the Mountains
The Peloton accelerated and gabs began to appear. The race was split into the front group, the Peloton, a larger group of about 31 riders, and several smaller groups when they reached the decent.
Both Evens (BMC) and Costa (Movistar) crashed at the decent.
The front group was working together well, and they had 1.24 min, with only 16 km left.
Stefan worked all he could to keep them at a distance, but was caught in the sprint at the last kilometer, he finished 10.
All in all not what we had hoped for, but we had two riders just outside top 10.
Christina (on the phone from Copenhagen) : A stronger field in the Mountains, than we had expected, so we are pleased with the results, keep up the good work Michael ! And say cheers to Francisco José.
Christina:
Today im here in Lillers, to support our team in Grand Prix de la Ville de Lillers - Souvenir Bruno Comini. The race was won by Danish Brian Holm back in 1984 and I sure hope one of our Danish boys can to it again. Or at least get into top 5.
Rasmussen :
We have chosen this roster for today race :
Race profile :
Lillers – Lillers : 171 km
Martin Pedersen got away in the morning break of seven riders.
More riders got away from the bunch, and in the end a solid group of 12 riders established themselves in front.
“La Pomme” was leading the peloton, most of the race to help the top sprinter Giraud. But the front group was to strong, and they could not catch up. Now is was just up to Martin to secure the team a good result, he did not place himself perfect, and got boxed a bit in the sprint, but he came in as 4, not bad. The peloton came in 1,39 later.
Stage result :
Christina : What a perfect day here in Lillers, a great result for team, management is very pleased ! Tonight we are going to town to celebrate.
Rasmussen: Hi, I am here in the Croatia town of Umag, for the Tjofej Umag a 163 km relative flat category 1.2 race.
Just talked to Christina on the phone today, she said that is not a very important race for the management, but she would like a good result anyway. I have chosen this roster for today’s race :
Race profile :
We got Stefan Schumacher in the morning break.
But the break was caught without getting much time on the peloton, and even though constant attacks was tried, by different rider during the race, none of them ever got serious gabs, the peloton was very fast all day.
So we made up a sprint train, Stefan – Angelo – Francisco , got a perfect leadout, and Francisco José took the win. Perfect day in Croatia!
10/3-2013
Christina: Hi, Im here in Troyes for the Paris – Troyes one day race, I have invited some clients, so it is very important that we get a good result in this race, minimum a top 10, hopefully better.
Rasmussen:
We have chosen this roster:
Stage profile:
Paris – Troyes, 161 km, category 1.2
Christina want a result here, so we have decided to try a new tactic, with a full team riding hard in the peloton, trying to get a sprinter finish, hoping for Francisco José to make a strong sprint.
Everything worked out as we have planned, we was in control most of the race, and we got a good train, again we managed to claim victory, we even had 4 rider in the top ten.
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Francisco José Pacheco
Christina Watches - Onfone
3h47'56
2
Angelo Furlan
Christina Watches - Onfone
s.t.
3
Mathieu Drujon
BigMat - Auber 93
s.t.
4
Stefan Schumacher
Christina Watches - Onfone
s.t.
5
Fabien Bacquet
BigMat - Auber 93
s.t.
6
Arnaud Gérard
Bretagne - Séché Environnement
s.t.
7
Steven Tronet
BigMat - Auber 93
s.t.
8
Martin Pedersen
Christina Watches - Onfone
s.t.
9
Christophe Le Mével
Cofidis, Solutions Crédits
s.t.
10
Bryan Coquard
Team Europcar
s.t.
Christina : Perfect – absolutely perfect day in Troyes, my clients was very pleased with the event.
30/3-2013
Christina: Hi, I’m here in the Spanish town Estella, in the Navarre region, close to the French border, in northern Spain, so nice to be here this time of year.
Today is the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain, and it is the last race in the first part of the season, where we will evaluate the results with the board, so I would like a top 10 here.
Rasmussen:
It’s a 1.1 race, with a field of strong climbers like Bauke Mollema, Rui Costa, Chris Anker Sørensen ect., so a top ten will be hard, but we will do our best.
We have chosen this roster :
Constantino Zaballa
Stefan Schumacher
Mitchell Lovelock-Fay
Morten Høberg
Francisco José Pacheco
Daniele Aldegheri
Frederik Wilmann
Jimmi Sørensen
Stage profile :
There was 10 rider in the early break, they got about 4 minutes on the peloton, never a serious threat. It seems that the race will be won by one of the favorites.
The Break:
Jimmi Sørensen was very unlucky today, he crashed twice but he was not injured.
Several other riders crashed on the undulating route today, even though the weather was fine.
Jimmi Sørensen:
The Break was caught, so on the last few kilometers everybody was fighting to stay in the front group, the peloton exploded in many pieces. The last section was an uphill sprint but not many had the legs to sprint uphill today !
Rui Costa (Movistar) claims the win, just in front of Izagirre (Euskaltel)
