After a 2016 full of bittersweet satisfaction for the management and the riders, for being the second best newly promoted PCT team and for only just missing out on a back-to-back promotion to the Pro Tour, Generali is back for the new year with hopes of achieving an even better season.
The Sponsors
[img-l]https://i.imgur.com/ZMmUXA9.png[/img-l]
Assicurazioni Generali is the largest insurance company in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. It has its headquarters in Trieste since its foundation, happened on December 26, 1831. In 2010, Assicurazioni Generali Group was the second largest insurance group in the world by revenue, just behind AXA. Today Generali operates primarily in Europe, Middle East and East Asia, with large market shares in most of the Europe.
Électricité de France is a French electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €65.2 billion in revenues in 2010, EDF operates a diverse portfolio of 120+ gigawatts of generation capacity in Europe, South America, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In 2009, EDF was the world's largest producer of electricity. In 2011, it produced 22% of the European Union's electricity, primarily from nuclear power.
[img-l]https://i.imgur.com/11xJAVI.png[/img-l]
Anheuser-Busch InBev is a multinational beverage and brewing company headquartered in Leuven, Belgium. It is the world's largest brewer and has a 25 percent global market share. AB InBev was formed through successive mergers of three international brewing groups: Interbrew, AmBev, and Anheuser-Busch. It has 16 brands that individually generate more than US$ 1 billion annually in revenue, out of a portfolio of more than 200 brands.
The renewals certainly brought some disappointment in Generali's headquarters, as the team management was forced to begrudgingly accept higher wages than expected for 3 of its top riders, who excluded the possibility of renewing with the team unless their demands were met completely.
The team chose to keep said riders in the hopes of either improving its relationship with them, or selling them to other teams to make them happier. All other riders have accepted reasonable contract extensions, more delighted than ever to ride in Generali's colours for the upcoming season.
As mentioned last year, I'm a big fan of both Ulissi and Teunissen. Expect the latter to be one of the toughest rivals for Trentin and Wisniowski on the cobbles this season, should they all stay in their teams
Looks like a mixed renewals, with Moser, Viviani and Van Winden all going sour. Especially the last two on quite high wages, you would say, but then again a good cut for Ulissi and Teunissen.
Great depth in the TT department also of course, another leader in the sprints/hills, and it's surely a promotion candidate.
Some nice decreases for some riders, less good for others Good luck consolidating and hopefully improving your PCT position, that's an amazing squad to work with even if the wages aren't where you'd like for some of them
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
We needed money in the transfer season, so we picked the hardest possible goals whilst trying to keep them all attainable. Sounded like a good plan, and in fact the management got quite a bit of cash for the route they picked.
Basically, we won this last year and we want to win it again.
Win Ringerike GP
This looks like it suits Ulissi, so I picked it. It also was the only hilly classic in our calendar Ulissi missed out on last year, so I mostly have no idea how he'll fare.
Win Japan Cup
This one actually suits Ulissi and he proved it last year with a podium place, the best performance by the Italian, former winner of MSR, in a classic.
Top 5 Post Danmark Rundt
We'll fail this goal most likely, since we don't have a top 5/10 time trialist in the division. But we shouldn't be far off, which is something. Damn, I miss TTTs.
Top 5 PCT Team Standings
We didn't expect this coming before the transfers and we don't see it happening after them. Top 10 would have been a lot more realistic, but it also would have meant less money to invest. That said, there's no reason to think we'll be far off.
Sorry I just don't see you winning Monterrey TTT without the mighty Van Winden. Clear mistake to sell him in the end
I figure, risky targets are usually a tactic that pays off if you keep them doing them. Wish I had signed Thiery btgw, long time on my shortlist but he's also no guy to outbid someone on. Still, he has some great stats for cheap price.
All the best for the upcoming season. Top 5 I don't know about but I look forward to your rage against EBH.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
13 riders have joined Generali - EDF during the 2017 transfer season, which marks for us what has been, somehow, an even bigger rebuild than the one the team underwent last year, during its first season in PCT. A rebuild that, however, we think will be worth it both in the short term, as the team heavily strengthens itself in the climbing department, and in the long run, with a lower average age that goes from about 27 years old to close to 26 including our loan-outs.
This is the squad that will therefore ride for Generali - EDF during the 2017 season, as well as our stagiares and the riders we've loaned out:
Primoz is an incredibly valuable climber, but even more importantly, he proved he's a great all-around rider, with good skills to defend himself in every speciality. For just 320k we feel like he's been a great pick-up for both now and, possibly, the future. He is a perfect fit for us, being capable of finally filling our biggest gap - stage racing. He might help gather some points in a couple of hilly races, too.
The Irishman was one of the best domestiques available in the market with regard to the hilly terrain. We kept an eye on him as a priority to strengthen our admittedly lacking hilly depth, and eventually went for him, snatching him away from the competition for just 100k. He'll be Ulissi's best helper, but might take up some chances himself in a few races, where his great explosiveness will help.
After selling Moser for... disciplinary reasons... we needed a new co-leader for Theuns in flat races. Planckaert is exactly that, a serviceable leadout man, and in most occasions, a potentially solid enough sprinter. We're not expecting him to beat the crazy competition that the PCT brings, but we know he'll be a valuable addition to our train nonetheless.
In our quest to further improve our puncheurs core, after signing Lavery we wanted another or two more valuable domestiques. Tanovitchii is young, proven as a lieutenant over at Metinvest, and already greatly effective, so signing him for just 70k sounded like a bargain for the management.
Cyrile is the kind of rider every team from any category wants to sign. Yet we were the only ones bold enough to contact him, and signed him for a minimum wage of 50k. Mostly focused in hilly classics, the Swiss 27 year old will be helping our leaders in more than just one terrain, which is something we love.
Ovechkin will be a great asset for our team time trial setup. As a proven, experienced big man, who can also resist some tougher slopes, he's the rider we were looking for to further improve our TTT team after seeing Van Winden move to another team, and needing to loan out Goldstein and Marchewka.
Pedrero was signed for 50k and immediately loaned out to our friends over at Iberia, in order to see him maxed out by 2018. He's shaping up to be one of our top mountain domestiques for the next years, but he's curiously capable in sprints, too.
Nommela is the first of the 4 stagiares we hired to ride with us in the final months of 2017. He'll be already extremely valuable, as we can count on his already good sprinter skills, but he could become an elite leadout or sprinter in the future.
Jakub Skala | 69,52 AVG | 24 y/o | €50.000 | 3.34
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FT
DH
PR
71
56
68
56
67
70
63
70
66
71
68
73
69
The only loan-in of our 2017 season, Skala is exactly what we wanted to complete our roster. Coming from PT team Nemiroff, the Czech northern classics specialist will ride in quite a bit of our flat and cobbled races as an early domestique.
Edward is a lot more than just Baptiste's little brother. He's one of the brightest talents for the sprinting future of the team, and he was therefore a no brainer to sign as our second stagiare out of four.
Stef Krul | 65,92 AVG | 22 y/o | €10.000 | 1.0
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FT
DH
PR
69
62
63
69
65
66
63
60
61
66
70
62
69
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
76
63
66
78
70
73
70
60
61
66
75
63
78
Krul is an excellent future time trial specialist that we hope will stay with the team for seasons to come. He's what we look for in a TT rider: skills to ride in the wind for hours on end, good resistance when tackling short climbs, focus nationality, and of course lots of talent. For now, he's only signed as a stagiare.
Belevics was destined to ride for Evonik, but somehow got no offers from the German-Latvian team, which meant that we were free to sign him as our fourth and last 2017 stagiare. Just like Krul above, he's a future time trialling star, with good skills that will be helpful in other situations, too.
Looks like Mr Roglic has had serious altitude training during the off-season, no? Interesting development.
You have secured a lot of nice talents, making particuarly good use of the stagiare route to tie-in riders. In PCT you are allowed to use the 15 RD's of stags throughout the year if entering C2 races as well, not just restricted to August. Perhaps we will see Generali -EDF slumming it with us low-budget CT teams from time-to-time? .
Mike Teunissen
Pierre Rolland
Roy Goldstein
Krzysztof Marchewka
Maximilian Beyer
Good luck consolidating and hopefully improving your PCT position, that's an amazing squad to work with even if the wages aren't where you'd like for some of them 
Primož Roglič | 
Philip Lavery | 
Nicolae Tanovitchii | 
Cyrile Thièry | 
Artem Ovechkin | 
Antonio Pedrero | 
Neofytos Sakellaridis | 
Aksel Nommela | 
Jakub Skala | 
Arturs Belevics | 65,68 AVG | 21 y/o | €10.000 | 1.0
(have seen that quite a bit already 
