A short 3 race update for the Pro Tour as it`s the (basically) Pre Tour de France update with only the two prep races Tour de Suisse and Criterium du Dauphine Libere as also the PTHC classic Franceville Classique for the cobblers.
Two teams clearly stand out in this period and not a big surprise it`s the winners of the PT stage races. As Phinney not only won but dominated the race with several stage wins as well, Isostar`s 743 points there is almost GT worthy. Puma around Herklotz in Suisse was almost as dominant with 677 points! Both will clearly move up in the rankings.
Gazelle, EA Vesuvio, Moser all follow around the 500 point mark and come closer to the podium while cycleYorkshire is the best team from down the relegation zone. But in general quite a few teams did decently with some 400-500 points in those races.
Team
TdS
Dau
FrC
Total
1
Isostar - Specialized
204
743
0
947
2
Team Puma - SAP
677
135
0
812
3
Gazelle
436
93
0
529
4
EA Vesuvio
314
195
0
509
5
Moser - Sygic
207
278
0
485
6
cycleYorkshire
222
153
109
484
7
Bennelong - Mitchelton
235
244
0
479
8
Festina - OAKA
338
93
37
468
9
Aegon - Peroni
97
219
112
428
10
Air France - KLM
82
345
0
427
11
Team Tinkoff - La Datcha
194
93
95
382
12
Team UBS
130
184
38
352
13
Generali
245
92
0
337
14
Grieg-Maersk
60
153
119
332
15
Evonik - ELKO
76
254
0
330
16
ISA - Hexacta
210
72
44
326
17
King Power
184
110
0
294
18
eBuddy
64
146
49
259
19
Volvo acc. by Spotify
46
199
0
245
20
Rakuten Pro Cycling
139
100
0
239
21
Indosat Ooredoo
120
100
0
220
22
Aker - MOT
53
79
0
132
As Evonik was none of those teams, they actually drop behind Isostar for the PT lead with Festina also being passed. Those three though are still pretty close together with in especially later two within 1 single point!
Moser and King Power swap positions and lead the first chasers, now a bit more under pressure by Gazelle, Puma or EA Vesuvio.
When checking the actual TdF startlist, Isostar must fear to be passed again, while Evonik needs a big race by Van Stayen or Chiarello to take over. Also Festina not having the best GC lineup but have started well with Vlatos to be fair. Moser around Barguil could attack those while the biggest danger comes from Gazelle and Puma with the two top GC riders and obviously Puma seems to be the team to beat for now.
Further down just small changes. One important is the swap of Aegon and Volvo as last team above/below the line. TdF wise both teams didn`t start too bad though as Alhstrand could dominate the sprints and Olivier was doing nicely GC wise on the first uphill finish. Maybe both teams can come closer or even pass some of the teams ahead, where in especially Grieg is looking in danger seeing lots of cobbles are done.
Air France (Sicard), Generali (Spilak), Aker (Galta) on paper with a good GC rider as well, though Aker must feel pressure after 3 stages of the Tour and also ISA or Tinkoff have weaker lineups than several teams further below and don`t have such huge gap neither.
The bottom 4 might struggle to really attack those ahead as none of their riders in the TdF seems to be stronger than those ahead despite Quintana or Schelling clearly could be capable of surprises.
Must admit, passing the relegation line to the better is a good feeling before the TdF, even though I doubt, it`s necessarily Volvo as main rival there.
But closing the gap a bit to Grieg in especially but also the teams up to rank 11 is good as basically all those should be potential teams that still drop a lot.
By having less race days used than most other teams in the 2nd half, I am a bit more confident now. At least if Olivier can repeat his performance from the Dauphine and then I need good PTHC race days later on from Olivier/De Bie to close the gap even further.
It would seem that keeping Phinney out of GT contention was the correct decision - and those points might well be the decider over Gazelle and Isostar (Whom I guess will be the decidors together with Evonik).
I'm very happy to be 3rd at the moment, although I guess you could have found 2 points somewhere for me to pass Evonik for the time being
We will come away from the TdF with less than 500 points obviously (probably closer to 300), while Puma and Gazelle are likely to finish around 2000 points. So both should easily move past us, and we don't exactly have any races to shoot back with. Chrono could go either way depending on Vlatos as he's the better TT'er compared to Puma and Gazelle - Both having superior depth to me though.
August might be the chance for us to punch a little bit back if Coquard finds his legs - otherwise I feel pretty content to be looking downwards by now. Our top 3 goal isn't realistic, but top 5 might be possible, although I do believe Moser and Bennelong (in particular) have better fits for the remaining season than we do.
The expected tough month with Suisse being a disappointment while Dauphine was a surprisingly good race which even each other out.
It's very close at the top with Puma and Gazelle having the TDF favourites to also potentially be able to close the gap in the next update. Depending how that race goes, we might have a thrilling end of season with an exciting fight at the top between multiple teams. Especially since the Tour already started well for multiple of the teams involved.
Glad to have that one point advantage over Festina
Not quite the race we wanted in Franceville, even though we ended up as the highest scoring PT team.
Now the dreaded Tour de France. Not looking forward to the next rankings update and expect to be in the drop zone after the Tour. I'm still optimistic with some great races like Herbiers, Midlands, ToNe, Deutschland and Rheden still to come, but it certainly looks like it will be a battle all the way.
The first and probably last time we lead the rankings, awesome! Peak of the MG career so far, awesome stuff! Still it's Evonik, Festina and Puma as the main title contenders, but we might be in the competition for a podium at least.
Croatia14 wrote:
The first and probably last time we lead the rankings, awesome! Peak of the MG career so far, awesome stuff! Still it's Evonik, Festina and Puma as the main title contenders, but we might be in the competition for a podium at least.
I'll happy take some credit as a podium contender, but I can't really see it happen tbh.
Lecuisinier is done while Herklotz and Madrazo is still in the game - aswell as Phinney. Evonik also have racedays left for their biggest leaders. We have many more bad racedays than good left.
Chrono des Herbiers - Vlatos top 5
Nakhon Ratchasima - Coquard top 3
GP Moscow - Coquard top 3
Clasica San Sebastian - Koretzky top 10
East Midlands - Nothing
Paris Tours - Coquard top 3
Balkans International - Nothing
TONE - Nothing
Deutschland Tour - Coquard/Vlatos?
Tour du Maroc - Nothing
Tour of Tasmania - Nothing
Giro di Lombardia - Koretzky top 10
Prior to the season we expected 6500 points, and we have almost 5500 so we are very happy with how the season have progressed so far. But even if we score 7000 I doubt we will land on the podium (Last season it would have been a very safe 2nd place)
I fear the drop very, very much as it stands now. Taaramäe is basically done, Galta is doing his final race in the Tour, which means it's all down to Kwiatkowski to save us. I'm not at all sure he's capable of that on his own, meaning we need some breakaway luck in a race or two.
We're still in touching distance of safety, but I think its hopeless at this point. Probably means a big rebuild next season in PCT which should be fun, but also frustrating that if things went even half as well as I was hoping, I'd probably be in safety at the moment.
Rooting for King Power to sneak into a Top 3 position, but also jealous of how well they've been doing considering our teams are fairly similar in quality apart from cobbles skill and TT being slightly better for them.
The individual success in the Tour is more important for us than any team rankings implications, so I remain cautious when predicting where the race might take us.
And in the bigger picture, I still don't believe that even with a great TdF, the rest of the season will be kind enough to us to remain in Top 3 contention.
Top 3 is our sponsor goal, but it's always been very clear that it would be a very tough task to get there, and personally I've settled on aiming for the Top 5 a long time ago.
That would still be a brilliant result for a team that has spent the last transfer seasons on depth, talents and training and has slowly found itself covering less and less terrains in order to get the maximum out of the 80ish race days between Herklotz and Demare.
The fight for 5th will likely be between King Power, Gazelle and us, with the four teams ahead all eyeing further victories in the future (Phinney, Coquard, Skujins/MAL, Bewley/Sagan), while we'll be down to just two more races for Demare and scraps everywhere else.
So it'll be even more important to get the better of Madrazo in the TdF, while also hoping that we can get a sufficient gap to cover Lutsenko's scoring opportunities in the fall.
King Power being in the KoM jersey at the moment doesn't help with that mission though, and they've obviously benefitted and continue to benefit massively from the sprint roulette.
