It's no surprise that the Tour de France dominated this ranking period, accounting for half or more of most teams' points. It is then not surprising either that Festina leads the rankings in this time frame thanks to Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier's GC win, and by a good margin, too. But all of Puma, Generali and Isostar benefitted from a good Tour, as did Farfetch, who get almost 70% of their points from it, easily the highest percentage.
The Tour was not the only race though. Tinkoff, for example, finished fifth in this stretch despite being a bottom 5 TdF team, thanks to great performances in Slovenia, the Chrono des Herbiers and the Deutschland Tour. Grieg, by far the worst Tour team, scored massively in Germany and the Chrono as well, plus in the East Midland Cycle Classic. Generali's Tour de Slovenie performance was the highest non-TdF score of any team, a massive boon for a squad that was threateningly close to the relegation zone in the last update, and Huski saved their place in this ranking with a late surge in Moscow and the Tour d'Afrique.
Gazelle meanwhile find themselves at the bottom, without any big scoring race to speak of. Vesuvio and Amaysim similarly suffer from a poor Tour de France, but at least find some good points in Germany and South Africa, respectively. Relegation candidates Xero and Aegon did not make great strides either.
As we head into the final two months of the season, it continues to look a lot like it's going to be a two team fight for the crown. Defending champions Isostar - Specialized are still in the lead, but Puma - SAP have made up some ground over these past races.
Behind those two, the fight for the final podium spot also might be narrowed down to two teams, although that one is more open yet. The two teams are Evonik - ELKO and Festina - OAKA, one of the major winners of this window. While theoretically not completely out of it, their deficit to the lead is now over 1.500 points. However, only a meager 34 points seperate the two of them!
There's a 500 point gap to MOL, who in turn have some 400 points to pursuing teams. The midfield is really close, with less than 300 points seperating Grieg - Maers in 6th from Farfetch in 13th place. This group also includes the biggest riser of this update, Generali, who jump from 17th all the way up to 9th, having brought some room between themselves and the relegation zone.
Speaking of, some cornerstone teams are fighting for survival here. Xero Racing has less and less chance of staying up by now, but things are also not looking great for Aegon - Peroni. However, with many good scoring opportunities, everything is still possible. Above, only 26 points are between Amaysim below and EA Vesuvio above the line (remember that only 3 teams relegate this season), and while Mapei have made a big jump in this update and would certainly like to end their story in ProTour, they can't feel secure yet, and neither can Zwift, who've slipped one more spot in this update.
The two biggest risers in the individual rankings do so because of the Tour de France, too, of course. Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier jumps on the podium and Arnaud Demare into the Top 10 from all the way down in 87th place. Other riders moving up include sprinters Grosu and Coquard, as well as Würtz, Hirt, Roglic, Chiarello and Sicard, who climbs a whopping 162 spots after the Tour.
At the top, we have a similar duel to the teams ranking, and it's similarly close, too. Phinney has taken over the lead from Silvio Herklotz by just 17 points.
Wow, that Tour was just dreadful. A solid update for us with plenty of better races elsewhere, and nice to see us being well inside the top 10. Top 5 could be possible with success in races like ToNe, but probably a bit to far up. Looks like it will be a thriller both at the top and in the bottom!
A brilliant stretch of racing for us, with Demare and Ganna carrying the team impressively to back up the strong TdF from Arnaud with a stage race win in Slovenia and a second place in South Africa.
I very much doubt we can challenge Isostar in the remaining races, and they would absolutely deserve to win the division again anyway.
Securing second place against Evonik and Festina is the important news for us from this update.
Too bad Silvio won't be able to win the rankings again, but then again maybe that saves us some wage.
Great racing for us with that incredible tour. Puma has been insane though, and with their latest surge and 12 race days more I'd assume that they're the slight favourites, though it's on open race. Festina and Evonik probably out of this if Lopez doesn't go Berzerk. Very tense race against relegation as well, what an interesting finale to the season.
Croatia14 wrote:
Great racing for us with that incredible tour. Puma has been insane though, and with their latest surge and 12 race days more I'd assume that they're the slight favourites, though it's on open race.
Just a quick note on this, I had originally still the old race day number from the pre-Tour update in here which I have since corrected, so you actually have a few more race days as it stands. Some other projections changed from my initial wording as well, which I've also adjusted
Would have expected to be in 3rd at this State, but the poor Tour de France outcome (almost levelled by the two top teams) hurt us big time. Evonik will stay ahead and thus we’ll miss out on our season goal… too bad really because we have done pretty well overall - better than expected atleast.
Very interesting at the bottom. Some very big teams invovled in that fight against relegation, and some of the long term managers that I don’t like to see go down.
Coquard jumped about 100 points above expectations, while Lecuisinier were underwhelming. Koretzky still with some races and could end up as high as 25th in the rankings. Would be impressive.
SotD wrote:
Would have expected to be in 3rd at this State, but the poor Tour de France outcome (almost levelled by the two top teams) hurt us big time. Evonik will stay ahead
Yeah, i agree with you here. The rankings might be misleading a bit because we should be locked in for third. Lopez has enough race days left to keep Festina a big outsider for the final podium spot.
Puma and Isostar just too consistent for us to have a shot at the title like i hoped we would have this year.
Could be better, could be a lot lot worse. As per tradition we will sweat out the relegation battle. Strong season for Ben Swift is definitely keeping us afloat for now.
Top 5 seems to be gone and the fight for the places behind is really tight, hope my team can do a good final part of the season.
I'm really impressed with MOL so far.
This makes very pleasing reading for ISA - Hexacta managment and team supporters. For sure confounding most pre-season predictions, and even surprising team owner Scorchio to some extent. Our depth approach and careful attention to race planning seems to have paid off in the 2021 season given the lack of superstar talent on the roster. Still far behind the title contenders, but must surely (fingers crossed!) be well clear of any late relegation battle fears. Would be ace to secure a top 10 ranking at season end to rubber-stamp a significant step forward for our organisation.
Particularly tight at the bottom of the table with lots still to be resolved - will be a shame for whichever 3 teams miss out once the season concludes as all invovled are great teams and manager combos. An unsurprising but still close battle for the title between the divisions current two undisputed heavyweight contenders; bonne chance to both, and I selfishly hope it comes down to a nail-biting last day battle for the title at Lombardy to keep us all entertained!
Thanks to cunego for the update and the various reporters/admins who have delivered consistently to get us through to this late stage of the season in good order.
