With CT not having PTHC races on their schedules, we'll just do two period rankings here, like for PT. 8 races per month, minus a postponed June race - let's look at how it went!
Period Ranking: May
For the first time this year, CT teams weren't disturbed by any PCT riders - even in two races. This concerned the sole C2 classic on the May calendar (Nakhon), as well as one of two C2 stage races (Olympia's Tour).
Overall, they had lots of stage racing this month, with two races each at HC, C1 and C2 level. Plus just two classics, one in C1 and the already mentioned C2 one.
Unlike for PCT, points usually are higher for CT teams the lower the race category gets. So we'll start with the HC stage races right away.
Only Oktal and Tafjord participated in Norway, with the former getting some more points out of the race (23) thanks to Le Gac. Lindau scored 10 points for Tafjord. That's all.
Three teams participated in Austria - and here Tafjord should definitely be happy with the 72 points they got - again mostly due to Lindau. Staffbase had 43, Le Creuset 36.
Next are the C1 races. Dunkerque had 7 participating CT teams - but only two managed to score some points. Tafjord again came out on top, with Breen giving the PCT stars a good fight finishing 7th. Alongside another Top 25 result, they scored 30 points. Caja's Declercq was just one spot behind for 24 points. Bordeaux and Le Creuset were unlucky to take the two first non-scoring positions.
Chile was the shorter of the two C1 stage races, hence a lower high-score could be expected. Mostly thanks to Robov's stage win on day 1, BWT were the best team with 50 points, closely followed by Jura with 47, mainly due to Moscon's copy-and-paste stage win from last year on day 2. Caja scored a respectable 35 opints as 3rd best team.
Romandie on the other hand, despite being twice as long, had only one CT team score more than 30 points, with Jura taking 75 points from their home race. Stüssi with a 7th place in GC was their main scorer. Le Creuset and Tryg both went home with 29 points.
So, what's left? Well, C2 - big points! Which is only partially true, though, as the highest score in Nakhon Ratchasima was lower than the highest Romandie and Austria scores. But Keough will still have enjoyed his win, and McCormick won't be too unhappy with the 63 points they got. Bianchi and Oktal with 58 and 53 came pretty close due to some even better depth results, though.
The stage races, on the other hand, did yield some good scores. Like the 146 points Bianchi got from Tour du Faso, despite not even winning it. Lampaert did, but Colombini "only" scored 116 points, having much less depth. BWT and Pas Normal came next, both with 64 points.
But the final race will probably go down in history as the highest ever scoring C2 stage race - with the dominators from Glanbia taking the incredible amount of 310 points in 6 days! Which is more than what any team got from Austria, and almost as high as PCT's highest score this month! Three hundred and ten points - amazing, and congratulations!
Jura's 131 points look like nothing in comparison, but it's still the 2nd highest value. Next are Oktal with 85.
Obviously, there could only be one winner in May - Glanbia won the month with 338 points. That's right, they scored 28 points from the other races they did - but they only did two more, to be fair. Jura totalled 253 points, while Bianchi got 206. Overall, Jura were able to hold onto their lead - but only by some 50-odd points ahead of new runner-up Glanbia! And the Top 3 of the month also were Top 3 of the division now, with Bianchi staying in 3rd place. McCormick and Colombini rounded out the Top 5.
At the bottom, we saw a single-digit score by Podium Ambition, netting 7 points. Air New Zealand and Eddie Stobart were just 9 and 13 points better, though. Bordeaux and Tryg won't be happy with their May scores, either - especially not the latter whose target was clearly to bounce back up to PCT. Overall, Eddie Stobart and Podium Ambition still are on the last two spots, with Le Creuset staying in 17th place. Bordeaux and Staffbase swapped their places.
Here are the May scores:
Nakh
TdR
Chile
Faso
Oster
Dunk
Oly
Nor
Total
1
Glanbia
26
0
2
0
0
0
310
0
338
2
Jura GIANTS
0
75
47
0
0
0
131
0
253
3
Bianchi - Panerai
58
0
0
146
0
0
2
0
206
4
Oktal Pharma - TotalTV
53
1
0
0
0
0
85
23
162
5
BWT Hyundai N Cycling
0
6
50
64
0
0
35
0
155
6
Tafjord Kraft
0
8
0
0
72
30
21
10
141
7
Colombini-Adler Aalterpaint
5
0
0
116
0
0
11
0
132
8
Caja Rural Cycling Team
3
0
35
32
0
24
26
0
120
9
Bonduelle - Eesti Energia
15
6
0
38
0
0
60
0
119
10
BNZ-Superhero Racing
0
26
28
0
0
0
44
0
98
11
McCormick Pro Cycling
63
0
0
0
0
0
19
0
82
12
Le Creuset
0
29
0
5
36
0
7
0
77
13
Staffbase - BHP
28
1
0
2
43
0
0
0
74
14
Pas Normal Studios - Mikkeller
2
0
0
64
0
0
6
0
72
15
Tryg - Gobik
7
29
0
0
0
0
27
0
63
16
Bordeaux Metropole - Euskotren
8
0
10
21
0
0
0
0
39
17
Eddie Stobart
18
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
20
18
Air New Zealand
0
1
0
1
0
0
14
0
16
19
Podium Ambition
1
0
0
2
0
0
4
0
7
Period Ranking: June
8 races were on the CT calendar - 7 of them were indeed raced in June, with Amissa Bongo postponed until further notice. What's left is one HC classic, two C1 classics and one stage race, plus one C2 classic and two stage races.
Let's begin with the zero-pointer: only Jura dared signing up for Hallstatt, but Stüssi et al. failed badly and finished outside the points.
The first C1 classic didn't go a whole lot better for CT. Still, Guardini took the final Top 10 spot for Caja, netting 16 points. Tafjord, Tryg, BWT and Staffbase got 15 points combined.
It was a whole different story in Canada, though - where Kuss even managed to get a 3rd place finish in Apex Mountain Classic! It turns out that he just loves Canada, as we'll see later. In any case, that meant 46 points for McCormick. Aru in 5th place scored 36 for Pas Normal, with Mannion in 14th bringing home 9 for Glanbia.
9 teams were racing in the Tour of South Africa, despite the clash with Vancouver. Only Oktal Pharma could be really happy with their scoring, though, as Ivanov, Piaskowy and Petrovski all got a Top 15 GC result, and they even were the 2nd best team! 64 points was a good reward for the comebackers. Jura were 40 points off, netting 24 points, with Eddie Stobart taking 16 points.
But once more, the C2 races yielded the highest points for CT teams. The lowest amount of points obviously were at stake in Monterrey, where BWT defended their title with a really strong showing! 75 points for them, 50 for McCormick and 40 points went to Podium Ambition - yes, they indeed finished on the podium in a classic!
Ras Tailteann then was a one-man-show. Saber has been on an insane run this year, and he continued that in Ireland with two stage wins and an easy GC win - alongside the points jersey, of course. 170 points in 3 days for Colombini - in terms of PpRD that even outscores Glanbia's Olympia Tour performance! Oktal did a good job with Wippert and Perera and also score above 100 points, with runner-up Matthews' Pas Normal just below.
However, the two highest scores came from the month's longest C2 stage race, Vancouver. The GC was won by Kuss - but he wasn't the highest scoring rider! Runner-up Stüssi outscored him by one point, and Jura also brought home the June highscore thanks to 3 stage wins as well as the green and KoM jerseys - 221 points. McCormick came 2nd, but with a surprisingly big margin, taking 176 points. No other team scored 100 points or more; Tryg came pretty close though with 91 points, mainly due to Schlegel's 3rd place finish.
And that's all for the moment - as said before, Amissa Bongo is still pending, but the associated race days have been factored out from the calculations anyway. So who did best in June?
You read the name McCormick quite some times - great performances in all three American races (Vancouver, Apex and Monterrey) laid the base for a comfortable first place! 307 points were scored from them in only 14 race days - definitely an amazing month!
Jura finally did well to limit their damage, getting closest to the Americans. 263 points still means a gap of more than 40 points, and all this with 5 race days more. Another solid month, though.
Colombini - or should we rather say Team Saber - were 3rd, thanks to their commanding Ras win. They're more than 50 points behind Jura, though, meaning more than 100 points behind McCormick already.
Oktal are just one point further down, being one of the few teams not having participated in Vancouver. These four teams should be pretty happy with their June yield.
We then have some more teams with gaps of 20-30 points ahead and behind of them, with Pas Normal rounding off the Top 5 (176 points), Tryg following with 159 and BWT with 129 points. All others didn't cross the 100 points barrier.
On the lower end of the table, we have Air New Zealand with just 7 points. They only raced in South Africa, though, so no "easy C2 points" for them. Staffbase and Tafjord didn't do much better with 14 and 18 points respectively - which must be disappointing especially for the former, having spent 16 RDs for 14 points.
Next on the list - in 16th place - are Eddie Stobart, who didn't quite make it to the lower midfield, trailing Le Creuset by 19 points. Between Le Creuset in 15th and Glanbia/Caja in 8th, we then only have 37 points in this "midfield". Glanbia and Caja trail BWT by 36 points, so between these two it's almost as much as what separates the 8 "midfielders".
Here are the details for June:
Han
Ras
Hall
Vanc
ToSA
TTT
Apex
Total
1
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
35
0
176
0
50
46
307
2
Jura GIANTS
0
0
0
221
24
15
3
263
3
Colombini-Adler Aalterpaint
0
170
0
35
0
0
0
205
4
Oktal Pharma - TotalTV
0
110
0
0
64
30
0
204
5
Pas Normal Studios - Mikkeller
0
92
0
43
0
5
36
176
6
Tryg - Gobik
4
52
0
91
12
0
0
159
7
BWT Hyundai N Cycling
2
0
0
52
0
75
0
129
8
Glanbia
0
0
0
35
14
35
9
93
9
Caja Rural Cycling Team
16
0
0
72
0
0
5
93
10
Bordeaux Metropole - Euskotren
0
2
0
61
12
0
6
81
11
BNZ-Superhero Racing
0
39
0
20
0
20
0
79
12
Bonduelle - Eesti Energia
0
66
0
9
0
0
0
75
13
Bianchi - Panerai
0
44
0
18
0
5
0
67
14
Podium Ambition
0
12
0
4
10
40
0
66
15
Le Creuset
0
22
0
34
0
0
0
56
16
Eddie Stobart
0
0
0
21
16
0
0
37
17
Tafjord Kraft
8
10
0
0
0
0
0
18
18
Staffbase - BHP
1
2
0
0
0
10
1
14
19
Air New Zealand
0
0
0
0
7
0
0
7
Full Ranking
And now, who's going up? Who's staying down for another year? There's obviously nothing decided yet, but we definitely can see some trends.
First of all, our Top 2 stay the same as in the last update. Jura and McCormick are the only teams above 1,000 points already, and both are very likely going up. The Swiss have scored more in the last two months - but they've also raced a lot more. McCormick now are actually projected to finish first, having 11 race days more to spend - and having the 3rd lowest RD spent value of the division!
Glanbia had temporarily moved up to 2nd place by the end of May, but due to McCormicks really big month they lost one spot. Still, the Irishmen are less than 100 points behind 2nd place and - most importantly - have an almost 200 points advantage over 6th place. Plus, they also have raced less than most other teams, and therefore are in a great spot right now as well.
Colombini have managed to hold onto their 4th place - but the question is how many brilliant races can Saber still do this year? He has scored more than 50% of his team's total points, so whether they will directly promote or not mainly depends on the Moroccan.
Next is yet another new team, Bianchi. They actually were the best new team in the previous update, but have dropped from 3rd to 5th, probably mainly due to the lack of cobbles in this period. What speaks for them, though, is their 85 points advantage over 6th place - they are indeed projected to go up as well.
However, at least 5 teams will be hoping to claim that 5th place, as the spots higher up are currently looking to be out of reach. Caja Rural and Oktal are two more new teams targetting instant promotion, while BWT and BNZ will be looking to finally move up. Tryg is trying to bounce back up, but things haven't gone overly well for them so far. A lot can still happen, though!
Behind this current upper half of the division, however, we have quite a big gap. Tafjord are projected more than 150 points behind Oktal, who have the lowest projected score of the Top 10. They'll need some miracle to finally promote this year, but making another attempt next year looks more likely.
At the bottom, Eddie Stobart are still holding the red lantern - and now also have the lowest PpRD value. Podium Ambition had a reason to celebrate in Mexico, but are still unlikely to move away from 18th place.
Le Creuset, Staffbase and Bordeaux are the other bottom 5 teams - and it currently looks like only Aire New Zealand could be within reach for them. However, the Kiwis have the second lowest amount of used-up RDs, so it's unlikely they'll drop a lot.
But enough talking - take a look at the detailed values, and share your own thoughts:
Has it ever happened that an African rider wins the individual ranking? Well, this year it definitely should be the case, as Lahcen Saber just keeps on scoring - way more consistently than most other sprinters of the entire MG. Which might be surprising, given his rather mediocre performances in previous seasons.
He now has a gap of almost 170 points over our new runner-up, Vegard Breen. Scoring in Dunkerque and Hanko was just enough to go past Ian Boswell, whose last points were noted in April.
Andrew Talansky as the division's best scoring stage racer stays in 4th place, but Fausto Masnada is still very close behind. At least the Italian did enough in the last two months to swap positions with Larry Warbasse, who didn't race in this period.
Sameera Chatarunga made pretty good use of the Tour du Faso to move up from 10th to 7th, while Thomas Boudat even jumped from 13th to 8th. The only other new name in the Top 10 is Colin Stüssi, moving up from 93rd to 9th with some good scoring in Romandie and especially Vancouver. Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev was just able to hold onto his Top 10 spot, losing two places.
So, it's five stage racers, two sprinters, two cobblers and a puncheur in the Top 10 - a pretty good balance. Two sprinters dropped out of the Top 10, though, with Scully down in 11th and Aregger in 18th.
And here's the full list of riders who scored at least one point so far:
I guess no mentions I’d a good thing. We hold onto our top 10 and hopefully we can increase scoring. We have used one of the lowest amount of RDs and still have some huge races coming up for us! Hopefully we can start to move up again
I am sticking with my call that Jura wins the division although I going to admit we are closer than I anticipated. Probably a lot depends on ToA, that could be very bad or very good for us.
Congrats to Glanbia on the Olympia explosion.
Saber having a memorable season. Hoping Boswell can bounce back to 2nd, he has some attractive races left, but Saber has a lock on that number 1 spot.
Most of all I am looking forward to the stage race slugfest resuming at Trentino.
Thank you for the amazing Ranking-update Fabianski, a joy to read!
Not too much joy reading the ranking itself
Vegard Breen takes over half of our points and thats worriying. We need every rider to give their best in the remaining races. A top 10 is within reach, but we need something special to reach promotion.
Thank you Fabianski for putting in all the work to make these updates possible. Even though I'm stressed out during the latest few months with our performances dying down slightly, I am thrilled with the season Saber is having. I'm a dreamer so I'm happy my gamble is paying off. His season is almost over, with just three appearances left for a combined 13 RDs. Typing that out makes me realise his season still has alot of life in it with a third of his total racedays still to come. I might have to honor our Morrocan in a big way if he pulls through. By winning the individual rankings and single handidly pushing us into contention for promotion he deserves to be immortalized with his name as a co-sponsor next season perhaps. Who knows But still lots to race for so I'm not ringing the victory bells this early.
Happy to see Bralirwa alumni Lampaert and Vliegen in the Top 35. I was confident they could do well in CT and they prove to be one of the better bargains of the transfer period. The Top 2 are expected, good seasons from Jura and McCormick. Everything behind them is still very open. And Podium Ambition indeed with a very systematic tank, but I'm already looking forward to the bounceback process
Happy to see Jura and McCormick still on pace to go up. Strong teams with great managers that deserve it. Also cool to see that the Saber gamble has actually paid off for Colombini. I was a huge doubter, but consider me proven wrong.
Edited by baseballlover312 on 11-03-2023 21:32
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Pretty happy with May, not that much with June - except for Vancouver, obviously.
I'm still a bit disappointed we missed out on the Top 5 in Romandie, but I guess we got a good result for a CT team. Chile was funny with Moscon's copy & paste win on stage 2, and it was good to see that he can actually deliver if the AI is kind enough with him.
Olympia then was better than I expected pre-race; I honestly didn't see a podium and two Top 10s coming. Still, with a bit more luck we could even have won the race, but Glanbia deservedly run away with that huge result. So taking 2nd definitely wasn't bad.
Being 2nd in June though is somewhat disappointing. Especially the two mountain classics (Hallstatt and Apex) were a big bummer - and I still have no clue why Stüssi just didn't perform there. He's about as good as Pomoshnikov and Kuss, who took podium spots in those two races - so I guess we just weren't lucky enough.
ToSA had some lower scoring than expected as well - it was disappointing to see that the strategy with Aregger just didn't work out (he was often there in the end, but got no support). And Moscon didn't get any useful stage results, either. The low GC result wasn't surprising, though, given that our TTT squad was in Vancouver.
Speaking of TTT, Monterrey was another big disappointment this month. Sure, we didn't send over the very strongest lineup, but 8th place still was just awful. At least the TTT squad delivered in Vancouver, winning our 2nd TTT ever (and the 2nd of the year) - alongside some other strong results. Still sucks a bit not having taken the overall win, due to some far bigger than usual gaps on the first mountain stage, but we can still consider it a huge success - at the right moment, as motivation was getting close to zero after all those small and big misses in June. With all those RDs spent, I expected us to finish first this month, but given how bad it looked at some point taking 2nd again is still good news.
Overall, we built up quite a comfortable lead - but McCormick actually overtook us in terms of PpRD. I guess our performance in the two HC races Bayern and Morocco compared to their ToA scorings might be decisive, with lots of points at stake - but probably pretty hard to reach big points for both of us. But with how Kuss has been doing so far, a great ToA wouldn't surprise me that much
Glanbia made full use of Olympia to claim a provisional promotion spot - I know I didn't do a prediction, but I always told you I consider them to be serious contenders. With some rather TT heavy races left, I can clearly see them stay in 3rd place (or any other promotion spot). It looks like Mac's betting on TTers finally pays off this year.
I have to join bbl in saying that I doubted that Saber would be useful this year. I'm really surprised by how well he's been doing, given the average consistency of sprinters. I'm no big fan of teams with one big scorer and not that much else, but if it works it can be pretty darn efficient as Colombini show us. Let's see if 13 more Saber RDs are enough to net promotion, but they do have a good cushion right now.
I think that it's mainly the race for 5th that's still pretty much open. Sure, Bianchi also have a nice points advantage, but there aren't that many hilly or cobbled races left. If they get some great TTs and stage races, I could see BNZ or BWT move up - or even Tryg, although I think that Schlegel doesn't have that many RDs left, and Zimmermann can't TT. Caja don't have as many RDs left, but I sure won't rule them out, either. And Oktal will have to hope for some more Sterobo magic - but sgdanny knows how to do good planning I guess.
Good luck to everyone for the remainder of the season, and hopefully some good and close fights for the relevant spots (although personally I'd prefer not having a close fight for 1st )
Thanks Fab. Great tussle for the championship between two great teams.
Glanbia? Well, let's say we're beginning to get optimistic. I worry about Tour of America so I'd rather be going into that with a comfortable margin.
Amazing Talansky is still running high off his Táchira score. That race and Olympia account for where we are. We only need solid rather than spectacular now but as usual the TTT events and Stage Races with TTTs offer hope for a couple of more good races.
A big thank you Fabianski for the update, a great read as usual.
Well for us now the battle seems to be to keep our 15th place. In theory, we might still have a shot at 10th, or something in between, but it would need to greatly improve our PPRD (our for the others to crumble, I guess).
Itturia now is our best scorer, but it's mostly due to Guerao going down that him going up. Still, both of them are doing what they can! They'll be good mentor for the youngsters we'll hire next year when we'll have 0 budget due to missing all our goals ^^
Now we're learning how to plan.
Still plenty of fighting to see in the division, between Jura and McCormick, for the remainings of the top 5, and really for any position.
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
Still on track for one of the all-time worst MG seasons, fun to be a record setter!
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
