Yes, it's already time for another ranking update! The CT teams are done with September racing - except for the biggest event, of course, Tour of America. Hence, those points are obviously missing from this update, and will be included in a later post.
Period Ranking: September
Excluding the obvious season highlight for 12 out of 19 CT teams, only 5 races we on the CT calendar this month. Thereof three C1 classics.
The first one of this trilogy was GP Kigali. And it wasn't a good race for CT, neither in terms of participation, and even less in terms of points. Out of four teams present, only Pas Normal scored 15 points thanks to Taubel and Kristoff. It was the lowest race "high"-score of the month.
Milano - Torino was not a whole lot better. Nine teams participated, two scored. At least Jura's 41 points - Moscon took fourth place - are a good points return. Tafjord's Blikra picked up 5 points as well. And seven teams left empty-handed.
This was a little better in Lugano, where 5/10 teams scored. And in terms of result, it was a fantastic race especially for Caja Rural, who won the race with a late attack by Serrano! 80 points for the Spaniards. McEvoy's 5th place (plus two points by Hamilton) brought Le Creuset 38 points - a good result as well. The remaining 3 scoring teams got 9 points in total - with BNZ's 4 Edmondson points behing the highest amount.
Let's move on to the stage races then. And we'll cover Bayern first, with only two CT teams participating. Jura had a pretty good race in terms of stage results, with Stepniak taking 3rd on stage 2 and Rekita even winning the closing stage. A total of 53 points went to Switzerland. And 6 points stayed in Germany, scored for Staffbase by Willwohl and Lipowitz.
So, only Middle East left. And we had a pretty surprising GC winner there with Hoem, who also took the final stage. Stage 1 went to Tafjord as well, won by Waersted - and the Norwegians also won the team standings and a total of 157 points in 4 days!
2nd place also goes to Scandinavia, with Tryg scoring 114 points thanks to Schlegel's points jersey, the win on stage 3 and 3rd place in the GC. THJ's U25 win also contributed some points.
And 3rd is for Jura, who won stage 2 with Aregger (who finished 2nd in the points standings), and came second in both stage 4 and the GC with Stüssi. That's 109 additional points for the division leaders.
So, what's the conclusion? Well, Jura were best in two out of five races, plus 3rd in another one - and so their 203 points unsurprisingly are the highest score of the month. They're not in America, though, so overall they'll probably not be the strongest team in September.
2nd place goes to Tafjord, who just added 7 more points to their great TOME score in Torino and Lugano. 164 points still is easily the second highest value, as the next team only has 114. And that is Tryg, who surprisingly failed to score in Torino despite bringing a great lineup.
Le Creuset are the only other team crossing the 100 points barrier - and coming just 2 points short of 3rd place. Let's also mention BNZ and Caja Rural with 94 and 84 points each - as no other team even scored 25 points!
There are even five zero-pointers, and three more teams with less than 10 points - but most of them only had one of two classics this month, or suffered from only a couple of teams dominating TOME. And as we already stated before, many of them might bring home some points from America.
Which is not the case of Oktal, though - who only raced in Torino and Lugano, failing to score, and hence definitely concluding the month with zero points. If they still had some silent hopes of promoting, those might be definitely gone now. But let's look at that in more detail, after having taken a look at the (semi-)full September points:
Kig
TOME
Bay
M-T
Lug
Total
1
Jura GIANTS
0
109
53
41
0
203
2
Tafjord Kraft
0
157
0
5
2
164
3
Tryg - Gobik
0
114
0
0
0
114
4
Le Creuset
0
74
0
0
38
112
5
BNZ-Superhero Racing
0
90
0
0
4
94
6
Caja Rural Cycling Team
0
4
0
0
80
84
7
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
23
0
0
0
23
8
Pas Normal Studios - Mikkeller
15
3
0
0
0
18
9
Bianchi - Panerai
0
15
0
0
0
15
10
Staffbase - BHP
0
1
6
0
3
10
11
Podium Ambition
0
10
0
0
0
10
12
Bordeaux Metropole - Euskotren
0
8
0
0
0
8
13
Colombini-Adler Aalterpaint
0
4
0
0
0
4
14
Glanbia
0
3
0
0
0
3
15
BWT Hyundai N Cycling
0
0
0
0
0
0
16
Oktal Pharma - TotalTV
0
0
0
0
0
0
17
Bonduelle - Eesti Energia
0
0
0
0
0
0
18
Air New Zealand
0
0
0
0
0
0
19
Eddie Stobart
0
0
0
0
0
0
Full Ranking
With 13 out of 19 teams scoring only very few to no points at all, there haven't been lots of changes - but thos who did well so far obviously benefitted from their far superior scores.
With Jura being top of the class in September (so far), they extend their gap over 2nd place to 367 points. Is this a score that McCormick could reach in their home GT? They'd have to exceed their current PpRD if they were to take the lead after Tour of America.
However, it looks more likely that there will be a fight for the remaining podium positions. McCormick also have a comfortable lead over Glanbia (83 points), with the latter 68 points ahead of Colombini. These three teams all participate in America (with at least some of them already having scored some stage points).
Caja Rural then move back on a direct promotion spot, from 6th to 5th. But on one hand, they're already 250 points behind Colombini - and, maybe more importantly, they don't participate in America. And the advantage over some of their chasers isn't quite as big.
We actually do have 6 teams between 900 and 1,000 points. Of those, BWT, Tryg and BNZ are in America, while Tafjord, Bianchi and Oktal will have to hope for some really bad CT scoring across the pond. Especially the Norwegians who only have two races left in October (on the final day of the season) will need quite a lot of luck to still somehow make the Top 5.
In terms of PpRD, BWT, Tryg and BNZ - in that order - are the favorites for 5th place, while 4th seems to be too far away. So that's 11 teams still (realistically) in the fight for promotion - and one of them will even miss out on the Top 10!
In the second half of the table, we don't have a single change of position. And PpRD values suggest that not a whole lot is likely to happen anyway - although Le Creuset could overtake both Staffbase and Bordeaux with a good ToA, being just 41 points behind 15th place. Podium Ambition and Eddie Stobart, on the other hand, look to be set for the final two positions.
Is all of this too abstract for you? Well, here's the visual thing you were waiting for:
Obviously, there's no change at the top, and there won't be any. On the contrary, Lahcen Saber could even extend his lead even more in the final month. Will he even arrive at twice the score of 2nd place?
That 2nd place is now Colin Stüssi, moving up two spots with a good TOME performance. He's now some points ahead of Andrew Talansky and Lawrence Warbasse and looks to be on track to claim the "Stage Racer of the Year" title.
Vegard Breen in 5th place is just two points off Warbasse, though - but I've got no clue about their respective planning. Michal Schlegel has made a big jump from 16th to 6th, also due to TOME. If he's got some classics left in October, he might even attack the podium.
Which might be the same plan Ian Boswell has, being the top puncheur of the division. He's in 7th place - which he shares with Max Kanter. Wouter Wippert makes it three sprinters in the Top 10 (whereof he's probably the most surprising name).
Fausto Masnada concludes the Top 10 for now, but that spot is by no means set in stone. On the contrary, Boudat (11th) - who dropped out of the Top 10 due to Schlegel's rise - and also Kuss (14th) have already scored in America. These two and some more might have a shot at entering the Top 10 by the end of the year.
The most impressive rise of the month obviously was by Hoem, who jumped from 188th to 43rd! Teuns improving from 102nd to 56th and McEvoy from 128th to 69th are other notable changes.
Projected 7th. We really need that big ToA and also a big finish to the season. We were one of the best scoring teams in the last month which is a good sign! Hopefully we can really charge home and get ourselves in 5th place and automatic promotion
Honestly, I'd expect BNZ to jump us in the standings after ToA. My startlist for ToA isn't as deep as BNZ's and I'd assume that we (as well as Tryg) will be competing in the same events - Herald Sun Tour, Euskal Bizkleta and Zuri Metzgete (I assume that Tryg will also compete in Giro dell'Emilia). The final month would be decisive one.
Edited by ivaneurope on 15-05-2023 06:47
Thanks for the update, pretty poor period for us with TOME and Milan-Torino both very poor. Luckily we have some room to play with. Hoping Boswell doesn't fail miserably in Euskal as well.
Another really good month for us, although the zero-pointer in Lugano sucks mostly from a RP perspective. Moscon's 4th place in Milano - Torino and Rekita's TT win in Bayern are the standout results I guess.
We didn't completely fulfill our hopes GC-wise both in TOME and Bayern, but 2nd in the former is still good (given that there was just a single decisive stage), and in the latter we had two great stage results to make up for Mäder's GC failure.
I guess if McCormick don't pull off a Kraftwerk-like show in America, we should head into the final month with a solid lead and more RDs - whereof 6 however are spent in another HC-gamble in Morocco. Our main hopes will be on Rekita (Herald Sun) and Moscon/Masnada (Euskal & Metzgete). Speaking of the latter, it was great to see him finally live up to his skillset in Torino; Fiat would have loved the result if they still were our sponsors. Seeing him in 30th place in the individual standings is still a pity, but with five more riders in the Top 30 I definitely can't complain about the general team performance. Stüssi rising to 2nd and strongest stage racer is nice to see, although I'd have expected a bigger gap over Talansky and Warbasse pre-season. Hats off to the Americans, they did a great job!
In terms of promotion spots, I honestly love to see McCormick and Glanbia up there, with both managers being active and really contributing to the game. KaiserAdler is doing the same lately, which I like a lot
So, with that criterion in mind (which I really value highly), I'd love to see either BWT or BNZ (or Tafjord, but less likely imho) pick up the final promotion spot. As ivan mentioned, BNZ might be better off right now given that they have Vasyliv in ToA, and BWT basically have a breakaway team there. Tryg with Zimmermann shouldn't be ruled out, either, though.
If all of those three don't score well in America, the remaining Top 11 teams could have a shot at automatic promotion as well. Sun Tour as the final C2 stage race of the year could be decisive, looking forward to the finale
Given Eddie (Sutty) doesn't really count as a full season team, we're still doing well for a real short at "worst scoring season". I continue to be here embarrassing much more successful managers in terms of activity. Very excited to make that worst-to-first jump next season.
But hey, we still have three Top100 scoring riders! (just... we won't in a months time i expect). And our two best were those i spent training on. That's an impressive level of return after the Altur fiasco.
That's actually a bit reassuring, I was getting nervous seeing as how we are spending 21 race days in America winning maybe a dozen points if things don't pick up.
I did always say it was a weakness but it seems like a lot of others are in the same boat and I am sure we will grind out some decent results.
Reassuring too that one of our favourite (i.e. TT decided) races is still to come in the Herald Sun Tour.
Thank you Fabianski, wonderful update (in more than one way )
However, I didnt know I was almost finish with my season, so I agree, we will most likely fall down again, but it was fun being up there and fight now in september
Will be extra interresting following the last races for us now. We need another ToME-performance
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