Although it's "just" 9 races for CT, that's still a tad too much to (meaningfully) fit into one table, so the lowest division gets two partial monthly rankings as well. For them, we'll do the "standard" classics/stage races split.
Partial April Ranking | Classics
With the start of the month being heavy on stage races, the first classic only came on the 15th day of the month - Berlin ProRace, a C2 sprinter classic. If you remember the March update, you might remember that Babymetal had the red lantern with 37 points - well, they more than doubled their score in that one single race! Riabushenko was victorious, and Arashiro added a nice 14th place - 56 points! Add the 37 they previously had - 93 means they have finally left behind the defunct Mercatone squad.
Liepins had a strong race for Crabbe, netting them 35 points, whereas Bertilsson secured 3rd place and 29 points for Tafjord.
Next up was the C1 adventure in China, Badaling International. Only 4 out of 10 participating CT teams managed to score - with APP in 5th and Eiking in 6th doing pretty well for Ekoi and Gjensidige, scoring 36 and 32 points respectively. Edmondson got another 12 points for Crabbe, with JEWA being the final scoring team.
Lincoln GP was another C2 one, another cobbled one - and who says C2 cobbled classics says Gaday. The Argentinean indeed won the race - but despite Owen and Tarvis adding good points with 14th and 15th place, their total of 61 points was only enough for 2nd place!
The highest scoring team didn't even get a podium - despite their ambitions. But Podium Ambition had Matthews in 5th, Campbell in 6th, Richardson in 8th and Cole in 10th - 66 points for the Caribbean! What a depth!
Let's not forget about Trentin, though, whose 2nd place got Saeco 35 points and 3rd place among the teams here.
The two remaining races were HC ones, with only few open spots for CT teams. First came Wallonie, clashing with Lincoln GP. 2 out of 3 teams were able to score, with both JEWA and Tafjord getting a Top 30 finish (Lienhard and Dyrnes) to score 5 points each.
Lisbon was a far better race in terms of points, with Degenkolb sprinting to a very strong 7th place and 45 points for JEWA! Bertilsson finished 16th, scoring 10 points for Tafjord, whereas Stela-Vita got the same reward for two Top 30 finishes by Yzeiraj and Luchshenko. Saeco, the 4th team present, also scored - it's 4/4 here, a good outcome for CT teams!
Degenkolb's big show in Portugal brings JEWA the first spot in the Classics ranking, 92 points for them - almost half of these scored in one race, while they participated (and scored) in all five of them.
Podium Ambition only raced twice, but these two races were enough to claim 2nd place with 82 points. Tafjord, doing 4/5, are close behind with 76 points. Meaning that Crabbe with 75 only just miss out on the podium.
Stela-Vita, Strava and Babymetal all are above 50 points as well, with Gjensidige, Saeco and Ekoi rounding off the Top 10. 36 points were enough to do so, the remaining teams all scoring less than 30 points.
Besides the obvious zero-pointer by Mercatone, three other teams failed to score; Air New Zealand because they didn't do any classics this month, and the Turtles and Bordeaux because they failed to score in their races.
4 stage races were scheduled, with both the first and the last being C2 rated - big points on the table for CT teams!
The first one was the cobbles carnage in Burkina Faso. And boy, was that a close race - Taubel and Lampaert finished on the same overall time, with the former winning stage one, and the latter getting two second places.
In the end, the judges awarded the GC win to Lampaert and Stela-Vita. However, the best scoring team were still JEWA, thanks to their better depth. Taubel scored 92 points - 20 less than Lampaert - but Degenkolb with his stage 2 win added another 24 points - 116 for JEWA.
Despite the 112 points for Lampaert, Stela-Vita had to settle for 2nd, scoring only 3 depth points - 115 for the Albanians. Strava were the only other team getting reasonably close with 83 points, mainly thanks to Gaday's stage win on the closing day, plus 3rd in GC and points. They also had Nielsen and Sbaragli in the Top 25, though, and finished 2nd in the team standings.
Baltic Chain Tour was a C1 stage race for the sprinters - and once again, notorious overperformer Kamberaj was the highest CT finisher in the GC. However, his 56 points were the only ones scored by Stela-Vita - and only good enough for 3rd this time.
Because other teams had a strategy that worked out better for once. Manada actually won stage 2 with breakaway rider Ruiz - and he arguably could have won the GC, too, given that there was a sizeable gap between the escapees and the sprinters, which was simply voided by the officials. Marin gave Manada's answer out on the road, by finishing 3rd the next day. In the end, Ruiz and Marin took 7th and 8th in the GC, getting 109 points for their team!
Podium Ambition's payday was even earlier in the race - they dominated the prologue, taking the win with Campbell, as well as 4th and 5th with Hennis and Matthews. Given the lack of time gaps later in the race, that was also enough to win the team standings - and these three riders finished 9th, 14th and 15th in the GC! Another 92 points - and a sponsor goal - secured!
There's not a lot to be said about the HC Tour d'Areruya in Poland. Still, it was a special race for Schelling, who wore the U25 jersey for three days and ended up 3rd in this special classification - and also finished 30th in the GC. 21 points for him and Würth, the highest CT score of the race.
Kulppi and Ludvigsson were in the KoM Top 3 for several stages - with the former even leading for two days - and ended up 5th and 8th. These 18 points were the only ones for Tajford. Duchesne claimed 3rd in the KoM standings on the final day, 10 points for the Turtles - plus a 5th place on stage 3 by Trillini, and some intermediate KoM points by Vermaerke, making it 17 in total.
The C2 USA Pro Cycling Challenge is THE stage race for CT sprinters, despite the epilogue - there's none for them without a TT, actually. And given that neither Liu (Yadea) nor Saber (Mercatone) are actually racing (anymore), Kamberaj is the best remaining sprinter according to OVL. And he was the best sprinter in the U.S., definitely.
2nd, 3rd, 1st are his results on the first three stages - easily enough to bring home both the GC and the points jersey after the epilogue. 129 points is a huge reward after 4 days - Allegaert and Merlier added 10 more to make it 139 for Stela-Vita! That's the 2nd highest score of any CT team this year, behind Crabbe's 170 in Tachira.
Boudat won the first stage, but had an awful day 3, missing out on the bonus seconds - despite a strong 5th place in the epilogue, he had to settle for 2nd in GC and points. It's 98 points for him, 100 for JEWA thanks to 2 Malori points.
3rd place goes to... Würth! Probably a bit unexpected, but with Minali taking 6th on GC thanks to 4th and 7th place on days 2 and 3, plus Dumoulin, Predatsch and Magnussen taking 7th through 9th in the epilogue (bringing them the team standings win), and 12th, 14th and 17th in the GC, that's 75 points for the Germans.
2nd in Faso, 3rd in Baltic, 1st in USA PCC - unsurprisingly, Stela-Vita easily top the Stage Race ranking this month, capitalizing on their two main strengths, sprints and cobbles. It's 310 points for them in just 11 race days - amazing!
JEWA were 1st and 2nd in Faso and USA PCC, missing out on Baltic - still, they easily outscored the rest of the division with their 216 points. A mile behind the winners, but still pretty good.
It's much closer for 3rd then, with 3rd to 5th separated by just 8 points. Podium Ambition come out on top, mainly thanks to their Baltic performace - which also holds for the Coyotes, who are just 2 points down. Strava round off the Top 5 with 156 points.
We then have a 60 points gap down to Würth, followed by the Turtles, Adidas and Crabbe. Gjensidige and Tafjord - the two main promotion favourites - share 10th place with 59 points.
At the bottom, Ekoi join Mercatone for zero points - both not having done any races, though. All others at least reached two-digit numbers.
It shouldn't be too hard to guess the winner, right? Obviously, it's Stela-Vita; first by a mile in stage races, 5th in classics - easily enough to top the April rankings with 372 points! What makes this nubmer special is that it means a PpRD of above 20 - a great outcome in CT!
However, JEWA can also be pretty proud of their month, scoring 308 points, with one race day less, and a PpRD of above 18. These two new teams continue to perform well above expectations, congrats for your early-season racing!
Podium Ambition have definitely woken up lately, and 3rd place in April is the continuation of their upward trend. Above 15 PpRD also means they had some pretty efficient races, which should be good news for their overall PpRD, too.
Strava also got more than 200 points this month, with Manada rounding off the Top 5 with 180 points. All of them are above 10 PpRD.
Crabbe have clearly lost some momentum this month - Chiarello racing or not definitely makes a big difference. Only 6th place for them, over 200 points behind Stela-Vita - ouch. It should be even more "ouch" for Tafjord, though - although they're just 8 points behind, totalling 135, they're the only team having raced for more than 20 days this month, so their PpRD clearly isn't good.
Würth in 8th and Gjensidige in 9th place are the final teams above 100 points - the latter having needed just 8 days to accomplish this actually have a Top 5 PpRD in April.
Adidas round off the Top 10 with 92 points, just one more than Saeco. The Turtles are close as well with 87, Babymetal are kind of close with 77 points.
Hilcona and Air New Zealand are the final Top 15 teams, slightly above respectively below 50 points.
In the bottom 5, however, we find the 3rd best team in terms of PpRD this month - Ekoi scored 36 points in one single race, which is a PpRD of 18.00. They'll be hoping to repeat that in months with 20+ race days...
Otherwise, we have Simba Cement, Bordeaux and Caja Rural accompanying Mercatone at the bottom of the table - clearly some teams who don't want to be there with Bordeaux and Caja.
Crabbe won the first three months - however, with pretty small margins over Stela-Vita, seeing them just 56 points ahead by the end of March. Well, the Albanians outscored the Belgians by 229 points this month, giving them a very clear 173 points lead today! With 959 points, they've almost reached the 1,000 points mark, as they're basically done with their first half of the season (68/140 RDs).
Crabbe even had to fight hard to stay in 2nd place, with JEWA only 6 points behind - 786 vs. 780! And although the Top 3 currently look to be out of reach, none of them having a strong TTer leaves quite a lot of room for other teams in the TT-heavy second part of the season...
But for now, we have a 226 points gap between 3rd and 4th. And in 4th place is... well, we have to say "are", as Podium Ambition and Manada Coyote are actually tied, both totalling 554 points! Which currently is better news for the latter, though, having the 5th highest PpRD, compared to the Caribbean team being #7.
Clearly, nothing is lost for those behind, though - in particular not for Gjensidige, who only have raced for 49 days so far, with their 10.08 PpRD being the 4th highest - and they haven't even been doing particularly well so far. Just rock solid, and unlike some other teams, they have riders for every terrain (bar cobbles) and should find ways to score all season long.
As in most predicions, Gjensidige and Tafjord are next to each other - but to see them outside the Top 5 wasn't expected. It's even worse for Tafjord - they're just 30 points behind Gjensidige, OK, but 10 RDs ahead! Their PpRD is only the 9th highest of the division, and pretty much everyone besides the cobblers has been disappointing so far. There's enough time to turn things around - but some more scorers are definitely needed!
Strava are actually looking better in terms of projected score - they'd end up in 6th place with these numbers - however, their clear focus on cobbles, without a single trace of any TT skills around, isn't too promising for the remainder of the season. Never write off an experienced manager, but bouncing back won't be easy, despite some great racing in the first four months!
Bordeaux are the team having taken the biggest drop - 4th to 9th - after a really bad month. They're still projected to be in the promotion fight, just like Ekoi in 10th place. But whereas the former are just 110 points behind the Top 5, it's more than 180 points already for the latter.
There are no new names inside the Top 10 - but Würth definitely came close to jump up, trailing Ekoi by just 27 points now. They have raced 13 days more, though, so in terms of projected points, it's still a clear difference (above 1,000 for all Top 10 teams, below 800 for the rest). But they're firmly sitting in 11th for now.
Saeco are above 300 points as well and have gained one spot, with Simba Cement going the other way. The latter currently total 257 points, 4 more than Hilcona who hold onto their 14th place.
15th is relatively far away - more than 50 points - but there's a very fierce fight for that final Top 15 spot: The Turtles, who currently sit there with 198 points, Adidas, Caja and Air New Zealand are separated by just 11 points! The Turtles have the best PpRD of that bunch, though - and I wouldn't be surprised to see them even closing the gap to 13th/14th after Olympia's Tour...
Babymetal have finally gotten rid of the red lantern - kind of, given that Mercatone unfortunately are no longer racing. They're still quite far behind the next higher spots, though.
Surprise, surprise - William Chiarello no longer leads the individual standings!
Xhuliano Kamberaj has now moved past the Brazilian, leading 404 vs. 380 points. One could just call the Albanian an incredible overperformer - but as said before, he's the highest OVL sprinter left in the division, and the 7th highest OVL rider overall. He is overperforming, mainly in higher category races - but to see him lead the standings after a pretty sprinter-friendly start of the year isn't as surprising as I first thought it was.
Chiarello still stands miles above the rest (and will likely want to strike back in Austria), as Lucas Manuel Gaday, our new #3, stands at 250 points - 130 points down. The division's top cobbler is CT's #8 in terms of OVL (right behind Kamberaj), and he's been having a pretty strong cobbles campaign - which unfortunately for him his mostly done.
Gabriel Marin, on the other hand, definitely deserves the "overperformer" tag - especially with his Juarez performance. With 228 points, he's still the 2nd best sprinter - 22 points ahead of John Degenkolb, who many (including myself) didn't expect to do as well due to his miserable backups. Well, who cares about backups - PCM doesn't ^^
With 200 points flat, Yves Lampaert has jumped up from 17th to 6th with his Faso win, making it two Stela-Vita riders in the Top 10. Just like Gaday, though, he'll likely struggle to hold onto a Top 10 later in the season.
Sindre Skjostad Lunke dropped from 3rd to 7th, which isn't overly surprising given that he didn't race. Austria should be his next target, though, and he's one of the better TTers among the strong climbers.
Aurelien Paret-Peintre has also slipped down two spots - which is rather surprising given his strong Badaling performance. But the two sprinters and Lampaert who just passed him simply had some even better scoring. With 177 points, he's just 51 behind Marin in 4th place, though, so that's pretty close.
Natnael Berhane shares Chiarello's and Eiking's fate of dropping a bit due to lack of racing; with 169 points, he's just marginally behind APP and could make good progress as well later in the season - although most remaining mountain races include some kind of TTing...
Odd Christian Eiking is the second new name in the Top 10, kicking out Iturria by one point (153 vs. 152). The latter is one out of two riders losing their Top 10 spot; the Spaniard dropping from 5th to 11th, KHJ from 10th to 14th.
If we talk about the notable improvers, there are quite a lot in CT, given that one big performance easily can mean a big jump. Boudat (50th -> 13th), Taubel (64th -> 15th), Trentin (55th -> 17th) and Sanikwathi (42nd -> 18th) are the names inside the Top 20 deserving such a mention.
Great month from Stela-Vita, Jewa and Podium Ambition! There are still a lot of teams in contention for promotion. Gjensidige will move up without a doubt and I certainly wouldn't rule out other teams either. A lot to race for!
We're looking forward to Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt, where Chiarello comes back into action. We already had an excellent start with Berckmoes in Nakhon.
Thanks Fabi for the fabulous ranking update, much appreciated!
MG - Lotto - Caloi
[MG] New Manager of the Year - PCM.daily Awards 2022
Awful month indeed. Though that was partly expected with mostly C1/HC race, the lack of good breakaway action is worrying for the coming months, even though Österreich should bring us some point. Hopefully we do better in Romandie and Olympia, as Dunkerque is an expected 0 pointer, so we keep being on track for our top 10 goal.
Nice to see the expected teams up the rankings.
Thanks a lot for the pleasant writing and the work Fab!
“...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
It was a good month for us and this month we have all 3 of our good sprinters in Olympia Tour and Berhance comes back in Austria, which is one of our main goals this year. Hope we can succeed and I expect us to have a very good month again hopefully!
It was a good month (and a half or so). The two Goal success are huge and worth more than the points, given we've got the ToA to come which will tank our already non-promotion PPrD even further.
Our two highest scorers are home grown island talents. Four of our top five are islanders. And a couple more hiome grown talents and caribbeans in the Top100 riders. The project is starting to slowly pick up some momentum.
Nothing special for our Turtles, but we are always happy to move up instead of down. Our prologue success from Oka and Hamza is our biggest hope as we continue to move forward hoping to score big in the TTs.
Hopefully Olympia's can make up for what is likely a very low scoring Austria for us.
If we stay in 10th (which seems quite realistic) the season goal is achieved and everything's fine. But as we're in contact with the reserve relegation spots we want to fight for every position. The next month will see an up in RDs but morst probably a significant down in PpRD as Dunkerque will be a zero-pointer, Romandie won't give us much points too (even 0 could be possible again). I don't think we'll score enough points in Austria to keep our 7.xx PpRD up this month, but at least we should score there at all.
That's correct, they scored 427 points in C1/HC, which leaves 532 for C2. That's why I wrote that Kamberaj - who got 252 or 62% of his points from "higher category races" - is overperforming in those races (besides Goos' fantastic Hong Kong challenge and Batmunkh's big Juarez scoring).
And it's obviously a huge difference to the 39 points your team got from non-C2 races - meaning Crabbe are dominating C2, but Stela-Vita are more efficient in other races.
Will be interesting to see how things unfold later on, guess you might also be due a C1/HC overperformance sooner or later
By the way, it might also be interesting to note that a certain Lahcen Saber had 464 by the end of April last year - his absence due to Mercatone's disband is surely favouring Kamberaj's big points haul. But the latter is also just a great sprinter
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