CT teams had a potential maximum of 8 races this month, which is about the limit of what can reasonably fit into a single table. So let's just do it like this.
On the first day of the month, there was a North European clash of sprinter races, with a C1 event in Faroe Island and a C2 race in Sweden.
9 teams decided to make the trip to the C1 race Torshavn GP; however, none of them left really satisfied. 5 of them scored, for a total amount of 34 points. 12 points was the highest value for a team, and that team was Hilcona, picking up a decent 11th place with Krieger. Kamberaj - who else - got 9 points for Stela-Vita for 14th place, directly followed by Bertilsson in 15th, netting Tafjord 8 points.
The C2 Uppsala Classic once again was another sprinter race not won by sprinters, and not even by late attackers - no, by a breakaway! The lucky one this time was Polanco, taking a surprise win and 50 points for Bordeaux. Gjensidige had two riders in the winning breakaway, with Loland taking 3rd place and Skjerping finishing 9th. Rojus added a 17th place to that result, for a total of 46 points for the Norwegians. Saeco took 2nd place with Pareja, and they also had McLay in 12th, for 42 points in total going to the Italians.
2 CT teams then got an invitation to the HC-rated Arab Tour (actually 3, but Mercatone didn't participate in the end). And both of them did a pretty good job actually!
Despite their sprinters failing, JEWA were the better of the two. They actually had 6 riders in the Top 50 - something only Indosat could match! There was no top-notch GC result, but Malori's 13th place definitely is respectable. But they also had Rabitsch (24th), Lienhard (25th), Degenkolb (36th), Boudat (37th) and Selig (46th) in the Top 50 - no good TTers by any means, but sometimes you just have to made the right splits ^^ All in all, that's 71 points for the Austrians and another big step closer towards promotion!
The latter surely can also be said about Stela-Vita, although they already looked safe anyway before that race. They didn't quite have similar depth, with only Kamberaj (19th) in the Top 50 - but the Albanian also finished 2nd on the final stage, picking up another point for 8th on day 1 and ending up 4th in the points standings. 40 points for the Albanian team!
The C1 Tour of Eritrea was open to more CT teams - but with 17 PCT squads participating, CT still had just 7 spots - with 6 of them scoring.
Making the best use of their race days here were Crabbe, in what according to their manager was Chiarello's sole C1 appearance of the year. And despite him delivering a good race - 7th on day 3, 7th in GC - it was actually his worst race of the year in terms of PpRD, with "just" 39 points in 3 days. Altanzul added some points with 5th place on day 1, making it 42 points for Crabbe.
Winning stage 1, leading to GC and green jersey points (plus 4th in points in the end), was worth 35 points for Cisse and his Simba Cement team, who definitely had some memorable days on their home continent!
Stela-Vita also didn't get a single GC point - but they won the KoM jersey with Urcelay, taking it on day 2 and defending it on the final stage! 23 points for the Andorran and his Albanian team.
4 teams then found their way onto the Benelux Challenge startlist. The good news is that all of them managed to score in what is a pretty unique race on the calendar.
The best suited CT rider on the startlist pretty obviously was Gaday, who brings an excellent cobbles-hills combo. Just some TT skills are missing - which is why he "only" finished 9th in the GC, but still a strong result for him. Strava also had Owen in 30th and Tarvis in 35th, plus a 4th place on the final stage by Sbaragli - all in all, 79 points!
Würth also had some pretty nice days in Benelux - especially on the 2nd and the last stage, with Willwohl winning on day 2 and taking 3rd on the closing stage! That's 45 points for the German sprinter, who also took 4th in the points standings. Goosens added 10 points for a Top 30 GC, and Predatsch picked up a point by taking 8th in the prologue - 56 points for the Germans.
Tafjord surely were hoping for more than 33rd and 37th by their cobbles specialists Breen and Kaislavuo; instead, Bertilsson was their best scorer thanks to 2nd place on stage 2 and 5th place on the final day. The Norwegians end up with 39 points.
The final team, Stela-Vita, couldn't pull off some more HC magic for once, with Merlier and Lampaert picking up 15 GC points in total by finishing 28th and 48th respectively.
Two more sprinter classics (non-clashing this time) are left, the first of them being the C1-rated Paris - Tours. And what a race that was for the Coyotes, with Marin delivering a fantastic sprint once more to take 3rd place and 46 points! Bertilsson also had a strong finish, taking 6th place; with Eislers adding 2 more points, that's 34 for Tafjord. And Degenkolb also was able to shine at the higher level once again - maybe one last time? - to take 7th and 28 points for JEWA.
The Betonexpressz GP was another C2 race - and therefore one for the rouleurs or the breakaway. Well, not this time, as the sprinters indeed dominated the race for once! Krieger took the win and 50 points for Hilcona, with the division's most consistent sprinter Kamberaj "only" finishing 2nd. But with Meriler finishing 11th and Yzeiraj taking 17th place, that's still almost a win's worth of points - 46 to be precise - for Stela-Vita. 3rd place went to their main rivals in the division, Crabbe - with Liepins ending up 3rd and English finishing 14th, the Crabpack scored 35 points.
The final CT race of the month was the Tour d'Andorra - despite it being a pretty weak PCT field, only 8 spots were left for CT participants.
Those making the best use of their slot by far were Würth, taking a breakaway win by La Lavandier on day 2! They also led the KoM standings from day 1 on, first with Hindley, then with La Lavandier, and again with Hindley who ended up winning the jersey! GC-wise, the Germans didn't get much from this race, with Schelling ending up 36th - but this still meant 2nd place in the U25 standings. The three aforementioned riders picked up a total of 62 points for the Germans - definitely a very good outcome!
JEWA were slightly disappointing with Berhane taking 9th place in GC - with a 6th place being his best stage result - but after his offseason decline and with his lack of TT skills, that's a pretty reasonable outcome still. An outcome rewarded with 31 points - which is also the total score JEWA took home from Andorra.
The final notable CT score goes to the SEE Turtles, with Reguigui's 2nd place on stage 2 being their race highlight. The Algerian also ended up 3rd in the KoM standings, for a total of 19 points scored by him and his team.
Now, where does this get us in terms of July rankings? Generally speaking, it wasn't a really high-scoring month for the CT teams - not very surprising if there's no C2 stage race.
The two teams spending the most race days this month came out on top - and it was pretty close between them! JEWA win the July update, mainly thanks to their great team result in Arab Tour - the Austrians end up with 155 points.
Which is 4 points more than Stela-Vita, the other team doing well in Arab Tour. The Albanians however had their most precious result in Hungary. 151 points for them. Both teams however don't have a Top 5 PpRD this month - could this allow other teams to get a bit closer later on?
3rd place goes to Würth, who were strong in Benelux and Andorra, and almost ended up with a 10 PpRD average. 138 points scored in 15 RDs is a little less, but still a very respectable outcome.
The Top 5 are rounded off by the final two teams crossing the 100 points mark, Tafjord and Crabbe. The former had their top performance in Benelux, the latter in Eritrea - but both may not be overly happy with their PpRD this month.
This is quite a different story for the Coyotes, though, who only raced in the four sprinter classsics this month - and totalled 96 points, for a 12 PpRD average, which is 2nd best in July!
Strava and Hilcona are next, with 82 and 81 points respectively - the former getting 79 out of their 82 points from Benelux, and the latter winning in Hungary.
9th and 10th are pretty close together as well, with Simba Cement and Gjensidige scoring 72 and 69 points. The latter can be really happy with that outcome, though, as they only needed four race days to get there - with 17.25, they have the month's best PpRD by far!
Bordeaux and Saeco are next with 51 and 49 points, with the final Top 15 teams being Babymetal, Podium Ambition and the Turtles. The latter didn't even quite score 20 points - it was a month with little racing and pretty small scoring for sure.
The last spots go to Caja, Adidas, Ekoi and Air New Zealand - the two latter teams not even scoring 10 points. And Mercatone obviously is at the bottom, as always - at least there were no other zero-pointers this month.
Despite not delivering a top performance this month, Crabbe easily hold onto their lead, that shrank by 50 points, though. The Belgians currently total 1,356 points, and with a PpRD of 12 are still on track to win the division.
Stela-Vita surely haven't given up yet, though; currently standing at 1,190 points, they're projected to end up about 140 points behind the Crabpack - definitely something that can still be turned around!
JEWA still hold onto 3rd place, and still are projected to eventually drop to 4th. They're 98 points behind Stela-Vita - but also 86 ahead of their next rivals. Promotion really looks realistic by now.
Which is less the case for Tafjord, who still hold onto 4th place - but are projected to finish 6th. With 1,006 points, they're currently the final team above 1,000 points - but the pre-season favourites might need to make some good use of their final couple of races to really get that automatic promotion!
Gjensidige have now moved up to 5th - and by now are projected only 2 points behind Stela-Vita in the final standings! The Norwegians definitely have picked up the pace lately - can they even go for the division win, with Crabbe having spent the big majority of Chiarello's race days by now?
Podium Ambition have dropped one spot to 6th, but they're currently projected to overtake Tafjord in the end. They trail the Scandinavians by 103 points, having 17 race days more to spend - big fight incoming!
But we could actually even get another promotion contender, with Manada trailing Podium Ambition by just 14 points, and Gjensidige by 36 points! They're projected to stay in 7th place - but projections from 5th to 7th are less than 100 points apart, so we can still expect a good fight!
The big winners of this month definitely are Team Würth, making a jump from 11th to 8th! The price paid for this is the biggest RD consumption of the entire division - but at least they have alread delivered, the others need to do the same. Getting higher up seems unlikely, though, with the gap to the Coyotes being almost 200 points.
On the other hand, Strava have used up 31 RDs less - but with Benelux done, there's really just one good scoring opportunity left for their cobblers, next month in Kigali. Can they make good use of their RD reserve to get closer to the top spots?
Bordeaux are just 3 points behind Strava currently with 663 points, and are the final Top 10 team. That position however is under threat from the Turtles, who have a big RD advantage - but do they have the right races left to use them well? If yes, that 71 points gap could be closed pretty quickly...
Simba in 12th and Hilcona in 13th are pretty close together, separated by just 3 points, 536 vs. 533. Next are Ekoi, who might be one of the most disappointing teams so far - but having left quite a lot of races, they could still move up a bit.
This probably isn't the case for Saeco in 15th place, although they're just 15 points behind Ekoi. But with 115 RDs used, they're #2 in the division, and hence their PpRD is far worse than the teams above.
However, the Italians are pretty comfortably sitting in 15th place, with Caja being 150 points down already. Adidas are another (almost) 50 points behind, and Air New Zealand are the final team above 200 points in 18th place.
Which means that the "real" red lantern still are Babymetal with 186 points, with Mercatone not competing anymore.
William Chiarello did race this month - taking his lowest score of the season in Eritrea. But it's still enough to easily stay up front, now totalling 739 points.
Xhuliano Kamberaj scored more than twice as many points as the Brazilian - but the Albanian is still more than 200 points down and probably will stay in 2nd place.
Because Lucas Manuel Gaday - moving up from 5th to 3rd after a strong Benelux performance - is another 200 points down, and isn't likely to close that gap.
However, it's really close for that final podium spot, with Natnael Berhane just 3 points down - the Eritrean defended his 4th place. Gabriel Marin, moving up from 6th to 5th, has 320 points - just 7 less than Gaday. And Sindre Skjostad Lunke - who took a break this month - is just another 6 points down - so that's 4 riders within just 13 points fighting for 3rd currently!
John Degenkolb also gained a spot, moving up from 8th to 7th after a good performance in Paris - Tours; he currently has 257 points. He swapped places with Mikel Iturria, while Yves Lampaert stayed in 9th place. With 205 points, he's the final rider above 200 points.
Emils Liepins, our new number 10 (moving up from 16th), has 199 points - but plenty of riders will obviously try to still get into these Top 10.
Only one rider lost his Top 10 spot this month, and that's APP who dropped from 10th to 11th while taking a break from racing.
The most notable improver this month might be Krieger, jumping from 34th to 15th. But Bertilsson with a huge leap up from 91st to 27th is a good candidate for this title as well - right ahead of Willwohl, improving from 92nd to 33rd.
August might be another rather complicated month for CT - but at least there's another C2 stage race with Trentino. And rumors are that Vineyards might be a good opportunity, too... We'll see - here are the current numbers:
Time to finally start using that RD advantage in August as we take on 15 or 16 RD I believe. And the reason we're back... because there are TTs in August and we could never miss those. In seriousness, the Turtles are looking forward to all of our race next month and think that we can finally make the gains that have been mentioned month after month about RD. It likely won't be at our current PPRD, but we should be able to manage a couple solid results and try to come away with a 5 PPRD for the month we hope.
For July, we were just happy to pick up any points in Andorra and Reguigui was fantastic to find a few breakaways. Very proud of our Algerian who will also show up a lot in August.
Awesome results across the board in CT even though scoring may have been lower for many teams this month. Congrats to nout for his first win(?) with Krieger and to Bodreaux for their win with Polanco - sad I didn't give him a run to develop in the Americas. Good luck to all in the upcoming months!
And many, many thanks to Fabianski! These are my favorite individual posts each month and I really appreciate how much time you put into them. Good or bad for me, they're always an awesome read. Many thanks to the reporters as well for keeping things going!
A great month for us! First of course because we collected the points that we did but also becuse we scored at every race we went to this month. And especially because we scored kinda big at the races which are above C2.
Then we could collect the first "real" wins at races, means we actually finished first on a stage. Willwohl, the Hero, won a sprint stage at the HC race and even finished 3rd at another stage. And then La Lavandier also grabbed a win at Andorra. In addition to that Hindley thought to get the KoM shirt there too.
I am happy because it shows me the team is capable of what i thought it would be even if they couldnt deliver before, but this time maybe also luck was on our side.
But like stated we already used a lot of racedays and dont have that much left anymore. I have no illusions to think we can fight now for promotion but I hope we can finish the season like we did the last weeks, so we can then start with more confidence into the new one.
Thanks to fabi for the wrap up and writing here. Its always even more enjoyable if you have a good month like this
Wow, what a tight promotion race! I think Crabbe should go up, but outside of them, no team can really feel safe to end up in the Top 5. I think it's going to be between the Top 7, and all of them would are very worthy candidates. Still a bit surprised about Tafjord and Gjensidige's struggles, but there're still three months to rectify that.
Ezeefreak wrote:
Thanks to fabi for the wrap up and writing here. Its always even more enjoyable if you have a good month like this
I can only second this, though the good month part obviously doesn't apply to us. At least we should be able to score at least 10 points this month ...
Great write up so tight at the top, you would imagine shenanigans will happen and a least six should go up but you can never be certain. Tafjord, Gjensidgie and Podium are all too good to miss out really - best of luck to everyone in the top/7 for the remainder of the season. It should be a very entertaining promotion battle (for neutrals at least )
Great write up, thank you!
This is going to be a nailbiter for 3rd I guess, so I am happy that we got some points this month. Not the best PpRD, but points are points.
Great write up here, kudos!
We got maximum haul out of our RD's, which i hope will be the deciding factor come October. When we are top loaded at the end of the year.
As an actual comment on the rankings - Honesty i'm happy with how July went. A set of flat classics that didn't suit us still delivered at a solid pprd. No real issues there.
Crabbe locked into promotion at this point. But then it's still game on from 2nd down to 10th. 10th? Yes!
2nd to 7th are still very much in range of each other (I have to believe this, that Kamberaj & Lampert eventually run out of chances whilst i harbour vague hopes of another powerful scoring few races which could eat up the gap...). But then Manada is right there too. Bordeaux worry me a ton also, both have riders capable of delivering big results and the RD to do so (Sorry Wurth, i think you're out of it. And Turtles don't have the consistency of scoring to pull themselves into the fight).
Eight teams, four automatic spots. I'd always give a +1 to that based on at least one PT/PCT team calling it quits. Basically the two-three teams that miss out on promotion from this group - it's going to hurt. Going to be a fun back end of the season - the ToA will be impactful given the RD's.
Really i'm just looking to Win in Zurich for go 4/4 on race goals, then be above 9th to bag some points from all 5. I want that success cash soooo badly to do some homegrown training! No selling of former big names to fund our project here, just the hardest of hard grafting. Next season we could be able to field two entirely home grown island riders in the Top20 of the rankings - that would be insane success for this idiotic project.
Another bad month for us, though Polanco surprise win saved it.
We have to do really better to not drop further down and keep our top 10, but with some more C1/HC/Flat races, it could be hard.
Have to hope for strong hills results, Zurich and Plouay particularly, and more attacking spirit.
Thank you very much Fab for the work, the analysis, a joy to read as always.
“...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
so tight at the top, you would imagine shenanigans will happen and a least six should go up but you can never be certain. Tafjord, Gjensidgie and Podium are all too good to miss out really - best of luck to everyone in the top/7 for the remainder of the season. It should be a very entertaining promotion battle (for neutrals at least 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
