Due to some site performance issues I sadly made a mistake and deleted accidentally Fabi's Thread so i just copy paste his thread again. Sorry Fabi! The following is all Fabianski's work!
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Perdiod Ranking: May
We had 6 races this month, whereof 5 were stage races - and 2 of them were highlights for CT teams, given the C2 category. Or could they even surprise the PCT teams and get big points from C1/HC races? We'll find out!
Let's start with May's only classic, the C1 Pro Hallstatt Classic. Given the race's demotion to C1, it became much more accessible to CT climbers now than when it was HC rated - and indeed, 9 teams made the trip to Austria.
And at least for one of them, this trip was definitely worthwile - Munoz had one of the best days of his career, battling against defending champion Olivier until the very end - only to miss out on the win by a few inches! Still, 2nd place is a fantastic result for the Colombian, rewarded with 56 points for him and Euskadi.
The other CT teams could only dream of such a result - but we still had two more of them finishing in the Top 10. The first was Lopez, taking 9th place and 20 points. Pronskiy's 23rd place made it a solid 22 points for Newton Foundation.
Guerreiro has been very solid this year, and very solid is also a good predicate for his 10th place - beating great climbers like Reis, Barguil, Penasa, Sosa... 16 points for the Portuguese, with Vanhoucke picking up the final point, so that's 17 for Würth.
The first stage race was the Tour de Romandie - but given that it was promoted to HC this year, only one CT team was given the chance to compete against most of PCT's greatest climbers.
That team was Euskotren - but the Basque had a pretty rough time in Switzerland. Doubey scored the big majority of their points thanks to his great 3rd place from the final day breakaway, where Armirail finished 7th as well. Gougeard contributed 2 points as well for being 2nd in KoM after stage 2 - overall, that's 14 points for Euskotren.
Much bigger points were at stake in the C2 Olympia's Tour. The race where the Turtles got their crazy 277 points last year.
And guess what? The Turtles came out on top again, scoring above 200 points again, getting the highest score of a CT team in 2024 to date. They missed out on the win this time - which explains why they scored less than in 2023 - by one measly second. Cardona, Hamza and Nyoni ended up 2nd through 4th, with Oka in 12th and Kelly in 16th getting a Top 20, too. They easily won the team standings, and had a U25 podium with Sheffield's 3rd place as well. And last but not least, Frame got a 2nd and 3rd place each from the sprints - all in all, that's 224 points for the Turtles!
Which is 73 points more than the GC winning team. Just to relate, only 3 teams scored more than 73 points at all... Gjensidige obviously scored pretty well, with Van Moer getting the expected GC win - only just, though. 2nd places in the opening ITT and the epilogue, combined with a 4th place in the TTT, were enough to narrowly edge out the Turtles army. Van Moer's 106 points obviously were the best individual score, but Gjensidige also had Knotten in 10th and white jersey winner Arensman in 20th, and the team finished 2nd in the team standings. Barbier also added some sprint points, making it 151 in total for Gjensidige.
And then we already dive below 100 points, getting to Genii. Who had a good race, too, with Verona and Postlberger ending up 5th and 6th in GC. Ahmad Zamri was 11th and Stoenchev 14th, so that's some great depth as well - rewarded with 3rd place in the team standings. And with 98 points overall.
6 teams then decided to make a trip to the Baltic region, for the C1 Baltic Chain Tour. An almost perfect race for the sprinters, with four flat stages, and a somewhat nasty (because of its cobbles) prologue. All of them scored, albeit half of them less than 5 points.
Clearly more than 5 points - and even more than 50 - went to Ireland. Scored by a Kiwi, though. Kennett was absolutely awful in Olympia's Tour, scoring just 1 point - but he redeemed himself in a C1 race, not bad. The first three days weren't good - but on the last two stages, he took 2nd and 3rd - which was good enough for 4th place in GC (and 5th in points)! He ended up being the 4th best individual scorer with 79 points - which is exactly Glanbia's pretty nice score.
Carsi won't be happy with the final two stages, but he did well in the first two bunch sprints, finishing 3rd and 5th. Because of his absolutely horrible prologue skills, this was only enough for 12th in GC, but it's still 27 points for him and Euskadi!
For the Turtles, it was a very anonymous race, without a single point scored from stage results. But Frame, Oka and Keough all capitalized on their decent prologue skills to end up in the Top 30, netting the team a total of 11 points.
The Internationale Österreich Rundfahrt was yet another highlight in the C2 stage racing calendar - for the climbers this time.
And who says "C2" and "climbers" obviously can't get past Jorgenson. And indeed, the American was in full control of the race, winning stage 1 and taking 4th on day 2 (they day when the legendary Beltran won from the breakaway). But his team completely misjudged the breakaway's gap on day 4 - leading to Jorgenson dropping down to 3rd in GC! He gained back one spot with 3rd place on day 5 - and then still managed to claim the overall win in the closing ITT! With a stage win, the GC win, plus the green and white jerseys, that's a huge haul of 165 points for him. Newton even got some more points - only a few, though. Viennet took 4th place in the ITT, and Quinn ended up 4th in the U25 standings, making it 170 points for Newton Foundation.
2nd place definitely is a pretty big surprise - both in terms of team points and maybe even more so in the GC. Bernard was part of the winning stage 4 breakaway, where he took 4th place, claiming the yellow jersey. He defended that the day after with another 4th place, and only had to let Jorgenson pass in the final ITT - 2nd place in GC for the Frenchman! Thanks to having two men in the S4 breakaway, Genii also won the team standings - and CF Hagen actually finished even higher than Bernard on that day, getting 2nd place. Ulysbayev's 14th place in the GC was also very respectable. All in all, Genii ended up with 108 points, definitely more than they expected pre-race.
And 3rd place? Logically, it would be Zain thanks to Carapaz' 3rd place in GC, but no. Depth beats individualism once again. And so, it's Lunke leading his team to 3rd place and 102 points. The Norwegian only ended up 5th in GC, even behind PCT surprise Guldhammer. But Gjensidige also had Arensman - the U25 runner-up - in 7th place. And they got a 1-2 in the closing ITT with Van Moer and Knotten. And while we're talking about stage results, Lunke also got a 2nd place on day 1. The team leader scored 44 points, with Arensman the biggest other contributor with 32. Then the two TTers with 15 and 9 points respectively, and finally Barbier and Conti getting one point each for a 7th and 8th stage place respectively. All in all, 102 points for Gjensidige.
The last race of the month was another C1 event, the 6-day Vuelta al Pais Vasco. The race included a TTT, and ITT, and 4 hilly stages. Not the easiest terrain for CT teams, but at least they were 13 vs. 11 in numbers against the PCT competition.
Unsurprisingly, the PCT guys didn't agree to leave the top spots for CT riders. Still, one of them got a great 6th place in GC - but his team wasn't the highest scoring one. Instead, Trans played their depth pretty well, with Korosec finishing 11th and Govekar 16th. With the former winning stage 3 (and finishing 5th the day before, plus 5th in points), and the latter getting 2nd in U25. Nareklishvili was the only other scorer, taking the final point in the ITT stage, bringing the team's grand total up to 72 points.
We already talked about some guy taking 6th in the final GC, and that guy was Conti! Despite an awful TTT by his team, he managed to finish strong, in particular thanks to 4th place on day 5. Consonni's 2nd place on stage 3 was a great performance, too. Hvideberg ended up 3rd in KoM, with Knotten and Koretzky adding some minor stage results, too. 69 points for the Norwegians, who really are on a constant high this year.
In 3rd place, we have a team that isn't known to do particularly well this year - at least not so far. But here, Fabbro finally showed what he's capable of, getting 6th on the final day and 10th in GC. And Gaze was leading the KoM standings from day 2 on - only to get pipped on the final stage. It's still 2nd place in KoM for him - and these two riders scored a total of 51 points for Air New Zealand.
6 races, quite some points scored - and who did get the most points this month?
In terms of points, we have a clear winner - with Gjensidige winning the month by almost 100 points! They were 2nd best in Olympia's Tour and Pais Vasco, and 3rd best in Austria, and they scored 333 points this month! And with 15.86, they also got a very high PpRD (for a CT team)!
The latter is only the 2nd best, though, with Newton Foundation having 15.87 - 0.01 higher. Meaning that both teams performed at the same level - but the Americans spent 6 RDs less, so that's 95 points less in total. Or, to state it in a positive way, 238 points scored. They should be happy enough with this outcome.
The Turtles in 3rd place clearly were waiting for this month, as they scored 224 out of their 235 points in one single race, their dearly beloved Olympia's Tour. Because of the miserable scoring in their 11 other RDs - 11 in Baltic Chain and a bagel in Pais Vasco - they still end up behind Newton Foundation, by 3 points. And the 3rd best PpRD of the month - we'll see if that's enough to bring them close to their goals.
Still above 200 points, we have Genii, with a score of 206. Although 206 sounds more like Peugeot than Hyundai. Anyway. Olympia's Tour and Austira were good races for them - their other races were zero-pointers. With the 5th best PpRD, they still did more things right than wrong.
We then jump down 40 points, where we have Euskadi rounding off the Top 5. Hallstatt was their obvious highlight of the month (maybe even of the year), whereas they didn't score big otherwise. Still a very respectable score with 165 points.
Pretty close behind, we have Glanbia. In their good old TT days, they'd surely have scored higher than they did now in Olympia's Tour, but a great Baltic Chain made up for this.
And then we already get to the final team above 100 points, with Air New Zealand scoring 107. Pais Vasco was pretty nice for them, as seen just before, but in general it took them a lot of effort (24 RDs) to get these points.
So we have 11 teams scoring less than 100 points, meaning that it's pretty close in the rankings. Trans, Zain, Euskotren and Würth are within 11 points from each other. Spark follow 5 points further down - and having spent just the 7 days in Austria, they're actually #4 in terms of PpRD this month!
The 8 points between Spark and Duvel is actually the biggest gap we have in this region, with Ethiopian Airlines another 2 points down and Simba following 6 more points behind. Just to give you an idea of where we are, the latter have scored 61 points and take 15th place. 8th placed Trans have 93 points - that's 8 teams within 32 points.
Cervelo and Babymetal then have a bigger gap to the Top 15, having scored 45 and 41 points respectively. But it's still far more than what Hilcona got - the Liechtensteiners spent 19 race days to score 7 points, resulting in a PpRD below 0.5.
Let's see what this all looks like when represented with numbers only:
Pos
Team
Hal
TdR
Oly
Bal
Ost
Vas
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
11
0
151
0
102
69
333
21
15.86
2
Newton Foundation p/b Zwift
22
0
46
0
170
0
238
15
15.87
3
SEE Turtles
0
0
224
11
0
0
235
17
13.82
4
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
0
0
98
0
108
0
206
21
9.81
5
Euskadi-Murias
56
0
40
27
20
22
165
26
6.35
6
Glanbia
0
0
61
79
18
0
158
18
8.78
7
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
0
0
38
3
15
51
107
24
4.46
8
Trans Looney Tunes
0
0
15
0
6
72
93
21
4.43
9
Zain-Omantel
0
0
4
0
85
0
89
19
4.68
10
Euskotren - Pays Basque
0
14
0
0
63
6
83
19
4.37
11
Team Würth MODYF
17
0
31
0
34
0
82
15
5.47
12
Spark Team NZ
0
0
0
0
77
0
77
7
11.00
13
Duvel-Tsingtao
0
0
4
0
60
5
69
19
3.63
14
Ethiopian Airlines
10
0
7
0
43
7
67
21
3.19
15
Simba Cement - Tanga Fresh
0
0
37
3
21
0
61
20
3.05
16
Cervelo Test Team
1
0
6
0
0
38
45
14
3.21
17
Babymetal
0
0
2
1
22
16
41
24
1.71
18
Hilcona Racing Team
0
0
0
0
4
3
7
19
0.37
Full Ranking
What happens when the leading team wins the month? Well, they just lead by an even bigger margin. That's what Gjensidige do, being the first team to reach 1,000 points this month, with a leading score of 1,009. And a PpRD of more than 15, they're pretty clearly our #1 so far.
#2 however has changed now, at least in terms of position; Newton Foundation already had the 2nd highest PpRD last month, now they have also passed Duvel in the actual ranking. 788 points are theirs for now, trailing Gjensidige by more than 200 points.
And Duvel, having an almost 80 points margin over the Americans by the end of April, now have an even bigger margin in the other direction - 91 points behind Newton Foundation. The Top 2 also are more than 4 points better in PpRD, so it looks like 1-2 are gone, but the fight for 3rd will be fierce.
Duvel currently are in the best position, but they're projected to end up just 7 points ahead of Genii. The Luxembourgers currently trail by 31 points, but have spent 3 RDs less - it'll be a close fight.
And we have a bunch of other teams who still want to have their say in the promotion - or even podium - fight as well, starting with Glanbia in 5th, Würth and Trans sharing 6th place and Euskotren in 8th. 603, 562, 562 and 536 are their respective scores, and their PpRDs range from 8.15 to 7.44. Clearly not something decisive - and even the 1 PpRD gap to Duvel/Genii above could easily be undone.
If things go very well for them, even Simba, Euskadi, Spark and the Turtles - ranging fom 489 to 432 points - could still fight for promotion. In particular Spark, who have spent less RDs so far than the teams surrounding them.
Ethiopian Airlines, Zain and Cervelo are yet another PpRD point down, but just give them their Olympia moment, and they're in the middle of the promotion fight.
For now, it looks like it's just Babymetal, Air New Zealand and Hilcona who are really left behind, the former two just above 200 points, the latter holding the red lantern with 161 points.
Now, you're invited to draw your own conclusions from the numbers - here they are:
I know I'm repeating myself, but yeah, you know what happens when the leader wins the month. It just means that Matteo Jorgenson has an even bigger lead now after his Austria domination. 463 points is his current total - the question isn't if he'll win the division, but what his final score will be. It currently doesn't look like he could threaten Chiarello's 2023 landmark, but who knows?
Brent Van Moer continued his great run by winning Olympia's Tour, making him move up from 3rd to 2nd place. He's totalling 301 points, which isn't even 2/3 of Jorgenson's points.
However, the Belgian has a pretty decent margin to Richard Carapaz as well, who jumped from 6th to 3rd, now standing at 233 points. Thymen Arensman made a similar jump, from 7th to 4th, trailing Carapaz by 20 points.
Dion Smith holds onto the final Top 5 spot, being the final rider having reached 200 points, as that's his current score.
KHJ didn't score this month and dropped from 2nd to 6th, but he's just 36 points behind 2nd place. And 3 points behind Smith. Dylan Kennett, on the other hand, made a big jump in the other direction, from 18th to 7th.
Ruben Zepuntke's drop from 4th to 8th confirms that the cobblers are almost done for the year - even though he might make a late surge in September after Faso...
George Bennett moved up from 14th to 9th after Austria, which is the same reason why Sindre Skjostad Lunke improved from 17th to 10th.
Moulingui, Van Lerberghe and Kozhatayev all dropped out of the Top 10, with the former trailing Lunke by just 8 points.
Besides Kennett, we had Munoz (24th -> 13th) and Bernard (37th -> 16th) making the most impressive jumps in the current Top 20, with Korosec (39th -> 21st) and Lafay (42nd -> 27th) being worth a mention as well.
But now, get your own favourites, do your analysis and share your findings - here are the raw numbers you'll need for this:
