The Official World Championship in Pro Cycling Manager 10 is now open for registrations.

As last year, it's being held by the Italian fan-site Cycling-Manager.eu, and it's once again possible to participate in both track and road events. There will be plenty of prizes at stake, and it's completely free to participate.

PCM.daily had plenty of representation in the track finals last year, and hopefully, we'll be able to have some fun again this year.

Since the site is in Italian, you may have to follow this tutorial in order to register on the forum. Registration happens over here for track events and here for the road championship. If you have any questions, the organisers can answer your questions in this PCM.daily thread.

The last day for signing up is on the 13th of April at 23:59 - so there's still plenty of time until the action begins.

Milan San Remo

The first monument of the season.

The first real test for the sprinters.

Forget Qatar. Forget Oman. Forget Tirreno Adriatico. Forget Mallorca. THIS is where it matters.

Last year Freire took us by surprise, he didn’t win a Tirreno stage, he didn’t win in Qatar or Oman. But, he won where it mattered. Not only did he take out Milan San Remo, but he bookended his season with Paris-Tours.

However, he gave certain members an insight into his form by winning Trofeo Cala Millor.

If we look back to the previous season, Mark Cavendish proved his media doubters wrong by getting over the Cipresso and Poggio di San Remo and outsprinting Heinrich Haussler. Again he gave a flash of his form by winning the final stage of Tirreno - Adriatico.

The season before that, Fabian Cancellara took the sprinters on and spoilt their game by his late breakaway. But, again, he wasn’t really such a surprise as he didn’t just win once before Milan San Remo, but three times. With two time trial wins in Tirreno – Adriatico and California, and with a dusty win in Strade Bianchi.

In fact, Pozzato in 2006 was the last rider to have won Milan San Remo without a win, although he did take 4 top 5 results in Belgium and Italy. Which takes us to another valid point, is Tirreno – Adriatico the best way to prepare for Milan San Remo? Well, all of the riders since Andrei Tchmil, in 1999, have ridden Tirreno – Adriatico in preference over Paris – Nice. So whether it’s the confidence that comes from early season results, or the supposedly better weather further south, it looks like a statistically less likely event that riders such as Heinrich Haussler will stand a chance of winning this season. But, I wait to be proven wrong, of course!

Read on for the favourites run down:

When the PCM.daily 2011 DB was released a week ago, the only way of getting it was to upgrade from the Public Beta to the Final Version.

Now that I'm back from vacation and have caught up with recent events, I've also found the time to create a complete package that includes everything you need. As usual, it's available both as a torrent and in multiple parts through MultiUpload. There's no difference between this version and the one released a week ago, except that it contains a fix to Omega Pharma's frame and Andalucia's jambieres. Both can be downloaded separetely from the Bug Reports thread.

We've also uploaded a couple of extras. The main one is an Equipment Free DB. We have simply removed all the usual equipment, and this frees up a lot of memory, thus making the game a lot more stable.

Secondly, there's a Danish language file. Not relevant to that many people, but since someone requested it on a Danish forum, I went ahead and made it.

Both files are available here.

This also marks the end of the development of PCM.daily's 2011 DB V1. We might make a V2 later on, but for now, it's time to sit back and enjoy the DB.

Update (08:40): Back online for most people, but it may take longer before the changes take effect for everyone.

Remember when we warned you about some server maintenance? Well, we never got around to do that, but this time, it's actually happening.

So, at some point later today, the site will go offline for a period of time. It's difficult to say how long it'll be offline, but worst case scenario is 48 hours - best case is 4-8 hours.

See you on the other side ;)

In the recent PCM.daily awards, the Management Game was voted best Site Initiative - and it has just come to the end of 2011, the game's 5th season. Mattiasgt's Sony Ericsson swept to ProTour glory, just one season after winning the Continental division, while Damiano Cunego won his 5th consecutive Giro on his way to the Individual Rankings title - set to be hot property in the upcoming transfers season no doubt, as Cunego's current team is disbanding. Alejandro Valverde won the Vuelta, Simon Spilak won the Tour, while Team IKEA-Bianchi and Wiggle - San Pellegrino dominated the Continental division.

And the end of one season does mean one thing - we are now open to applications for new managers to join in. So if you are interesed in taking part, take a look at the Want to join the Management Game? thread, and follow the instructions there.

The 2012 season promises to be an interesting one for the Game, with the introduction of new managers hopefully making it the biggest and most competitive season yet - and switching from PCM09 to PCM10 will ensure a difference in gameplay, as well as race calendar.