The last races didn't make a difference in the final CT rankings. Tafjord Kraft won Zuri Metzgete with Lucas Eriksson, but they couldn't overtake IncaLine at the end, thanks to a 10th and 13th place for the latter.
Bianchi Enel put the icing on the cake with a 4th place in Zuri (Rota) and 5th place in Emilia (Moscon).
Pos
Team
Tot
Zuri
Emilia
1
Bianchi Enel
94
33
61
2
Tafjord Kraft
51
51
0
3
Peugeot - Bancolombia
43
43
0
4
Parmalat - Ecopetrol
37
37
0
5
Ethiopian Airlines
32
32
0
6
Euskotren - Pays Basque
26
16
10
7
Kraftwerk Man Machine
19
19
0
8
Euskadi-Murias
19
19
0
9
IncaLine Pro Cycling
17
17
0
10
Podium Ambition
13
13
0
11
Kone-Nordea
5
5
0
12
Team Zappes Kölsch
2
2
0
13
SEE Turtles
0
0
0
14
Glanbia
0
0
0
15
The ONE - Fox God
0
0
0
16
Air New Zealand-Prada
0
0
0
Air New Zealand-Prada (managed by Jajajasper) are finishing 16th and last. Sven Fritsch took the one and only victory for the team, winning the third stage in the Tour of the Middle East.
Team Zappes Kölsch (managed by Radio00) had Max Walscheid winning Betonexpressz GP and a stage in Tour du Faso, while Anatoliy Budyak won a stage in Tachira. They will fold after this season, after only one year in the circuit.
The ONE - Fox God (managed by TheUlamog) had two stage wins in Tour of America (Hayakawa and Raileanu) with Hayakawa also winning a stage in Österreich.
Glanbia (managed by MacC) also had Tour of America success, with James Oram winning the ITT. Jenson Plowright and Louis Meintjes brought their wins total to 4. They will fold after this season, after seven seasons in the circuit.
Kone-Nordea (managed by Kone-Nordea) had a great first year with 8 victories. The Finnish team saw their local stars (Matti Manninen, Sakari Lehtinen, Sasu Helme and Siim Kiskonen) winning at least one race. Unfortunately they will fold after this season, after only one year in the circuit.
Parmalat - Ecopetrol (managed by Dane Bramage) had 9 victories, including a TTT win in Trentino. Dutchman Nick van der Lijke won 5 sprint stages during the season.
Tafjord Kraft (managed by Bjartne) ended the season on a high with Eriksson winning Zuri Metzgete. That bring the total to 3 personal wins and 5 wins for the team, with also Daniel Hoelgaard and Tord Gudmestad contributing.
IncaLine Pro Cycling (managed by Nisky147) only had one win with Andres Paez (at the end of the season in South Africa), but they were consistent throughout their first season thanks to Paez, Prado and Filutas among others.
Euskotren - Pays Basque (managed by Imladrik) won three stages. Nils Politt won in Österreich and puncheur Matus Stocek took care of the rest. Victor Lafay was a steady points contributor, scoring over 200 points.
Euskadi-Murias (managed by 2kignacio2020) celebrated 10 victories throughout the season. Mustafa Carsi won two stages in Tour of America and a stage in San Luis. Jasha Sütterlin won a stage and GC in Herald Sun Tour and the Isle of Man ITT. Unfortunately they will fold after this season, after four years in the circuit.
SEE Turtles (managed by seancoll) had 9 victories including a TTT win in Vancouver. Santiago Montenegro took care of 4 from their 8 individual victories, snatching both GC's in Luxembourg and San Luis. Unfortunately they miss out on direct promotion to PCT with 83 points.
Podium Ambition (managed by TheManxMissile) is the first of the promoting teams. With also 9 wins, including a TTT (Monterrey). Cobbler Chequan Richardson and and puncheur Christopher Lagane both got 3 wins.
Peugeot - Bancolombia (managed by Heine) miss out on the podium, but they will definitely be happy with promotion. Four of their six victories came in Vancouver with Fredrik Strand Galtra snatching two stage wins and GC and Clement Russo winning stage 2. Galta also wins the individual standings as a consolation prize for Peugeot.
Kraftwerk Man Machine (managed by DaveTwoBob) will be returning straight to PCT after only one season, as expected. Winning highlights were Fausto Masnada in Clasico San Jose and Daniel Habtemichael in Österreich GC. They end the season with 6 wins. Cees Bol finishes 8th in the individual rankings, only winning once in Guadeloupe.
Ethiopian Airlines (managed by Dippofix) won 13 times with only 4 riders (Perera, Chavanne, Sagan and Buitrago). Perera was the most succesful with 7 sprint wins, Sagan won Hong Kong Challenge and Buitrago won Trentino GC (and a stage) and a stage in Tour of America. With three riders in the top-10 and two more riders in the top-30, they scored points across the roster.
Bianchi Enel (managed by jt1109) won the CT ranking, congrats! They also had three riders in the top-10 and two more riders in the top-20, impressive stuff. Gianni Moscon didn't win a single race, but was incredibly consistent in the bigger races. Dion Smith (GC in Tachira) and Rok Korosec (Euskal Bizikleta GC) were the biggest contributors with both 3 wins in the team's 9 wins.
We're looking forward to see Podium Ambition, Peugeot - Bancolombia, Kraftwerk Man Machine, Ethiopian Airlines and Bianchi Enel in the PCT peleton next season!
Pos
Last
Team
Oct
Total
RD
PpRD
1
1
Bianchi Enel
128
1947
139
14,01
2
2
Ethiopian Airlines
220
1738
140
12,41
3
3
Kraftwerk Man Machine
48
1593
140
11,38
4
4
Peugeot - Bancolombia
88
1422
139
10,23
5
5
Podium Ambition
102
1287
139
9,26
6
6
SEE Turtles
59
1204
139
8,66
7
7
Euskadi-Murias
28
1144
138
8,29
8
8
Euskotren - Pays Basque
26
1049
140
7,49
9
9
IncaLine Pro Cycling
119
957
139
6,88
10
10
Tafjord Kraft
135
948
140
6,77
11
11
Parmalat - Ecopetrol
83
909
139
6,54
12
12
Kone-Nordea
20
720
140
5,14
13
13
Glanbia
9
665
139
4,78
14
14
The ONE - Fox God
34
632
140
4,51
15
15
Team Zappes Kölsch
9
608
140
4,34
16
16
Air New Zealand-Prada
8
503
140
3,59
MG - Lotto - Caloi
[MG] New Manager of the Year - PCM.daily Awards 2022
Big congratulations to Dippo, Dave and TMM for promotion. And an even bigger one to jt! You were at your own level this season. I have no idea how disbandments will affect promotion from CT to PCT for lower placed teams, but I guess sean and imladrik will just have to cross their fingers.
We are happy to promote (as the only rookie, noted) and looking forward to PCT next year. We are also very happy about Galta winning the individual standings (even though we had a hope for more points from him). Now we will have to see how the team can look next year, that will be a totally different challenge
Congrats to all the promoting managers, everyone in PCT will be scared to have such a set of prolific and experienced managers coming up (and I'm not falling for Heine being a rookie!).
Given there are no surprising disbands there's probably only one further disband promotion spot available given tastasol has been away for quite some time, so it's well possible only the first five will go up.
Thanks for the nice update Laurens, really interesting to see each team's successes listed like that. Hard to imagine how the season could've gone any better for us, I was hoping to edge a disband promotion spot, so comfortably finishing second is absolutely fantastic. Perera in particular contributed incredibly well, I really don't understand how we were able to pick him up so cheaply. Chavanne didn't always come out on top in his duels with Schomber et al, but also proved his worth and I'm very happy we could get him on board at the 11th hour.
Really looking forward to what the PCT holds, but I will also miss the CT a bit. I hope it will be as much fun next year for those going the opposite way from us, and most importantly, I hope there's some strong new managers joining in and bringing a bit of fresh energy!
Congrats to jt who showed brilliant understanding of the new game version resulting in a very impressive season. Love to see Ethiopian succesful, congrats dippo! I also love to see Heine promoting, who similar to jt worked a lot to understand the new game and had a pretty good transfer season as well. Together with Dave and TMM thats a super active group of managers that absolutely leave an activity gap in the CT that hopefully gets filled by relegating teams or newbies.
It's been an incredibly fun year in CT this year with how strong the division really has been across the board. Obviously the battle at the top was a thriller - although I'm not sure how fondly the rest of us remember those early months when Bianchi held almost all of the top 5 individual scorer spots. But even on the lower half of the rankings Manninen was a beast in the sprints, Parmalot had some fantastic performances and Meintjes was a threat for a top 5 individual before Galta decided to stop that vision.
Really tough to imagine what this division will look like next year, as only 4 of the top 20 individual scorers will remain in the division (pending renewals), with the majority going up and a few hitting the market through disbands.
As many have said, I hope that CT stays an active division and that the introduction of the development teams increases the focus on races from the other divisions as well.
Looking at our own season, this was a huge success for us - multiple GC victories was hugely unexpected, but our planning still clearly has work to do. Almost 250 points more than either of our previous seasons and a more aggressive attempt to get leaders (which I think still needs to be more aggressive) is a sign that we're learning alongside the commitment to our mission.
Thanks to everyone for the cheering throughout the season - no matter for whom. Big congratulations to all those promoting!
Holy moly, what a scrap this year was with promotion right up for grabs deep in to October. There were plenty of frustrations to be sure, but we have managed to do something really quite special and promote with a team consisting entirely of Caribbeans (and honorary Caribbeans in our Mauritians).
One of the best CT years, a great selection of active managers and a wide array of great results to cheer for. Deserved champions of course in Bianchi.
First of all, huge congratulations to all the promoted teams - fully deserved. Bianchi especially were just on another level all year long. Every time it felt like someone might close the gap, they just kept scoring somewhere else. Really impressive understanding of the new game version and race calendar.
Also it feels strange seeing so many teams folding or moving up. CT next year is going to look completely different. Hopefully the division keeps the same activity level because this year was genuinely a lot of fun, even when it was painful ????
Anyway, thanks to Laurens for the great updates, I really enjoyed the season recap for every team here, thanks for the effort you put in to that and congrats again to everyone promoting.
Next season we'll try not to start scoring all of our points towards the end
