We might be halfway through Q4, but regardless we feel like doing our regular quartal review of what happened, and introduce our team for the final Q4 races.
Both Q1 and Q2 went surprisingly well as you can see below. Q1 ended up 546 points higher that expected! Let's break down the numbers for Q2.
A lot of races, and fortunately a lot of solid races, was ridden in the Q2 department. In the end we come away just shy of 500 points higher than we anticipated. Most races were pretty much on par, but races like Tour of Slovenia, Tour of Northern Europe and GP Moscow contributed heavily to the periods success. But we have to highlight our consistency as the main factor for doing so well, that outliers can produce points directly to the bottom line.
Kinoshita performed exactly as we hoped in the ardennes, Altur almost exactly as expected in his cobbled races and our depth set in where we expected it to do so. This leaves us with magnificent (and surprising) over performances mainly from Farantakis, but also riders like Karatsivis and Kiriakidis chipped in with solid performances in Criterium du Daupine Libere and Tour of Northern Europe.
We did have a fair bit of more negative results compared to Q1 aswell though, but fortunately those results were still affecting us in a minor way. Paris-Roubaix was OK, the doubleheader of Rheden and Battenkill slightly underwhelming, but in no way disastrous and Chrono des Herbiers were also ever so slighlyt out of tune. It was only in Scandinavian Open road Race were we turned out to be a no show, despite having a reasonably strong potential with Kinoshita in particular. We came away with 45 points, and expected around 100.
Still another perfectly executed period to set is around 5th in the overall PT standings, and realistically well above our final expected result.
Let's take a look at Q3, which is slightly lower than normal, in order to make Q4 have an actual effect..
July Racing
Only two races in July, but plenty of racedays. We participate in the flat one day race Rund um Köln, as well as the Grand Father of Cyling - Tour de France! We expect something similar to 400 points combined.
Start
End
Race
Category
01-Jul
Rund um Koln
PT
Exp. pts: 150pts Expectations: Having Stylianos Farantakis present we always have a hope for something good. He could be winning the race, but also missing the top 10. The most likely scenario is somewhere around 3-5th.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Jul
23-Jul
Tour de France
GT
Exp. pts: 250pts Expectations: We bring a very attack-minded setup without any real leaders. Therefor we expect to be visable in the early part of the race picking up the KOM fight, and maybe minor stage results. Ideally we come away from the race with a stage win - or atleast something remotely close to that. From a GC perspective this is probably a low scoring race, significantly lower than Giro d'Italia atleast.
August Racing
The 5 races in August is likely going to determine whether we can settle in as a top 10 team in the overall standings, or if we are going to be in an outside risk of the upper relegation spots. We have mainly cobbles and sprints aswell as a single timetrial, which on paper is a good fit for our team. We are expecting around 700-750 points from this month
Start
End
Race
Category
01-Aug
GP Kigali
PT
Exp. pts: 150pts Expectations: Altur is here with his solid team around him, and thus we expect his usual performance around 4-7th in the race suplemented with some depth results.
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Aug
05-Aug
Ras Tailteann
PTHC
Exp. pts: 175pts Expectations: Farantakis have fond memories from last season where he did reasonably well here. He seems to have lifted his game further and we think he have a realistic shot at a podium, aswell as a couple of good stage results.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Aug
East Midlands Cicle Classic
PT
Exp. pts: 130pts Expectations: Much like in Kigali we expect Altur as our leverage, and some depth to cover the points difference. Should be a decent race for us.
Start
End
Race
Category
13-Aug
Chrono d'Arenberg
PTHC
Exp. pts: 100pts Expectations: This race have give it's ups and downs in the past. Still with riders like Stavrakakis, Cavagna and Vlatos here we should be able to pick up a decent amount of points.
Start
End
Race
Category
16-Aug
20-Aug
Deutschland Tour
PTHC
Exp. pts: 175pts Expectations: Farantakis is here to lead us in the sprints. 4 flat stages should be enough for him to get atleast a couple of good results. The rest should come from depth points in the Timetrial where we have 5 riders from 76-78TT.
The season is slowly beginning to fade with just 5 more races left to race. The Q3 have effectively been ridden, and it turned out to be another decent period for us!
Rund um Köln
EXP: 150pts
ACT: 292pts
Tour de France
EXP: 250pts
ACT: 178pts
GP Kigali
EXP: 150pts
ACT: 146pts
Ras Tailteann
EXP: 176pts
ACT: 348pts
East Midlands Cicle Classic
EXP: 130pts
ACT: 90pts
Chrono d'Arenberg
EXP: 100pts
ACT: 120pts
Deutschland Tour
EXP: 175pts
ACT: 174pts
STATUS
EXP: 1130pts
ACT: 1348pts
It's a little bit interesting, because we "failed" 4/7 races, but still ended up with a good period, where we outscored our expectations by 218 points. Mostly it is because we actually managed to hit all races pretty spot on, except for 3. Tour de France gave a negative of 72 despite having low scoring ambitions, but we won both Rund um Köln and Ras Tailteann which combined make for 315 points above expectation.
GP Kigali and Deutschland Tour was both very much on point, only 5 points below in total on an expected 325 points. So among the more important races to get right. Overall we come away with a good feeling, but also a feeling that it is very much Stylianos Farantakis that keeps us going with a total of 645 out of those 1348 scored points.
Regardless of how the final 4 races is going we are ending up with a higher pointscore than we expected prior to the season. We expected 5.500 points which should be sufficient in the survival battle. We are currently on 5.851 points, and if we keep our expected scores we will end up with 6.761 points in total. Last season this would have equalled 6th in the Pro Tour. Seeing how the July rankings ended up it seems very likely that 6th will yet again be scoring around that amount of points.
We do have one more Grand Tour to go however, which can always trigger new normals, and we expect to score similarly to the Giro d'Italia, which was a good race for us. Given how we performed in the Tour de France, we might well be on a very low score though. We expect to end up around 6.500 points in total, which is still very much better than pre-season.
Let's take a look at Q4, before closing the season.
September Racing
Just two races. A one day race in the cobbled department, and the final Grand Tour of the season, La Vuelta a España!
Start
End
Race
Category
03-Sep
Strada Appia Antica
PT
Exp. pts: 130pts Expectations: Marcos Altur leads the way for one last time here in Italy. He have been remarkably solid throughout, without any real outliers in either direction. He topped the season getting 4th in Ronde van Vlaanderen, while his lowest was 11th in the most recent race - East Midlands Cicle Classic. We expect somewhere in between.
Start
End
Race
Category
10-Sep
30-Sep
Vuelta a Espana
GT
Exp. pts: 450pts Expectations: Giannoutsos is here to lead the way, and is being fairly held up by the likes of Ioannidis, Kiriakidis, Agrotis and Christakos. We don't expect big things, but we hope it will be enough to fight for a top 10 aswell as seeing some aggressive riding, like we did in the Giro. Koumpetsos is also here in the hope that he will participate in the bumpy sprints of the race.
October Racing
The final 3 races of the season should suit us better than the races of September. Farantakis is present in both Praha and Philadelphia so atleast we have a realistic chance of scoring points, while Lombardia probably isn't for us.
Start
End
Race
Category
07-Oct
10-Oct
Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha
PT
Exp. pts: 150pts Expectations: With 2 sprint stages, 1 prologue and 1 long ITT we believe Farantakis is a good fit. Not for the overall GC, but sufficient to do damage early on, maybe with some luck claiming the leaders jersey at one point aswell as a stagewin. That is the ambition, and then we hope our TT department can supplement with some depth, despite facing serious competition here.
Start
End
Race
Category
13-Oct
Philadelphia International Championship
PTHC
Exp. pts: 105pts Expectations: The last dance for Farantakis to put the final nail in the coffin scoring an unbreakable Greek high! He have Zingle to lead him out and the usual domestiques for the early and later part of the fight. A win would be amazing to end the season, hopefully a top 3 is possible.
Start
End
Race
Category
17-Oct
Giro di Lombardia
M
Exp. pts: 75pts Expectations: Kinoshita have done pretty well in the ardennes in the long endurant races. This will be his last stint in the ELCO - ABEA jersey before "retiring" from the team. We wish him a good final race and have invested everything we have in aiding him. That being said, this isn't an ideal race as it could well be too difficult.
The season has come to an end - as a newly promoted team we can obviously be very happy that we managed to survive. That was always the main objective!
Let's start by taking a look at the final 5 races that concluded the season for us.
Strada Appia Antica
EXP: 130pts
ACT: 215pts
Vuelta a Espana
EXP: 450pts
ACT: 404pts
Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha
EXP: 150pts
ACT: 92pts
Philadelphia International Championship
EXP: 105pts
ACT: 49pts
Giro di Lombardia
EXP: 75pts
ACT: 114pts
STATUS
EXP: 910pts
ACT: 874pts
The month of october started out nicely with us overperforming in Strada Appia Antica, however the Vuelta was slightly underwhelming despite Giannoutsos claiming his second Grand Tour stagewin, after taking one in the Giro several months ago. We did somewhat expect him to score better than 10th in the GC of one of the Grand Tours, so overall he unfortunately scored less than anticipated. Still the month was slightly above our expectation. In fact every single month had been, albeit this was the lowest overperformance we had so far.
Unfortunately we went on to end the season in a negative as both Praha and Philadelphia were dissapointing races from our perspective, and at a bad time, as we were actually fighting for 3-5th at the time. Luckily the season ended alright after Kinoshita took another top 10 in a monument and landed 9th in Giro di Lombardia.
Overall we ended up scoring 75 points below expectations.
Looking at how we performed in the different racing categories, we see a clear tendency that we need to develop our Grand Tour capabilities.
Cat
Expected
Actual
Dif.
GT
1150
1039
-111
Mon
675
864
189
PT
2375
3079
704
PTHC
1300
1743
443
SUM
5500
6725
1225
Pro Tour ranking
Regardless of a slight underperformance at the end of the season, we have achieved a top 10 which is a massive succes. And while 6th was within reach if we hadn't scored 75 points less than expected in november, top 5 was out of reach unless we had scored a whooping 225 points more. This was never really close to being realistic.
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
1
1
Evonik - ELKO
7558
180
41,99
2
2
EA Vesuvio
7335
180
40,75
3
3
Rabobank
7126
180
39,59
4
4
King Power
7011
180
38,95
5
5
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
6951
180
38,62
6
6
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
6809
180
37,83
7
7
ELCO - ABEA
6726
180
37,37
8
9
Team Puma - SAP
6653
180
36,96
9
8
Indosat Ooredoo
6446
180
35,81
10
11
Xero Racing
6335
180
35,19
11
10
Fastned
6326
180
35,14
12
13
Aker - MOT
6120
180
34
13
12
cycleYorkshire
5992
180
33,29
14
14
Polar
5990
180
33,28
15
15
Cedevita
5852
180
32,51
16
18
Gazelle
5248
180
29,16
17
16
Los Pollos Hermanos
5231
180
29,06
18
17
Sony - Force India
5164
180
28,69
19
19
Team UBS
4897
180
27,21
20
20
Grieg-Maersk
4566
180
25,37
21
21
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Pro Cycling
4398
180
24,43
22
22
Jura GIANTS
3999
180
22,22
Pro Tour ranking
The individual rankings saw the best ever greek performance when Stylianos Farantakis clocked 1670 points, which is beyond comparison to previous results. Unfortunately it was the last time Farantakis could be developped, so we will have to enjoy him in the next couple of seasons!
Another interesting take is that everyone from the individual top 3 will be looking for either a new team or a new division. Silvio Herklotz and Tom Wirtgen are both without jobs after their teams disbanded by the end of the season, while Mads Pedersen is relegating with his! And from there Farantakis actually came relatively close to matching the next in line - Areruya and M. Angel Lopez.
Pos
Rider
Team
Total Points
1
Silvio Herklotz
Team Puma - SAP
2189
2
Tom Wirtgen
EA Vesuvio
1927
3
Mads Pedersen
Grieg-Maersk
1821
4
Joseph Areruya
Xero Racing
1775
5
Miguel Angel Lopez
Evonik - ELKO
1674
6
Stylianos Farantakis
ELCO - ABEA
1670
43
Marcos Altur
ELCO - ABEA
747
68
Tomohiro Kinoshita
ELCO - ABEA
548
73
Miltiadis Giannoutsos
ELCO - ABEA
525
109
Nikolaos Ioannidis
ELCO - ABEA
346
113
Georgios Boutopoulos
ELCO - ABEA
323
134
Ioannidis Kiriakidis
ELCO - ABEA
280
141
Remi Cavagna
ELCO - ABEA
255
145
Axel Zingle
ELCO - ABEA
250
147
Panagiotis Karatsivis
ELCO - ABEA
246
164
Zisis Soulious
ELCO - ABEA
205
181
Georgios Stavrakakis
ELCO - ABEA
186
195
Michail Kortsidakis
ELCO - ABEA
171
252
Jay Vine
ELCO - ABEA
133
260
Pangiotis Christapopoulos
ELCO - ABEA
129
358
Anastasios Koumpetsos
ELCO - ABEA
86
396
Kamiel Bonneu
ELCO - ABEA
75
400
Aimiliano Vila
ELCO - ABEA
74
423
Martinos Moutsios
ELCO - ABEA
68
445
Scott Davies
ELCO - ABEA
61
452
Dimitrios Christakos
ELCO - ABEA
59
473
Samuel Welsford
ELCO - ABEA
48
488
Kaspars Sergis
ELCO - ABEA
35
489
Panagiotis Vlatos
ELCO - ABEA
35
Before the season we set expectations for every single rider, and while most performed according to our expectations we did have a few underwhelming performances. We expected 600 points from Miltiadis Giannoutsos, who scored 525. Not a disastrous underperformance, but we had hoped he could beat the expectations being a clear leader in our team. Anastasios Koumpetsos was slighly below par as we hoped to see him score as little as 100 points. But the 3 major dissapointments came from Jay Vine, Dimitrios Christakos and Kaspars Sergis. We weren't expecting big things from either, so it's within the acceptable.
On the positive side we have to applaude the big off season gambles: Marcos Altur and Tomohiro Kinoshita. For Altur we expected 650 points and got 747, while we expected 450 from Kinoshita and got 548. So both scored aproximately 100 points higher than we thought they would. They also check in as the 2nd and 3rd best performers of the season for us.
Fortunately the next in line are also Greek in the shapes of Giannoutsos, Ioannidis, Boutopoulos and Kiriakidis before seeing strong performances from Cavagna and Zingle aswell! It somehow fits the team nicely to have a continued french sector.
Unmaxed Karatsivis scored 246 points, and we are extremely intruiged by what we can expect in the future from him! In a not to distant future we will let you guys know a little bit more about our development plans!
Congrats for a great season (despite the late season disappointments)! Farantakis has been a beast and it's also good the others contributed as well. I'd say in the long run Giannoutsos' two stage wins will outshine the lower top 10 GC finishes he missed once this season's ranking points are forgotten. And I really love how Karatsivis is doing, he already showed his attacking spirit on his loan with us and I really hope he'll keep this approach because it is really fun as a neutral viewer (not necessarily in regard of points)!
Congrats for a great season (despite the late season disappointments)! Farantakis has been a beast and it's also good the others contributed as well. I'd say in the long run Giannoutsos' two stage wins will outshine the lower top 10 GC finishes he missed once this season's ranking points are forgotten. And I really love how Karatsivis is doing, he already showed his attacking spirit on his loan with us and I really hope he'll keep this approach because it is really fun as a neutral viewer (not necessarily in regard of points)!
Thanks a lot mate
Indeed, Farantakis has been somewhat of a beast. To replicate that next season will be impossible. I suspect 1000 points is the most likely outcome, which is also OK!
Giannoutsos getting stagewins is definately more fun than getting 8th rather than 10th in the GC - fully agree on that! He was 5th in the Giro d'Italia 2 years ago, however, and I would love to get something similar again. That's why I decided for him to go to 2 GT's and neither being the TdF in order to maximize that chance. Unfortunately he never came even remotely close.
Karatsivis is my most anticipated talent ever. Unfortunately he's not quite as strong in the secondary stats as I would have liked him to be, but he will still be an interesting training prospect. I hope (and think) he will be an aggressive attacker next season aswell!
Time to take a deep dive into the ocean of developments for the team. The future core of leaders and domestiques is not something to be forgotten, and thus we try to always stay relevant for future seasons.
Here is the expected developments. We have listed the riders future XP and age.
Panagiotis Karatsivis
4.100
25yo
Stage Racer
€70.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
70
76
74
72
70
72
74
73
60
64
74
74
67
69
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
70
78
76
73
72
73
75
75
60
64
74
74
67
71
Karatsivis is easily the biggest talents to come through in recent years, and a very young one also. He is taking major steps towards being a useful leader. For the upcoming season he will often take on a free role, and might be looking to get a decent U25 result here and there.
Martinos Moutsios
4.100
25yo
Time-Triallist
€50.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
73
61
62
63
76
73
71
67
65
68
73
70
67
76
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
75
61
63
64
78
74
73
69
65
68
73
71
67
78
The timetrial department of the team is very strong, and with Moutsious coming through the ranks it's not looking likely to be changing anytime soon. Just like Karatsivis he too could be a decent U25 fit in certain races.
Scott Davies
4.100
31yo
Stage Racer
€50.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
65
73
72
70
74
71
72
73
55
61
69
64
65
74
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
65
75
73
71
76
72
73
75
55
61
69
64
65
76
The brit is a late bloomer, but what a wonderful statline, as he joins an elite group of very attractive GC riders that will excel in depth points from multiple races. He fits our team perfectly as we have quite a lot of riders like him.
Ioannis Varotsos
4.00
24yo
Roulleur
€70.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
76
62
64
66
73
71
71
66
63
69
69
72
68
73
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
78
62
65
67
75
73
72
68
63
71
70
72
68
75
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
80
62
65
67
77
74
73
69
63
72
71
72
68
77
Apart from Karatsivis, Varotsos is likely the biggest greek talent to come through our ranks in several years. He will take a year as a domestique in the flats aswell as the timetrials, but after that he will be chasing his own chances on the flats.
Mats Wenzel
4.00
24yo
Stage Racer
€50.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
67
71
71
70
71
72
71
70
60
58
70
65
68
72
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
68
73
73
72
73
74
73
72
60
58
71
66
68
74
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
69
75
74
73
74
76
74
74
60
58
71
66
68
75
Similar to Davies, Wenzel is among those very attractive GC riders. The main difference is age, and thus making Wenzel a very trainable future leader, as his backups and acceleration should make for a solid GC prospect.
Kamiel Bonneu
4.00
27yo
Puncheur
€50.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
69
65
69
72
58
74
71
64
62
60
67
65
62
58
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
70
66
72
75
59
76
72
65
62
61
69
67
63
59
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
70
66
74
77
59
77
74
66
62
62
71
68
63
59
A talented belgian puncheur, who have the engine for the long an endurant one day races. He will have another year as a traditional domestique before stepping up to become a very good lieutenaint in the ardennes.
Alexander Hajek
3.00
23yo
Puncheur
€85.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
67
68
69
70
60
69
70
68
57
58
66
64
71
57
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
67
72
73
73
61
71
72
71
57
58
68
66
71
58
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
69
74
77
78
62
76
74
73
57
61
72
69
73
59
One of two very talented austrian talents that came into our development setup late this transferseason - The development is in great progress and Hajek could develop in multiple directions regarding hills, mountains and medium mountains. This might not prove to be his actual path.
Marco Schrettl
3.00
23yo
Puncheur
€85.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
64
67
69
71
58
68
71
66
55
56
65
60
71
59
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
64
71
73
74
59
70
73
69
55
56
67
62
71
60
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
66
72
77
79
61
74
75
71
55
59
71
66
72
61
Similar to Hajek, Schrettl joined late in the window, and is a massive talent. He also shows great promiss in all of the climbing departments, and could take alternative routes to make a perfect fit to an allround team strategy.
Edgar Andres Pinzon
3.00
25yo
Climber
€50.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
65
70
69
67
55
69
73
68
59
64
68
67
65
55
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65
72
70
68
55
71
75
69
59
64
69
68
67
55
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↓↓↓
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68
76
73
69
55
74
79
71
60
64
71
73
72
55
It came as a big surprise when we were able to steal Pinzon for minimum fee, as he is a crafted mountains specialist, with an amazing engine. He could even be trained further to really enhance his chances of KOM and stage succes.Edited by SotD on 24-05-2026 23:18
@baseballlover312
I very much agree! Would have liked for him to have a slightly better HI or COB to make him really worth the while to train. It could still be fun to give him those cheap MO and COB trainings that might make him survive something more difficult. I might give him some bumps in the TT stat, but normally I would look to invest in more well rounded riders.
@Nemolito
I really hope the TT duo of Moutsios and Varotsos can steal some U25 points next season, as we haven't managed to get enough out of that in the past couple of seasons. I'm not too sure. Farantakis is never going to replicate this season, and we need to also cover the 2nd and 3rd best point scorers in Altur and Kinoshita so I could see us being close to relegation next season aswell
@Jakstar22
Yeah it's really nice to have him maxed finally. Already next season I guess he will be better (or atleast similar) than Giannoutsos, which gives us a lot of freedom in GC races, where we have been a bit underwhelming in the past. Agrotis is an obvious training target in the wait, to get him to either 76TT or 77MO. We kinda need to cover something lost from Ioannidis now in those "not to difficult GC races"
2025 has been a massive year for Greece, and for Stylianos Farantakis in particular. Fortunately things have only gone 1 way for the past 15 years, where Greece slowly started to build a solid base.
The first couple of years didn't really show remarkable progress, but Perikles Ilias and Georgios Tzortzakis showed they were individually capable of doing solid performances across multiple levels. When Tzortzakis in 2016 scored 688 points it seemed like an unbreakable record - and it was for several years. The highest scoring riders, Panagiotis Vlatos wasn't able to get it just right, despite being incredibly consistent in the years of 2016 to 2023 scoring between 328-552 points each season (with 2022 being a negative outlier with just 182 points). After Miltiadis Giannoutsos took his first step as a leader he, however immidiately showed that if you get things just right, it could indeed be possible to beat those 688 points, so in 2023 he did just that, and the year after also Stylianos Farantakis managed to beat the old record - albeit just shy of a new record score. That cannot be said about this season, however! A whooping 1670 points scored is not alone a record, it's more than double that of the previous record. And in fact he alone would have been better than the entire nation throughout 2011-2019! What a season!
DEVELOPMENT IN NUMBERS
Year
Points
Best Rider
Points
2025
5577
Stylianos Farantakis
1670
2024
4398
Stylianos Farantakis
712
2023
3581
Miltiadis Giannoutsos
722
2022
2652
Stylianos Farantakis
319
2021
2556
Panagiotis Vlatos
552
2020
1745
Panagiotis Vlatos
495
2019
1335
Panagiotis Vlatos
346
2018
1240
Panagiotis Vlatos
485
2017
684
Panagiotis Vlatos
328
2016
1340
Georgos Tzortzakis
688
2015
1090
Georgos Tzortzakis
634
2014
558
Georgos Tzortzakis
201
2013
598
Perikles Ilias
233
2012
70
Georgos Tzortzakis
69
2011
3
Georgos Tzortzakis
3
The rider, crowned his season by breaking into the ranks of "Titan" as the 2nd only ever greek rider. The other being Panagiotis Vlatos, who landed that honor in the fall of 2023. There is now only 341 points for Farantakis to become the greatest ever greek rider, and with Vlatos having likely scored his final points in this season, it seems very likely that the nation have a new target by the end of the season! Despite making a massive headstart for himself, Farantakis can't sit completely at ease in the leaders seat, as Miltiadis Giannoutsos is "only" trailing by 812 points. And while we can expect that lead to increase in the next couple of years, we have to take into account the 2 years age cap between them. And with Giannoutsos currently averaging 625 points per season, Farantakis would need atleast 1250 points of gap to realistically lead the charts by the time Giannoutsos decide to stop riding. And the GC leader is still training eligeble for another 2 seasons not to forget!
INDIVIDUAL HIERARCHY
Rank
Name
Total pts
0 Titan
Panagiotis Vlatos
3540
0 Titan
Stylianos Farantakis
3199
1 God
Miltiadis Giannoutsos
2387
1 God
Georgos Tzortzakis
1947
1 God
Charalampas Kastrantas
1674
2 Heroes
Nikolaos Ioannidis
1385
2 Heroes
Michail Kortsidakis
1116
2 Heroes
Michail Mavrikakis
1107
2 Heroes
Ioannidis Kiriakidis
1020
2 Heroes
Ioannis Spanopoulos
883
2 Heroes
Georgios Karatzios
860
2 Heroes
Georgios Boutopoulos
789
2 Heroes
Georgios Stavrakakis
721
2 Heroes
Zisis Soulious
546
Spoiler
3 Warrior
Georgios Bouglas
493
3 Warrior
Andreas Miltiadis
485
3 Warrior
Michael Christodoulos
473
3 Warrior
Alexandros Agrotis
461
3 Warrior
Pangiotis Christapopoulos
398
3 Warrior
Perikles Ilias
373
3 Warrior
Aimiliano Vila
326
3 Warrior
Panagiotis Karatsivis
301
3 Warrior
Alexandros Matsangos
328
3 Warrior
Alex Mengoulas
284
3 Warrior
Anastasios Koumpetsos
289
3 Warrior
Dimitrios Christakos
243
3 Warrior
Georgios Kaloniatis
223
3 Warrior
Nikolaos Zegklis
209
3 Warrior
Sarris Evangelos
173
3 Warrior
Vassilis Adamou
165
2 Heroes
Armanto Archimandritis
159
3 Warrior
Ioannis Tamouridis
151
3 Warrior
Polychronis Tzortzakis
134
3 Warrior
Marios Athanasiades
125
3 Warrior
Martinos Moutsios
96
3 Warrior
Constantinos Thymides
69
3 Warrior
Neofytos Sakellaridis
67
3 Warrior
Stavros Theorpanous
62
3 Warrior
Vasileios Simantirakis
40
3 Warrior
Petros Gkazonis
31
3 Warrior
Apostolos Bouglas
30
3 Warrior
Ioannis Varotsos
25
3 Warrior
Konstantinos Efstathiou
21
3 Warrior
Christos Volikakis
5
3 Warrior
Nikolaos Michail Drakos
5
3 Warrior
Ioannis Drakakis
4
3 Warrior
Christos Katrakis
3
3 Warrior
Kyriakos Skettos
3
3 Warrior
Vasilis Anastopoulos
1
3 Warrior
Nikiforos Arvanitou
0
3 Warrior
Aristeidis Koutounis
1
3 Warrior
Konstantinos Pavlides
0
3 Warrior
Christos Loizou
0
3 Warrior
Panagiotis Chatzakis
0
3 Warrior
Tomotheos Skettos
0
3 Warrior
Hermes Antoniou
0
Stylianos Farantakis also used the season to catapult him into the leders list in regards to most ever greek wins. 11 wins in total for the Greek sprinter this season, including 2 GC wins, 2 One Day races and 5 stagewins. He also claimed 2 points jerseys wins!
MOST WINS
Name
Wins
1 Stylianos Farantakis
16 Wins
2 Panagiotis Vlatos
6 Wins
3 Georgos Tzortzakis
5 Wins
4 Miltiadis Giannoutsos
4 Wins
5 Charalampas Kastrantas
3 Wins
6 Team ELCO - ABEA
2 Wins
Spoiler
7 Panagiotis Karatsivis
1 Win
7 Andreas Miltiadis
1 Win
7 Georgios Stavrakakis
1 Win
7 Georgios Karatzios
1 Win
7 Perikles Ilias
1 Win
7 Neofytos Sakellaridis
1 Win
7 Nikolaos Zegklis
1 Win
7 Ioannidis Kiriakidis
1 Win
7 Dimitrios Christakos
1 Win
7 Sarris Evangelos
1 Win
While we are at it, let's take a look at which riders have the most "Records" to their tally in terms of best position in amount of different races. F.e., the best Greek/Cypriot rider in Milano - San Remo is Stylianos Farantakis with his 13th place this season. This gives him 1 record.
RECORD HOLDERS
Records
Name
Active Race
Inactive Race
17
Miltiadis Giannoutsos
11
6
15
Charalampas Kastrantas
5
10
13
Stylianos Farantakis
12
1
12
Georgios Tzortzakis
1
11
11
Michail Kortsidakis
6
5
10
Georgios Karatzios
5
5
Spoiler
8
Michail Mavrikakis
8
8
Nikolaos Ioannidis
4
4
7
Panagiotis Vlatos
4
3
7
Polychronos Tzortzakis
1
6
7
Marios Anathasiades
7
7
Perikles Ilias
7
6
Alex Mengoulas
6
6
Andreas Miltiadis
6
6
Georgios Stavrakakis
3
3
6
Nikolaos Zegklis
6
5
Georgios Boutopoulos
5
5
Georgios Kaloniatis
5
5
Ioannidis Kiriakidis
4
1
5
Sarris Evangelos
5
4
Ioannis Spanopoulos
4
4
Ioannid Drakakis
4
3
Panagiotis Karatsivis
3
3
Stavros Theorpanous
3
3
Zisis Soulious
2
1
3
Vasilis Adamou
3
2
ELCO - ABEA
2
2
Martinos Moutsios
2
2
Michael Christodoulos
2
2
Constantinos Thymides
2
2
Georgios Bouglas
2
2
Ioannis Tamouridis
2
2
Petros Gkazonis
2
1
Alexandros Matsangos
1
1
Anastasios Koumpetsos
1
1
Nikolaos Michail Drakos
1
1
Alexandros Agrotis
0
1
1
Elta - Hellenic Post
1
1
Dimitrios Christakos
1
1
Kyriakos Skettos
1
1
Neofytos Sakellaridis
1
1
Pangiotis Christapopoulos
1
1
Vasilis Anastopoulos
1
Despite having a massive season, Stylianos Farantakis is still not the rider with the most amount of top results in the races he has attended. That is Miltiadis Giannoutsos. Stylianos Farantakis is however the record holder of most top results in races that are currently on the racing calender, where Giannoutsos landed a couple of decent results in his early years loaned out to smaller teams.
In the final list you can see how well Greece performs in a race-to-race schedule, ranked from highest to lowest in the current racing calender.
We have an active ambtion in securing top 20 in every single race on the active calender, and if we look at the PT calender, we are very close to the target, as only East Midlands Cicle Classic, Tirreno-Adriatico, GP Liechtenstein, Tour of Tasmania and Fleche Wallonne are yet to be achieved. While the latter could prove difficult, the others should be within a reasonable chance in the years to come.
At PTHC level, which we can also somewhat control ourselves are another short list of races: Tour of East Java, Clasica San Sebastian, Grand Prix Cycliste, Riga - Jurmala GP, Japan Cup. A couple of those are also hilly races which makes it difficult given the current rider pool, while the other races are relatively realistic to achieve.
At HC level we also see a solid list of Greek succes with just 4 races yet to achieve, but at C1 and C2 level we can clearly see other teams needing to chip in with a massive 26 races not yet accomplished! So we need your help - And also, it is a very cool way to re-write history as several of those races are easy to accomplish, even without the top 10 strongest Greek riders.
Paris - Roubaix
Giro d'Italia
Tour of Slovenia
GP Liechtenstein
Amstel Gold Race
Fleche Wallonne
Tour of the Battenkill
GP Moscow
Hanko Classic
Tour de Suisse
Scandinavian Open Road Race
STATUS
Rund um Koln
GP Kigali
Ras Tailteann
East Midlands Cicle Classic
Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha
- Also a big congrats on your promotion! It's going to be fun to be in the PT at the same time.
