The season finale was a race without stakes for us. We had no chances to move up or down the ranking. On a personal level Tadej wanted to end his disaster of a season in a better light. He kept a good position at the front on the race. He never really threatened anyone, but he came away with a credible 8th place.
Race score: 7/10
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The final ranking update for us covers the last two months of the season. It's a bit more of an exciting time of the year now because the Vuelta is in September.
Before that was the Strada Appia Antica, the last cobbled classic. It wasn't the best day for Ivan Siric who finished a credible 6th on the day, but Fred Wright and Yevgeniy Fedorov were able to add a few depth points. Japan Cup was a nice excursion to the Far East, but not in terms of racing. The Vuelta a Espana was the final big race of the year with Jasper Philipsen leading the team for the sprints. The race was a disappointment early on, but in the end three stage wins and the King of the Mountains meant we came away with a good amount of points and some fond memories.
While the Vuelta was good it still wasn't really enough to move us up the rankings so the final month didn't have many stakes. In Praha we didn't have a sprinter nor a GC rider so the result was as expected. We had higher ambitions with Jasper in Philadelphia, but we couldn't manage a top 10 even in a PTHC race. We did better in Lombardy as Tadej Pogacar's 8th place was our best result at the season ending monument to date.
All in all that left us in 15th place. While for the most part we were never really in relegation danger throughout the season, we also never looked competitive for a top 10 place. A quick and dirty analysis of the situation is that Tadej regressed a lot and from that we missed the 400-500 points that would have pushed us into the predicted spots. With our GC leader and highest paid rider seemingly now a diminished force we have a difficult time ahead of us to keep this team competitive, let alone improve it.
We will recap all the riders performances later in the off season. Also we will have further posts about the season and future developments.
Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita
While this was a failure with Tadej Pogacar finishing 2nd, we take it as successful given the quality opposition we were up against. In fact this was Tadej's lone good race all season.
Ronde van Vlaanderen - FAILURE
This was easily the most disappointing race as it was the one we thought was most likely to be successful. After Ivan Siric was 10th in 2023 and 7th in 2024 we were completely blindsided when he finished only 11th this year.
Paris-Roubaix - SUCCESS
The one goal we were able to complete, the other cobbled monument. Ivan Siric finished 2nd, our best monument result to date.
Giro d'Italia - FAILURE
Same result as Tirreno for Tadej Pogacar, but a very different feeling about the race. It's hard to win any race in the Pro Tour so 2nd place is again not that much of a failure, especially when on paper better riders were present. The expectation was that a 2nd place finish at a Grand Tour would yield a much higher points return.
PT Team Standings - FAILURE
With 15th place this is the 2nd year in a row where we were no where near a top 10 finish and that's with a lot of training invested and a different group of leaders. At this point just avoiding relegation might be under consideration since it's the one thing we are still competent at.
Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita
A mediocre season from the team and Pogacar. Still, there's been some highlights, and some near-misses with e.g. T-A. I'm sure you'll have some more tailwind next season.
Pogacar might have had a pretty bad season, he's still the future GT king after Lecuisinier, Herklotz etc. start to decline - so I suppose he will be worth a hell of a lot more in 2 seasons time
Philadelphia International Championship | Race Result
Giro di Lombardia | Race Result
Tadej Pogacar finishing 2nd, we take it as successful given the quality opposition we were up against. In fact this was Tadej's lone good race all season.
Ivan Siric was 10th in 2023 and 7th in 2024 we were completely blindsided when he finished only 11th this year.
