After a season in the Pro Continental Division, we are back up having won the division. We are ready to fight to stay up in the highest possible level once more!
2024 was yet another record season for the Greek/Cypriot Symphony. The 2023 season set new standards beating the old record by almost 1000 points, but we saw yet another record shatted completely! 4.398 points was scored in the 2024 season from Greek and Cypriot riders. A total of 831 points of those was scored outside of our team, meaning the remaining 3.567 points was scored from our setup. We are extremely happy about that - but also a little bit in awe, as to how we are supposed to match that next season at the Pro Tour. But something similar is definately needed if we are to survive!
A big congratulations to those riders, making an elite group of riders, never to be forgotten!
Just below the Heroes we find Georgios Bouglas, Georgios Boutopoulos and Andreas Miltiadis. Bouglas unfortunately didn't find a team last season, and it will be a serious struggle for him to get those final points needed. For Boutopoulos and Miltiadis, however the Hero title seems like a very realistic target for the upcoming season. For Miltiadis in particular the upcoming season could make history, as he is likely to be the first ever Cypriot rider to reach Hero level, and thus becoming the greatest Cypriot rider to ever live.
Riders like Christodoulos, Agrotis and Soulious will also try their best to make the cut, but have some way to go still. The interesting part, however is that all of those are training eligeble and could theoretically make a bit jump during the off season!
The Greek Training Development
In recent history, massive amounts of money (almost 12,5 mio €) have been invested in the development of greek riders. This is a picture of the riders evolving during their stay at ELCO - ABEA!
As always the team bring a lot of talents to the table, and try to promote their chances to showcase themselves within the team. This season is no different. We have two greek/cypriot riders - cobblers - who are taking their final steps into the first team this season and we are very happy for that. The initial plan is to have them replace Danny Summerhill and Alexander Edmondson whom are both looking elsewhere for their future.
Alex Mengoulas
4.100
28yo
Cobbler
€50.000
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INFO: Mengoulas is a well rounded cobbler, who is also a strong roulleur aswell as timetriallist. In many ways he resembles Georgios Stavrakakis, and the duo will help eachother during the upcoming season.
Alexandros Matsangos
4.100
26yo
Cobbler
€55.000
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INFO: On a slightly lower scale, but with similar strengths we find Matsangos, who is even more versatile, but lacks the engine of Mengoulas. Matsangos too will likely ride the same races as Stavrakakis and Mengoulas for support.
Panagiotis Karatsivis
4.70
23yo
Stage Racer
€55.000
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INFO: 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 is a luxury domestique, and might be looking to get a decent U25 result here and there.
Martinos Moutsios
4.30
23yo
Time-Triallist
€50.000
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INFO: 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 lacks one more year of development before he is ready to take lead action, but he too could be a decent U25 fit.
Ioannis Varotsos
3.00
22yo
Roulleur
€100.000
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INFO: The pure engine of Varotsos is impressive, and he will already be a very useful asset in both leadouts and timetrials coming next season, but there is even more waiting. Just like the two aforementioned riders we are yet to see him fully develop.
Kees Duyvesteyn
4.100
26yo
Puncheur
€50.000
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INFO: The young puncheur, Duyvesteyn moves directly in as our lead puncheur after this development. He is a very aggressive puncheur who fancies the early break, in shorter stages. He seems to be very well suited for chasing stagewins and KOMs in the early week of a GT or in shorter GC races.
Mats Wenzel
3.00
22yo
Stage Racer
€50.000
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INFO: Wenzel is a ridertype very similar to our own Agrotis, who comes from a very succesful PCT season. He is a perfect fit for any GC aspirating team, and we can't wait to get him developped even further. He is probably a year further away from individual succes compared to the above.
Edgar Andres Pinzon
2.00
23yo
Climber
€10.000
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INFO: Pinzon joined the team on a very late stagiare contract. It was a big surprise for us to sign him uncontested given the amount of interest there normally is around South american riders. He is a very talented climber, who would fit in any team with breakaway ambitions.
Simon Dehairs
2.00
23yo
Roulleur
€10.000
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INFO: The last rider to undergo further development, is the young belgian roulleur, Dehairs who was also signed on a stagiare contract. Dehairs can be a solid leadout rider with a big engine some years out.Edited by SotD on 02-08-2025 19:02
Another season, and a new beautiful jersey for the Greek side.
A bit shout out to hillis91, who is back in the seat of being our kit designer. He created a stunning piece, that should also be somewhat noticable in the peloton, and with great respect for the history of the team.
Updated, including our full team history from 2009 until now. This will be my 17th consequtive season playing the game.
Still miss a couple of positions in the PT top 10. 2nd, 6th and 8th. Perhaps that should be a new goal for me, now that I have tried winning both PT and PCT.
Congrats on an amazing season, I always enjoy following your team as a fixture in the game and it will be fun to go head to head again in the PT. I'm blown away by the level of talent coming from such a small country in comparison to others, but excited for your young core and appreciate what you're able to do with a national focus team
Congrats on an amazing season, I always enjoy following your team as a fixture in the game and it will be fun to go head to head again in the PT. I'm blown away by the level of talent coming from such a small country in comparison to others, but excited for your young core and appreciate what you're able to do with a national focus team
The new Jersey design looks great!
Thanks a lot mate, and likewise! Yeah it seems like the depth of talents is going up, the quality isn't really moving though. Farantakis was added to cover for Tzortzakis, but now that Vlatos is also "gone" and Farantakis is coming of age, I really could use atleast one new rider with a stat combination that doesn't require 5mio worth of training to become a realistic top 5-10 rider
Congrats on the PCT title, in spite of your own expectations and doubts I'm very curious how you'll deal with the challenge of making it in PT with the continued focus on Greece once more, I'll definitely have my fingers crossed for you!
We are back in the Pro Tour, and as always we have some riders looking for a new home. Surprisingly a couple of greek/cypriot riders may also be looking elsewhere this time around, depending on how things are going.
Will be interesting to see where you get your training money now, with all of the old guard long gone. I have no doubt you have enough tricks up your sleeve, plus a good budget from your amazing PCT performance.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Will be interesting to see where you get your training money now, with all of the old guard long gone. I have no doubt you have enough tricks up your sleeve, plus a good budget from your amazing PCT performance.
I'm not necessarily planning on training riders this season. It is a bit too expensive to be going up and down, so it might be a better strategy to get some riders that can keep us up, and postpone the training for next season - or accept minor trainings this season.
I have a lot of riders that is training eligeble this season, but Karatsivis isn't ready until 2027, where I need money for the next generation of training assets. And Once he is ready I am looking to be more focused on training specific targets into winners, and then accept that others are more domestiques than sub top riders
ON THAT NOTE:
New Graphics online! Aswell as a history of greek riders training history within the team...
Edited by SotD on 02-08-2025 19:41
Yes, if i had 20+mil for training i might also have a regional focus capable of good things in the PCT.
Some say the Greek financial crisis was caused by the Euro, or by reckless politicians. I say it was SotD funneling all of the cash into doping.
But boy did it work! And still one of the best teams to follow and cheer for.
Very interesting training overview. Shows what a massive investment in Greek cycling you did! Curious to see how strong Karatsivis will be when all things are done
Availability list is about what I expected, I was looking forward to seeing how close to staying up an all Greek team could get, but your plan of getting a few more established PT riders in until they can keep you up probably makes more sense long term, even if you do need to slow the development down a season to do so.
I think your roster looks pretty similar to mine last year - no winners, but even more solid depth than I had, and even in all departments. Some smart moves, which I don't doubt you will do, and you should be able to stay up rather easily.
Looking forward to finally racing against you in the same division, even though I'm afraid you'll just prove us that Greek cycling is vastly superior to Swiss cycling in the MGverse
Surprised Duyvesteyn is available after you touted him being your great new puncheur leader. The SotD selling is started
Love the overview of the Greek project, such an incredible thing you've done already and continue to do, now back in the PT. Can't wait for what you're going to do in this transfers for the next step of the journey, and competing against you properly in the PT will be awesome for me, looking forward to it
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [PT] Xero Racing
ELCO - ABEA
Andreas
Tomohiro Kinoshita 
Kaspars Sergis 
Kamiel Bonneu 
Alexandros Agrotis 
Jay Vine 
Scott Davies 
Axel Zingle 
Marcos Altur 
Alexander Hajek 
Mats Wenzel 
Edgar Andres Pinzon 
Giro d'Italia
Rund um Köln
Tour of Qatar
Ras Tailteann, Stage 3
Tour de Suisse, Stage 1
Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha, Stage 2
World Championship RR
GP Moscow
Hanko Classic
Tour of Slovenia
GP Kigali
Tour of Ukraine
Tour of the Battenkill
Ronde van Nederland
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
GP Liechtenstein
Yikui Niu 
