Allthough I really thought I will finish the intro this morning, and start actually playing the thing this evening, thanks to my dear university professors that just isn't possible. I'll continue the story when I return from classes later in the afternoon.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Classics is their game, and they will also be there to make the job difficult for me. With Cadel Evans growing older and older, new leaders were needed at Silence. Although he won both national championships, road and ITT, he didn't manage more than the 3rd place in Tour de Suisse, and a handful of top 10s in Giro and TdF. But to be honest, I guess I'm slightly exaggerating if we consider that TdS was really, really difficult. The new leader of the team is well known to all. Reigning world champion Tom Boonen, 2009. TdF green jersey winner, also the winner of such races as Gent - Wevelgem, Milano - San Remo, Paris Tour, etc. He is still at top of his game, and we can expect a lot from him this season. Then there is Thomas Dekker, last years winner of Criterium International and Sachsen Tour, runner up in the Eneco Tour of Benelux, podium finisher at Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco and Tour of California. Philippe Gilbert, winner of 3 stages in Giro d'Italia, Tom Criel, addition to the Northern Classcis squad from Verandas Willems.
If they build up their form for March and April, they will make our job very difficult.
Team Milram
I really wanted to sign Peter Velits for this season. He has evolved into a great one day rider and he would fill in the gap that was left by Kirchen's departure, but they extended his contract just before the 1st of July. Bummer.. The fact is that at a team like Milram he can't really do anything because he will have no support, count out Di Luca because he signed as Absolute Leader as well to replace a vacant spot that was left with Stefan Schumacher's departure. Linus Gerdemann is also great. He won 3 stages at the Vuelta, 2 of which were TTs, and if it weren't for the lack of liutenants in the team he could again mount a serious challenge at one of the grand tours. Andre Greipel switched teams when I brought in Heinrich Haussler. I just couldn't have managed providing all 3 of them with adequate team support, so he was free to go, but he failed to win anything last 2 years. Too bad for him. Many fighters and decent sprinters, this team would probably pwn if they were continental, but in the Pro Tour this season, I don't see them as a big player.
Vacansoleil
Vacansoleil kicked arses last season in the continental tour. Borut Bozic, Bobby Traksel, Lieuwe Westra, Marco Marcato and Matteo Carrara were rampaging and scored a total of 22 victories. Matteo Carrara switched to Lampre, but in came some very good riders including Fabian Wegmann and Lars Boom. Boom, the former World ITT champion, has had a good last season with Rabobank winning stages in Giro and Tour de Suisse. Sebastian Langeveld will be the leader for the cobbles and he will have a good chance if we have in mind that he practicaly has the whole team to work for him. With no real stars in their team, Vacansoleil will probably have a shot at scoring some stage victories, a handfull of sprints here and there, Boom will definitely win some TTs, probably more than enough to ensure a Pro Tour spot next season.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Just a note before the actual story: if you are interrested in a specific rider, where he rides now and what are his stats, just make a request and I will deliver the info. When I look at the time I've spent to present the Pro Tour teams, going through all the continental teams would be really painful and boring.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Make way for the train of destruction!
Season has just begun. It's 1st of January 2012., and after telling the stories from their vacations, and summing up the last season's glory, the riders have all arrived at the team hedquarters.
Our main sponsor has already made big demands: We want you to win like you've never won before! The season objectives have somewhat changed from the last season. Classica San Sebastian is no longer our main goal, it has now changed to Tour of Poland. Not too bad if you ask me, but we will try to repeat Monfort's success in Spain for the second year running. Nonetheless, it will be tough. Our other two main goals for this year will be winning Paris - Roubaix and securin the green jersey at the Tour de France.
The hell of the north is always tricky, and it certainly won't be easy to win it again. I have total faith in my boys who wan all major cobbled classics last year, and I'll provide them with everything they need in order to shine once again. Last year's edition of Paris-Roubaix was won by Martijn Maaskant, but as always, the rider that gets there in best shape and form will be our leader, all men will work together, for it is the teamwork and sharing of responsibilities that makes our team so strong.
Tour de France green jersey will once again be the job of Mark Cavendish. He is at this moment the best grand tour sprinter in the world, and he will prove that once more. He will again work with the best lead-out man out there, Mark Renshaw, with whom he has worked for years and brought nothing but success to the team, and made us really proud to be his colleagues and friends.
As for the other season goals, I will update you when somethin interresting comes up. At the moment there are some offers that include Paris-Nice and Vattenfall Cyclassics, but I'd rather focus on the grand tour proposals. Another Giro victory would make for a really interresting goal, and I'd also like some challenge in the Ardennes.
At the start of the season, my Aussie crew will try to win at least one of the national championships. Adam Hansen seems more closer than ever to mounting up a serious bid to become the ITT champion of Australia. If that doesn't work, he will have a chance to do something at the road race, but I'm kind of torn between choosing him or Mark Renshaw to be the leader for the race. If I had stronger team mates for him, Renshaw would definitely be numero uno, but in reality, Hansen has the strength to make a solo escape like he did in the last year's Vuelta so he is currently my choice for the leadership. We'll se how he performs in the time trial.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
I love the story already even tho you haven't posted any races yet. What makes it so appealing is how organized and how far in the future you are. Good luck This season and I'm looking forward to reading Team Columbia have World Domination.
P.S
Has anyone won The Giro, TDF, Vuelta with One rider in the game and in Real Life? Thank you ahead of time.
That's about it for the introductory part, tomorrow begins the real deal. Australian championships and Tour down Under. Have a good night and thanks for the support!
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Kloden and Armstrong are now way too old, although I'm not sure when they'll retire. Lance is still at Astana, Kloden switched to Thuringer Energie at the end of the last season.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Australian Championship (ITT)
Buningyong - Buningyong, 40.8km
Adam Hansen has built up his form unexpectedly well before this race, and will surely be there to make it hard for Mick Rogers, Cadel Evans and Zak Dempster, last year's runner up.
After the two year domination of Rogers, Cadel Evans won the race last year, but as he's grown older, his timetrialing ability has decreased significantly. It's the start of the season and we can expect anything.
Who will win it this year?
I will definitely be taking screenshots during the race, because my game has this uncontrollable urge to crash 80% of the time.
I'll try to recreate with words what happened at the course, because there is only one screenshot of the actual race.
First came some Drapac Porsche riders, then a bunch of Garmin riders, nothing special from them, as expected.
Mark Renshaw was the first Columbia rider on road this season, but his aim wasn't really to score a good result, but to test his legs before the road race. He finished 27th, 2'36" behind the eventual winner.
Then came the big shots:
Michael Rogers, Cadel Evans, Adam Hansen, Brett Lancaster and Zak Dempster, in that order, one after another.
Hansen tried to keep his distance behind Cadel at 1.5 km, and save some energy for the finish, but as Rogers started gaining time on Evans, Hansen was instructed to go full gas and try to keep the 3km distance from Rogers.
It was a tough task. Evans was losing more and more time as the race went on, and Rogers seemed to be on top of everything, now with over 2 km ahead of Evans, but Hansen was still at 3km. It was going to be tight.
Adam saved just enough energy to go through the last downhill section in full gas.
And he won it by 1 second over Michael Rogers!
Great job by Hansen. For a moment I thought that Rogers was really way stronger then the rest, but Hansen proved me wrong. A marvelous day for Adam, a marvelous start for the team.
So there we go, 1 down, 103 wins to go!
Here is the other top 12 riders today.
I'm really sad that the start of the story wasn't covered by more screenshots, I'll make sure not to repeat that mistake in the future.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
On the wings of the first success, sponsors came knocking at our doors. As the money is no issue for me this season, nor was it in any other, my pick of sponsors will be based primarily on their race of choice.
That's why we've signed contracts with AMD and Kellogg's Food.
AMD will reward my team with 90.000 Euros if we win Giro di Lombardia. R.R. will be our man for that job, just like in the season of 2011. After the difficult spring, he will be able to rest throughout the summer and prepare for the worlds and the season finale. I'm confident that he won't let us down. If there happens to a problem concerning him, we've got Kolobnev and Albasini to make sure our sponsors are happy.
Milano - Sanremo is the race of choice for the Kellogg's Food. With the last year's success of Mark Cavendish, my choice for this year will be Heinrich Haussler. He was already a leader for MSR in 2010. but couldn't keep up with the likes of Boonen, Gilbert and Napolitano on the last small climb and finished 8th. That was totally my fault. All the team mates were used up with 40km to go and I didn't put much attention on their training and physical condition before the race. Last year was much better for Haussler, when he finished 9th even though he was the lead-out man for Mark Cavendish. With serious preparation, I'm sure I can count on him to do good this year, not just in the MSR but in all the sprint classics.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
With Hansen in good form, we have decided after a team meeting that he is to be named the leader for the road race. With Evans and Rogers all alone, Matthew Lloyd and his Garmin squad will be the main favourite for today. Hansen will try his luck with a jump from the pack in the closing kilometers of the race, and if all fails, Renshaw will try to sprint for something.
Race started peacefully, with the first attack at the end of the first lap. After a few attempts to bridge the gap to the original breakaway, 10 man group was formed at the front with around 4 minutes advantage over the pack.
Some of the riders in the break included Davis, O'Grady, Sutherland and Bates, they were the last who switched groups with around 90km to go.
Kilometers passed, Garmin and Drapac did almost nothing in order to reel in the breakaway, so the advantage eventually rose up to 5'20". The pack was far, far away..
In the front, Sutherland was having a blast, making a gap to the rest of the front group every time they started climbing.
Renshaw tried to do some of the work at the front of the pack, but he couldn't have done it himself, so Hansen desperately tried to attack with 30km to go. Breakaway had around 4 minutes advantage at that moment.
Immediately, Docker tried to jump on his wheel and succeeded.
In the front, O'Grady and Sutherland were setting the pace noone else could follow.
When Hansen attacked, Evans, Lloyd and Rogers finally started doing some work but it was obvious that nothing can be gain from that. It was down to 2 people in the front: Rory Sutherland and Stuart O'Grady. Sutherland, knowing that he would have probably lost the sprint, tried to make the final effort on the last climb to leave O'Grady behind him and he did it.
Rory Sutherland is the new Australian road race champion!
Stuart O'Grady will have to settle for second.
Allan Davis won the sprint from the second breakaway group to round up the podium.
And finally, Hansen sprinted with Trent Lowe for 13th place.
If Hansen were in the breakaway and not in the favourites group, we might have celebrated another good result today. But nonetheless, one natinal champion more in the squad is more than we expected anyway.
Great job by Hansen in the NC!
Edited by Deda on 24-10-2009 14:08
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
And so we have two new National Champions of Australia, after Evans dominated and won both races last year.
One of them is our own, Adam Hansen, a hardworking team mate who rarely gets to taste the fruits of victory. This time he deserved it 100%!
Australian Individual Time Trial Champion for 2012.:
Australian Elite Road Race Champion for 2012.:
Next up: Tour Down Under!
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Where does Klöden and Armstrong ride?
