what a joke of a race for us this was. Not even close to getting a satisfying result GC wise. Looking at stages and breakways we had the chance on so many occasions to go for the stage, but we did not even get close to a podium on a stage once. 21 race days on absolutely nothing
Stage win, 18th in GC, 2nd in Mountain jersey 2nd in youth jersey (which he wore all race long if I'm not mistaking), what a GT debut for Oomen. Together with Gaviria who maybe was the most consistent sprinter (even without a stage win), I think we make the wildcard feel deserved.
Thanks for the great reporting, Roturn & cogratulations to all the people who feel happy after this race
No changes in the GC for us and thus a result we have to be happy about. Without Phinney it was always going to be a weak race points wise, but we leave with good and steady racing from Nesset and Iturria, and the second place for Mads P on a stage earlier om. Decent that with the kind of team I sent here. Nesset is doing all the GTs this season, so would be awesome if he can manager top 20 in all of them. He will at least have his hands free in the next one as well.
Congrats to Croatia on the win. Impressive stuff by Spilak!
Couldn't top it off with a win but our Giro has been a success nonetheless: Gesink 100% performed the way he should have if not better and besides him, Teuns has given us a fantastic stage win, with Latour, Sequera, Carpenter etc. all acting like perfect domestiques.
Huge congratulations once again to Croatia and massive thanks to roturn for doing such a great reporting job
YES! It feels so good to be on top despite the number of 2nd places we took in this race. At a moment I thought he'd Jesleyh all the way, but at the end of the day he delivered perfectly! Thank you for all the congratulations.
Very interestingly it turned out that John-Lee Augustyn was the most important dom beneath Daniel Jaramillo, which is the very good sign. Our last addition turned out to be a very good one so far.
I kinda feel sorry for cio, but then again he took a shitload of points from this. Still would argue that Herklotz could've taken more points for himself by winning Le Tour and possibly Liechtenstein, but we had that conversation for too long also he massively benefitted from a very well performing team and takes some big points from domestiques, points, teams and stages. I guess at the end Puma has taken the most points from this race, and with Demare at Le Tour it may turn out to be a good decision.
I'm very happy for Robert Gesink and especially matt. He turned around a very critical point in the offseason, where he almost got mad. Actually, Spilak could've well ended up winning this Giro for Generali. Now he is more and more looking like a top10 team. I take my hat of for what you've composed matt!
Also congrats to all the other happy guys, like Gazelle and Lierse. I think we clearly saw the best GT AI in years, looking at how breakaways turned out to work and the GC battle was running. No useless sit ups, realistic battles similar to how GT racing is done irl.
Only downside was the sprint AI, but people may finally start to see the importance of sprint trains for next year. Of course Swift should've scored better, but then again Viviani can't win shit without Richeze or Mörkov irl. Swift needs that Richeze or Mörkov as well it seems. Still 1-2 breakaway survivals on flat stages were a little bit strange.
Big day for Slovenian MG cycling, Spilak wins the Giro as a Slovenian in a Slovenian team.
First things first: massive and genuine congratulations to Croatia!
It's been an amazing battle against you.
An eternal rival on the road, a fierce fighter in the discussion threads, but surely a manager I get along very well during the off-season, and that's where the fun in this game ultimately lies.
You'll surely have some big decisions to make going into 2021, and I wish you all the best.
While there are some regrets for us over the course of the three weeks in Italy, Silvio caps off an immense race regardless with stage win #4 today!
The moment I took the first look at this route when it was released, I dreamed of big results in the two short TTs to stun the world in his supposedly weakest stage racing discipline, and he delivered two wins.
This will surely impact where to send him in the future and hopefully gives the opposition some additional headaches going forward.
Beyond these two victories, Herklotz also won two stages in week 1 to take his total to 10 GT stage wins in two appearances, and taking home FIVE classification jerseys!
On that topic, it was a stunning and colorful ride from start to finish by him, spending 21 days in white and 20 days in ciclamino besides his two stints in the maglia rosa.
Of course, it's very easy to point out where we lost this Giro.
The first true mountain test on stage 13 produced the only real gap on the road stages between Spilak and Herklotz, thanks to an early attack that Silvio couldn't make stick, and that gap turned out to be bigger than the final time difference in Verona.
Even with that setback though, we had plenty of opportunities to gain back time through bonus seconds, but we decided against making these available for Herklotz by giving too much leeway to most of the breaks.
Of course, Herklotz didn't win all the sprints for the minor places against Spilak, but reversing just a couple of very close 1-2s, 2-3s and 3-4s between them in our favor, plus that one group sprint Herklotz won that could've been a stage win and net us 20 seconds, it's easy to calculate how we could've overcome these 40 seconds.
As I said before, the team leaves Italy with very little regret though and has its eyes set on next year already, where we will definitely return stronger to find GT win number 2 for Silvio!
On the topic of team work, obviously it's easy to point fingers at our support squad for not making the race hard enough, but overall I am very proud of the team as a whole protecting Herklotz to the best of their abilities even if they didn't always suffice, and 24th and 26th by Vasyliv and Arndt are decent domestique results in the end for a combined 100+ points.
That are still the 5th and 7th best domestique results, and they had to empty their tanks more often than most.
Beyond these two, I was certainly impressed by the efforts of riders like Mager, Stüssi and Hadi, especially on days they weren't supposed to be among the best and outperformed the two aforementioned superdomestiques.
Mager and Hadi even had good stage results in the Top 10 that I could not expect of them, and Stüssi finishes 46th overall among good riders, while only maxing out next offseason.
Wackermann did a great job protecting Herklotz going into the flat sprints and did take a point too IIRC, and Conor Dunne was an excellent domestique throughout the race.
The teams classification win certainly a well deserved reward for these efforts.
I quickly calculated the fight Herklotz vs. Spilak in this race, for anyone interested (obviously prone to errors):
Herklotz
Spilak
406
Week 1
153
207
Week 2
223
327
Week 3
299
490
Final GC
549
1430
Total
1224
The insane first week with three stage wins put him far ahead, week 2 with the change of guard at the top of the GC was a very close one, and most impressively, despite Spilak being in rosa for the entirety of week 3, Herklotz actually outscored him there too.
Winning both ciclamino and white as well as the teams classification reduced the 125 point loss for 2nd vs 1st in GC by more than half, and that means Herklotz indeed is the best scoring rider of the Giro, as Croatia alluded to already.
And without doing any further calculations for the rest of Puma here, it looks very likely that we even outscored our own dominating Vuelta total from last season of 1643 points, which already was the highest team scoring in one single GT of 2019. And that's with two stage wins less, and not winning the race.
Turning our focus to the other teams here, I would like to start by congratulating Generali for Gesink's very consistent performance that saw him take a very well-deserved podium spot here against better climbers.
Being just 3 minutes from a GT winner with 82mo is very respectable, and it's great to see the team you assembled for your first season in the ProTour, the first of many that is!
The second most outstanding performance of the Giro has to go to our two wildcard teams Lierse and Valio!
Stage wins for both of them, with both Gaviria and Manninen stunning very strong sprint opposition multipe times, and Oomen showing a first glimpse of his very promising future in the mountain stage breaks to nearly take a jersey home as well. Congratulations to both of you, you definitely deserved your spot in the race!
Andy in 4th overall is probably what SN should've expected, too bad he couldn't make a big impact on a few stages.
Hirt in 5th for Moser should see them on a great path towards another overall title, that's massive points for a pretty cheap rider.
Yates in 6th certainly a bright spot for Farfetch, he was the recurring "look at muh secondary stats" overperformer this time around.
On the other hand, Alarcon in 7th cannot satisfy Repsol, but he is and has always been a gamble.
Following him, Olivier and Haig take expected lower Top 10 places that will help their teams fight for the PT title, and the Gazelle duo following certainly does the same for them! With Madrazo still to race, they are more than just a dark horse now.
Finally, and certainly most importantly, thank you once again roturn for another impeccably reported GT from you, something we have come to expect by now but should never ever take for granted!
Always consistent and reliable, always high quality, you're a big part of why the MG still works as well as it does. Thank you!
Edited by cio93 on 25-02-2020 13:21
First and foremost, congratulations to Croatia - glad his failure to get rid of Spilak worked out for him in the end - and thanks to roturn for taking on the mammoth task of reporting the Giro!
Overall I guess I have to be pretty happy with our race, though I am somewhat baffled by how utterly useless Min was all race long. Still, when that's your biggest complaint coming out of a GT then you know it went pretty well.
Kemboi winning a stage is definitely the highlight of our season so far, and hopefully it'll be the first GT stage win of many for him. I gambled on sending him here mainly thinking that Stage 1 would suit him with his high PRL, and while I got that totally wrong it still worked out nicely in the end - 5th in points is an impressive feat as well.
Once again, Yates showed up with a big overperformance in a GT when we needed it (his terrible ToA last season becomes even more baffling though). I'd hoped he could potentially compete for a top 10, with 8th being the best case scenario. So 6th ahead of Alarcon is quite remarkable, and once again reminds me I really need to train him - wonder how he'd perform with 79MO, 78HIL next season?
Finally, we'll have to see the rankings update to be sure, but this feels like a significant step for us in the relegation fight. This was our weakest GT squad of the season, in a pretty strong field. If Cattaneo can take a top 10 in the Vuelta and Monsalve the same in the Tour (if not a top 5, if the field is as weak as I expect), and Van der Sande and Lander can perform on a similar level to Kemboi here, then we might be able to finally snap out of our yo-yoing between PT and PCT. I may be a tad too optimistic there though
Thank you a lot for your reports, roturn. I've enjoyed them from start to finish, and the consistency has been great too
Big congratulations to those who had a great Giro here. Especially to Croatia for that overall win, big moment
Croatia14 wrote:
Only downside was the sprint AI, but people may finally start to see the importance of sprint trains for next year. Of course Swift should've scored better, but then again Viviani can't win shit without Richeze or Mörkov irl. Swift needs that Richeze or Mörkov as well it seems. Still 1-2 breakaway survivals on flat stages were a little bit strange.
Not sure I buy that, as Scully (before he OTLed) should be more than good enough, especially with Dakteris in front of him, and also especially in such a field. But I tend to agree with bbl's comment in a different race thread, that it seems somewhat impossible to get a leadout right, as there will "always" be riders coming from behind, enjoying the slipstream for a longer time compared to a main sprinter after he has gotten the leadout.
That brings me over to our Giro, which to be honest, was a huge disappointment due to Swift's poor sprints. Lunke tried several times for breakaways in the mountain, which was what I hoped for, and not being strong enough to walk away with a result is a fair thing. Good to see him try. And then there's the final TT, where him and Tvetcov did brilliant. Cool to finish in such a way
Thanks for the great coverage of this first GT of the year, roturn. Always a big task and you managed it as good as always, too!
Haig with a good final TT, but the course was too short to make a significant move in the GC. 9th is about right for him, I guess. He looked on track for a better result earlier in the race, but apparently couldn't hang on with the the best in the final week. Obviously more training is needed, if we want Haig to achieve a Top-5 in a GT at some point. Which is an obvious target!
Anyway, his solid results, including a few points scoring stage results, in addition to Howard's few points and Dion Smith taking a stage, I guess we can be satisfied with this Morton-less grand tour result. Maybe we should have been more active in breakaways though. With no real GC favorite in the team, I was hoping for more riders than only Smith to try their luck with early moves.
Shame we dropped from 7th and 8th to 10th and 11th in the last two stages, but overall still an amazing Giro for Gazelle.
Kruijswijk and Formolo both overperformed in many stages and carried the team to a nice haul of points for a non-Madrazo GT. The era of Ginanni is now officially over though.
Congrats Croatia! That was a cool fight for the win between Spilak and Herklotz.
And huge thanks to roturn for the great reporting. Enjoyable race to follow.
Congrats Croatia. Well deserved win here for Spilak even though the main difference only came from one single stage! It was obviously enough against Herklotz, who still might have been the best scorer, which I still need to figure out.
On a general note I was mainly happy with the GC fight here as it was pretty realistic in terms of how GTs are ridden today.
That said, some extreme cases clearly such as Kruisjwijk being the only one not getting tired after the breaks despite being the weakest climber of those, that temporarily climbed some spots. It was still quite nice to see even though frustrating in the time, he was ahead of my own rider.
Some negative points clearly was the GC ridden hill stages, where I was hoping to see e.g. Ginanni more successful. Teuns has shown though, that it was possible but with most teams not having a strong puncheur and focussing on GC riders, it might have been the reason. Different to couple years ago where Van Garderen, Gesink, Ponzi, Bakelants? and co gained big time on GC riders on those hill stages.
Other negative point clearly the sprints. In especially Aker was hit hard here as Scully/Oss should have been a strong train for the early stages until they were OTL. Still didn`t work and neither did the trains of Bennelong or Aegon.
Once more the sprinters of the second row were lucky and the main scorers. Kemboi the most successful clearly as PT sprinter while Manninen and Gaviria won`t score despite a successful race. Surely not easy to watch, even more when being impacted by it as well.
Coming to my own team, Olivier did pretty decent. It took until the last 3 days for him to shine. But decent backup stats clearly helped there and after being hit hard by teh breakaway climbers in the first 2 weeks, it was the best reaction. 7th is about where I hoped to land. Clearly had hoped to beat Yates e.g. but also had expected to land behind Quintana/Henao. So quite in expectations.
Dekker was a good attacker even though often missed a bit for stage results then different to Oomen/Majka/Smith/Kruijswijk etc. So despite good small points here and there a bit unfortunate to not finish higher on a stage.
Zardini was pretty awesome in the first week with small GC points. He later became a pure support rider then and chased a lot which made it impossible for him to attack on stages suited. But he fully did his job nicely.
Hugenhaben was kind of anonymous except for one stage. Same for Koep. So a bit under expectations for them. In especially when comparing Koep`s performances in general with Stüssi e.g., who has better backups but not that much of a difference main stat wise, but clearly is like 2 times better and regular scorer.
Sprinter wise as said above, clearly a disappointing race for Vesely and hopefully later with more success again.
First of all thanks roturn for reporting anothet Grand Tour amazing work!
In the first half of the Giro we didn't do much although we had a few top-10 places with Serebriakov (4x). But from stage 12 onwards the team really got into the race with Kolesnikov in the Break of the Day and winning the stage, another amazing victory from my favourite rider ever! After that victory team spirit went up and every report was a lot of fun to read;
Stage 13 Novikov and Mamykin in the BotD
Stage 14 Mamykin and Kolesnikov in the BotD (Kolesnikov finishing 3rd)
Stage 16 Kolesnikov in the BotD
Stage 17 Mamykin, Novikov and Kolesnikov in the BotD (Novikov finishing 3rd)
Stage 18 Malori in the BotD (Malori finishing 2nd)
Stage 19 Novikov in the BotD
Stage 20 Rybalkin in the BotD
We ended up with 5 riders in the top-50 of the General Rankings (Kolesnikov 21st). Hopefully the Tour de France will be as much fun as the Giro since our line-up is quite similar. But first Kritskiy has to top-3 the Vuelta
I kind of skim read the Giro in February and didn't see every stage as I was a little busy for it, so gave it a proper read. First off, amazing work roturn, as usual your reports are great and GTs are tough!
Second off, JAMALIDIN NOVARDIANTO! You beautiful man, you WON A GT STAGE! How did I miss this? Going to have to moderate myself here, don't want another Roubaix Page 33...
Spoiler
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
