I love Anderberg and on one hand seeing him trained to 80 cobble makes me warm and fuzzy instead. On the other hand it makes me want to punch a wall that I have to face him for the next half decade.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
SotD: Thank you! Agree Anderberg's sprint will hamper him. On the other hand, I'd say that the sprint stats in cobble classics isn't as important as in any random flat race without cobbles. Even Anderberg won a couple of group sprints last season, which makes me hopeful for the future as well, as we'll have to train his cobble stat before maybe doing minor work on his sprint stat, I think.
Abhi: You could be correct there, I guess Didn't expect to find money for Amezawa's training early in the transfer season, but when it became clear it was a possibility, that was the big aim for the remainder of it.
jandal7: We'll meet next season! Or the year after. I've got no doubts you're soon to promote with a brilliant core and even PT ready leaders, to easily stay up and fight for a top 10 in your first year. Just got to get to PT first!
alexkr00: Yeah, Conti was a nice signing, I thought. Not sure how many points he can take, but he still adds valuable depth and domestique work for us. Guess it could be the same story come next year's renewals as you had with him this renewals
bbl: Haha, guess you'll have the upper hand, though, assuming some heavy lifting by Per in this "training season". Luckily we've got Wisniowski to challenge for this year!
Anderberg was an early target of mine, but considering his unique abilities (good riders on bothe TT and cobbles din't grow on trees) I understand why you choose to keep him. And it may pay off in the end. Good luck
ivaneurope: Thank you! Yeah, as the early days of transfer season progressed, it was clear that we would rather keep Anderberg and not sell/trade him. Really hope he can score a good result here and there this season, and then take another step next year.
redordead: Don't think I've ever trained for this much money before! Really hope it pays off, if not now, then for a long term investment in the team. I'm also very happy to have Roman on board, as he fits the type of climbers we were looking for this off season, trying to have a few that can attack and race aggressive in stage races. Though, we're not having any real depth just yet, but it was a start to build on. I'm sure Lammertink and Nareklishvili will help you score points, especially with the TTT setup you've invested in this transfer season! Fingers crossed they'll both play a key role there for you.
The face of the team has considerably changed with all that TT prowess gone - but I guess that training will be worth it all on the longer term
As you know, I'd have loved to get Amezawa, just such a cool rider - even cooler now. And Anderberg's future on the team should be secured by now, great to see you bring him to the next level
The 2023 season has come to an end, and what a season it has been for Aker - MOT. After a steady start to the season, arguably with some minor disappointments in the early Monuments, absolutely everything clicked starting from the Grand Tours, and we never really stopped.
The standings speaks by itself. Aker - MOT are the 2023 Pro Tour champions, ending the season 337 points ahead of second place finisher EA Vesuvio and 357 points ahead of third place Evonik - ELKO.
The team started kind of slow points wise, sitting 13th after February, but then jumping straight up to 2nd place after March, when the cobbles season started. It was a superb start on the cobbles, with the duo Anderberg and Wisniowski bringing us amazing results, but the team depth was also there, netting us loads of points.
Then April came, where we continued to score decent in the classics, and had a very nice Giro led by Amezawa, which saw us climb to 1st place in the standings come May. We defended through May, but went down to 2nd place after July, with Evonik - ELKO standing out as our "rivals" to the title. Then it all changed in August, where both Polar and EA Vesuvio climbed above both us and Evonik, and it looked like a four way battle for a short period. Luckily for us, we struck back and did very well towards the end, led by Amezawa in the mountainous hilly races, but also by our classics squad and Wisniowski, crowning us champions after the final race of the season Giro di Lombardia.
Points scoreres
1
4
Silvio Herklotz
GER
Team Puma - SAP
2362
2
1
Taylor Phinney
USA
MOL Cycling Team
2277
3
2
Lukasz Wisniowski
POL
Aker - MOT
2153
48
46
Soren Kragh Andersen
DEN
Aker - MOT
728
49
44
Darshana Prasad
SRI
Aker - MOT
722
52
63
Takeaki Amezawa
JPN
Aker - MOT
672
53
50
Hampus Anderberg
SWD
Aker - MOT
664
58
73
Matej Mohoric
SLO
Aker - MOT
629
97
98
Georg Preidler
AUT
Aker - MOT
327
133
135
Marc Potts
IRL
Aker - MOT
235
153
154
Connor Swift
GBR
Aker - MOT
206
207
202
Tim Ariesen
NED
Aker - MOT
141
250
249
Anders Halland Johannessen
NOR
Aker - MOT
121
253
257
Christophe Laporte
FRA
Aker - MOT
118
263
253
Enzo Wouters
BEL
Aker - MOT
114
305
322
Joel Suter
SWI
Aker - MOT
99
309
293
Jingbiao Zhao
CHN
Aker - MOT
98
314
311
Davide Gabburo
ITA
Aker - MOT
97
319
300
Aleksandar Roman
SER
Aker - MOT
96
352
331
Aaron Van Poucke
BEL
Aker - MOT
87
399
404
Valerio Conti
ITA
Aker - MOT
73
428
412
Magnus Bak Klaris
DEN
Aker - MOT
65
451
467
Airidas Videika
LTU
Aker - MOT
57
461
453
Alexander Kamp
DEN
Aker - MOT
54
479
471
Edison Bravo
CHL
Aker - MOT
45
490
492
Enkhtaivan Bolor-Erdene
MGL
Aker - MOT
35
496
497
Fredrik Dversnes
NOR
Aker - MOT
28
We have mentioned several of our riders specifically in the ranking update thread, but here we go again.
Wisniowski was our clear main man, and what a leader he was this season. He delivered something close to perfection on the cobbles, really only missing out in the two cobbles monuments, De Ronde and Roubaix. Elsewhere, he was nearly perfect, which also shows with his points. He even fought for the individual PT title to the very end, but struggling to make a difference on the cobbles in both the Chrono d'Arenberg and ToNE, it wasn't meant to be.
Anderberg, Amezawa and Kragh also did great as our co-leaders. The first two were trained for such a role before this season, and they definitely delivered, all of them landing more than 650 points. Then we also had our great X factor and sensational surprise, Prasad. He made our Vuelta all on his own, getting a couple of stage wins and even the points jersey, and a massive unexpected points haul. Before the season started, we expected him to land us 150-250 points. He tripled that, which obviously was a huge factor for our title win.
Elsewhere, Mohoric had a slightly disappointing and somewhat anonymous season, while Preidler did Preidler things, trying to be aggressive and ride in lots of breakaways. Then Potts, Swift, Ariesen and Laporte scored well as our depth options for the cobbles and classics, while it was also nice to see the talented Norwegian Halland Johannessen bring in more than 100 points.
With such a season, 2024 can only be difficult compared to 2023, but whatever happens from here and what team management decides to do this upcoming season, we're super grateful to have been given a shot at the Pro Tour title, and even running away with it. Thank you to all fellow managers who have made this season another enjoyable one to be part of this community. We're looking forward to the next one!
Congrats mate, brilliant title and love to see you win the title. Enjoyed the fight between our teams and especially all those messages between us in the final months of the season a lot!
Prasad and Kragh Andersen were the two biggest overperformers in PT. Add in all the other quality riders and it's not hard to see how you won. The team is far from old so I'm interested to see you try to repeat if that's what you choose to do
knockout: Thank you, and the same goes from my point of view!
Laurens147: Thank you!
UU: Balkans was brilliant to follow and read, as day by day it just got better and better for Amezawa and us. A sensational performance that really left no doubt, I guess one could say.
redordead: Very much agree on Prasad. Kragh I'm not so sure about, though, at least pre season 600-900 points were where I hoped he could land, very much depending on flat classics, and if he could score big results there. In the end, his prologue/epilogue game was brilliant, going undefeated through the whole season there, which in total gave a lot of points, while for the flat classics, I hope we can see slightly more from him next year. After all he had to share leadership with Wisniowski a couple of times, and the latter seemed to get the favourable results when they tried their luck attacking.
Regarding transfers and how to build from here, I'm honestly not sure. Doubt I'll be happy to just sit tight, which surely, and hopefully, will make things interesting this year too
Thank you for your kind word, Abhi! Definitely a bit of a fairy tale the last three seasons, and who knows, it might have been our only shot at the title, you never know what the future holds, which makes it great that we were able to make use of the chance we got.
Congratulations man! I don't think I've kept my admiration of the various iterations of your squad any secret over the years (I think firstly remarking on your awesome TT wheel when reporting ), whether falling in love with Galta reporting the 2018 TDF, your very cool PCT-winning squad, and now with guys like Amezawa, Johanessen, SKA, Potts, Swift, Laporte and of course Wisniowski who has gone from his Grieg days as everyone's favourite second-tier guy for his statline to a dominant beast with training. You deserve it so much for your years in the game and especially for this awesome group of riders you have put together. A little scared, but can't wait to race against you next season
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
I know I'm really late - but huge congrats to your amazing 2023 run, ending with the PT title!
I admit that I'd have loved to get Amezawa last offseason (as well as some of your former TT firepower), but you definitely made the right decision of training him, awesome job by him!
But obviously never as awesome as Wisniowski did - as you said, he could even have won the individual rankings with some even higher consistency! But he was stunning all year long, winning, and winning, and winning. Huge roster you have there - looking forward to see what you'll make out of it in the future!
