Fisher-Black to attend a Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation online course
The question is... was it an online or classical course? If it wasn't online, I fear a heavy sanction is the only solution here.
Thank you for having Finn on the team! If he manages to win a prologue somewhere in the coming years, you can be sure he'll point towards Ecuador and dedicate it to you and the turtles!
Looking back on our "semi-lazy, semi-flawed" preview, the projected numbers were clearly VERY over expectations and we have a lot to reevaluate in the upcoming offseason. Still, let's look and see what our riders were able to do.
Time Trial Specialists
Name
2024 Points
Projected Points
Atsushi Oka
76
134
Faycal Hamza
233
181
Julian Cardona
149
176
Similo Nyoni
105
175
Total
563
666
Our TTers accounted for more than 50% of our points this year with 563 of our 995. Some great results in La Tropicale, Olympia's Tour, Herald Sun and our TTT performances allowed this group to really challenge as one of the most cohesive and effective TT cohorts in CT. The differences in prediction points aren't super crucial when often times Hamza and Cardona would flip finishing results with their predictions although there was definitely a few races with over-predictions.
Sprinters
Name
2024 Points
Projected Points
German Nicolas Tivani
41
208
Luke Keough
67
312
Alex Frame
59
134
Total
167
654
We took a big gamble on Keough this offseason and we just missed the mark. Keough was still formidable in the prologues from time to time, but he just failed to stay in GC for many of the races we expected him to. Tivani's failures were a factor of planning - where his successes will generally not come from pure sprinters classics. Frame also found a number of prologue points, but couldn't contribute much more than that. Honestly not sure exactly what we were thinking, but it wasn't based in reality
Cobblers
Name
2024 Points
Projected Points
German Anibal Orue
40
154
Jimmy Muhindo
45
22
Chequan Richardson
34
89
Robert Bush
10
5
Leandro Marcos
4
1
Total
133
271
Orue and Richardson were supposed to be some of the best cobblers in the CT division and they... were? They simply lacked the impact at the end of races to bring home and strong results and weren't able to stick to any truly defining moves. Muhindo was a standout trade at the end of the year to be able to compete in classics where others were failing to score. Bush and Marcos provided meaningful support and were able to grab those final points along the way.
Domestiques
Name
2024 Points
Projected Points
Kashyapa Siriwardena
20
16
Ahmad Arissol
5
0
Bryan Raul Obando
2
0
Harold Martin Lopez
0
0
Joshua Kelly
36
60
Franklin Joel Revelo
50
0
Finn Fisher-Black
4
10
Magnus Sheffield
15
5
Total
132
91
The only area where we actually beat expectations... all because of a fantastic Revelo classic win at Nakhon Ratchasima Trophy. Still, Joshua Kelly played a strong role in TTTs, Siriwardena likewise and grabbing a few mountain points throughout the season as well. Sheffield represented well in cobble races and in TTTs as well. Then it was just a few small points throughout without Harold Martin Lopez the only rider to not impact our team's bottom line.
Official Total Prediction: 1722 points Final 2024 Point Total: 995 points
Well, we took a HUGE gamble in our team composition and it didn't quite pan out the way we expected. Deciding to completely ignore all uphill races proved simply too difficult and relying so much on our TT and cobble corps was not a strategy for success. We're still evaluating all our decisions and how to best move forward, but we hope to finally make a legitimate challenge for promotion in 2025.
---
Many thanks to those who inspired this post!
Not a great season overall but there's still enough to build on. Looking forward to the new strategy and hopefully the promotion challenge next season.
Well, definitely didn't hit your projections unfortunately, but it's good that you have the data and some evidence of what didn't work. That can take a long time to learn, and it seems like you're on top of it.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
