This month, we had the final 2/3 of the Ardennes Triple, part 2/3 of the GT trilogy, plus two more classics and a stage race for the PT teams.
Let's start with the Ardennes; for those who have missed it, I posted an "Ardennes Triple Ranking" in the LBL discussion thread - given that the Triple spans two months, I thought doing it here wouldn't be exactly the right place.
So, despite the reversed order in actual racing, we'll start with the scheduled 2nd race of the Triple - Flèche Wallonne. MAL won the race last year - and he won it this year as well, dominating the final ascent of the Mur de Huy. Blums in 19th and Battistella in 43rd place added some valuable depth points for Evonik, who took home a total of 282 points.
Lutsenko even bettered his Amstel result by one spot, finishing "best of the rest". Peters and Malecki got a Top 50 finish as well, making it 206 points for Gazelle. Gidich made it two Kazakhs on the podium, bringing King Power to 3rd place as well. Chaiyasombat's 25th place was the only other Top 50 finish, so that's 175 points for the Thai outfit.
And then the highlight of the trilogy, the monument, Liège - Bastogne - Liège, or "MAL's quest of the 5th monument" for Evonik. Well, once more, it wasn't to be; instead, three other riders finishing outside the Top 10 last year took the podium spots.
De Bie was really bad last year - it looks like his transfer wasn't the worst idea, as he can now add "Monument Winner" to his card! In an incredibly close sprint, the Lidl rider took the race and 280 points - add Barguil's 22nd place, plus Top 50 finishes by VdP and Bettiol to that, and the "Germans" end up with 341 points!
While De Bie was 17th last year, Skujins was even worse with 19th place - and this year he just sprints to 2nd place, almost taking the win! It's 205 points for him, with Mamykin, Foliforov and Trakhov all ending up between 40th and 50th as well - 255 points for Tinkoff.
Lutsenko rounded off his fantastic Ardennes Triple by the 3rd podium in as many races - 3rd place for him and Gazelle. Bernard and Peters added some Top 50 points as well, bringing the team's total to 210. Which is matched by Formolo and Rabobank, with a 4th place by their leader, plus 20th by Gerts. Evenepoel and Champoussin ended up 40th and 50th respectively, to make it 210 points as well.
But while these probably were the classics with the biggest focus due to their "status", the first classic of the month actually was the PTHC Cheshire Cycling Tour. Well, "Tour" actually just is the legacy name, as the race was reduced to a classic last year, and it still was in 2023.
While there was pretty weak PT participation, the highest division still took the race win - with Polanc once more demonstrating that cobbles skills actually don't matter that much in cobbled races. It's an insane season by the Slovenian, who added 170 further points to his tally. But not only that - Evonik also had Neilands in 13th, Van der Haar in 17th and Kurianov in 28th. Ansons added the final 2 points to make it 218 for Evonik!
Altur didn't have an outstanding year so far, but his 2nd place here definitely was a strong result. Basso with a good 22nd place and Moricz with a Top 50 added some points, making it 137 for the Hungarians. Which is the 3rd best value overall, with 2nd place going to PCT. The same holds for 4th, meaning that Gazelle only were the 5th best team - but #3 among the PT starters. Teunissen (4th), Malecki (19th) and Lander (37th) scored 105 points in total.
After two classics for the puncheurs and one for the cobblers, the sprinters also got their share, going to Germany for the PT classic Rund um Köln.
But Wisniowski thought that the cobblers didn't have enough races anyway and simply hijacked this "sprinter" race to get another fantastic win, perfectly showcasing his WC jersey! But that wasn't enough good news, as youngster Suter also cracked the Top 20, finishing 16th - clearly, someone's on a huge run lately... That's a total of 281 points for the "Attacking Vikings" - can't help but borrow that really well-fitting name...
With 2nd place being "stolen" by PCT rouleur Katrasnik, no other team even came within 100 points from the winners - Amaysim, getting a fantastic 3rd place with Culey, still came closest, scoring 175 points. Wohler and Christensen in 30th and 40th respectively also scored more than minimum points. Grieg narrowly missed out on the podium with their cobbler (Pedersen), with their Top TTer (Würtz) adding a Top 15 as well. 172 points for the other Norwegian team - they sure must love Germany...
Besides the Vuelta, the Tour of Lithuania was the month's sole stage race. And being one with a decisive TTT, the top scorers won't be surprising for anyone.
Who says TTT obviously says EA Vesuvio - and indeed, the Luxembourgers came out on top of the rankings. Despite not winning the TTT, nota bene! But 2nd place was easily enough to bring Wirtgen into position for the GC win, which he sealed with a 5th place on the final day. Furthermore, they had Van der Lijke in 20th place - definitely his most valuable result in this race, after getting only 18th and 8th in the two sprinter stages. With Munton taking 4th in the U25 standings, and the team finishing 2nd in the team classification, that's a total of 280 points for Vesuvio.
Seeing Gidich finishing 2nd clearly wasn't a surprise, either - actually he'd have won the race had he taken some bonus seconds on the final day, where he came 4th... King Power finished 3rd in the TTT, with all of Van Baarle, Herregodts, Mano and Fernandes capitalizing on this for getting some GC points as well. Herregodts and Hecht also finished 3rd and 6th in the U25 standings. All in all, that's 241 points for King Power - a pretty good yield as well.
The fight for 3rd wasn't that close GC-wise - but points-wise it was. In the end, Lutsenko's stage win plus 3rd place in GC were enough to give Gazelle the edge over Gaviria's Moser (172 vs. 168). Gazelle had 5 riders in the lower Top 100, with Leknessund and Aleotti also scoring in U25.
Just like last month, let's take a quick look at the points without the GT:
Team
w/o Vuelta
1
Evonik - ELKO
763
2
Gazelle
755
3
King Power
647
4
Aker - MOT
621
5
Lidl Cycling
618
6
EA Vesuvio
598
7
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
552
8
ISA - Hexacta
459
9
Minions
458
10
Rabobank
446
11
Moser - Sygic
429
12
MOL Cycling Team
365
13
ZARA - Irizar
358
14
Grieg-Maersk
337
15
Team Puma - SAP
335
16
Amaysim Australia.com
314
17
ELCO - ABEA
282
18
Binance
247
19
cycleYorkshire
229
20
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
170
21
Polar
162
22
Cedevita
149
Evonik are on top after some solid Ardennes racing - and obviously some more Polanc magic. Gazelle - with less Cheshire but more Lithuania points - are pretty close, though. These two were the only teams racing both PTHC races, so that 1-2 could be kind of expected. The Pumas being the strongest team not racing in PTHC this month, by the way...
But who needs PTHC anyway when you can dominate a GT? It looks like cio didn't just use his negotiation skills during the offseason, but also during the Vuelta - how could it be explainable that other teams caught many breakaways to offer the Pumas some more stage wins?
Well, they obviously didn't come for free - but everyone should've known that you can't tackle a final climb together with Herklotz without losing. The German superstar racked up the (nowadays) insane number of 6 stage wins, easily winning the GC by a mile! He didn't quite get any of the special jerseys though, after the points scale change a couple of years ago. He came 3rd in points - behind Prasad and long-term teammate Démare - and 6th in mountains. It's a total of 1,244 points for him alone - the rest of the team scoring 80 points (for a team total of 1,324) shows how (relatively) weak his support actually was, and how crucial the help from the other teams was to get those really good numbers. By the way, he still scored about 260 points less than in last year's TdF, which should be mostly due to the different points scale.
The fight for a very distant 2nd place was fierce, more than you'd think. Because Kudus actually had a good race, but he'll now have nightmares of Herklotz. In five stages where the German won, the Eritrean finished 2nd, and once third. Almost everyone would've loved to see him take at least one win - but not Herklotz. In the end, Kudus scored 740 points - his teammates weren't much stronger than the Pumas, though, adding just 93 points. So that's 833 for Moser.
Only 3 points behind, we find the currently "hottest" team, Aker! Unlike the Top 2, their "scoring load" was distributed on more shoulders; they had three different stage winners, with SKA winning the prologue in a usual day at the office, Preidler getting a very rare breakaway win on stage 9. And most importantly, Prasad taking back-to-back stage wins on days 3 and 4, after which he took over the points jersey which he also won at the end! GC-wise, they weren't impressive with Preidler taking 20th, but all these stage and jersey points definitely had their worth! Prasad still scored more than half of his team's points with 478, but SKA and Preidler add a total of almost 300 points - overall, Aker leave Spain with 830 points in the bag! Which is far less than Puma, but still more than those who were right behind them in the previous ranking update!
By the way, the wildcard teams stole far less points here than in the Giro, where we had more than 1,500 points going to PCT. In Spain, Tryg and Sony were the 9th and 12th best scoring team respectively, for a total of less than 900 points.
The full details, including points per rider, will be posted in the Vuelta discussion thread - here are the Vuelta points for the PT teams:
Team
Vuelta
1
Team Puma - SAP
1324
2
Moser - Sygic
833
3
Aker - MOT
830
4
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
705
5
ZARA - Irizar
705
6
cycleYorkshire
679
7
Polar
638
8
Rabobank
617
9
EA Vesuvio
447
10
Cedevita
422
11
Grieg-Maersk
386
12
MOL Cycling Team
373
13
Gazelle
341
14
Binance
337
15
King Power
334
16
Minions
334
17
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
323
18
Amaysim Australia.com
270
19
Evonik - ELKO
259
20
Lidl Cycling
245
21
ISA - Hexacta
236
22
ELCO - ABEA
218
300 to 450 points is about the midfield, with 2nd to 8th quite a bit higher. Unlike in the Giro, where we had two teams below 200 points, no-one had a truly horrible GT - although some managers probably won't agree looking at their numbers...
But let's now take a look at the full numbers for May. Without the least surprise, Puma win the month, totalling 1,659 points. But what's really impressive is their PpRD - 61.44! Of course, they were expected to score big with Herklotz' GT due this month, but it's still a mighty strong performance!
However, Aker in 2nd position is a fantastic result as well. Everything currently seems to fall into place for them - be it Wisniowski winning a sprinter classic, or Prasad winning a GT points jersey. It doesn't even matter that Mohoric actually had a pretty bad Ardennes campaign, others were there to jump in. It's 1,451 points for them - even better than last month which already was pretty awesome!
Moser in 3rd place could definitely be expected after Kudus' 2nd-place-run in the Vuelta. Lithuania and Köln were pretty decent as well, making it a total of 1,262 points. That's roughly 200 points between 1st and 2nd, and between 2nd and 3rd.
However, the race for 3rd was far closer than you might think - in fact, Tinkoff in 4th are just 5 points behind Moser! Sivakov was very strong in the Vuelta, and Skujins's 2nd place in LBL adds some big points as well. 1,257 points for the Russians.
Then we have 6 teams within just 115 points from each other. Gazelle take the final Top 5 spot with 1,096 points, mainly thanks to Lutsenko's Ardennes campaign.
Formolo leads Rabobank to a shared 6th place, mainly thanks to his LBL result and to his KoM run in the Vuelta. Plus some strong stage finishes, although he missed out on the win. ZARA match the Dutchmen's 1,063 points; they were tied for 4th (with Tinkoff) in the Vuelta scores, which is their main source of points this month.
EA Vesuvio and Evonik are the final teams above 1,000 points; the former with a pretty decent Vuelta and their Lithuania win; the latter thanks to Polanc and Lopez in Cheshire and the Ardennes. The Top 10 are concluded by King Power, totalling 981 points. The Ardennes and Lithuania were pretty good races for them.
cycleYorkshire in 11th are pretty isolated with 908 points, with Lidl following at 863. Polar and Minions had a close fight for 13th, the former winning 800 vs. 792 - and 638 out of their 800 points coming from the Vuelta...
MOL are the last Top 15 team, with Altur finally getting a great cobbles result in Cheshire. Grieg are 15 points behind and are continuing to unexpectedly struggle their way through this 2023 season. ISA with 695 points are rather close to the Top 15 as well.
Then it's a 100 points gap down to 18th, where we have both Amaysim and Binance. Ceevita are 13 points behind. ELCO can't be happy with just 500 points - nor can Carlsberg be with another 7 points less (and two miserable GTs so far).
Team
Che
FW
LBL
Vue
Köl
Ltu
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Team Puma - SAP
0
83
84
1324
168
0
1659
27
61.44
2
Aker - MOT
0
111
117
830
281
112
1451
31
46.81
3
Moser - Sygic
0
40
89
833
132
168
1262
31
40.71
4
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
0
93
255
705
77
127
1257
31
40.55
5
Gazelle
105
206
210
341
62
172
1096
33
33.21
6
Rabobank
0
80
210
617
105
51
1063
31
34.29
7
ZARA - Irizar
12
73
131
705
142
0
1063
29
36.66
8
EA Vesuvio
0
147
103
447
68
280
1045
31
33.71
9
Evonik - ELKO
218
282
152
259
48
63
1022
33
30.97
10
King Power
0
175
191
334
40
241
981
31
31.65
11
cycleYorkshire
0
111
58
679
60
0
908
27
33.63
12
Lidl Cycling
69
123
341
245
85
0
863
29
29.76
13
Polar
0
40
45
638
77
0
800
27
29.63
14
Minions
0
88
150
334
70
150
792
31
25.55
15
MOL Cycling Team
137
148
40
373
40
0
738
29
25.45
16
Grieg-Maersk
0
40
45
386
172
80
723
31
23.32
17
ISA - Hexacta
0
126
117
236
57
159
695
31
22.42
18
Amaysim Australia.com
4
61
74
270
175
0
584
29
20.14
19
Binance
8
74
120
337
45
0
584
29
20.14
20
Cedevita
0
59
50
422
40
0
571
27
21.15
21
ELCO - ABEA
0
62
65
218
88
67
500
31
16.13
22
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
0
49
65
323
56
0
493
27
18.26
Full Ranking
It's obvious from the table above - Aker have massively extended their lead from about 250 points to 650! They've been Top 3 for three consecutive months now, and that clearly shows in the PT standings - they currently total 5,391 points and are even projected to finish above 8,000!
Can we already declare them this year's PT winners? It's not looking unlikely for sure, but it's still far too early to do so. EA Vesuvio may have lost ground - but they still have some good races ahead. The 654 points deficit doesn't look great, sure - but we also thought they were running to the title after the first two months...
Puma have made a nice jump from 8th to 3rd, totalling 4,648 points and trailing EA by less than 100 points now. But they're also done with their biggest scoring race now - although there are some Herklotz RDs left, it'll be difficult to move further up. But who knows, maybe cio can get some more help from other teams to claim the title?
Gazelle have lost one spot, as they're now roughly 200 points behind the podium spots. We'll see if they can strike back - the PT teams still have 60 and more RDs to race, so plenty of time to turn things around.
Tinkoff have also made a nice jump, from 10th to 5th, totalling 4,207 points. That's almost 450 behind the podium, but by now also more than 500 ahead of 11th place. Looking good for a Top 10.
This can also said of Polar, who actually are among the teams with the fewest RDs spent so far - and likely with a Bernal TdF incoming... Their PpRD currently has them in 4th place, projected to end up some 350 points behind Puma - who knows?
But Evonik, currently in 7th, should have some even higher chances to move up, with PHL chasing their TdF dream later this year. For now, they've clearly recovered from a horrible start, and can't be ignored in the podium fight. They should be the final team for which this holds, though - and they're also the final one above 4,000 points.
The next team is almost 250 points further down already - and it's the team having made the biggest jump up this month. Moser were 17th by the end of April, now they're 8th, after Kudus and Gaviria having some good races. The question is just, what do they have left in store?
A team that's rather going the other way is Cedevita. 2nd by the end of February, they're now down in 9th place - just two points ahead of cycleYorkshire, who round off the Top 10 with 3,705 points.
But it's really close in that region of the rankings, as Carlsberg - dropping from 5th to 11th - are just 17 points down. Another 28 points behind are Amaysim, who also lost 5 spots. Not a great month for the promoted teams...
King Power and ZARA with 3,627 and 3,598 points round off the "midfield" - between Cedevita and ZARA, or between 9th and 14th, there are just 109 points right now!
MOL in 15th place are 150 points further down - and this is where the relegation danger zone realistically begins. MOL actually have the 5th lowest PpRD so far - but is it imaginable to see Phinney go down? I guess he'll rather go to the Tour, actually...
Rabobank have made some good progress this month, climbing from 19th to 16th, totalling 3,366 points. Lidl are just two points behind and currently are on the final safe spot.
But it's still not a very safe one, with ELCO just another 43 points behind. The Greeks definitely don't like that GT period, given that they're now down in the relegation zone. Their PpRD currently has them slightly ahead of MOL, but they definitely have to step up their game to stay up!
It's looking even worse for Grieg, whose 3,245 points mean they're more than 100 points behind safety. Not impossible to achieve, but they'll need some far bigger performances especially from Pedersen than what they've got in the first months!
ISA in 20th place are almost 400 points behind the final safe spot; they do have some more days of racing left, but they'll have to be more efficient in these.
On the other hand, things are definitely not looking good for Minions and Binance. Sure, both should have a decent contender in the Tour, but they'll need quite some luck to get out of their misery. Minions are almost and Binance over 800 points behind safety - it's currently looking like a one-year stint in PT.
Well, you do remember which spot Silvio Herklotz was in last month, right? I mentioned it so you could be prepared to see him gain 30 spots - which he obviously did. So far, the German has won every single race he entered - Grand-Duché, Liechtenstein, and now the Vuelta. These 1,694 mean a clear lead in the individual rankings - and he still has 5 RDs left. Probably Scandinavia, like last year - and then Lombardia? He surely is on track to win the individual crown - although he might actually even miss out on last year's score, given that the Vuelta win was worth 260 points less than the TdF win...
Joseph Dombrowski didn't race this month, so he still has those 1,518 points that were good enough for the lead by the end of April. Now it's second place, which is still pretty good. Merhawi Kudus - jumping from 15th to 3rd - makes it a stage racer only podium for now, totalling 1,441 points.
Lukasz Wisniowski and Tom Wirtgen may both have won a race this month - Köln and Lithuania respectively - they still dropped behind those GT guys, concluding the Top 5 with 1,361 and 1,239 points.
David Per also lost two spots - but given that he didn't win anything, there's now a 270 points gap between 5th and 6th. On the other hand, Jan Polanc has come pretty close with his Cheshire win, totalling 946 points, moving up from 12th to 7th.
That's 3 riders in total who were able to overtake a not racing Jack Haig, dropping down to 8th with his 915 points. Then we have Alexey Lutsenko, who also gained 30 spots this month - from 39th to 9th place! It's a similar story for the other punchy Kazakh, Yevgeniy Gidich, improving from 33rd to 10th. The two puncheurs currently have 855 and 846 points.
That makes it a total of five new riders in the Top 10 - quite some shake up! Philipsen (11th, 4 points back), Shikai (13th), Coquard (16th), Van der Lijke (17th) and Phinney (18th) lost their Top 10 spot and are eager to fight back!
Besides the ones mentioned before, the most notable improvers this month are Morton (44 -> 14), Wellens (37 -> 19), Formolo (89 -> 22), De Bie (52 -> 28) and Latour (102 -> 30). Let's see who uses all those PTHC stage races next month to improve!
Going downwards on the rankings are never good, but the update period in itself was decent. Two of the GTs out of the way now and there's still a good amount of races that should fit us the coming months. Would of course liked to be better placed, but still optimistic.
Kom så, Mads! Kom så!
Thanks for the update, Fabianski. Awesome to see Aker doing so well. My fingers are certainly crossed for them.
We're out of the red zone Barely, but it's still a breath of fresh air.
The rankings are stacked in that relegation zone so it's going down to the last race once again most likely. But this time there could be even more teams in the mix. Heck, the rankings are so tight even the top 10 is not that far off
Aker look like they have a good chance to take the crown this year. Rooting for you, ember!
A lot of my favourite managers and teams involved in that relegation fight I don't love that Really manifests just how insanely horrible this season has been for Mads that he has half the points of Wisniowski.
Wrote up a reply to this thread last night and must have closed the tab. Kind of fitting.
Cratering down the rankings is never fun, but you have to admit that the speed we're doing it is pretty impressive. It's hard to fall that quickly, and we're quickly approaching terminal velocity.
On paper we still have a little buffer and sit mid pack, but it's not like things are looking up after a poor previous month. The Vuelta was horrible, but the Tour is gonna be even worse, as we don't have AKA or Aranburu there for stage points. Classics are over. Per was amazing and Galta was too until he Giro third week, but besides that our other guys have all underperformed. Not that they were projected to be huge scorers, but it's still tough.
The only recipe for survival from here on out is Per. We need huge performances from him in the remaining cobbled classics and ToNE. Then we'll also need some breakaway luck in the TDF and for AKA to have a better second half, but neither of those things will matter if Per doesn't continue to be a top 3 cobbler in his last few races. Last year survival was about 5100 points. As ridiculous as it would be, I think we need close to 1500 from Per to get there.
Why do I have a sinking feeling that the Giro shenanigans are gonna end up being the difference between our survival or not?
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
It's almost never a good sign when a simple classic outscores a GT and that is what we see in this update for us. A fairly bad GT and a great classics run at the start of the month even out to an average month i guess. Could have been worse but could also have been quite a bit better.
Very interesting ranking already, we are in a similar spot to last season and still have the Lecuisinier GT ahead of us. Between that and the remaining schedule of Lopez, i think we have one of the very strongest schedules possible left so i think we are in a good position to attack the podium spots. Unfortunatelly, the gap to Aker is already huge and they should have a lot of nice race days left post tour.
A lot will depend on the Tour. With the exception of Aker, every team could be within reach for an overtake on the Champs Elysee. Though, its far from a given considering Lecuisinier will face a tough startlist there and every team could be due a huge gt themselves as seen by Aker recently. Gotta say, Aker as the 2nd team with that monthly schedule is insane. Congrats ember once again.
Thanks for another great rankings update. As always much appreciated and i really liked the writeup including the short previews for remaining TDF stars etc for this one. Thanks for your work!
Can’t even say that I’m surprised that we are now in the relegation zone. It was a horrible month in every single race. We definately need our fortunes turned soon in order to survive.
A pretty good month for us! Equal 4th best with scoring in the Vuelta led by Wellens with strong scoring from Thijssen too. Scored fairly well in LBL (Borges/Mas) and Cos with the scoring in Koln too.
We're in a solid mid-table position at 14th but it's tight in there! Less than 200 points away from 8th but then less than 300 points to relegation spots too.
Will have to re-check my schedule for scoring potential but, I think, other than the Tour itself we should be scoring pretty well!
Thanks Fab for the comprehensive update! Your write ups are very much appreciated so thank you for the effort you put into them! Always a great read and addition to the rankings
Thank you for a great write up, Fabianski! Truly enjoyed that, for several reasons!
Another amazing month for us. Obviously super happy and grateful for the points our solid, but not spectacular/sensational lineup in the Vuelta gave us. It really made all the difference for us this month.
Extending the lead to EA is great for what is to come, and it really puts us in pole position before the Tour. I've written it before in the Vuelta (and Giro) thread, that we'll have a much clearer picture of our chances after the Tour. Having thought about it, I'll say we'll know a lot more after the Tour and our PTHC outings in Slovenia and Deutschland, which both are TT heavy races, and very likely to be close to no pointers for us. After all I picked PTHC bands for our former TTT lineup, which I gave up on during transfer season If we are top of the rankings/close to the top of the rankings after Deutschland, we will have a fair chance to do great, as the last part of our season should suit us well.
Thank you a lot for your nice words, tastasol, alexkr and knockout, they're greatly appreciated!
A depressing month of racing for us. The Vuelta was mid, the Ardennes predicibly weren't good, but probably worse than expected. Koln was the real disaster where the entire team just checked out and took the day off. Fair enough we didn't have any PTHC racing so that's a factor, but this was a relegation type of month.
At least in theory we should still have races on the calendar where we should score decently. No need to panic quite yet.
I just wanted to inform you that there will (currently) be no June update for PT.
PT only had 5 races in June, whereof just 3 have been completed so far. The potentially most important one - Scandinavia, with the highest points scale and all PT teams participating - has not even started. So there's unfortunately no point in doing all the effort for just slightly more than half of the month.
Furthermore, July even just has 3 races (one of which obviously being the most important one of the year ^^). So I hope you don't mind getting a single update for June + July combined...
Relegation remans a very real possibility, though there is a positive in that Barguil, De Bie and Kemboi all have some of their main races remaining. A lot is riding on the TTers doing well in the races that historically haven't suited the team - worst case is back to PCT and a chance for a full rebuild, which is a fun challenge at least!
Barely, but it's still a breath of fresh air.
Really manifests just how insanely horrible this season has been for Mads that he has half the points of Wisniowski.
