With 4 PTHC classics, a PTHC stage race and the final PT stage race of the year, September definitely is a crucial month for the final outcome of the rankings! And with King Power and Rabobank, we actually have two teams doing every single race this month - whereas ZARA did just the bare minimum. But by the end of September, all teams have between 4 and 8 RDs left, so we definitely should get an idea of where we're going!
Let's do the classics first. Riga - Jurmala GP was the first of the four PTHC one-day races, the only one for the sprinters. And guess who finally delivered? Bryan Coquard! Disappointing for the biggest part of the season, the Frenchman sprinted to the win and 170 points. Boutopoulos added two more points for ELCO, who leave Latvia with 172 points in their bags.
2nd place went to PCT, therefore Samolenkov was the 2nd best PT sprinter with his 3rd place. Manakov added a 29th place and 5 points on top of that, with Sulimov also inside the Top 50 - 107 points for Tinkoff. 4th placed Hsu then was King Power's sole scorer, 90 points for the Thai team.
The Chrono d'Arenberg used to be one of the most particular races - one for the TT-cobbles-hybrids. While the parcours is unchanged, it looks like the cobbles have close to zero impact nowadays, making this an almost pure TT race.
With the world's top TTers not present in France, the win went to PCT - with Ganna being the best PT rider in 2nd place. That's 125 points for the Italian, with Cavagna getting a nice 13th place and 25 additional points for the Pumas. Even future superstar Kmieliauskas scored some points with 27th place - all in all, 156 points for the Germans.
Vlatos was 3rd for 100 points, with Stavrakakis also ending up in the Top 15. Bester only added Top 50 points for ELCO, who still were the 2nd highest scoring team with 122 points. It's then 90 points for Tinkoff, who had Yatsevich in 4th place as their only scorer.
Cobbles clash! Two cobbled PTHC classics on one day - but given that the races are in different bands, only 4 teams really had to think about how to split their cobblers in two lineups.
In the Netherlands, the Rheden GP used to be a race for the cobblers with good sprint speed - but no matter the course, there's almost no way past World Champion Wisniowski this year! The Pole won once again, picking up 170 points. Anderberg in 14th and Potts in 21st added strong depth results for Aker, who left with 203 points in their bags!
Given that 2nd place went to PCT, the gap to the 2nd best scoring team is 80 points - and that team is Grieg. Pedersen, who's finally getting some decent results in the second season half, finished 3rd, with Stokbro (18th) and Tiller (25th) adding some good depth as well. 123 points, this sure was a good race for the Norwegian teams!
It was a close race for 3rd, with Evonik's great depth (Polanc 10th, Neilands 13th, Van der Haar 15th, Kurianov 23rd) edging out the Tinkoff duo (Kamyshev 7th, Senechal 12th) by one point, 91 vs. 90.
The other race on that day took place in the U.S., the Tour of the Battenkill. If Rheden was for the cobble-sprinters, this one was for the cobble-puncheurs.
Or something along those lines at least. Because Per isn't exactly a great puncheur, but he's just having an awesome season, and so his win didn't come overly surprising. With 4 riders between 31st and 48th, that's 178 points for the Danes - clearly, cobbles are for Scandinavian teams this year!
Gerts was the big favourite given the numerous hills, but he overextended himself a little. Still, he held onto 2nd place, scoring some extremely valuable points for Rabobank. It's 127 in total for the Dutch outfit, with just an additional Top 50 finish.
3rd place in the race went to PCT, but King Power still managed to cross the 100 points mark. Kasperkiewicz in 4th for 90 points, plus Menten and Chiu in 26th and 28th, plus two more in the Top 50 - 107 points for the Thai.
Onto the month's PTHC stage race then - the big Lopez show in Balkans International! At least in the last two years - but this time he found his master in some beasty PCT rider.
Lopez still was the top PT rider by far, getting three 2nd places on days 1, 3 and 6, plus 6th on stage 4. 2nd in GC, tied for the points win - 266 points for the Colombian! Blums added a nice 14th place GC finish, with Gavars, Plapp and Ulysbayev adding Top 100 points - 311 in total for Evonik.
But despite Lopez' great performance, the 2nd best scoring team is just 14 points down! It might be a bit surprising that this team is King Power, but with Sosa in 7th and Gidich in 8th, they're the only team to have two riders in the GC Top 10. And Quita added a 15th place on top of that. Furthermore, Menten won the KoM - and King Power unsurprisingly topped the team standings as well. 297 points in total is a great outcome!
This race may have been the most important card to play for Evonik in the title race - but Aker found a fantastic way to counter! Amezawa finished in the Top 6 in all four decisive stages - even winning stage 4! 3rd place in GC and 3rd in points were the great rewards, worth 191 points. Then there was Preidler, finishing 13th in GC - plus Roman (32nd), Van Poucke (34th) and AHJ (39th) all inside the Top 50 as well! The two latter also scored U25 points, and with some bonus points for finishing 2nd in the team standings, Aker scored 283 points in this race - only 28 less than Evonik!
So, we're left with the final PT stage race of the year, the Tour of Northern Europe! A race combining a pretty long TT, cobbles, hills and some flat stages - one for the allrounders! On paper, that is... Just like in Arenberg, versatility wasn't that important anymore, with the TT skill proving to be the most important once again.
Cosnefroy brought himself into a great position right in the TT, taking 2nd place. He only got one more Top 10 stage finish - but despite a 71 Hi stat and a sub-70 cobbles stat managed to hold onto the favourites on all stages, which was enough to win the GC! The Frenchman scored 337 points, with Ovsyannikov being the team's 2nd best scorer with 31 points, mostly thanks to a great 2nd place in stage 3. The rest of the team almost exclusively got finisher points, bringing ZARA's tally up to 399 points!
And actually it was really close for the highscore in this race! Whereas Gazelle didn't manage to score a top stage result - a 5th place on day 2 being their highest finish - they got one of those awesome Gazelle depth results! Rising star Leknessund managed to get a GC podium at his young age already - his 3rd place overall also brought him the U25 win and 206 points. Aleotti, another youngster, finished 11th in GC and 3rd in U25 - 79 points. Malecki (18th), Peters (21st) and Godon (30th) added three more Top 30 GC places - and it's actually surprising that Gazelle only finished 3rd in the team classification. The team scored 389 points in this race - hats off!
We also had a close fight for 3rd, with 3rd and 4th ending up just 5 points away from each other. In the end, King Power had the edge over Moser, 319 vs. 314. The former obviously had Van Baarle - one of the rare 70+ riders in all relevant disciplines - in 2nd place in the GC. For Moser, Gaviria sprinted to 2 stage wins and a 2nd place, thereby also getting the points win - and 7th in GC. He actually even was the 2nd best scorer in this race - but without much support, his team still "only" ended up 4th.
So, lots of races, lots of points - but who got how many of them?
At the top, we actually have a new name for once! Runner-up last year, King Power were expected to fight for the title in 2023. They had a couple of really disappointing races, though, putting them way down in the rankings - but they seem to wake up again towards the end of the year, preparing for another title challenge in 2024! With a great base set by two really strong stage races this month - being 2nd in Balkans and 3rd in ToNE - they scored a total of 892 points! With 21 RDs spent, that's a PpRD of 42.5, 3rd highest of the month!
Aker were also very strong in the two stage races, and won Rheden on top of that - 849 points, with two RDs less spent this month - and the 2nd highest PpRD in September, 44.7. That's definitely a serious push for the title!
Gazelle also were very strong this year - also getting the majority of their points from the two stage races. Unlike the two previous teams, they didn't add lots of points with the classics, and settle for 725 points; Almost 170 points behind King Power - but waaay above the rest of the division still.
Because the Top 3 teams were the only ones scoring more than 700 points. And the only ones scoring more than 600 points. And the only ones scoring more than 500 points. There's a 330 points gap between 3rd and 4th - whereas we have 5 teams separated by just 46 points from 4th to 8th...
4th goes to ELCO, who finally, finally had a decent month again. Especially in Latvia, of course, where they won, and in Arenberg with a Vlatos podium. The rest wasn't great, but it's still 495 points in total. Will it be enough to get last-second salvation?
Rounding off the Top 5 are Evonik - who were surely hoping for more, especially in ToNE, but also in Balkans. The German-Latvian team were surely hoping to take back the lead - but instead they lost almost 400 points to Aker. With 480 points, it's still a Top 5 this month - but will it be enough?
Next in line are Tinkoff and EA Vesuvio, scoring 469 and 462 points respectively - the former being pretty successful in the classics, the latter scoring all but 2 points in the two stage races. Rabobank round off this block - and should make a big step towards avoiding relegation!
Team Puma are the final outfit above 400 points, scoring 402 - without doing Balkans, that is. Spending only 11 RDs to achieve their score results in the 6th best PpRD average of the month. That's even far better for the final Top 10 team, though - ZARA only did ToNE, and they did it really well with 399 points!
Outside the Top 10, it was a pretty close fight for the next spots as well. Lidl actually are just 26 points behind ZARA, and with 41.4 they have the 4th best PpRD! It's a different story for Moser, who used up 17 RDs to score 351 points, meaning that despite scoring just 22 points less than Lidl, their PpRD isn't even half of the latter's!
Carlsberg are the final team above 300 points, with 336 - their highest scoring race unsurprisingly was Battenkill with the Per win, but ToNE wasn't too shabby, either. A safe midfield position - which still is a strong achievement for a promoted team.
The next two teams - rounding off the Top 15 - narrowly missed out on 300 points, with ISA and Grieg scoring 295 and 290 points respectively. The former did a good job in ToNE, the latter got a podium from Rheden.
And then, it's a 100 points gap down to 16th place, where we find the Minions. 188 points for the men in overalls, almost exclusively scored in Balkans. MOL are another 50 points lower with 133 points, with Cedevita, Polar and Binance all between 10 and 22 points behind.
The bottom 2 teams didn't even score 100 points; it's our two English-speaking teams Amaysim (80 points) and cycleYorkshire (65 points). Whereas the latter were in a pretty safe position pre-September, the former may not feel as comfortable - but we'll find out in an instant.
For now, here are the full September scores:
Team
Rig
Bal
ToNE
Aren
Bat
Rhe
Total
RD
PpRD
1
King Power
90
297
319
77
107
2
892
21
42.48
2
Aker - MOT
13
283
298
52
0
203
849
19
44.68
3
Gazelle
48
214
389
22
0
52
725
19
38.16
4
ELCO - ABEA
172
92
107
122
0
2
495
19
26.05
5
Evonik - ELKO
0
311
78
0
0
91
480
15
32.00
6
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
107
58
124
90
0
90
469
19
24.68
7
EA Vesuvio
0
198
262
0
0
2
462
15
30.80
8
Rabobank
34
162
94
16
127
16
449
21
21.38
9
Team Puma - SAP
82
0
164
156
0
0
402
11
36.55
10
ZARA - Irizar
0
0
399
0
0
0
399
7
57.00
11
Lidl Cycling
0
0
277
0
96
0
373
9
41.44
12
Moser - Sygic
0
24
314
0
9
4
351
17
20.65
13
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
6
0
122
30
178
0
336
13
25.85
14
ISA - Hexacta
0
57
222
0
4
12
295
17
17.35
15
Grieg-Maersk
28
49
75
15
0
123
290
19
15.26
16
Minions
0
142
46
0
0
0
188
15
12.53
17
MOL Cycling Team
4
0
95
34
0
0
133
11
12.09
18
Cedevita
0
0
86
0
37
0
123
9
13.67
19
Polar
0
0
60
0
52
0
112
9
12.44
20
Binance
16
0
48
11
36
0
111
13
8.54
21
Amaysim Australia.com
26
0
50
4
0
0
80
11
7.27
22
cycleYorkshire
0
0
58
0
7
0
65
9
7.22
Full Ranking
To make it short: I have some bad news for all those hoping for a tense and thrilling final month. And at the same time, I've got some good news for Aker: the title is closer than ever!
After another huge month, the Norwegians now have 7,309 points - more than last year's runner-up! But without any context, these numbers don't say much. However, if I tell you that they're more than 350 points clear by the end of September, you'll likely agree that this is a lot. Especially with a maximum of four races left per team.
Sure, Lombardia awards a lot of points, and so does Moscow. Whereas Aker don't have a top-notch sprinter, they still won a flat classic this year. And Mohoric plus Amezawa should have a great shot at defending the lead in Lombardia plus GP Cycliste. Or could anyone still stop them?
EA Vesuvio will definitely try, and with Van der Lijke and Valter they have a strong leader duo for the remaining races. But outscoring Aker by 353 points is a lot, and would require some miraculous depth scoring. Still, it's been a great season for the Luxembourgers, and they should end up on the podium.
So should Evonik, who were among the main title contenders pre-season. But Aker just seem to be too strong this year. They're 416 points down currently - 63 behind Vesuvio - but they're one of just two teams participating in all four October races. With three of them being hilly, this should be a great playground for Lopez, and a big chance to get a little closer. They'd need some kind of miracle to score big in Moscow as well, though - I wouldn't fully write them off, but 2nd or 3rd definitely looks more likely than the PT win.
Is there anyone else having realistic chances in the podium fight? Polar, dropping from 1st to 4th, currently have 6,712 points and trail Evonik by 181. And they only have the two mandatory races left - whereas they can hope for a great result in Moscow, getting more points in Lombardia than Evonik in the three hilly races seems unlikely. A Top 5 is definitely on the cards, though.
The final current Top 5 team is Puma, gaining one spot this month. And with Kanter and Herklotz, they've got some great German power for the last two races, the latter having won all of his races in 2023 so far. With 6,587 points, they trail Polar by 125 - doable, but the Finns surely won't give up on their 4th place easily.
And then, there are the Gazelles just 100 points back - with two additional races to do! And with a Lutsenko who will want to score big in the three hilly races. And if Lander gets the main price from the Moscow lottery, they might indeed have a shot at a Top 5 finish as well...
This looks rather unlikely for Tinkoff, who remain in 7th place. Sure, they could score big in their home race, but Skujins would need some clearly better races than he had for most of the year for Tinkoff to overtake even just Gazelle, who are 140 points clear and have one more race to do.
On the other hand, we have Cedevita - dropping from 5th to 8th - just 6 points behind Tinkoff, it's 6,356 vs. 6,350 points there. The Slovenians only have the mandatory races left, and they don't have a world-class puncheur - but they've already often surprised us this year, why not one last time? And even if they don't, their 8th place, which is pretty much set in stone as their worst possible outcome, is a fantastic performance in their first ever PT year!
Set in stone, you say? Judge by yourself, but I do affirm that 560 points is enough of a gap to 9th place. And in 9th place, we (still) have MOL, totalling 5,790 points. 3 more races left to do, but nothing to gain (in terms of final ranking position). And to lose?
Well, there definitely is something to lose, with the team in 10th place being on fire in September! King Power, after a really slow start, have moved up to 10th by now, and are trailing MOL by just 71 points. Which sounds pretty doable for someone like Gidich, having two races left.
Or could cycleYorkshire get that final Top 10 spot? The Brits are just 10 points behind King Power, and Yates surely can't be ruled out in Lombardia which he won two years ago! And Cullaigh is having a decent season as well, on a good day he could also get quite some points in Moscow.
Then it's another 250 points gap down to Carlsberg, who will surely be happy about having avoided relegation rather easily. It's hard to see AKA and Aranburu closing the gap to cycleYorkshire, but I'm pretty sure they won't mind - a Top 15 spot should be pretty much secured anyway.
However, Lidl in 13th, currently totalling 5,322 points, would surely like to move up one spot, gaining back the 12th place they just lost (to King Power). And the combo Kemboi/De Bie could definitely challenge Carlsberg, especially given that the Germans have an additional race to do. The gap is 133 points, which is doable - but that's about all they still can get.
Grieg also lost a spot due to King Power's fantastic month, and are in 14th place now; given their lack of a top sprinter or puncheur, they're unlikely to catch Lidl who are 200 points clear. But given that they looked to be in big relegation danger a couple of months ago, they can't be too unhappy with the current situation.
A team that probably is unhappy with 15th place is Moser. With 5,047 points, they're still almost 400 points clear of the relegation zone, so that shouldn't be an issue. But 15th place is definitely not something a team with Kudus and Gaviria can be satisfied with. In terms of OVL, these two are #4 and #6 - they didn't really live up to this status. In the end, it looks like the total loss can be avoided, but they surely have some work to do in the off-season. It's a good thing though that their superstars both are only 29...
The manager of the next team should definitely be relieved to see his team's name in 16th place - as Rabobank have indeed left the relegation zone behind, and even are more than 200 points clear now! And if Grosu can get another classic right, and if Formolo gets another Top 10 in Lombardia, they should indeed be safe.
It's a similar story for ZARA, who are about 200 points ahed of the relegation zone as well (198 to be precise). Jakobsen is a good card to play in Moscow, and for the hills they have Borges and maybe Mas as decent options to score - the surprising ToNE win definitely was tremendously important for their quest of survival!
Down to the bottom 5 then, for whom it's not looking great. Amaysim lost two spots this month, and now hold the first relegation spot. It's 198 points to safety. On paper, McCarthy and one of Groves or Kennaugh doesn't look bad - but McCarthy really didn't show the form it would take to close that gap so far. It will take one or two surprise performances - like they used to do last year - for the Australians to stay up!
Staying up will be even more difficult - if not impossible - for ELCO. They are 322 points behind ZARA - given that Coquard currently is more than 500 points behind his 2022 score, pretty easy to say what put them so deeply into trouble. Koretzky is the other main reason - and it's exactly these two Frenchies they'll have to rely on to stay in PT. Mission impossible? We'll soon find out!
For the final three teams, there's really not much hope anymore - not to say their fate is sealed. ISA might be able to pull off something miraculous with some incredible depth results, but 457 points will likely be too much to overcome. Minions are another 300 points behind, so not even winning all three remaining races would get them to safety - they'd need some good depth on top of that. And Binance with a gap of more than 1,200 points definitely go down.
We already knew by the end of August that the final race of the year will be decisive for the individual standings. Taylor Phinney still leads with 2,277 points, but he's done with racing.
The same holds for the new #2, Lukasz Wisniowski, who will in all likelihood crown his incredibly successful season with an individual standings Top 3! He ends up just 124 points behind Phinney, what a performance!
On the other hand, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier is at risk of losing that podium, slipping down to 3rd, and unable to answer Wisniowski's late push. And he's just 35 points ahead of Silvio Herklotz, who needs a Top 2 in Lombardia to move up from 4th to 1st!
The German is the final rider above 2,000 points. Tom Wirtgen comes next, dropping to 5th - but with 1,899 points he'll definitely end up in the Top 5.
Because Joseph Dombrowski in 6th is 381 points down - and is done for 2023. David Per trails him by 57 points and might have another race in stock, but definitely no more cobbles. Still, an awesome year for the Slovenian!
Merhawi Kudus is another 20 points behind, and if my RD count is right, he has one race left, which must obviously be Lombardia. If this is the case, it's a good chance to move up one or even two spots - if not, he could even drop out of the Top 10 depending on other riders' results.
Which is definitely a big risk for Egan Bernal, who currently sits in 9th place with 1,342 points - or a 90 points gap to the world's top puncheur and top sprinter.
None of the latter currently is in the Top 10, though, as 10th place belongs to Mads Würtz, dropping one spot because of Per moving up. His 1,298 points very likely won't be enough to finish inside the Top 10, though.
Because right outside, we first have Pedersen with 1,254 - but more importantly, Lopez with 1,252 and Gaviria with 1,250 points. Especially the latter duo will be looking to make the jump inside the Top 10 in the final races of the year.
So, no new names inside the Top 10 this month. And therefore, still no sprinter, whereas we had 3 of them last year... No puncheur, either (whereas Sagan finished 7th last year) - but Lopez could still change that. Yates could also make the jump with a 2021 repeat in Lombardia.
In terms of notable improvements, we can still name MAL and Gaviria, gaining 7 spots each. It's the same for Lutsenko, moving up from 29th to 22nd. Coquard even gained 8 spots (33 -> 25). But the most notable one inside the Top 30 is Valter, jumping up from 50th to 29th!
We'll soon find out who still has the legs this late in the year - but for now, these are the current standings:
Thanks again Fabianski, your ranking updates are seriously amazing.
I do however miss some points in various races, or maybe my calculations are wrong so maybe some one can (double) check this for example
Tour of Northern Europe
8 Riders in GC all outside top-50
= 40pts
Yatsevich wins stage 1
= 40pts
Yatsevich GC Leader after stage 1
= 10pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 1
= 5pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 2
= 5pts
Banaszek 8th stage 3
= 2pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 3
= 5pts
Kamyshev 5th stage 4
= 5pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 4
= 5pts
Banaszek 6th stage 5
= 4pts
Banaszek 5th stage 7
= 5pts
Banaszek 9th in final Points ranking
= 1pts
Sulimov 6th in final KoM ranking
= 4pts
TOTAL
= 131pts
So I've 131 and the update has 124?
I also miss 5 points at Tour of Qatar and 1 point at Ronde van Nederland (and this is just by checking the PT Stage Races, will check the other races later on)
I know it won't make a difference for me but if there is something wrong in the calculation(file) it might have impact on other teams as well with bigger errors.
Edited by OlegTinkov on 28-05-2024 23:41
A month with some good results here and there for us, but nothing truly special. Still well clear of the relegation zone, so I think we've done enough. Still some races left, so hopefully the guys are ready to show our jersey also in the last month.
Big month for Aker. We are cheering for our Norwegian friends, so fingers crossed for ember the last few races.
Definitely a big, big month for us points wise, as the gap we've opened up might be just about enough to defend in October. Having said that, we'll be up against world class opposition, especially in MAL and Evonik, who could win all hilly classics they've got left this season. If he indeed does, we will need Mohoric to step up ever so slightly compared to how his season has gone. The pressure is definitely still on, but we're in a very good position. Amazing that it comes down to the very final month and how well we can do, especially compared to Evonik and maybe EA Vesuvio, if Valter can do ToNE things against top opposition too.
And what a leader Wisniowski has been for us this year! Being just behind Phinney, and likely Herklotz, says a lot about his season as a classics rider. He's great added points compared to last season has been important for us. Must admit I had a tiny hope before September he could even make a proper fight for the individual crown, but he wasn't able to maximize his ToNE and especially his Arenberg. The win in Rheden was still the perfect end to his season. He has been sensational. Prasad also has been sensational, and definitely an outlier compared to what is realistic, I feel. Luckily for us, Kragh, Anderberg and Amezawa have all delivered great season, and will end just inside or outside the top 50. Those are also strong points for us, and I'm hoping Kragh has something left for Moscow, where he will lead without Wisniowski, and Amezawa as the depth option in Lombardia, in addition to Mohoric.
Super excited for the final races of the season. Will obviously follow them all closely.
Looking good to achieve our goal: not finishing last Though obviously still hoping for the comeback of comebacks by finishing 1-8 in all remaining races
Thanks again Fabianski, your ranking updates are seriously amazing.
I do however miss some points in various races, or maybe my calculations are wrong so maybe some one can (double) check this for example
Tour of Northern Europe
8 Riders in GC all outside top-50
= 40pts
Yatsevich wins stage 1
= 40pts
Yatsevich GC Leader after stage 1
= 10pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 1
= 5pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 2
= 5pts -> 4pts
Banaszek 8th stage 3
= 2pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 3
= 5pts -> 3pts
Kamyshev 5th stage 4
= 5pts
Yatsevich Points Leader after stage 4
= 5pts -> 2pts
Banaszek 6th stage 5
= 4pts
Banaszek 5th stage 7
= 5pts
Banaszek 9th in final Points ranking
= 1pts
Sulimov 6th in final KoM ranking
= 4pts -> 3pts
TOTAL
= 131pts
So I've 131 and the update has 124?
I also miss 5 points at Tour of Qatar and 1 point at Ronde van Nederland (and this is just by checking the PT Stage Races, will check the other races later on)
I know it won't make a difference for me but if there is something wrong in the calculation(file) it might have impact on other teams as well with bigger errors.
Thanks for checking, I always happily double-check if there are any doubts! That's actually the best possible test for the tool, as it's really important that people can trust the numbers.
In your example, I just added the numbers that are different from your expectations. All of them come from how we handle ties in Points and KoM standings. Whereas we consider actual positions in stage, GC, U25 and teams (with tie-breaker), Points and KoM standings points are actually split in case of a tie.
In ToNE, Yatsevich shared the points lead with one rider after stage 2. So that's (5 + 3) / 2 = 4 points instead of 5. There was a three-way tie after stage 3, resulting in (5 + 3 + 1) / 3 = 3 points per rider. And there even was a four-way tie after stage 4, and with fractional points being rounded down, that's just 2 points for each of them.
In Sulimov's case, there was a tie for 6th, resulting in (4 + 3) / 2 = 3 points instead of 4.
So that's a total of 7 points "lost" due to ties, having you at 124 instead of 131.
Ties actually always were handled like this, even with the "old" calculation method. This had to be done manually, though, which definitely did result in some (minor) mistakes. It's automated now, and according to my understanding of the tie rules, calculations are correct in the ToNE case. I didn't check about Qatar and Nederland, but I strongly suspect it's a similar situation causing the differences there.
Might be too early to say with a good monument still available but this feels over. Wisniowski was too strong while Balkans and Tone were just not good enough for us.
The monthly table looks OK with us fairly high, but the points scored unfortunately isn't enough to give a realistic shot at changing the tables. We could (and should) have scored approximately 200 points more in this month, making it somewhat nailbiting for the final with Coquard having some sort of realistic shot in Moscow. The final race of the season is unfortunately not a good race for us, and we won't catch anything remotely close to 400 points in those - even if we should somehow end up winning both, I can't see us making the catch.
I'll save my main thoughts for the next post at the end of the year. In sum, Per continues to make our year and it looks like we're pretty much officially safe. What a surprising year for us. It's nice to have a bold signing/training actually work out perfectly.
Thanks for the update Fabianski!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Surprised to see we are ahead of Zara, given the way TONE plateyed out. But the good results from Balkans and Battenkill gave us the edge.
We look good on paper for the last three races: Moscow (Grosu), GP Cycliste (Gerts) and Lombardia (Formolo). But sprints are unreliable and Gerts has been awful in hills with this edition so it all falls down on Formolo to save us once again. Though this time the pressure might not be as high as last year.
That is hopefully safety from relegation secured, which is good enough for me! Time now to move to thinking about next season's rebuild as being mid-table in PT is frankly pretty boring, especially when you're used to being promoted or relegated annually
