What a month this has been! But its about to get better! The Tour du Maroc was a big goal of ours as it suits Bennett extremely well. We sent Scott with him as well to cover the sprint stages. Scott did quite well getting a 4th and 8th place in the first 2 sprint stages. In the final stage he got 2nd in the bunch sprint but a breakaway stayed away. Still some important points for us!
Bennett was amazing in the mountains! The first stage in the mountains Bennett finished in the group and didn't spend too much energy. Stage 4 came around and Bennett finished in 3rd place on the day moving up to 3rd overall.
The final GC stage was a hill stage. Bennett has won a similar stage in the early parts of the season and we were confident about it. Bennett followed the right wheels and pushed his way to the front and managed to get the stage win! He also got a big enough gap to get the GC lead.
With just 1 flat stage left Bennett was able to hold onto the GC lead all the way to the end and get our first GC victory of the year!
Beltran also got the KOM jersey.
With that we managed to gain about 193 points from the Tour du Maroc over the 6 days (Just an estimate). That's 32 PpRD for the 6 stages. So for the month after the Tour de Vineyards, Giro del Trentino, GP Yekaterinburg and Tour du Maroc with Milano-Torino still to come.
With 16 RDs spent so far this month with 2 HC still to come, we have achieved 339 points which is around 21 PpRD. When we needed a big month we finally achieved one! We have some big races left. Unfortunately the Tour du Maroc was Bennett's final race of the season. We still have Davila racing in the Tour of America coming up which could be a good point's haul with Mudgway in the sprints as well as Marryatt in the TTs. Davila will hopefully achieve a high GC finish.
Lots more to come from us! We are not out of the promotion race yet!!
Stay tuned for another update! J22 Mananger of Spark Team NZ
Great stuff from Bennett! Always had a soft spot for him from his Xero days, so it's nice to see him still doing well. Let's see if you can grab that promotion again.
It was great to see (and report) Bennetts performance in Maroc, it's clearly benefiting the right team and manager! I also enjoy seeing former loanee Thompson in the breaks regularly.
Thanks everyone! Bennett and Beltran were amazing and really good to see them finally achieve something like this! Definitely put us back in promotion contention. The ToA and GP Pluoay showed we might still have a chance but Faso and Bongo are bringing us back down to Earth. Still Herald Sun and Zuri could prove fatal to our promotion cause. I think we can do well at Herald Sun and Zuri as we have strong teams going to both! Excited for it!
2024 Talent Development
We have some very interesting youth riders in the squad this season, 2 of which are almost at their peak and 1 who is just beginning their growth with us. Let's have a look at those 3 riders and what they will look like in the 2025 season!
Carlos Rodriguez 23 Years Old - New XP : 4.09 - Potential : 7 - Upgrade : Stage Racer
Our future leader just got a bit closer to that peak! At 78 mountain and 73 TT, Carlos can now be seen as someone who can properly compete in a stage race now. We will be expecting to see him push for U25 overall wins and high stage race finishes. Obviously with still 1 more year of growth, the main focus will be getting him that development he needs. Very excited to see Carlos race at the front of the peloton in Spark colours very soon!
FL
MO
HI
TT
STA
RES
REC
COB
SP
ACC
FI
DH
PRL
68
74
70
71
71
72
72
55
65
70
66
70
68
69
78
72
73
73
74
75
55
65
71
67
71
70
Reuben Thompson 23 Years Old - New XP : 4.10 - Potential : 5 - Upgrade : Climber v1
Reuben will be an excellent domestique and with his mountain and hill combo, he will be able to be that huge domestique that can do all terrain once it goes up! With also 1 more year of development, Reuben should now start to be used by our leaders as one of the last helpers they have.
FL
MO
HI
TT
STA
RES
REC
COB
SP
ACC
FI
DH
PRL
71
70
67
64
68
72
67
57
67
68
62
73
63
72
73
70
65
69
73
69
57
67
70
65
74
64
Kiaan Watts 23 Years Old - New XP : 2.33 - Potential : 4 - Upgrade : Fighter
Watts is slightly different. He has an excellent fighter stat and we believe he will be excellent in the breakaways as he is basically decent at everything. Watts still has a lot of growth to go but we are very excited to see where he develops in the future years.
FL
MO
HI
TT
STA
RES
REC
COB
SP
ACC
FI
DH
PRL
64
66
65
66
62
72
68
60
64
66
73
72
64
65
66
65
66
63
73
69
60
64
66
74
73
64
Stay tuned for another update! J22 Mananger of Spark Team NZEdited by Jakstar22 on 16-05-2025 03:07
Carlos Rodriguez
Reuben Thompson
