The team did confirmed that they've been keeping tabs on some PCT teams to determine which path will guarantee them at least back-to-back-PCT seasons. The general consensus is that the team needs at least one top tier rider to be able to be competitive in PTHC races. Secure that type of rider first and then build the rest up.
I like the thought process. It would be nice if you can get another crack at PCT next season
Spetember's rankings have been released and unfortunately things began to look not good. The team is still 6th in the standings, but now 99 points behind Duvel-Tsingtao, only 13 points ahead of Team Würth MODYF and further 26 ahead of Spark Team NZ. Glanbia is not that far behind with 112 points gap. This means that the team could slip down to 9th in the standings and goodbye to all promotion hopes. But the current model, based on the PpRD ratio has the team barely holding onto the 6th place and peojected 23-point lead over Team Würth MODYF. But those are projected results and do not reflect planning strategies, meaning that the results may vary.
Which is why the last 12 RD's are now more important than ever. The team has decided to spend them on the final two C2 races and the C1 Tour of Britain. Last year in Britain the team made use of the TT stage which enabled William Barta and Marko Pavlic to strong GC positions. The year before that the team had sent Flavio De Luna - another MO/HI rider with good TT. But now that TT loophole many teams had exploited has been removed and teams have to come up with new strategies. Fortunately, the team already has an anternative - KHJ. The team has been emboldened by his TDU win at the start of the season as well as the solid performance in Tour de Vineyards, which didn't suit his strong sides, but managed to get some valuable ranking points. If he keeps the momentum, built from TDU and TdV, the Dane could single-handedly keep the promotion aspirations alive. But in the last race of the season - Zuri Metzgete, he won't be alone.
He will be joined by Julien Bernard and Dinmukhammed Ulysbayev in Zürich. Bernard has been making waves all season long thanks to well crafted breakaways in several races - in the International Österreich Rundfahrt, he was close to win it all thanks to being in a breakaway on Stage 4 and kept the lead until the deciding TT stage, where he fell down to 2nd. In other races he was keeping up with the top riders and also got a good ranking points haul. The same cannot be said about Ulysbayev. He is all the way down in 85th with just 65 points. William Barta isn't performing well either - he's 70th with 79 points. By compairsion, Bernard had 261 points, KHJ - 278 points.
Barta will have a chance to increase his tally once again in the Herald Sun Tour. But that's a really odd race to put a rider of his caliber in such a race. Unless they bank on the TT stage to stay in the GC hunt, but with 73 TT he's far from the best MO/HT time trailist sent here - the more logical thing may've been to send Ahmad Zamri (who was 6th). The team had also sent a traditional TT'er in Carlos Verona rather than Lukas Postlberger which may also hurt their chances at a high result and will have to rely on the Top 4 teams to score the bulk of the points or for the teams around them to falter. And for a team that is fighting for a promotion spot, it's not a good sign to rely on external factor. But missing out on promotion may be an even worse outlook.
The team is one of the oldest and most expensive teams. KHJ and Bernard and 33 and 32 respectively and may ask for a pay raise next season, leaving the team in a bind. Re-sign them to what they want and the team risks losing any resale value, but losing them in free agency will mean that the team will get nothing in return. The team may however be due for some financial boost thanks to the set goals - the team overachived in their Monterrey goal, reached their C1 goal with Bernard's 10th place in Morocco, while being all so close for an upset win in Austria (the team's mandatory win goal) and the team was near their other goals too.
It all comes down to those 12 race days of triumph or tragedy
As the dust settled, it is now time to look at what has happened in the final few races of the season and how it will shape our off-season (whatever our division will be). To start off, our first race of the '12 RD of truth' was in Australia for the Herald Sun Tour. Perhaps it was a mistake that we sent Barta over a stronger TT rider like Ahmad Zamri and Postlberger as he missed out on ranking points which may've come in handy in the battle for 5th in the team standings. At least we were fortunate enough to have Carlos Verona as a reliable option and Manuel Stocker scored few points in the sprint stages. But nothing spectacular as we brought home 42 points and we provisionally lost the 6th place to Team Würth MODYF.
Next on our agenda was the new Tour of Britain - now devoid of TT. With that route change it was (alegedly) pointless to send someone like Barta or Ulysbayev and we've picked KHJ with the hope he will bring his Down Under and Vineyards form and gives us a ranking points boost. But no, this time KHJ was nowehre to be seen. Instead, it was Sarris Evangelos' time to shine. The loanee from Lidl Cycling took part in breakaways and collected KoM points along the way and no one was able to beat him in the standings. Stocker also brought home some points for a total of 30 points, but this was a race where we've expected more and left disappointed.
And it all came down to Zuri Metzgete. KHJ was once again in the lineup, but his Britain form was a cause for a concern with Team Würth MODYF and Spark Team NZ both bringing their best in Switzerland. Thankfully we've had our insurance policy that has resuced use on more than one occasion - Julien Bernard. The Frenchman has shown that he can be a reliable scorer by finishing 6th, which was enough to keep 7th overall from Spark, whose leader Beltran finished outside the Top 20 (KHJ also failed to impress as he finished 20th), ending any chances for promotion.
But what now for the team? With 2 additional provisional promotion spots opening up, by finishing 7th it is very likely to be promoted for the 3rd time in PCT and in our 10th season. But we also remember how abysmal our last two attempts were and the goal here will be to not repeat the same mistakes. And we may have to start by looking at what we have now - is this a team that can stay in PCT? To be honest the answer is 'No' - unless you have a generational talent like Newton with Jorgenson, your chances at staying are practically slim to none. KHJ and Bernard are solid riders and we're thankful to them, but they're not the kind of riders that will get you over the hump beyond CT and have already reached their peak. By compairsion TT riders like Verona and Postleberger may also be on the decline, but their TT stats won't change that much and with limits on TT for C2 races in PCT, they could be really useful in TT/TTT-centric C2 races. Then you have riders like Barta and Ulysbayev, who can be useful in many ways. But all answers will be revealed when renewals are done.
Genii Hyundai N Cycling becomes IESE ProCycling Team - but why?
There has been a lot of buzz around IESE's MGUCI subsidiary as it announced that it will ditch the usual naming system of the team being named after major sponsors, but rather the IESE brand being front and center at the team's core identity. Ivaneurope has explained why the team decided to go for such radical change.
"Our decision to distance ourselves from the traditional naming system of team being branded by 1-2 (sometimes even more) sponsors, is that in our near 10-year history we've entered under different guises and me personally found it really tedious. Therefore the team has made the decision to bring our IESE branding at the forefront of the team's name. Of course our agreements with Logitech, Hyundai Motor Europe and other partners will remain and this decision was communicated with them and gave us their agreement and support. We are very thankful for their support"
Ivaneurope had also mentioned that his initial name pitch when submitting it to MGUCI was rejected - "Our initial proposal was for the team to be called IESE-ManGame Cycling Team, but we've received a memo from the MGUCI offices regarding the use of the ManGame brand in team names. While we were initially disappointed, we've decided to respect their decision and we've reached with a compromise by using ProCycling instead."
The team's nationality was not yet unveiled - last season the team entered under dual Luxembourger-German license. The team confirmed that they'll not be racing under the flag of Luxembourg next season, but are yet to reveal under which flag(s) the team will race in 2025. Logitech, one of the main contributors next season, is Swiss-based, but the team neither confirmed nor denied the possibility to become the third Swiss-registered team after Team UBS and Jura GIANTS (both will race in PT in 2025). The team races under German flag due to Hyundai Motor Europe being based in Germany. The team had raced under German flag as either primary or secondary nationality since 2020, but did not confirm whether or not the team will continue to race under German flag in '25. The team did start as Bulgarian team and remained as such as primary nation for its first 3 years of existence before switching to Canadian license for 2019.
Since many teams have decided to give their goals roundup, I've decided to do a roundup of my goals for this season and how the team fared.
Race
Country
Category
Goal
Cost
Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt
2.C2
Win
****
Monterrey TTT
1.C2
Top 5
***
Volta a Catalunya
2.C2
Top 10
***
Giro del Trentino
2.C2
Top 5
***
Tour du Maroc
2.C1
Top 10
***
Team Standings
MGUCI
Top 5
*****
Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt - SATISFIED
Julien Bernard was our leader for this race and at face value I've thought that this goal will be a failure. But taking part in a breakaway on Stage 4 proved to be sufficient enough to take the lead and kept it until the final stage which was a TT one which wasn't one of his strong sides. But he had enough of a gap to finish 2nd. Even though this mean that our goal condition wasn't met, we can be really satisfied
Monterrey TTT - SUCCESS
Need I say more - our 3rd win in the last 4 years in Monterrey TTT. This time we were tactical by not picking it up as our mandatory goal by going for Top 5. We've done it as we weren't sure if we would be able to win it at all.
Volta a Catalunya - SATISFIED
We've thought that Bernard would perform decently in Catalunya - a race where we usually do well. Unfortunately, he didn't reach the team goal, which was a Top 5 finish, but 10th was still okay. We have to give credit to Dinmukhammed Ulysbayev, William Barta and Muhamma Afif Ahmad Zamri for finishing in Top 20 which meant a win in the Team Standings.
Giro del Trentino - FAIL
If there's a race in which we've underachieved in our goals, it will be this race. While Bernard winning Stage 3 and the KoM standings as a consolation prize, I think we should've done more in this race where we had success before. The best we could do besides Bernard's accolades there, was Ulysbayev's 12th place.
Tour du Maroc - SUCCESS
This was one our picks for the C1 goal and the one the team chose. After Kristian Haugaard Jensen's win at Tour Down Under, we were worried that we've made a terrible mistake and it seemed that we'll leave Morocco empty-handed. Thankfully Bernard was once again to the rescue by being within a distance of the top GC contenders to reach 10th
CT Team Standings - SATISFIED (BUT COULD'VE BEEN BETTER)
Our goal was a promotion based on Top 5 finish and unfortunately we came up short again. Still, thanks to outside events, the team was invited to take part in the PCT division next season (there's a pattern forming where our promotions are from the disband kind), so I shouldn't be that disappointed as sorta-kinda reached the goal. Hopefully third time's the charm and 2025 be the year where I survive relegation.
I'll also give credit to redordead for the Goals roundup layout - sorry for copying it
Julien Bernard was our leader for this race and at face value I've thought that this goal will be a failure. But taking part in a breakaway on Stage 4 proved to be sufficient enough to take the lead and kept it until the final stage which was a TT one which wasn't one of his strong sides. But he had enough of a gap to finish 2nd. Even though this mean that our goal condition wasn't met, we can be really satisfied
Dinmukhammed Ulysbayev, 
William Barta and 
Muhamma Afif Ahmad Zamri for finishing in Top 20 which meant a win in the Team Standings.
Kristian Haugaard Jensen's win at 
Tour Down Under, we were worried that we've made a terrible mistake and it seemed that we'll leave Morocco empty-handed. Thankfully Bernard was once again to the rescue by being within a distance of the top GC contenders to reach 10th
