Nemolito wrote:

Two more very solid results! Sony is ready for PT

The last race for Olivier this season, and we hope he can continue his good form here. This was our most successful race last season, and being the home race, it would be great if we can repeat the same. It is also a goal race for us, so there's added incentive/pressure. We do believe we have team that should score decent depth points as well.

Kulikovskiy has outperformed his stats and wage for most of the season. We are hoping he can end it off on the same note.

The first of the Benoot triple header to close out the season. We do expect a strong startlist here, so we are tempering our expectations. We do hope Benoot can continue his form from the cobbled hills into this pure hills race though.

A C1 outing means we have hopes of a better result. Benoot should be up there competing on all the hilly stages. We are hoping for a couple of good stage results and maybe a cheeky KOM push from one of the others.

The last race of the year, and like the past two years, it's up to Benoot to end our season on a high! This is another goal race for us, and a major reason for selecting it is because of our good results here in recent seasons. Let's see if we can continue that run.

We had Cataford aiming for a good result in the Stage 1 Prologue. He did fine, securing 4th, just 2 seconds off the pace. Olivier lost some expected time to his GC rivals.

We didn't have a sprinter in this race, so we had on Stage 2.

Stage 3 was the first of two hill stages but it proved to be non-selective. Olivier did finish 10th on the day but didn't make up any time.

Stage 4 was even less selective and had nothing for us!

Stage 5 was the best chance for Olivier to make up ground. While he did get 6th, he still lost considerable time because of his weakness on the TT bike in the opening kilometers of the stage. He moved up to 10th in the GC.

Stage 6 was flat again, and ended in a bunch sprint.

Olivier finished 10th in the GC with Cataford in 41st and Leemreize in 44th. Leemreize finished 4th in the U25s and Hayter was 5th. We finished 10th in the Teams standings.

Franco joined the break. They would be caught with 17 km to go. Kulikovskiy was in a decent position in the sprint build-up but couldn't quite convert that into a top result, settling for 8th.

Another home race, and we were hoping for better. Benoot followed a move from distance, with 40 km to go, but the group was not able to get away. He was in the group of favourites till 10 km to go but couldn't hang on after that and rode his own race to 14th on the day. Mick Van Dijke in 47th and Hayter in 48th also got us points.

Wedidn't have a sprinter here and had no luck on Stage 1.

It was the same again on Stage 2.

Onto the hills on Stage 3 and all our attention was on keeping Benoot safe. Benoot was the first one to launch an attack in the closing kilometers but couldn't make it stick. He wasn't able to get a good position for the final uphill sprint and ended 10th.

Benoot was more subdued on Stage 4, but was able to better position himself on the finishing climb, and got a 6th place out of it.

We did some chasing work on Stage 5. Benoot was in the front row when the final climb started but lost some momentum through the climb and ended up 6th again.

Benoot finished 6th in the GC with Hocevar in 24th and Mick Van Dijke in 29th the other point scorers. Benoot was 9th in the Points. Hocevar was 3rd in the U25s and Mick was 4th. We finished 4th in the Teams standings.

The season ender has always been good for us historically and wished to continue the same. We were at the front of the peloton for most of the chase. After the catch, a large group of favourites reached the final climb together. Benoot was in the second row as the drag up the climb started. Benoot had the legs to come around the leaders inside the final 500 meters and take the win to end the season in the best possible note.



Carcueva got a single point for 30th.

Caspi wrote:

Congrats with the promotion (and PCT finale win - great way to say goodbye) Looking forward to seeing how you'll manage the PT

Race	Category	Goal	Result
Viana do Castelo	C1	Win	Win
Tour of Japan	HC	Top5	10th
Giro dell'Emilia	HC	Top5	Win
Vuelta a Colombia	PTHC	Top 10	6th
PCT Team Standings	PCT	Top 5	3rd

*Green means Goal Achieved. Red means Goal Failed.

We put up two goals each for Benoot and Olivier. Benoot made up for his misses last season in the best way possible, by winning both his assigned goal races! Olivier got the Top 10 in Colombia but missed out on the Top 5 in our home race in disappointing fashion. We also achieved our standings goal making it 4/5 in our goal achievements in our promotion season, and our best ever return!

The Dauphine turned out to be our best race this season, points-wise, after having been second best last season. After that, it's a lot of HC races near the top. It gives us a special satisfaction that Benelux was this good for us, as we've always been a fan of this race but never having had an outstanding result there. Another satisfying aspect is that we scored in every race for the second season in a row!

We started off on the slower side but never looked back in the second half of the season. June was the turning point, which propelled us into the promotion spots and we never felt out of it.

Benoot fell just 8 points short of our highest ever single season score, set by Choi last season. This is the first time two of our riders have crossed 700 points in the same season. Benoot outscored Olivier overall but the latter achieved a higher PpRD, just missing our best ever by 0.05.

Our midfield, in terms of OVL, led the way in terms of return on wages, with Kulikovskiy havng an exceptional season for his wage. Cataford was not far behind, with Yechezkel and Howson also under the 500 mark. This is better than last season, where we had three riders go under 500.

The full list of achievements can be viewed here.

quadsas wrote:

This team better become fully Indian now that you are in PT, otherwise, what a shame !!!

redordead wrote:

A great season and coming up to PT with a great budget. I know you always wanna be competitive and it seems like you have a good base to get there

Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:

Congrats on a great season and promotion. Benoot quickly becoming a team legend - interested to see how he can do in TONE. The TTers always value for moeny.