It was another huge month of racing for PCT, in particular given the huge amount of 20 PTHC race days! With 12 races in total, we'll split the update by categories once again:
Partial Monthly Ranking: C1/C2
The month's opening race was one for the sprinters, with the C1 Hanko Classic in Finland. Even though the reporter tried to make everyone believe it's actually in Sweden.
The one who handled the Scandinavian conditions best was a French member of a South American team. No doubt, we're talking about Coquard, who dominated the sprint and won with a bike length's advantage! No depth points for Manada, but they'll happily take the 80 points reward for the win here!
No depth points also holds for the teams of the two other podium riders, meaning that Popo4Ever scored 56 points with Aniolkowski's 2nd place, and Benetton took home 46 points for Afewerki's 3rd place.
Next up was the first out of five C2 races, with 6 PCT teams making the trip to Mexico for the legendary C2 Monterrey TTT.
Only 4 teams ended up with some points, though, whereof Podium Ambition were the strongest - 5th place and 30 points for the Caribbeans! ISA finished 2 spots behind for 20 points - and McCormick and Lotto got the final points, scoring 5 points each for 11th and 12th place respectively.
We'll then skip the next C2 race, as no-one was feeling like making a trip to Canada. So Betonexpressz GP - another C2 race - is next on the list. Another one for the sprinters - but unlike Hanko, only the secondary PCT sprinters were allowed to race in Hungary.
ISA were the only PCT team participating, and they won't regret it. Mraouni sprinted to a strong 7th place, and with Andersen finishing 15th, that's 22 points for the Colombians.
However, PCT's top sprinters got their chance just a couple of days later in Germany, with the C1 classic Frankfurt - Eschborn awaiting them. Probably the least sprinter-friendly sprinter race on the calendar, with a lot of climbing in the first half of the race.
And indeed, we got an upset win! The sprinter teams just didn't have enough juice left to reel in all escapees - and so CT rider Kawasaki was the one with the biggest engine as he cruised to the win!
Meaning that the biggest points remaining for PCT teams were for 2nd place - but in the end it's 4th placed Contreras' ISA team who end up with the top score in yet another flat classic! That is because they also had Andersen (10th) and Mraouni (16th) finishing high up - for a total of 64 points.
Aniolkowski could've won the race if not for the breakaway man making it, his 56 points are good enough to give Popo4Ever 2nd place here. And 3rd in points and in the race goes to Specialized with Coutinho, with Medvedev scoring some additional points to bring their total to 48.
4 PCT teams then participated in the comeback edition of the C2 Tour of Luxembourg, being back on the calendar after 12 years. Four days in the hills, although one stage was rated flat - what did the CT teams leave on the table for PCT?
Well, a lot - at least for one team! And for Olei in particular, it will be a race he'll not forget, getting the win on stage 2, from the "bunch sprint"! The Sammarinese didn't have a spectacular race otherwise, but never lost time apart from stage 1 - which was enough for a fantastic 5th place in the final GC! 49 points scored by him - with De Marigny-Lagesse adding 6 points from KoM (including a day in the Polka Dots), so that's 55 points for Benetton - a great race!
Baudin was the 2nd best scoring PCT rider - and he got all of his 9 points by finishing 2nd in the KoM standings, collecting quite a lot of points from the breakaway in the last two days! It's 9 points for him and Ekoi.
It's even just 4 points for Tryg, who got a 4th place by Silvestre on stage 2, plus a U25 point by Broxham. Zero points were scored by Tafjord.
Only one single team opted to race the revamped Hong Kong Challenge - downgraded to C2 and to a classic instead of a stage race.
This team was Popo4Ever, and with 13 points they actually got an acceptable return from this race. Bratashcuk and Budyak scored these points with their 12th and 14th place respectively.
A lot of racing - but not a ton of points given the huge amount of (unattractive) C2 races. Let's still get an overview.
Three teams scored 100 points and more. Popo4Ever had two 2nd places by Aniolkowski in the two C1 classics, plus some points from Hong Kong - 125 in total, taking the top position in this partial ranking.
ISA took 110 points, with their best out of 4 races being Frankfurt, whereas Benetton had strong results both in Hanko and Luxembourg, netting them 101 points.
Manada is somewhere in no-man's-land with 81 points - almost all of them thanks to Coquard's Hanko win - with 20 points of margin ahead and behind of them.
Rounding off the Top 5 are Podium Ambition with 62 points, closely followed by Tafjord and Specialized.
At the bottom, we have UBS and Everesting with zero points - anything else would be weird, given that they spent zero race days in this block. Tryg, McCormick, Bralirwa and Ekoi all end up below 10 points as well - we said it, a low-scoring block.
Here are the full numbers where you'll also find all the other teams:
Pos
Team
Han
TTT
Bet
F-E
Lux
HK
Total
1
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
56
0
0
56
0
13
125
2
ISA - Hexacta
4
20
22
64
0
0
110
3
Benetton Bimex Cycling
46
0
0
0
55
0
101
4
Manada Coyote
80
0
0
1
0
0
81
5
Podium Ambition
0
30
0
32
0
0
62
6
Tafjord Kraft
16
0
0
44
0
0
60
7
Specialized
10
0
0
48
0
0
58
8
Lotto-Caloi
9
5
0
36
0
0
50
9
Sony - Force India
41
0
0
0
0
0
41
10
Llapi-Vita
36
0
0
0
0
0
36
11
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
20
0
0
12
0
0
32
12
Sauber Petronas Racing
32
0
0
0
0
0
32
13
Minions
5
0
0
24
0
0
29
14
ELCO - ABEA
26
0
0
0
0
0
26
15
JEWA TIROL
1
0
0
25
0
0
26
16
DK Zalgiris
11
0
0
9
0
0
20
17
Indosat Ooredoo
12
0
0
0
0
0
12
18
Kraftwerk Man Machine
11
0
0
0
0
0
11
19
Ekoi - Le Creuset
0
0
0
0
9
0
9
20
Bralirwa - Cegeka
0
0
0
8
0
0
8
21
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
5
0
0
0
0
5
22
Tryg - Eni
0
0
0
0
4
0
4
23
Everesting
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
Team UBS
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Partial Monthly Ranking: PTHC/HC
The Tour of East Java was the first race in this block, followed by two other partly overlapping PTHC stage races. In Indonesia, we had three days for the sprinters and one for the climbers - in a very competitive field.
Yates was PCT's 2nd best climber, ending up 7th on stage 3 and in the final GC. But McCormick also had Kuss, finishing 25th in GC - and winning the KoM! With Hoehn, Revard, Mohammad and Simmons, 4 more riders got a Top 100 finish - and McCormick ended up 4th in team standings. 156 points for the Americans, giving them some room to breathe.
Padun finished right behind Yates on day 3 and in GC. With Vasyliv (21st), Andriafenomananiaina (34th; btw, it's good to do reports, as I still know how to write that name by heart) and Sergis (36th) all in the Top 50 as well, that's some impressive depth, leading to Popo4Ever finishing 2nd in team standings. Sprinter Aniolkowski on the other hand was less impressive, taking 8th, 15th and 6th in the sprint stages. Nonetheless, he contributed some points to the Ukrainians' score of 142.
Finally, we get to the highest PCT finisher, who was Olivier. He ended up 6th, scoring 101 points. Carcueva added a good 22nd place to that, with the rest of the team contributing just 7 points. Which explains why Sony are "only" 3rd in terms of points, with a total score of 128.
Next up was the Tour de Suisse, the easiest one of the three PTHC stage races in terms of climbing, when comparing it to the TT impact. So, could the top climbers still do well overall, even with limited TT skills?
The answer is yes! Meintjes definitely isn't known as a great rider against the clock, but he just had a fantastic climbing form, so that this relative weakness didn't matter! He won stage 5, and would've won stage 6 as well if not for the breakaway - beating the likes of Bernal or Kudus on both occasions! A solid 11th place in the TT was enough to secure 2nd in GC by 4", netting him a huge haul of 216 points! He also finished 2nd in the points standings. His teammates did a decent job, too, with Uwizeyimana (33rd), Ndayisenga (35th) and Teuns (45th) all getting a Top 50 as well. The Rwandans ended up 4th in the team standings and scored 253 points overall - the 3rd best value among all teams!
Meintjes did exactly what Lierse were expecting from Oomen, who isn't really a worse climber and even better in the TTs, but he didn't quite have the legs. Still, a 5th place in GC is a good result for the Belgian, who also had a 5th place as his best stage result. His 120 points obviously made up the biggest chunk of Lierse's scoring, with Van Poucke being the only other Top 50 finisher. Potocki, Covi and Fedeli got a Top 100, with the former also ending up 6th in U25. All in all, that's 134 points for Lierse.
And finally, Rodrigues more or less delivered according to expectations, being the 3rd best PCT finisher in 7th place. 8th place in the closing ITT was his best stage result, so that's no huge points for him apart from the GC result. 5 of his teammates finished around 50th place, with Benito (44th), Sunderland (49th) and Orosco (50th, 5th U25) making the cut, Tusveld (51st) and Fortunato (53rd) narrowly missing out. Kusi got a Top 100 as well, so that's 117 points for Everesting.
The Dauphiné Libéré concluded this PTHC triple, with a slightly longer ITT than in Switzerland, but also some clearly tougher mountain stages.
And for once, Olivier wasn't the strongest PCT climber. But this time, Sony actually were the highest scoring team - by far! Olivier finished 2nd on days 3 and 5, plus 5th on stage 6. He didn't have his best legs on the final day, dropping to 6th in GC. But with Carcueva taking a huge 14th place and Leemreize ending up 29th (2nd in U25), Sony still got quite some GC points. Olivier also took 3rd in points, and Sony were the 3rd best team. And they even got a stage win as well, with Howson dominating the stage 4 ITT! All in all, that's 277 points, a really huge score!
PCT's highest GC finisher in this race was Reis, taking a strong 4th place! He definitely capitalized on his good skills on the TT bike, but also had a surprising 4th place on stage 6. Despite being back to usual Reis climbing form on the final day, it was enough to claim 4th place and 129 points. Until day 6, it was actually looking even better for Benetton, with Reis in 3rd and Powless in 9th - but the latter dropped to 18th place on the final day. Xandri got some points in as well with 33rd place, with Benetton ending up with a total score of 175.
It's another big gap down to the 3rd best team, even though it's just in the order of 50 points instead of 100 this time. The 3rd highest PCT GC finisher was Giannoutsos in 8th place, which was enough to lead ELCO to 3rd place here. The Greek didn't get any flashy stage results, with 7th on stage 6 being his best - and most valuable - stage result. Teammate Edmondson got a 4th place right on day 1 as the team's highest stage result. But it was their GC depth that got them some more notable points in, with Agrotis (37th), Niu (39th) and Christakos (45th) all making the Top 50. The latter also was 3rd in U25. All things considered, it's 121 points for ELCO.
The only non-PTHC race in this block was still a highlight for PCT's top stage racers - those really got their share of races this month! Just one big mountain stage, plus two more hilly ones and a TT - only a complete rider would be able to triumph in California!
And if you don't count "cheat codes" like Dunbar or Areruya among the stage racers, Oomen already was Top 3 in this category last year - and surely this year as well. The Belgian won the first hilly stage and finished 2nd in both the other hilly stage and the mountain stage - complemented by a rock solid TT, it was a pretty easy GC win for him in the U.S. Ah, and he also won the points jersey and finished 2nd in KoM, for 301 points in total. Mareczko got two notable sprint results for Lierse as well, bringing the team's total count to 308.
He's been truly disappointing in (too) many races this year - but in California, Rodrigues definitely was up to his task! Being the only one to keep up with Oomen on stage 3 and gaining 9" on the rest of the field was crucial in the fight for 2nd place in GC, which he won by 6". 2nd, 4th and 6th are some decent stage results as well, also netting him 3rd in points - and a total of 177 ranking points. Which also means 3rd place in the individual standings. But Everesting had some really good depth here, with Rachid finishing 16th, Benito 25th and Orosco 31st - the latter also being runner-up in the U25 standings. Fortunato also just got a Top 50. The good team performance also was rewarded by 3rd place in the team standings, and a grand total of 244 points!
The 2nd best individual scorer was white jersey winner THJ. He was the only rider to win two stages, taking first place on days 4 and 6, ending up 2nd in points. And if not for some other riders' better TT skills (not saying his are bad, just not quite as good), he could've easily taken a GC podium. Now it was 4th place for him. He got 189 points. But the team had another good scorer in Rodenberg, who won the bunch sprint in stage 2, making it 3 stage wins for Tryg in 7 days. It's 227 points for the Danes, which they'll like be pretty happy with.
The final race in this block was yet another PTHC one - the month's only race for the best PCT puncheurs, the Clasica San Sebastian.
It was a great race for Switzerland, with Schmid taking the win - and Hirschi being the highest PCT finisher! The Sauber rider even had the winner's wheel when the final sprint started, but couldn't quite keep up and ended up in a still very respectable 5th place. With Azman getting a Top 50 as well, that's 82 points for Sauber.
The next PCT finisher was APP in 10th place - but his 37 points were "only" enough to bring Ekoi to 3rd place. Instead, Lierse had some nice depth, with all of Van Gils (11th), Van Poucke (23rd) and De Plus (24th) getting decent points. These 49 points are easily enough for 2nd place.
Less races to cover than in the first block - but bigger ones, and definitely bigger scoring ones. Let's take a look at the scores in this block:
The California win definitely was massive, and it makes up for more than half of Lierse's points. They also did pretty well in Switzerland and a little less in Dauphiné, with San Sebastian again being a good race. All in all, 580 points for the Belgians!
Sony also love stage races, and in particular Olivier does so. 400 points from East Java and Dauphiné, not bad, plus a lower than expected return from San Sebastian - 416 points in total. A huge gap to Lierse - but also with 10 RDs less spent!
Everesting finally had some really good races, in particular in California (with Suisse rather revealing Rodrigues' "normal 2024 face". 386 points and 3rd place for them in this block.
ELCO finally are starting to turn RDs into points, taking 4th place here. Ahead of a block of 4 teams within 15 points, with Bralirwa, Popo4Ever, Lotto and Benetton.
Sauber, Ekoi and Zalgiris aren't far behind this group, with Tryg and Kraftwerk some 20 points further down. Another 20 points to JEWA, starting the "lower midfield".
The latter also has the Minions, McCormick, Indosat, Llapi and Tafjord, all between 158 and 195 points.
The five backmarkers in this block are Specialized, Manada, ISA, Podium Ambition and UBS, all scoring less than 100 points, and the last 3 even less than 50.
Here's the full overview:
Pos
Team
EJ
Sui
Dau
Cal
CSS
Total
1
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
134
89
308
49
580
2
Sony - Force India
128
0
275
0
13
416
3
Everesting
0
117
0
244
25
386
4
ELCO - ABEA
0
41
121
169
0
331
5
Bralirwa - Cegeka
0
253
0
48
9
310
6
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
142
0
81
80
0
303
7
Lotto-Caloi
48
78
101
72
0
299
8
Benetton Bimex Cycling
118
0
177
0
0
295
9
Sauber Petronas Racing
48
0
0
149
82
279
10
Ekoi - Le Creuset
74
0
0
158
37
269
11
DK Zalgiris
90
0
0
173
0
263
12
Tryg - Eni
0
0
0
227
14
241
13
Kraftwerk Man Machine
38
0
97
99
2
236
14
JEWA TIROL
104
59
0
48
0
211
15
Minions
0
10
75
110
0
195
16
McCormick Pro Cycling
156
0
0
23
4
183
17
Indosat Ooredoo
30
30
0
116
0
176
18
Llapi-Vita
0
81
77
0
0
158
19
Tafjord Kraft
35
0
102
21
0
158
20
Specialized
48
0
0
5
31
84
21
Manada Coyote
5
0
53
10
0
68
22
ISA - Hexacta
0
0
29
0
0
29
23
Podium Ambition
0
17
0
9
0
26
24
Team UBS
0
0
0
0
15
15
Period Ranking | June
Given that the gap between 1st and 2nd in the PTHC/HC block is bigger than the biggest score in the whole C1/C2 block, it's pretty obvious that Lierse easily win this month! The Belgians scored 612 points in 27 days of racing - which is "only" 4th best this month, but easily indicates that their promotion push is going well. And just to relate - only 9 PT teams scored more points this month...
The most efficient team of the month - by quite a margin - were Sony. The Indians scored 457 points in just 15 days of racing - resulting in a PpRD above 30! It really looks like Olivier could've been their key transfer to finally get to PT, we'll see.
Popo4Ever are slowly going up in the rankings, taking a strong 3rd place this month with 428 points. Fighting for promotion sounds unrealistic, but at least they shouldn't bump into a surprise relegation anymore.
Benetton were one of the teams many saw in the relegation fight, but they're doing surprisingly well. In particular because Reis didn't have any of his usual failures yet, scoring pretty well instead. With the 3rd best PpRD of the month, they should be able to consider other goals than "holding the division" by now, but we'll see in the full rankings.
Everesting - a team that really was in big troubles in recent updates - also had a great month, rounding off the Top 5 here with 386 points. And having the 2nd best PpRD this month, so at least there should be hope.
ELCO race quite a lot and didn't score extremely well, which should hurt their PpRD a bit, but they're not that far off most other teams. Lotto were the most active team with 31 RDs spent, and for that effort the outcome isn't awesome, as confirmed by a PpRD of just above 11.
Bralirwa and Sauber are next, and in particular the Sammarinese will be relieved about finally getting a really good efficiency with a PpRD above 20. Zalgiris round off the Top 10, just ahead of Ekoi, with both teams being just 5 points apart.
Kraftwerk just make the first half here, but we'll see whether a PpRD of barely above 10 is enough to make up some ground in the relegation fight. Tryg scored 2 points less, 245 in total, but only raced 13 RDs, which easily is a Top 10 PpRD.
JEWA are in a similar situation as Kraftwerk, whereas the Minions are looking even worse this month - 224 points in 27 race days, resulting in a PpRD of 8.3 - only 3 teams were below that. Similar for Tafjord with 8.38, only marginally better.
Llapi in 17th are the first team below 200 points - and while a 12 PpRD average usually is decent, they might need more to get out of the danger zone. Manada on ther other hand can't be happy about their efficiency, as they only had one good race in their 22 RDs.
Specialized's promotion ambitions also took a serious hit this month, ending up just 21st - with ISA even one spot further down. Podium Ambition end up in the regions where we sadly have to expect them, scoring 88 points in 18 RDs.
So, who's left for the red lantern? Well, the leaders! Team UBS finish dead last this month, scoring just 15 points - in one single race, as they were the least active team by far this month. We'll see what that means for the overall rankings - but for now, here's the June overview:
Pos
Team
C1/C2
PTHC/HC
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
32
580
612
27
22.67
2
Sony - Force India
41
416
457
15
30.47
3
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
125
303
428
24
17.83
4
Benetton Bimex Cycling
101
295
396
17
23.29
5
Everesting
0
386
386
16
24.13
6
ELCO - ABEA
26
331
357
23
15.52
7
Lotto-Caloi
50
299
349
31
11.26
8
Bralirwa - Cegeka
8
310
318
20
15.90
9
Sauber Petronas Racing
32
279
311
15
20.73
10
DK Zalgiris
20
263
283
17
16.65
11
Ekoi - Le Creuset
9
269
278
17
16.35
12
Kraftwerk Man Machine
11
236
247
24
10.29
13
Tryg - Eni
4
241
245
13
18.85
14
JEWA TIROL
26
211
237
22
10.77
15
Minions
29
195
224
27
8.30
16
Tafjord Kraft
60
158
218
26
8.38
17
Llapi-Vita
36
158
194
16
12.13
18
Indosat Ooredoo
12
176
188
20
9.40
19
McCormick Pro Cycling
5
183
188
15
12.53
20
Manada Coyote
81
68
149
22
6.77
21
Specialized
58
84
142
17
8.35
22
ISA - Hexacta
110
29
139
15
9.27
23
Podium Ambition
62
26
88
18
4.89
24
Team UBS
0
15
15
2
7.50
Full Ranking
We have a new leader! From 280 points behind to 320 points ahead - Lierse's great month sees them take a big lead in the standings with 2,377 points, and making a huge leap towards promotion! The Belgians are projected to end up with 3,690 points, which would easily be enough to go up, so they're surely well on track.
Team UBS on the other hand had a miserable month - which they were fully expecting though, after spending just 2 RDs. Even Buchmann winning in San Sebastian would've seen them lose the lead, but they can probably live with the situation. The Swiss still have the 4th best PpRD, and with the Top 5 being projected 500 points ahead of the rest for now, they can still be rather positive.
Which definitely holds for Sony as well, who have made a huge jump from 8th to 3rd, as it really looks like their PT dreams could come true this year! They're projected to fight for 3rd against UBS (with Sony projected 24 points ahead), but I'm sure they'd take any Top 5 finish. Considering that Olivier still has 1/3 of his RDs left, and that there are quite some TT-heavy races to come which are to Sony's liking this year, it's hard to see them miss out on promotion!
The team with the division's top PpRD still is ELCO, with the Greek moving up from 5th to 4th, totalling 1,946 points. They're just 14 points behind Sony - and having spent just 77 RDs, they're still the least racing team by 12 RDs! And while the Greek don't have an absolute world beater, their depth is amazing, and it looks like they could indeed succeed with this strategy. They're projected to end up above 4,000 points as the only team, so they even have some room for error. But yeah, they also have the most room to fail as well...
For ISA, a lot depends on Ewan's performance. The Aussie still has some RDs left, but who will take over the scoring once he's done? The Colombians currently total 1,900 points, which is just 60 behind the podium - but also just 15 ahead of their closest rivals... Who have race much more; as said before, the Top 5 are projected about 500 points ahead of the next teams. But can they keep up this pace?
Next up are Indosat. But yeah. We all know what's next: Arab Tour, Slovenia, Deutschland, Denmark. And we all know that Dunbar will score an awful lot of points in these races. And so, while the current Top 5 might look good projection-wise, it's almost sure that Indosat will score a lot in the next two months - enough to not miss out on promotion by 8 points again?
Tryg are still pretty close to the promotion zone, even though for them it's a bit more than 100 points. But also 5 RDs less than Indosat, meaning they almost have the same PpRD. But they don't have Dunbar. Can Démare, Norsgaard, Rodenberg, Johannessen, Schlegel and the other still have their say in the promotion fight?
Specialized also lost a spot, due to Sony's surge. The latter showed everyone how fast you can turn into a very hot promotion contender. Can Specialized do the same? They might lack the cobbles, but holding onto a Top 10 wouldn't be too shabby, either.
30 points behind Specialized, we have Bralirwa and Ekoi, who just swapped their spots - the latter now trail by 3 points. Staying up was the official goal for both, and now at least one of them may end up in the Top 10. Not bad.
"At least one", because right behind them we have Benetton, whose PpRD is better than both Bralirwa's and Ekoi's. But with 170 points, the gap isn't neglectable, either. At least they should indeed not need to worry about relegation anymore.
I'd currently consider all teams up to 11th place to be safe. And even the next 6 teams, the lower midfield, still have a margin of 200 points and more. These 6 teams are separated by just 73 points, ranging from Zalgiris with 1,294 down to Minions with 1,221. In between, we have Popo4Ever, Sauber, Lotto and Manada. Everesting in 18th place is 45 points behind the Minions and can also still be be counted towards that "lower midfield", although they're obviously more at risk.
So, let's get to the crunch zone then. We've got 6 teams left, meaning that only one of them currently would be safe. But which one?
Well, honestly, I don't know - as we currently have not one, not two, but three teams in 19th place! McCormick, JEWA and Tafjord all have 1,010 points currently, so it could be anyone's race to win or lose! McCormick definitely are in the best position down there, having 10+ RDs more to spend - but they'd better be well spent...
Llapi-Vita and Kraftwerk surely haven't given up hopes yet, either, as they're just 57 and 58 points respectively behind the aforementioned trio. Any of them could still reach safety with some great races - but it's obviously getting increasingly difficult. In particular looking at McCormick's roster; the Americans would be my bet to stay up.
At the tail end, and sadly without any realistic hopes of staying up, are Podium Ambition. It's already more than 300 points to 19th place for them, basically half of their points. Let's hope they'll still get some enjoyable moments!
So, that's all. What does this look like in plain numbers? Here we go:
Just like in the team standings, Lierse have taken over the lead! Sam Oomen with a huge month, scoring 321 points, leapfrogged all of Bagioli, Coquard and Ewan to take the lead, totalling 983 points. He should still have one race left, will it be enough to get the crown?
Caleb Ewan and Bryan Coquard - currently at 747 and 740 points respectively - will want to claim that title as well. And both still have quite some races upcoming, even though I don't know which ones.
But there's also Daan Olivier, having made another significant improvement from 15th to 4th. He currently has 612 points and will without any doubt add some more - how many is the question.
Andrea Bagioli is the big surprise in the Top 10 so far, and he even holds onto his Top 5, still totalling 599 points. He is now followed by Tobias Halland Johannessen - another rider I'm pretty surprised to see up there - who gained 7 spots from 13th to 6th.
Rafael Reis is having a pretty solid season as well, having scored already 535 points. But the big title favourite still has to be Eddie Dunbar, even though he just dropped from 5th to 8th. He still has most of his top races to come, including HC and PTHC ones, and I'd be pretty surprised if he didn't take the crown.
Joao Rodrigues finally had a really good race in California, seeing him jump from 32nd to 9th - the biggest improvement in the current Top 20. Emanuel Buchmann, dropping from 7th to 10th, rounds off the Current Top 10 - just a couple of points ahead of the next riders, though...
We have 4 new names in the Top 10 after this month, and just as many obviously dropped out. Kasperkiewicz (6 -> 11), Yates (10 -> 12) and Bonifazio (8 -> 13) are still very close, 2, 3 and 22 points respectively behind Buchmann. Debesay (9 -> 16) has a much bigger gap and might struggle to get back in.
Besides Rodrigues, we also have Meintjes with a big jump, from 36th to 15th, gaining 21 places. In the Top 30, we definitely have to mention Ranaweera as wel, moving up from 60th to 27th.
And that's it for June. Let's see in a couple of weeks what races like Arab Tour, Benelux, Slovania but also Euskal or Andorra, plus two PTHC sprinter classics, can do to these standings - for now, this is the current list:
Thanks for the update. Not sure we wanted to be in a position where Fab has to nominate us for survival but guess it better than the alternatives. Yates delivering what we wanted, rest of the team needs to step up.
Was expecting to move up but was not expecting this big a jump! Great month for us with Olivier leading the charge and a good contribution from Kuli and Howson. Benoot needs to step up a bit as the end season depends a lot on him.
Well, we had our moment of glory then. Now watch us go down as more and more races that don't suit us come up (already happening), Oomen running out of racedays, Bonifazio failing again (already happening) and no one else stepping up. ELCO is going to cruise to the division win, UBS leaders will take some big points, Dunbar unleashed will crush Oomen's dream of winning the rider ranking. Then there's Sony and ISA who also have the leaders for sudden point gains towards the end of the season, so I really don't know about promotion. Our top 10 goal looks safe though, so there's that.
At the bottom I didn't expect Kraftwerkt to be so low, but yeah, they did end up with a slightly worse team each season now. Sad to see them go down though.
As always, these updates are great reads. Thanks so much Fabi!
Oh maaaaaan that's a tight battle with McCormick and JEWA. It doesn't look good for us now with a bunch of race days already used, so we better need to step up quite much in the autumn.
This is indeed very close! And I see us on the losing side here unfortunately. And we REALLY need to stay in PCT with our strategy concerning young guy signings for quite big wages.
Oh boy...
Another great write up, love it! Thanks for the work Fabianski!
Glad we're still in a good position and its nice that some of our competitors caught up with their race day usage. Hopefully things pick up for us again and we stay in contention for promotion.
Our PpRD is drastically falling from month to month by now, and to keep 25 PpRD during the Tour of America we would need to score 525 points there which is extremely unrealistic. It's 75 points higher than the best last season, and well above 100 points more than no#2 and 3. I think we will end up with aproximately 250-300 points, which is more like 12-14 PpRD.
This month we already finished in Faroe Island with just 10PpRD.
After next month I would expect our PPrD to have dropped to about the same as the other teams fighting for the win
Farantakis is (despite being our best scoring rider) the main reason. Riders like Bonifazio and Rodenberg are both scoring significantly better, and we basically planned the season around giving Farantakis the best possible scoring possibilities. In Arab he scored 4 points so far.
He's still our leader in 5/16 remaining races, so unless he really start performing I think 3rd is the most realistic overall ranking for us this season. Which is fine btw!
Thanks for another huge update! The fight for the top 5 spots will be exciting, as will be the one against relegation. Not being in any of those fights is really good for my nerves, but staying in the top 10 would be nice nonetheless. It's also good to see all of our three leaders in the top 30 now.
A very poor month from our side, dropping us closer to the relegation but luckily there's still a considerable gap (and July has already brought great results). So expecting to jump a few places the next month anyway.
This month was arguably better than our last, upping our monthly PpRD from 20 in may to 23,3 roughly this month. We still have a fair amount of racedays involving our most important leaders. Ofcourse we've had a fair amount of luck in recent times. Luxembourg's succes was as much a surprise as anyone could expect. But it has been going better and better each time.
End of april we were barely hovering above the relegation zone, two full months later we are zooming up and approaching the top 10. You won't catch me making any claims about our future positiong because, knock on wood, I wouldn't dare jinxing anyting. July is probably our biggest and most important month yet, and looking at the ones we've already participated in it looks very good for us.
Pretty sure we will be mostly level with our direct competitors RD wise after July, with us racing a hefty 30RD. Good luck to everyone and thanks again for all the work you guys.
Is this the year that Lierse is finally going up?
How many years are they due?
Sony is looking really good. Can we finally get the Conglomerate together in PT?
ELCO on this few RDs is crazy. Its like they tried to backload their races as much as humanly possible
And that three way tie for relegation is just crazy. Makes me wonder if there are any tie breakers planned in case we ever get such a situation at the end of a season.
Not a great period for us, but expected with the way the calendar went this month!
Again a huge thanks for these monster updates Fabi, they're much appreciated and a top 10 would indeed be a solid finish for us even if promotion isn't going to be on the cards!
. 386 points and 3rd place for them in this block.
