s2 : Australia NT

[Telamon]

Suddenly 20 more 19yo's. The main reason ; a few days ago 2 new Australian teams came into the game and they start with 19yo's.

Nice!

[FIO]

Suddenly 20 more 19yo's. The main reason ; a few days ago 2 new Australian teams came into the game and they start with 19yo's.

Nice!

I meant: nice!

[Vos]

Well, it seems to me that just one of them is active, because the other team has zero points after 4 days in the 3rd division and no other activity.
And maybe it is good to point out that they have "shady" names ; australis and OscaTeam.
The active team australis ; it can be a coincidence that it looks like Aurora-Australis.
No problem then, that active manager is more than welcome in this game and a good asset to Australia. 
By pm I know that Aurora is wondering who this newcomer is.
And the name OscaTeam is according to me very suspicious. Perhaps it is the person who was banned and was using another well-known teamname(s). Of course this is a suspicion of mine that cannot be true. In this case I think I can expres this suspicion because it seems to me that team is not active. I cannot say that for sure because since very recently it is not possible to see the log in dates anymore.

[Vos]

u21 lists ( 372 cyclists including 74 x 19yo's )

[Vos]

RACE 6 : HILLS TT BEASAIN
29ºC


Beasain, Basque Country, Spain,
Tomorrow a hills time trial. I really don't know what to expect. Hopefully again very surprising good results as in NT race 4, the flat TT.
It is also possible that Australia is not good in the hills TT compared to the unknown foreign competition. We will see what happens.

Although I think I can guess the GV of this hills-TT pretty good, I selected a wide range of TT-specialists according to several different percentages.
Just in case my own estimated percentages are not good and I don't overlook anyone who might be good enough to score points here.
The many several GV calculations are very different, for example Ablett is selected in case stamina is way lower as I think and for example even Levin is selected in case hills is way lower as I think. And so on, and so on.
And of course 5 cyclists are selected who are the best according to my own estimated GV of this hills-TT.

There was a lot of choice in TT specialists.
So I assume there will be dissapointed young Australian time trialists who wanted a selection for this hills-TT race too.
And a lot of not selected young Aussies were really close in the many very different GV percentages.
Unfortunately, I can select only 9 cyclists. According to me this selection is the best mix to get as many points as possible.

Australia NT selection ( in blue the xp ) :

Owen Acree (20) Aurora_Australis    6
Alistair Mayne (20) Orbea_Monegros    2
Ben Mitchum (20) Aurora_Australis    16
Hank Kewell (20) Frenkie    12
Royce Ray (20) Aurora_Australis    11
Ted Walkins (20) GarruTeam    0
Fenton White (20) Aurora_Australis    4
Martin Ablett (20) Frenkie    5
Richard Levin (20) Aurora_Australis    16

[Vos]

Very satisfied with the good results ; Ray 10th and Kewell 11th.
In hinside it is clear my estimated GV percentages could be better, but also satisfied about the selection because I think I selected everyone who could score points here despite the to me surprising results.

Australia scored 230 points in this hills TT, that is the 5th place in the day ranking.
But former season ranking leader Norway scored zero points.
So this means Australia is one place up and now 1st in the season ranking. 

And just 1 more NT race to go ! A flat cobble race in Spain.
But I have to point out that it is very close in the season ranking.
Great Britain is suddenly 2nd because they scored the most points in this NT race.
Norway, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands are also not far behind.

[Vos]

top 7 season ranking with 1 more NT race to go :

1     1.340   
2     1.295
3     1.165
4     1.120
5     1.095
6     1.090
7      865

[Vos]

This ranking looks great, but the last NT race is a CFFCC race of 230km.
Norway, Great Britain and Denmark will score a lot of points there, most likely way more as Australia.
And other countries could be better as Australia too, for example the Netherlands is a big CFF country and Spain is a mega-giant CFF country.
But I did not "study" the Australian cobblestone-specialists yet, perhaps there is a chance to finish on the podium in the season ranking.
That would be more than great.

[Franky]

Denis Mitchum, in your legs are our hope!! Let's fight for the gold!!!

At least in my division, he is one of the bests...2º in Roubaix without a proper helper, and he has a CFF Record in a similar race (stage 2 of last Paris-Nice). But is true that in the Dream Team, there are at least 4 cob-flat guys...

Is going to be funny

[Vos]

Yes, most likely it is your Dennis Mitchum who has to score points/ bring glory to Australia in the next race.
It is not entirely sure if Mitchum will be the team captain, because John Battle is also good and it seems his talent rating is very high, or he trains better in his team as the other cobblestone specialists.
In this specific race there is almost no difference between Mitchum and Battle at the moment.

Both are already selected. The others will be selected later this week because they are really close to eachother right now.

And maybe it is a bit worrying that the other many Australian cobblestone riders are not far behind in GV of the best 2, often a bad sign.
Also the best result of Battle this season, 24th Paris Roubaix in division 2d, can be a bad sign.
His health could not be good because he might be in training-mode and I assume Battle was a helper there. A Russian and a Spaniard were 1st and 2nd in PR of div.2d, 1 minute ahead of Battle and they all are Antequera-cyclists. That team has the numbers 2,3,4,5,8 and 10 in the most recent Australian cobblestones list. Fact is that Antequera does not choose an Australian as team captain, so that is a sign he has better foreign cyclists.

By the way, in Paris-Roubaix of 1A there were 4 good Norwegians with best result 3rd. For what it is worth of course, but I know that at least Norway will score more points in the last NT race. And they are just 175 points behind.
Great Britain is just 45 points behind and they have a dream team cyclist too, in contrast to Australia.
And the next NT race is very wellknown by experienced CFF managers, because it was always stage 2 of the Vuelta in CFF2.
Norway (Atalm93) and Great Britain (Chrisxixon) have very smart and very experienced NT managers, so I doubt if any of my tactical fox tricks will work to stay ahead of these 2 nations.

Of course ; a great motivation this temporarily 1st place and the young Aussies will do everything to get the best result possible.
And Franky, prepare your Denis Mitchum very well this week, he is at the moment the most important Australian cyclist in the game. 

[Franky]

Yes, most likely it is your Dennis Mitchum who has to score points/ bring glory to Australia in the next race.
It is not entirely sure if Mitchum will be the team captain, because John Battle is also good and it seems his talent rating is very high, or he trains better in his team as the other cobblestone specialists.
In this specific race there is almost no difference between Mitchum and Battle at the moment.

Both are already selected. The others will be selected later this week because they are really close to eachother right now.

And maybe it is a bit worrying that the other many Australian cobblestone riders are not far behind in GV of the best 2, often a bad sign.
Also the best result of Battle this season, 24th Paris Roubaix in division 2d, can be a bad sign.
His health could not be good because he might be in training-mode and I assume Battle was a helper there. A Russian and a Spaniard were 1st and 2nd in PR of div.2d, 1 minute ahead of Battle and they all are Antequera-cyclists. That team has the numbers 2,3,4,5,8 and 10 in the most recent Australian cobblestones list. Fact is that Antequera does not choose an Australian as team captain, so that is a sign he has better foreign cyclists.

By the way, in Paris-Roubaix of 1A there were 4 good Norwegians with best result 3rd. For what it is worth of course, but I know that at least Norway will score more points in the last NT race. And they are just 175 points behind.
Great Britain is just 45 points behind and they have a dream team cyclist too, in contrast to Australia.
And the next NT race is very wellknown by experienced CFF managers, because it was always stage 2 of the Vuelta in CFF2.
Norway (Atalm93) and Great Britain (Chrisxixon) have very smart and very experienced NT managers, so I doubt if any of my tactical fox tricks will work to stay ahead of these 2 nations.

Of course ; a great motivation this temporarily 1st place and the young Aussies will do everything to get the best result possible.
And Franky, prepare your Denis Mitchum very well this week, he is at the moment the most important Australian cyclist in the game. 

The thing is that, Denis has trained always at 70%. I know, it is a shame, but since the beginning, I had better hillers, Denis was the only cobbler that I had, and I never liked too much cob races... Probably the best solution was to sell him, but as I needed different specialists and wanted to compete in 1ª, I thought that having Denis (and other sprint-hills guys) was useful to achieve it.

He is training flat right now, still at 70%.

So, we will see...is going to be hard to maintain the first position, even the second one...but I think we can be 3rd at least.

[Franky]

BTW, the idea is to continue as it is now in the National Team right? Vos, you wanna keep the power right? I see $Tourmalet again as a candidate...

P.D: Maybe we can rotate every X seasons...hehe, dont worry, right now i'm not interested, too many years as NT of Great Britain in the last CFF, I think I was the first or the second user with more seasons as NT.

[Vos]

Well, it is an honor and a lot of fun to do the NT job again. 
But in my opinion someone else deserves the pleasure next season.
I have been Australian NT manager for many, many times.
Of course, if there were no (or doubtfull) candidates, then I would gladly do the NT job again.

I see that so far there is already one candidate, $Tourmalet, and I have no doubt that he will be a very good Australian NT manager.
So I will not be a candidate for next season.
Maybe there will be more candidates. And very positive for Australia that we have at least one good candidate already. 

[Franky]

My only concern is transparency, I know Tourmalet since many years ago, but right now he is not active in the forum (or at least here), I will try to talk with him and convince him to come here and share the rankings and the selected guys for every race and so...

[Vos]

I don't expect he will do that, but of course it does not hurt to ask / convince him to do that.
Than he would be even a better candidate as I already thought. And more fun for everyone to follow the Australian NT.
This more fun could mean more foreign scouts come to Australia, maybe as result more quality Down Under.
Of course it is up to him to decide whether he will be active on the forum or not.
It is not a requirement of an Australian NT manager. He could be busy with other things. But if he wants a lot of votes, it is an easy choice.

Without forum activity he is also a good candidate.
He replies pm's, he is active in the game, and I assume his selections and tactics will be very good.
And perhaps there will be more candidates.