Season 17

[Vos]

   selection SPORTLIFE

It was a bit of a last minute puzzle who would ride the Vuelta, and these 5 are the lucky ones.
The goal is to get good results in stages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7.
And maybe a few points in the windy stage 10, although Rubiera is not a flat-hills-specialist, but with good tactics it should be possible.

Valotti is selected as last one. Despite his golden tour icon, he is not suited for this Vuelta, ánd he drops to 94 form after stage 5.
His main job is to help in stage 4, and he will try to help in most other stages too. Often he will not be good enough and rides just for xp.

101 Rubiera ( 25 ), hills
102 Gyring-Nielsen ( 31 ), flatcobble
103 Stubbe ( 31 ), hillsclimb
104 Skurk ( 35 ), flatcobble
105 Valotti ( 30 ), "allround"

stage 1 Vuelta ;
3º  Gyring-Nielsen
21º  Skurk ( helper )
Splendid race of the Danish-Dynamite-Duo and an excellent result,
because Gyring-Nielsen could not challenge any favorites and never in his career he finished on the podium.

[Vos]

stage 2 Vuelta ;
3º  Rubiera
Another excellent result and again a SPORTLIFE-cyclist achieves the best result of his career. So far a great Vuelta.

[Vos]

stage 3 Vuelta ;
6º  Rubiera  on 0:00"
Good result.
Unfortunately not-favorite Rubiera had no s4 helper, otherwise he could have competed for victory in both hills stages.
But Stubbe did twice a very good job as a 3-sections-helper despite low xp, no TC bonus and not in topform anymore.

And good I selected hillsclimber Stubbe, because he is the 1st favorite in the upcoming stage 4.
This season it almost never happened that my team had a top5-favorite.
Next season that will happen more often, because Stubbe ( a 31yo buy of 1 month ago ) likes a lot of stages.

[Vos]

stage 4 Vuelta ;
5º  Stubbe
Considering the circumstances, a decent good result of the 1st favorite.

[Aurora Australis]

Good news for me is that a week away from turning 36, Richard Levin can still get top 10s without the training camp bonus.  The 39 seconds isn't great, but it's against somebody who'd be racing under the bonus, so it's ok.  I just need to stay in Div1 until he's 37.

3º   Dean Shields   30   Aurora_Australis   a 0 minutos 18sg   163   120000   
5º   Kirk Workman   29   Aurora_Australis   a 0 minutos 29sg   125   90000   
10º   Richard Levin   35   Aurora_Australis   a 0 minutos 39sg   85   37500   
11º   Markus Benett   24   Aurora_Australis   a 0 minutos 45sg   80   30000   
13º   Christian Pocock   24   Aurora_Australis   a 0 minutos 56sg   70   18000

[Vos]

stage 5 Vuelta ;
21º  Valotti
My not-in-topform tour cyclist scored some very surprising extra points in this flat time trial, although he finished on 2:11"
He has a bronze TT icon, but doubtfull if he has that bronze TT icon also for flat TT.

stage 7 Vuelta ;
9º  Gyring-Nielsen  on 0:00"
A good race of this not-favorite, but too many rivals with a s4-helper, and my teamcaptain was riding with a silver 35yo "3-sections" helper.

[Vos]

stage 8 Vuelta ;
23º  Gyring-Nielsen
stage 9 Vuelta ;
20º  Gyring-Nielsen
stage 10 Vuelta ;
20º  Rubiera

Nice extra points of my cobble specialist in the sprint stages .
In the final stage my team had difficulties with the wind ;
Rubiera dropped with 1 EP in s2 and he was already isolated in s4 because his low-form, unhealthy helper could not follow the pace.

[Vos]

Giro Lombardia ;
21º  Baiao
Excellent result, thanks to masterhelper Vorre. 

[ophiuko]

Are you sure Chaves cannot make points in the road WC? 

[Vos]

Thanks for your message, ophiuko,
because I did not think of this possibillity, finishing as 30th is already enough points to beat Baiao.
The cheerfull text in my previous post is deleted, because maybe it will not happen.

[Aurora Australis]

I'm Div2 bound.

[Vos]

Lisboa WC ;
15º  Rubiera
His 23yo helper tried a very risky helpers tactic, but without success and it caused that Rubiera was isolated the whole race.
What explains this not good result.

Baiao was leading the Portuguese ranking with just 33 points before the WC race,
but he had no chance versus hillsclimber Chaves ( 1º SSB, 3º LOM ) who is also very high ranked as hills specialist ;
he showed that in the WC race by finishing as 12º
So, no individual nation jersey in this not good season of my team with just 1 stage victory and no podiumplaces in the GC's.

And as I expected ; Innioraths passed my team in the last race, so SPORTLIFE dropped out of the top10 of 1A and finished as 11º
Unfortunately no 11 times in a row top10 in 1A now,
but logical and justified because my team scored way less points compared to the past 10 seasons.
For example in previous season there was just an 8º place with 9.238 points, not good, but that was even 1.854 points more than now.
Well, the 1A level goes up every season and my team level went down this season, so a nice challenge to do better next season.

[Franky]

I'm Div2 bound.

Nooo, and neither mee!!! And next season we will be 6 australian teams in 1st Div!! 

[Vos]

I'm Div2 bound.

Nooo, and neither mee!!! And next season we will be 6 australian teams in 1st Div!! 

WOW, 6 teams ! And another WOW ; because when I read the post of AA before the WC hills race,
I assumed he was right because he had one rival team that was expected to score(easily) enough points in the final race.
I guess my Rubiera was on a mission to keep Aurora_Australis in 1A, see these WC results : 
15º Rubiera
16º Pierro
And Pierro needed to finish one place higher, what would mean 20 points more.
Now Aurora_Australis stayed in 1A with a tiny difference of 17 points. 
I really wanted to see Levin in 1A of next season, let's see what he can do at the age of 36.   

Congrats to AA with this unexpected avoiding of relegation.
Of course also congrats to Franky for staying in 1A, especially Hunter is happy with that because next season is very suited to him.

Next season = 6x Aussie fun 

edit ; also congrats to OphiukoCT with the promotion to 1A. 

[ophiuko]

Thanks Vos. It wasn't intended. Now I'll have the difficult task of avoid relegation with 23yo cyclists. I bought 3-4 older cyclists to help.

Here is the mean age for winners and podiums of stages/tours over the last three seasons: