End of the game
No selected rider scored in the period since the end of the n.1 and European season. I would say that it reflects well on our picks that that is the case, but given that we have between us 21 riders who didn't score in 2022, and 6 who didn't score at all across the three years, that is not necessarily the case.
There were some late adjustments to scores though, as I discovered 2 extra points each for Jordi Meeus (Joelsim's unique pick) and Tom Pidcock (on 21 teams), due to the removal of Luca Colnaghi's stage wins at the 2020 Baby Giro: no-one changed position because of those corrections.
It was by far the closest and most exciting finish of any edition to date, with the lead changing hands several times over the closing month, and even during the last 2.1 race of the year in Malaysia. And although I didn't track it as closely, the margins for the last podium place were equally (coincidentally, exactly so) small.
oh dear...
But the numbers show it as not being our finest set of selections. I would have expected the 2018-20 game to be the one most affected by Covid, as Year 3 gives the biggest haul of points, and Year 1 the smallest, and it was of course 2020 that saw most race cancellations. But the scores this time were, frankly, pitiful. If any of the top three in the 22-14 edition repeats that total in Year 2, (and most managers should expect Year 2 to be higher than Year 1), they will have scored more in 2 years than Cordi in 3; SafeBet's score after 2 years in the edition starting its final year would be on the podium here. Our choices were made before we knew of Covid, but there is no reason why those we picked should have suffered disproportionately to their peers. And yet the best Year 3 score here is lower than the best 2020 Year 3 score, and the best Year 2 score is less than 2/3 of the average pre-covid year 2 score.
Maybe the simple fact is that we didn't pick well, regardless of any Covid effect: the Collective Ignorance team came out top by a huge margin; and the winning score was 54.2% of what perfect foresight would have given, compared to a previous worst of 64.8%.
Volatility
It was not only on the last month that there was a lot of movement on the table: while there is a tendency for these games to settle into a pattern fairly early on, this time around teams were scuttling up and down the table wildly:
| rank at end of Yr 1 | after Yr 2 | after Yr 3 |
| Cordi | 20 | 11 | 1 |
| JonEzeitza | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| SafeBet | 23 | 20 | 3 |
| Squire | 8 | 3 | 4 |
| AmisVelo | 2 | 8 | 5 |
| RoteLaterne | 26 | 13 | 6 |
| Madrazo | 11 | 5 | 7 |
| Northerner | 9 | 4 | 8 |
| Skidmark | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| Fivezzz | 12 | 2 | 10 |
| Karaev | 18 | 12 | 11 |
| Armchair_Cyclist | 15 | 18 | 12 |
| Joelsim | 16 | 7 | 13 |
| Kazistuta | 30 | 21 | 14 |
| Nicosix | 7 | 19 | 15 |
| Del_1962 | 22 | 9 | 16 |
| Laarsland | 13 | 14 | 17 |
| Ludwigzgz | 17 | 26 | 18 |
| LosBrolin | 14 | 16 | 19 |
| Vladimir | 1 | 17 | 20 |
| Blues_in_the_Bottle | 20 | 23 | 21 |
| MuddyWaters | 10 | 15 | 22 |
| LukasCPH | 5 | 10 | 23 |
| hfgon1 | 27 | 28 | 24 |
| AlyKaptan | 6 | 22 | 25 |
| Archieboy | 19 | 24 | 26 |
| Comodoro | 29 | 25 | 27 |
| Otoxiep87 | 32 | 31 | 28 |
| Josedin | 25 | 30 | 29 |
| Scrooll07 | 24 | 27 | 30 |
| Ray10 | 28 | 29 | 31 |
| Koronin | 31 | 32 | 32 |
| Leadbelly | 33 | 33 | 33 |
Year 3 saw 44% of the game's points scored, and is the most important year every time (except in 2020). The top scorers list this year was rather dominated by unselected riders (some of who we wouldn't have known of at all at the end of 2019), so I'll extend this to include 10 anyway that were on a team:
| DE LIE Arnaud | 1439 | 0 |
| RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos | 1082 | 7 |
| GIRMAY HAILU Biniam | 1048 | 6 |
| AYUSO PESQUERA Juan | 1004 | 0 |
| KOOIJ Olav | 968 | 0 |
| ARENSMAN Thymen | 955 | 13 |
| SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias | 944 | 0 |
| ZINGLE Axel | 727 | 0 |
| SCHMID Mauro | 656 | 0 |
| SHEFFIELD Magnus | 621 | 0 |
| VAUQUELIN Kévin | 618 | 0 |
| PIDCOCK Thomas | 599 | 21 |
| MOZZATO Luca | 595 | 0 |
| LOUVEL Matis | 594 | 0 |
| ZANA Filippo | 515 | 0 |
| VANSEVENANT Mauri | 514 | 19 |
| PICCOLO Andrea | 509 | 2 |
| TESFATSION Natnael Ocbit | 493 | 0 |
| BUITRAGO SANCHEZ Santiago | 493 | 2 |
| MEEUS Jordi | 483 | 1 |
while the Year 3 points for each team were
| 1 | Cordi | 6112 |
| 2 | SafeBet | 6008 |
| 3 | RoteLaterne | 5269 |
| 4 | JonEzeitza | 5145 |
| 5 | AmisVelo | 4967 |
| 6 | Kazistuta | 4829 |
| 7 | Armchair_Cyclist | 4687 |
| 8 | Karaev | 4629 |
| 9 | Madrazo | 4503 |
| 10 | Ludwigzgz | 4497 |
| 11 | Squire | 4451 |
| 12 | Northerner | 4407 |
| 13 | Nicosix | 4350 |
| 14 | Skidmark | 4323 |
| 15 | Otoxiep87 | 4180 |
| 16 | hfgon1 | 4091 |
| 17 | Blues_in_the_Bottle | 4053 |
| 18 | Joelsim | 3791 |
| 19 | Fivezzz | 3748 |
| 20 | Josedin | 3678 |
| 21 | Laarsland | 3656 |
| 22 | Vladimir | 3627 |
| 23 | LosBrolin | 3531 |
| 24 | Archieboy | 3455 |
| 25 | AlyKaptan | 3349 |
| 26 | Comodoro | 3344 |
| 27 | Del_1962 | 3342 |
| 28 | MuddyWaters | 3196 |
| 29 | Scrooll07 | 2970 |
| 30 | Ray10 | 2919 |
| 31 | LukasCPH | 2764 |
| 32 | Koronin | 1939 |
| 33 | Leadbelly | 1076 |
| CollectiveWisdom | 4616 |
| CollectiveIgnorance | 10612 |
Top riders
across all three years, were
| DE LIE Arnaud | 1496 | 0 |
| RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos | 1409 | 7 |
| GIRMAY HAILU Biniam | 1756 | 6 |
| PIDCOCK Thomas | 1366 | 21 |
| KOOIJ Olav | 1361 | 0 |
| HONORE Mikkel Frølich | 1345 | 5 |
| SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias | 1288 | 0 |
| ARENSMAN Thymen | 1198 | 13 |
| AYUSO PESQUERA Juan | 1182 | 0 |
| MEEUS Jordi | 1159 | 1 |
| MOZZATO Luca | 1112 | 0 |
| COVI Alessandro | 1057 | 4 |
| BISSEGGER Stefan | 1014 | 19 |
| BAGIOLI Andrea | 1012 | 26 |
| VANSEVENANT Mauri | 967 | 19 |
| SERRANO RODRIGUEZ Gonzalo | 915 | 0 |
| ZANA Filippo | 900 | 0 |
| TESFATSION Natnael Ocbit | 900 | 0 |
That is the team that would have scored 21437 (that Cordi got 54.2% of, as noted above)
A reminder of the final table, with the riders for the top teams that were in the top team (although it is often the makeweights that make all the difference: strength in depth is the key)
The winning team
This is the standard that no-one else (quite) matched up to:
| RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos | 1409 |
| PIDCOCK Thomas | 1366 |
| ARENSMAN Thymen | 1198 |
| BISSEGGER Stefan | 1014 |
| BAGIOLI Andrea | 1012 |
| VANSEVENANT Mauri | 967 |
| SIMMONS Quinn | 736 |
| LOPEZ PEREZ Juan Pedro | 627 |
| PICCOLO Andrea | 563 |
| RUBIO REYES Einer Augusto | 483 |
| EEKHOFF Nils | 456 |
| VAN WILDER Ilan | 395 |
| RUTSCH Jonas | 309 |
| TIBERI Antonio | 301 |
| VAN MOER Brent | 295 |
| DONOVAN Mark | 254 |
| BRENNER Marco | 136 |
| ARDILA ORDOÑEZ Andres Camilo | 103 |
And if there is any more meaningful data to be extracted from
the spreadsheet, help yourself (and share it here if you think anyone else will be interested)
You don't still need another reminder about the
2023-2025 Emerging Riders game, do you?
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