Conti v ProConti comparisons

[Zinoviev Letter]

My Gediminas Bagdonas fanboyism led me, by way of an article mentioning that he's fourth in this year's UCI Europe Tour rankings, to take a look at those rankings. One thing was immediately obvious: The top Conti teams are doing a lot better relative to the ProConti teams than last year or the year before.

In the individual rankings, three of the top four places are held by riders on Continental teams (Kump, Tiernan-Locke, Bagdonas). In previous years, only the occasional anomaly like Rebellin would normally trouble the higher reaches of these rankings.

In the team rankings, the strongest Conti teams are ahead not just of a couple of runts of the ProConti litter but are ahead of lots of ProConti teams. In past years, you might see one or two Conti teams in the lower reaches of the top 15. This year, high up the table we have Itera Katusha (3rd), Endura (7th), Adria Mobil (10th), An Post Sean Kelly (13th), Leopard Trek Conti (14th) and Rabobank Conti (16th).

To give some context, the big Italian ProConti teams are ranked 1st (Acqua e Sapone), 8th (Androni), 11th (Colnago) and 15th (Farnese). The highest ranked Belgian ProConti outfit (Topsport Vlaanderen) is below all of the above Conti teams in 18th, while Landbouwkrediet doesn't make the top 20 and Accent - Verandas doesn't make the top 30. I'm using these as points of comparison because these are all well established second tier teams whose main focus year round is on the Europe Tour. The comparisons start getting ugly if we include teams which also race in the Americas.

So what's up? Have the Conti teams suddenly got a lot better? Have the ProConti teams got a lot worse? Have they changed the points system in some hidden but important way?

 

[Descender]

Well, as an amateur rider Contador was already a very promising prospect, but hardly comparable with his performance as a professional.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

This is a post from another thread, which addresses this year's drastically improved performance by Conti outfits relative to ProConti teams:

It also means that the Pro Conti level is weaker than in previous years. Teams like Vacansoleil, Cervelo TT and BMC that often performed at a higher level than other pro conti teams are gone or moved up now and at the same time a lot of other teams have been stripped of their top riders since teams are hunting for points. This means that there are less really good riders in the pro conti teams which opens the door for good conti riders to compete.

This seems like a good point, because you can really see the change the first year after a transfer period influenced by sporting criteria points. I remember posting last year that the likes of Itera-Katusha, An Post or Rabobank Continental weren't far off being as strong as the weakest ProConti teams and I meant it as a compliment. This year, the strongest Conti teams are essentially indistinguishable from pretty strong ProConti ones in results terms even though their budgets are presumably considerably lower and they are actually notably better than the weak PC teams.

 

[ingsve]

Another way one can see that the pro conti level is weaker is that there really isn't any fight about wild cards this year. Argos-Shimano gets to ride most of the races they want and other than them the wild cards are usually filled with domestic pro conti teams with some cross over. There hasn't really been any debate about top riders missing out on wild cards other than perhaps Coldeportes.

 

[roundabout]

How are those rankings calculated anyway?

Browsing around the UCI page I found no points scales, but it seems that for example winning a 1.2 race gives you 40 points toward whatever ranking and it's 32 points for 3rd in a 1.1 race with the added "benefit" of WT teams competing that may or may not take the bigger points (80 and 56).

I also see that winning a 2.2 stage is the same as finishing 8th on GC in a 2.1 race.

I don't know whether the points system was changed, but with the participation rules it seems to me that it's not impossible for continental teams to be relatively close to procontinental teams.

HC (max 70% PT) big teams are likely to take the bigger points

.1 races should be an advantage to proconti

.2 races would depend on location. In Nederlands the only proconti team is Argos and they are semi-WT so .2 races there are ripe for the picking for continental teams. No proconti teams in the Croatia etc, so Kump doesn't have to face them when he racks up the points from the Budapest GP, GP Südkarnten, Zagreb-Ljubljana etc.

Below is the list of .2 races in countries with 1 or less procontinental teams in Europe

Ster van Zwolle
Rabobank Dorpenomloop Rucphen
Porec Trophy - Trofej Porec
Istarsko proljece - Istrian Spring Trophy
Volta ao Alentejo/Crédito Agrícola Costa Azul
Grand Prix of Sochi
Grand Prix of Donetsk
Grand Prix of Adygeya
Banja Luka Belgrade I
Arno Wallaard Memorial
Int. Ronde van Noord-Holland
Banja Luka-Belgrade II
Himmerland Rundt
Memorial Andrzeja Trochanowskiego
Mayor Cup
Memorial of Oleg Dyachenko
Grand Prix of Moscow
Grand Prix Dobrich I
Ronde van Overijssel
Five rings of Moscow
Omloop der Kempen
Grand Prix Dobrich II
Tour of Malopolska
104th Scandinavian Race in Uppsala 1909-2012
Royal Smilde Olympia's Tour
Flèche du Sud
International Tour of Hellas
Tour of Trakya
Race Horizon Park
Romanian Cycling Tour
Grand Prix Südkärnten
Riga Grand prix

etc. (that's just til the beginning of June, so it's probably about half of the total list)

So plenty of races with no or very limited proconti opposition that score 50% of .1 race points

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

So plenty of races with no or very limited proconti opposition that score 50% of .1 race points

Well, yes, but:

1) The ProConti teams get a big advantage in terms of access to .hc races, which to some extend counterbalances the advantage Conti teams get with .2 races. It's harder to win .hc races, but you also get a lot more points for placing.

2) More importantly, the same advantages and disadvantages were there in previous years. And right up until this year, PC teams did much better than Conti teams. The system doesn't seem to have changed, but all of a sudden there are seven or eight Conti teams who are competing pretty successfully with the best PC teams. So there seems to be something else going on. The issue is less whether the Europe Tour points system is fair, and more why what is apparently the same system is suddenly giving totally different results.

I had thought that maybe it was just a fluke result, stemming from Kump, JTL and Bagdonas being way too good for the Conti ranks. And they are way too good, but the difference is much wider than that and anyway, they were all Conti riders last year too.

 

[greenedge]

I had thought that maybe it was just a fluke result, stemming from Kump, JTL and Bagdonas being way too good for the Conti ranks. And they are way too good, but the difference is much wider than that and anyway, they were all Conti riders last year too.

Kump rode for Geox last year.

 

[SetonHallPirate]

roundabout: http://www.uci.ch/Modules/BUILTIN/g...&ObjTypeCode=FILE&type=FILE&id=34028&LangId=1

Page 57-62

Minor correction: The Team Time Trial has the following scale for 11-20 only...

11. 60
12. 50
13. 40
14. 30
15. 20
16. 15
17. 10
18. 8
19. 5
20. 3

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Kump rode for Geox last year.

I'm not sure that I approve of your unreasonable reliance on truth and accuracy over my general, vague, hand waved opinions.

 

[One Man Grupetto]

I'm not sure that I approve of your unreasonable reliance on truth and accuracy over my general, vague, hand waved opinions.

Brilliant! Great stuff, ZL!

 

[greenedge]

Nice joke. Sorry i was just trying to point out a minor flaw in your argument. Nice thread as well.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

It will be interesting to see if the PC teams benefit relative to the Conti teams from a transfer period where (a) PC teams weren't stripped of riders with points because points don't matter and (b) a lot of WT level riders needed a ride.

It's my impression that at least at the upper end, the PC teams are already a bit stronger than in 2012, with the likes of IAM, Net App and Wanty stepping forward. While the Conti teams have lost the five or six guys who made unusually big splashes that year. So maybe 2012 will prove to be a blip. Or maybe another competitive end of season WT points chase will see them decimated again.