Final Update: Mareczko & Modolo shake up final top 10, green jersey standings as Cykeltyven is crowned champ
Well, it's been a long season since we started back at the Australian nationals. Normally in this game, things kind of run out of steam at the end of the season as the ProTour teams pack up, and minor/unexpected riders pick up the points in Hainan and Taihu Lake. This year, both races had a few more top level teams (Hainan had 3PT/5PCT vs. 3PT/3PCT last year, and Taihu had 2PCT vs. none last year), which translated to a few more teams scoring points in the CQ game. Certainly, a good number of seasons were finished before the last 3 weeks of these races, but 61 CQ teams scored points in these races, and 24 teams scored over 100 points. As the competition in these races still isn't very robust, what that tended to mean was that a few high-level riders got a ton of points. Sacha Modolo won Hainan with 295 points, and Jakub Mareczko
dominated Taihu Lake, scoring 356 points and making his initial cost of 15 points worth a lot more than the 93 points he had scored up to this point of the season.
This week's top scorers
Rank Team Points this week
1 nuvolablu 656
2 fauniera 651
2 CraZyCaLL 651
4 topprak 471
5 Ruvu75 386
Sixteen teams had Mareczko; eight had Modolo; three had both. Of those three, nuvolablu distinguishes themselves from Fauniera and CrazZyCaLL by getting 5 'top 50' finishing points from Iuri Filosi in Hainan. Other top teams were some combo of the two 'big' riders of the week, as well as Francisco Mancebo (45 points) and Fabio Silvestre (25 points). Impressive weekly points totals, but mostly on the backs of two riders.
This week's high movers
Rank Team Up/down
1 nuvolablu (+34)
2 CraZyCaLL (+21)
3 hilltopfinisher (+17)
4 ingsve (+16)
5 the_sceptic (+14)
5 knallertjeblaf (+14)
5 Multispeed (+14)
When you get a bunch of points and most other teams score a big fat zero, you're gonna move up in the standings. nuvolablu moves up a whopping 34 spots to a respectable 43rd place overall, while CraZyCaLL cracks the top 100 and hilltopfinisher cracks the top 50. The original champ, ingsve, moves up 16 spots in this final update to an impressive 24th overall.
This month's top scorers
Rank Team Points this month
1 Zam_Olyas 1551
2 nuvolablu 1486
3 fauniera 1444
4 MADRAZO 1375
5 Panda_Claws 1171
6 Josedin 1145
7 martybart 1122
8 Kjellus 1020
9 CraZyCaLL 1002
10 knallertjeblaf 968
Okay, this 'month' actually included the first week of November too, but close enough. nuvolablu's dominance this week is not enough to overcome Zam's impressive October run from his all-Italian team.
This month's high movers
Rank Team Up/down
1 nuvolablu (+49)
2 martybart (+28)
3 Panda_Claws (+27)
3 fauniera (+27)
5 Joelsim (+20)
5 knallertjeblaf (+20)
7 MADRAZO (+19)
7 CraZyCaLL (+19)
9 Eyeballs Out (+16)
10 Tuarts (+13)
Not dissimilar from other results, nuvolablu's team is by far the highest mover of the month. Tied for third is fauniera's team, which had an epic month, as you will see from the remaining sections of this update.
Green Jersey final standings
Rank Team Points
1 fauniera 191
2 RoudeLeiw 183
3 Zam_Olyas 180
4 snccdcno 176
5 Kjellus 176
6 Yellow Knight 175
7 Jpettersen 168
8 Ruvu75 168
9 Cykeltyven 167
10 skidmark 164
RoudeLeiw gets pipped at the line! While recent updates focused on Zam's meteoric rise, perhaps we should have paid more attention to the stealthy rise of fauniera. Third place in weeks 38 and 41, tied for 2nd this week (week 42), and tied for 15th in week 40, that's over 90 points in 4 of the last 5 updates. The 32.5 points this week (tied teams split the difference between the places they're tied for) takes fauniera from outside the top 10 to the top spot overall. Kjellus (14 points) and Ruvu75 (22 points) both score this week, moving them into the top 10 as well. The rest of the top 10 holds on from their previous points.
Congratulations to fauniera on winning the inagural points competition of the CQ Ranking game!
Top 10 overall
Rank Up/down Team Points Points this week
1 (-) Cykeltyven 16209 0
2 (-) skidmark 15616 5
3 (-) snccdcno 15412 115
4 (-) Kjellus 15402 361
5 (+3) PeterB 15095 320
6 (-1) kabete 15014 0
7 (-1) derrudi 14922 0
8 (-1) merengues 14799 0
9 (+9) fauniera 14773 651
10 (+5) MADRAZO 14751 356
I believe I said in a recent update that the podium was all but locked up; that held true for the top two spots, but third came down to a matter of inches! Kjellus rode Mareczko's success to within ten points of the bronze medal spot, but snccdcno got 115 points of their own from Julian El Fares to hold on. But there is some significant movement in the top 10 as PeterB moves into the top 5, and fauniera has a crazy last-minute jump of 9 spots into the top 10! fauniera started October in 36th place and ended in the top 10, showing that it ain't over until it's over. This crazy run somewhat overshadows MADRAZO's own impressive 5-spot leap into the top 10. Their move up comes at the expense of greenedge and Yellow Knight, who fall out in the final standings.
Congratulations to our winner, Cykeltyven! Their team had all the right popular picks (except they did also pick Betancur, showing that nobody can have a perfect team), and their rarest picks turned out to be their aces in the hole, making them count. Landa (picked by 3 teams) and Rosa (picked by 7) turned Cykeltyven a return of 1474 points on an investment of 366 between the two of them. With top-level production from Rodriguez, Cav, Boasson Hagen, Chaves, Porte, Ewan and Henao, it was a winning combination.
Cykeltyven also finished 2nd last year, meaning their team (along with team skidmark) becomes the first to podium twice in this game. An impressive run, indeed! We will see what next year has in store.
Thanks to all who played! It was a fun year. In the next few days I'm keen on starting to talk about next year's game, maybe after I have a post or two breaking down my own team's performance. You're all welcome to join in on either of those topics.
Spreadsheet at dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yul18w1462aiins/CQ%202015%20update%2042.xls?dl=0