Update #4: Kittel and Kennaugh kill it; karaev is king
As February starts, the pre-season part of the season rolls around into full (or, at least, second) gear. The European stage race season kicked off in France and Spain, and the Middle East mini-season got underway while action Down Under wound up. The game's most popular pick was also its highest scorer this week; Marcel Kittel won the Dubai Tour as well as a couple of stages, going into profit already in his first race with his new team. Somewhat rarer pick (10 teams) Peter Kennaugh continued his fine time in Australia, nearly taking the Herald Sun Tour after taking the Cadel race last week. Both riders feature in this week's top teams. Elsewhere, Jerome Coppel (4 teams) took Besseges, and Wout Poels (not picked) took the revitalized Valenciana (pretty decent race!), and with so much racing on offer, various riders of rare-to-middling popularity took points for placings. The weekly table is somewhat spread out.
This week's top scorers
Rank Team Points this week
1 Hugo87 566
2 Hakkie2 535
3 asdfgh101 533
4 magnolia 526
5 freshman 511
What a difference a winter makes! After only having 1 week in the top 15 (15th place in week 35) last year, Hugo87 gets off to a good start in 2016 with a resounding first place. Below the aforementioned Kittel and Kennaugh, their team boasted a good haul from Cancellara (67 points), Vichot (55), Haig (50), and Dan Martin (35), as well as a few more smaller scorers. 2nd place Hakkie2 has a similar combo, with Chavanel (88) in place of Vichot and Haig. Third place asdfgh101 had Coppel in place of Kennaugh and 5th place freshman was one of the 2 teams who decided to shell out for Froome, a move that is paying dividends so far.
This week's high movers
Rank Team Up/down
1 freshman (+41)
2 Geraint Too Fast (+37)
3 Schleckamagurky (+36)
4 Hakkie2 (+33)
5 squire (+25)
No surprises at the top of the high movers list, with the top 4 teams all in the top 10 point getters. However, team squire nabs 5th place on the high mover list despite being tied for 26th this week on points, a reminder that the high mover list is often a function of how tightly packed it is in your area of the table as well as how many points you score. Good movement by all teams here, of course - this is where you wanna be going!
Top 10 overall
Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (+1) karaev 1542
2 (+1) will10 1536
3 (-2) togo95 1534
4 (+9) Nicosix 1513
5 (+22) Hugo87 1487
6 (+12) Ferminal 1486
7 (+12) shalgo 1471
8 (+15) asdfgh101 1460
9 (+13) magnolia 1454
10 (-4) StephenC2020 1441
Hmm. To say there was a bit of change in the top 10 would be a vast understatement. The top 3 hold collectively, albeit in different order, but they are followed by a bloc of teams just rocketing to the top of the charts. Nicosix, Hugo87, Ferminal, shalgo, asdfgh101 and magnolia all jump into the top 10, while trackstand, the Instigator, the asian, Sasquatch and Eyeballs Out fall out, the last two dropping by more than 25 places! The overall table is very volatile in these weeks. And, after realizing I listed 6 teams going into the top 10 and only 5 falling out, I scrolled down and realized that LukasCPH fell what must be an unprecedented
seventy four spots out of the top 10. Yikes! It really is a rollercoaster ride if you pick a team of rare riders. All of this is not to overshadow that we have a new leader in karaev! That team has all the popular picks that have scored so far, plus some of the relatively less picked guys (Petit, Dayer Quintana), and fairly rare pick Sam Bennett picking up points. Congrats to karaev!
In other news, I've worked out the bugs with the spreadsheet and will catch up on the supplementary rankings (green jersey, mountains jersey, monthly top teams) this week. Finally!
Spreadsheet at dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2yyuqlfz8hoyqb/CQ%202016%20update%204.xlsx?dl=0
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