Update #5: Manx Missile launches ironted to weekly top score; karaev keeps crushing it
After a flurry of opening-season races last week, things settled down a bit - but just a bit - with Qatar, La Mediteraniene, and a few one-day races. With not many popular picks scoring big, the week was bound to go to a team that picked with a bit more risky strategy. This is borne out by the weekly scores.
This week's top scorers
Rank Team Points this week
1 ironted 316
2 karaev 295
3 Schleckamagurky 279
4 Brullnux 259
5 LosBrolin 254
As I said, not the biggest week for scoring, but things are tight enough in the early season for some movement on the charts (see next section). Unique pick Mark Cavendish had a good week in Qatar, despite losing two photo-finishes to Kristoff, he got a win, the overall, and lots of placings points. The 40 points from Zakarin (7 teams) in Murcia helped too - aside from that, ironted got 24 points for popular pick Tejay VG, and a few 5-pointers to round it out. Lurking in 2nd place is overall leader karaev, who got 140 points from Andrea Fedi (4 teams), 72 more from Sam Bennett (15 teams), and 18 placing points for cheap pick Giulio Ciccone (11 teams). I'll say more about this team in the overall wrapup below. The teams in 3rd and 4th were two of the other teams that had Fedi, and LosBrolin in 5th had 198 from unique (and wildly expensive) pick Alexander Kristoff.
This week's high movers
Rank Team Up/down
1 ironted (+61)
2 Mellow Velo (+36)
3 Schleckamagurky (+34)
4 LosBrolin (+19)
5 MADRAZO (+18)
5 ingsve (+18)
ironted's week of just over 300 points is enough to move the needle quite a bit in early February - their team blows every other away by moving up 61 places! Schleckamagurky and Mellow Velo move up over 30 points each, and all 3 of these teams are in the top 40 so it's not like they're just hanging out at the bottom and had a good week. One could certainly expect teams with unique picks like Cav and Kristoff to show up on this chart now and then, as a big week for a unique top rider can really stand out.
Green Jersey Competition
It took me some time to get my stuff together on the spreadsheet front so this section hasn't been updated until now, but that's okay as the leader of this competition is usually just a tie between weekly leaders for the first few weeks. Here's the top 5 overall:
Rank Team Total
1 karaev 70
2 Hugo87 59
3 togo95 58
4 comodoro 53
5 Nicosix 50
5 shalgo 50
For those not familiar with this competition (or if you don't remember exactly), it was introduced last year as a supplementary competition to keep teams interested who maybe weren't in the overall race. The idea was to award points each week to the top 15 finishers, mimicking the TdF points for a flat stage: 45-35-30-26-22-20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2. In case of a tie, I split the difference, meaning if there was a tie for 1st the two teams would get 40 points each, or if there was a tie for 10th the teams would get 11 points each (12 for 10th + 10 for 11th divided by 2). Anyway, the leader of this ranking has the highest cumulative points on the year. As it stands now, it's overall leader karaev as well, with 2 2nd places in weeks this year (35 points each). It's early going, of course, but still there are a few teams scoring in multiple weeks - 45 points for a win will only get you a tie for 8th place as of now.
Polka dot jersey competition
This one's a new one, and will require an explanation. It's a natural extension of the 'green jersey idea', but gives points for teams who top the 'weekly high movers' chart (get it? best 'climbers' up the standings?) The points are based on HC mountain points at the TdF, and give points to the top 10 high movers in the following increments: 25-20-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2. Same tie rules apply as above, and obviously scoring didn't start until the 2nd week since there was no movement the first week, just initial scores. Just thinking about it, I think this competition will almost certainly be full of teams that aren't in the overall standings by the end of the year, as teams that move up alot usually start from a place where there's a lot of room to move up. This competition should really reward risky unique picks, so I'm excited to see how it plays out. Here's the top 5 as of now:
Rank Team Points
1 Schleckamagurky 32
2 MADRAZO 26
3 ironted 25
3 karaev 25
3 Team_X 25
3 freshman 25
As there have only been 4 weeks of this competition, and by definition if you jumped up one week, you are less likely to jump up as high in another good week just because you're higher already, there is less separation and repeat scoring here. Our four weekly winners are tied for 3rd place, in fact. But look for this competition to get more interesting as the season goes on and the weeks begin to add up.
Top 10 overall
Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (-) karaev 1837
2 (+1) togo95 1729
3 (+1) Nicosix 1664
4 (+2) Ferminal 1618
5 (-3) will10 1606
6 (-1) Hugo87 1597
7 (+3) StephenC2020 1581
8 (-1) shalgo 1578
9 (+7) yoyokt 1575
10 (+8) Falze 1528
I've spent a lot of virtual ink in other sections, so I won't say much here, other than that yoyokt and Falze move into the top 10 while asdfgh101 and Magnolia fall out. But I do want to touch on karaev's notable team, as they've extended their lead with 2nd on the week. This team has most of the big popular riders, and all of the obvious 'high profitlow cost' ones (Gerrans/Phinney/Kittel/Gaviria/Betancur below a cost of 250, as well as more expensive Tony & Dan Martin/TJVG/Cancellara/Demare/Lopez). But also, their rarer picks are turning out well, with Bennett, Fedi, Petit, Dayer and (so far) Ciccone scoring some promising early-season points. Add to that rare top expensive picks Gesink and Vuillermoz, and this team could really have some staying power. Time will tell; of course, we haven't even opened the WT European season yet, that's still a few weeks away, so there's a whole season left to play for.
Spreadsheet at dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2rycj811jyatn3r/CQ%202016%20update%205.xlsx?dl=0
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