Update #38: Top Spot Gets Tighter
Well, it's almost the end of the season - Lombardia coming up, and some big-name riders have already shut down their season post-worlds, with more to come after this weekend. That means that part of the speculation as to how the standings are going to look at the end will depend on who has the most riders racing through October, with the new WT-level points available still in a couple of stage races. This week brought things closer together at the top, which could make for an exciting finish.
This Week's Top Scorers
Rank Team Points this week
1 ItalianGigolo 502
2 AupaPyama 449
3 minessa 384
4 Total Package 383
4 Russell23 383
The week belongs to ItalianGigolo, who gets a pretty-decent 502 points from a smattering of HC and .1 races. Rare pick Andrea Pasqualon (3 teams) led the charge for ItalianGigolo, netting 128 points and a .1 victory. The ubiquitous Viviani also picked up 100 more points, and the 'how the hell did this guy show so little for years and then bust out this year' award winner of 2017, Mattia Cattaneo scored 83 more points to move his season total to 654, also known as 'almost 300 points more than he has scored combined since he started scoring CQ points in 2010'. Second place AupaPyama also had Pasqualon and Viviani, with rare pick Dan McLay finally scoring some big points this year. minessa just sneaks into third place by a point over two other teams, with some Nibali/Viviani points, plus 53 points from unique pick Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev.
This Week's High Movers
Rank Team up/down
1 torcia_86 (+9)
1 R_O_Shipman (+9)
1 zlev11 (+9)
4 Russell23 (+8)
5 Total Package (+7)
5 AupaPyama (+7)
A three way tie at the top! And none of the top 3 from the previous ranking either. torcia_86, R_0_Shipman, and zlev11 (collectively, they're called 'underscores and numbers') share the top spot, and also largely share where they are getting their points from this week... all three teams had Viviani (100 points) and Egan Bernal (66 points), and while the 1st and 2nd place team were two of the three teams who had Alexey Lutsenko (146 points), zlev11 got major points from rare pick Vincenzo Nibali (143 points). A similar look, and a similar result.
This Month's Top Scorers
Rank Team Points this month
1 zlev11 2163
2 CQmanager 2158
3 snccdcno 2127
4 Hugo Koblet 2115
5 Popchu 2102
zlev11 takes the September honors by the slimmest of margins, and their team was a consistently high performer even though they didn't win a week. Their team was led by Nibali (590 points between the Vuelta and this week), Zakarin (407), Gaviria (310); Lopez and Viviani were both over 200 points and Aru, Benoot and Bernal all over 100 on the month. Last week's runaway winner CQmanager has to settle for second, and snccdcno nabs third.
This Month's High Movers
Rank Team Up/down this month
1 zlev11 (+23)
2 CQmanager (+20)
3 kabete (+17)
4 snccdcno (+15)
5 Popchu (+13)
5 ansimi (+13)
This list sees the same teams in the top 2. kabete nabs third place with a good ensemble performance, getting a bunch of points from the likes of Gaviria, Boom, Viviani, Kung, Van Garderen, Aru, Benoot and Alaphilippe.
Green Jersey Competition
Rank Team Total
1 Blues in the bottle 241
2 fauniera 226
3 GP Blanco 222
4 the asian 221
5 scrooll07 214
6 Kazistuta 197
No one close to the top scored this week, but it was close! fauniera was just outside the points, in 16th place. In other news, the one team that had yet to score any points this season ended up solidly in the top 10 and is on the board! All 131 participants have now scored at least a point in this competition, I believe the first time that's happened since it started a couple of years ago (I proudly scored 4 points for my second scoring week of the season, to move up to 128th in the standings).
Top 10 Overall
Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (-) the asian 14962
2 (-) fauniera 14867
3 (-) GP Blanco 14562
4 (+1) Kazistuta 14158
5 (-1) HelgeBlendet 14154
6 (+1) del1962 14054
7 (-1) Blues in the bottle 14018
8 (-) Squire 13781
9 (-) Hugo Koblet 13778
10 (-) Wallenquist 13753
The place movement may be small, but there is intrigue at the top. fauniera has closed the gap this week by scoring 303 points to the asian's 188, which means the lead is just 95 points. GP Blanco holds solid in third, and there are some pretty close races in the rest of the top 10. This week, combined with the release of any startlists for the October WT races, will help clarify the picture for the race to the end.
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