Update #2: Porte & Ewan help claim Pole position
After the appetizer of the Aussie and New Zealand nationals, the game truly gets underway this week with the (somehow) 1.WT race the Tour Down Under. While points were available in both Gabon and Venezuela this week in 2.1 and 2.2 races, the TDU was the main course, with all the World Tour teams lined up (and therefore, the majority of riders in this game). Given its early-season place in the calendar, of course it was going to have outsize impact on the overall of this game.
This Week's High Scorers
Rank Team Points this week
1 ChrisDK 482
2 Nathanptz 460
3 Poles & Co. 452
4 bminchow 451
5 repre 440
And the winner is... ChrisDK! The bulk of the scoring from this team comes from three high-scoring, relatively rare picks - Peter Sagan (14 teams, 157 points this week), Caleb Ewan (12 teams, 174 points) and the ever-impressive Egan Bernal (3 teams, 115 points). Minor finishing points for a few other riders brings their team to 482 points this week, enough to win the week. Second place goes to Nathanptz, who spreads it out a bit more with points from Ewan, Tom-Jelte Slagter (181 points, 2 teams), and some smaller points from Bauhaus, Mas, and Bonifazio. Third place Poles & Co. slides onto the podium by one point, almost entirely from Porte (268) and Ewan.
This Week's High Movers
Rank Team Up/down
1 Salvarani (+28)
2 AlyKaptan (+20)
3 repre (+17)
4 Squire (+16)
5 Bicycle_Boy (+15)
This classification is always a funny one the second week of the year - something like only 50 teams scored in the first update, so lots of teams are 'moving up' from being tied for last place. Salvarani makes an impressive debut in the game, leaping 28 points on the back of points from Sagan and the early contender for 'best early season pick' in unique pick Joseph Areruya, winner of Tropicale Amissa Bongo to score 153 points at a cost of 65. You don't often see a rider in January carrying form from late November, but he seems to be riding the high from his home tour a couple of months ago; we will see how he fares in the later races this season for DDD CT. AlyKaptan and repre get their name in the early-season lights of a podium finish in one of these weekly updates.
Green Jersey Comptetition
Rank Team Total
1 ChrisDK 46
2 Jon_Ezeitza 45
3 Poles & Co. 42
4 Nathanptz 36
5 l'velo 35
already some stratification in this competition - it seems like many of the teams that scored this week scored in the first week as well, the first tie is for 9th place in this classification. ChrisDK squeaks out a lead by virtue of tying for 15th place in week 1 and getting a point for it.
Top 10 Overall
Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (+8) Poles & Co. 524
2 (+12) ChrisDK 522
3 (+11) Nathanptz 500
4 (+9) bminchow 498
5 (-4) Jon_Ezeitza 475
6 (+16) repre 472
7 (-5) sodak_za 461
8 (+27) Salvarani 445
9 (+13) kiszol 422
10 (+12) Sneekes 400
The volatile early season standings settle showing Poles & Co. in the lead by two points! Their Polish-leaning-but-also-practical-minded-competitive team finds themselves in the lead despite getting only third on the week, by virtue of scoring 72 points in week 1 and having a bit of a buffer on the two teams that scored above it this week. It should be no surprise that the other two on the overall podium were also those on the podium of the weekly standings. Last week's leader Jon_Ezeitza doesn't have a bad week, finishing 20th overall, and is one of only two teams to hang on in the top 10 from week 1.
Coming up this week - San Juan gets us going on another continent (okay I guess technically Tachira did that), the Sharjah Tour and Tour of Indonesia kick of the racing in Asia, and Europe gets underway too with Mallorca! Lots of relatively low-stakes global action going on. Strap yourselves in, it's only getting started.
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