Well, my moderate hopes at Mallorca have been remarkably undershot. I got:
10 points from Sosa
5 points from Walls
Oh! And 12 points from Bettiol in France. Wow, 87th out of 91 teams, nowhere to go but up!
Saudi Tour
Caleb Ewan
Andrea Bagioli
Lennard Kamna
Cian Uijtdebroeks
Well Ewan is already off to a good start, but my overall hope was Bagioli, who crashed and is 20 minutes down. Kamna could feature, but he's the most popular rider in the game, and Cian isn't super far behind, so this is gonna be more of a 'treading water' kinda race.
Etoile de Besseges
Filippo Baroncini
Antonio Tiberi
Thibaut Pinot
Alberto Bettiol
Sacha Modolo
The two Italians from Trek seem to be unconfirmed still, and Jay Vine appears on some startlists, so it seems still in flux. But my interest lies in the middle of my lineup - stage 4 has a proper test (4.6km @ 9.1%). That is probably too long and hard for Bettiol to hang, but with an uphill finish on stage 2 and the final TT suit his versatility really well so I could see a high finish. But my real hope lies with Pinot, who is certainly a popular pick but also could give a big leg up over the 1/3 of the field who doesn't have him, if he returns to his historical form.
Valenciana
Remco Evenepoel
Tao Geoghegan Hart
Juan Ayuso
Kaden Groves
Matthew Walls
Andrea Piccolo
My 3 GC guys are all relatively popular, but not as popular as I thought - Ayuso is on 57 teams, TGH on 42, and Remco on 35. Obviously most curious about how Remco starts his year, as my most expensive pick and in general. Also curious to see if the other guys feature in the fast finishes on the last two stages.
Great to have the racing picking up!