Update #6: Remco's powers bring ray flowers
Ahh yes, this week is what a fully buzzing week in the CQ game feels like. As always, the tantalizing buildup to the start of the season and glimpses of early season form from CQ team picks brings a lot of interest to the first weeks of the game, and we are now reaching the equilibrium where the amount of racing makes it harder to overly obsess about a single result. With stage races in three countries and two continents, we're past mid-February and getting into the WorldTour season itself. Let's see how the week went!
This Week's Top Scorers
It was quite the week for ray10, as their team gets the highest weekly score so far this year and ends up with the top step of the podium (where they give you flowers, get it? Okay it's not the first time I've committed to pushing it for the sake of bad wordplay) Leading the way for ray is the new leader of the year CQ rankings, Remco Evenepoel, coming back from his extremely disappointing second place last week to completely mop up in the TT of Algarve and run away with 186 points for his 35 owners. But that alone won't do it on a week like this - ray10 is also benefitting from the red-hot start of rare pick Brandon McNulty, who picked up another 128 points this week for his 8 teams. ray10 had solid support from Lennard Kamna (66 points, 73 teams), Mauri Vansevenant (63 points, 12 teams) and unique pick Kevin Colleoni (61 points). Blues in the bottle nabs second place led by Remco, with strong support from Lopez (112 points, 52 points), Kamna, and Jakobsen (58 points, 39 teams). JPettersen gets the last podium spot, with a similar look with Remco, Lopez and Dani Martinez (110 points, 33 teams).
Green Jersey Competition
ray10 gets on top here too, getting 45 points for the weekly win to go with 35 points a few weeks ago for 2nd place for a total of 80 in this classification. EvansIsTheBest gets a single point for tying for 15th place on the week (solo possession of 15th is 2 points) to draw even with Jakob747, who if you recall was just ahead last week.
Top 10 Overall
ray10 can't make it a triple though, as EITB had enough of a lead and a good week to boot, and therefore holds onto the top step of the overall podium, by a fairly convincing margin at this early stage of the game. While ray10 and laarsland round out the podium, lower down in the top 10 there is the appropriate amount of movement to reflect the high scores of the week and the chaotic fluctuations of the early season.
This week the UAE Tour is the main event all week, although there is a new 2.1 race in Spain that seems fun. And then... it's Opening Weekend! Whew, racing in Belgium is yet another step towards feeling like the season is really on! The counterprogramming of the less prestigious (but still lots of CQ points) races in France is just a bonus. See you all on the other side!
spreadsheet at dropbox