Update #4: postmanhat delivers
The cycling calendar picked up across the globe this week, with races in Australia, Africa, South America and Europe including WT teams. Many of the teams in the CQ game that didn't have much going on in Oz must have felt excited to get things off the ground this week. With the winners in Gabon and Argentina (and most of the Mallorca races) not picked in the game, and the winner of the Cadel race being a solo pick, the scores overall weren't quite as high as last week. But the breadth of scoring picked up as more riders got their seasons underway.
This Week's Top Scorers
A couple of teams clear 500 points this week, led by postmanhat, who has a set of good solid contributors that total 561 for the week. Namely, their team was led by youngster Hugo Page (108 points, 9 teams), Lennert Van Eetvelt (88 points, 20 teams), Corbin Strong (70, 9), Quinn Simmons (63, 39), and Caleb Ewan (62, 14). With more races going on after the Aussie-centric season start, a balanced portfolio will often be the way to the top. triley36 does quite well in 2nd this week thanks to another youngster excelling in Ethan Vernon (128 points, 12 teams), the aforementioned Page, unique pick Marijn Van Den Berg (99 points), and Simmons among others. Longtime game participant Blues in the Bottle gets a mention for the podium this week with Vernon leading the way, and Gaviria, Vermaerke and Healy some scoring riders not on the top 2 teams.
This Week's High Movers
Sometimes to get your name in lights in this game, you don't have to get the best score, you just have to start low enough to top the High Movers chart! Team skidmark began the week in 90th place thanks to 50ish total points, but with a solid enough week in week 4 of the game (thanks to Vernon/Van Eetvelt/Simmons), their team moves up a nice round 50 places. slow climber (thanks to Jason Tesson/LvE/Simmons) and adamski101 (one of the 7 teams who saw their pick of Ganna pay off well this week) complete an all-lower-case podium for this ranking.
Green Jersey Competition
The teams that got beefed up on Aussie points finally have a week off scoring but still sit comfortably atop the overall standings in the points ranking, with BitB the only scoring team this week in the top 5 overall. We've already had enough repeat points scorers that a weekly win alone will not get you into the top 5 overall.
Top 10 Overall
Things settled down a bit in the overall points ranking as well, with bminchow and Jakob747 still comfortably ahead of everyone else. ray10 is the only entrant into the top 10 this week, at the expense of Houdini Cycling who falls out. Weekly winner postmanhat jumped 24 spots in the overall, but is just out of the top 10 at #12.
This week the fun continues with the first stage races in the Middle East (Saudi Tour) and Europe (Besseges and Valenciana) for the year, packing in the racing before a bit of a down week next week.
spreadsheet at dropbox