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I was very impressed - and surprised - by Sheffield's performance Sunday. You're right that he was often out of position, but in the end he did much, much better than I - or anyone, I imagine - would have expected. I wonder what Ineos' plans for him are? Is he a cobbled rider? A GC rider? I really don't think that his team has been doing a good job for his development.
He is only 21, soon 22, so I would think it has been too early to say "hey, you should focus on GC. Or ITTs. Or one-day races". When they or him has not known what the ceiling could potentially be. Maybe it will be easier to set new targets, make a program for next year, after this season is done.
Just letting him race, instead of letting him focus on something too soon, might be the best thing for his development right now.
He looks like he can be one of few riders that can pretty much be able to do it all. One of the most versatile riders in the peloton and he is still relatively young.
I dont think his team has done anything wrong, yet, as Sheffield is still developing and arguably had one of his greatest result to date.
I guess it's similar to Morgado at UAE as well who's been sent to do pretty much the full cobbled season this year but I doubt that is the plan for him long term. It's just part of him learning to be a well rounded cyclist.
I am a bit embarrassed. Only now realize Jose Herrada has retired. Shows the quality of research into my team... Oops.
Yeah, I optimized him out for Teuns in the end. Until Flanders I though this decicion was even worse than the decicion for optimising Ayuso out for C.Rodriguez...
Update #11: Morgado more good-o for top teams
Big week in cycling with the Tour of Flanders, which as a knock-on effect of so many top favourites being taken out mid-week, saw the minor placings behind MvdP go to some unexpected riders. Less huge week in CQ land as there weren't any stage races, but still a solid spring week with some shakeup in the standings.
This Week's Top Scorers
Salvarani takes the top spot this week thanks almost entirely to youngsters with impressive cobbled performances - top scorers on their team include Antonio Morgado (112 points, 37 teams), Magnus Sheffield (105, 22), Josh Tarling (92, 15), and non-cobbled scoring from Archie Ryan (52, 56) and Francesco Busatto (36, 16).
In second is triley36, who has all of Morgado/Sheffield/Tarling/Ryan and 51 points from Michael Valgren, but falls behind Salvarani with fewer minor/finishing points. Third place goes to search with Morgado/Sheffield/Ryan/Valgren and 80 points from Dylan Teuns (8 teams). Our two MvdP teams couldn't parlay his 280 points into top finishes, ending in 6th and 30th on the week.
This Week's High Movers
Salvarani was already quite high in the standings, so that created an opportunity for another team to top this ranking, and triley36 indeed does take a step up to the top here. tobydawq ends in 2nd with points from Sheffield and 75 from an oh-so-close-to-more Alberto Bettiol, among others. And there is a three way tie for the bottomo step of the podium here.
Green Jersey Competition
Some movement here - shalgo keeps the top spot, but Jakob747 nabs 9 more points to pull within 2 overall. Further down, teams need more than a weekly win to catch up, but rote laterne gets 26 points and Squire 6 to move into the top 5.
Top 10 Overall
shalgo maintains an iron grip on the overall, gaining 21 points on 2nd place to get closer to a 700-point gap to 2nd. Salvarani parlays the weekly win into a jump onto the overall podium, with less than 150 points separating 3rd-7th. Nakazar and former champ EvansIsTheBest move into the top 10, while JumboVismaFan and Total Package slide out.
This week is Holy Week, with Flanders leading into Itzulia, culminating with of course the big one next Sunday, the National Championships of Paraguay. Along the way, we have 1.Pro Scheldeprijs Wednesday (hopefully all the monumental crashing happened last Wednesday), 2.1 Pays de la Loire all week, and 1.WT Paris-Roubaix to add some flavour to the undercard.
Spreadsheet link
Big week in cycling with the Tour of Flanders, which as a knock-on effect of so many top favourites being taken out mid-week, saw the minor placings behind MvdP go to some unexpected riders. Less huge week in CQ land as there weren't any stage races, but still a solid spring week with some shakeup in the standings.
This Week's Top Scorers
| Rank | Team | Points this week |
| 1 | Salvarani | 490 |
| 2 | triley36 | 476 |
| 3 | search | 475 |
| 4 | rote_laterne | 462 |
| 5 | armchairclimber | 457 |
Salvarani takes the top spot this week thanks almost entirely to youngsters with impressive cobbled performances - top scorers on their team include Antonio Morgado (112 points, 37 teams), Magnus Sheffield (105, 22), Josh Tarling (92, 15), and non-cobbled scoring from Archie Ryan (52, 56) and Francesco Busatto (36, 16).
In second is triley36, who has all of Morgado/Sheffield/Tarling/Ryan and 51 points from Michael Valgren, but falls behind Salvarani with fewer minor/finishing points. Third place goes to search with Morgado/Sheffield/Ryan/Valgren and 80 points from Dylan Teuns (8 teams). Our two MvdP teams couldn't parlay his 280 points into top finishes, ending in 6th and 30th on the week.
This Week's High Movers
| Rank | Team | Up/down |
| 1 | triley36 | (+11) |
| 2 | tobydawq | (+9) |
| 3 | rote_laterne | (+8) |
| 3 | peixotini | (+8) |
| 3 | search | (+8) |
Salvarani was already quite high in the standings, so that created an opportunity for another team to top this ranking, and triley36 indeed does take a step up to the top here. tobydawq ends in 2nd with points from Sheffield and 75 from an oh-so-close-to-more Alberto Bettiol, among others. And there is a three way tie for the bottomo step of the podium here.
Green Jersey Competition
| Rank | Team | Total |
| 1 | shalgo | 152 |
| 2 | Jakob747 | 150 |
| 3 | repre | 104 |
| 4 | rote_laterne | 93 |
| 5 | Squire | 81 |
Some movement here - shalgo keeps the top spot, but Jakob747 nabs 9 more points to pull within 2 overall. Further down, teams need more than a weekly win to catch up, but rote laterne gets 26 points and Squire 6 to move into the top 5.
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Up/down | Team | Points |
| 1 | (-) | shalgo | 5587 |
| 2 | (-) | skidmark | 4918 |
| 3 | (+3) | Salvarani | 4860 |
| 4 | (-1) | repre | 4847 |
| 5 | (-) | Squire | 4823 |
| 6 | (-2) | MADRAZO | 4729 |
| 7 | (-) | Jakob747 | 4711 |
| 8 | (+3) | Nakazar | 4523 |
| 9 | (+1) | JPettersen | 4499 |
| 10 | (+2) | EvansIsTheBest | 4497 |
shalgo maintains an iron grip on the overall, gaining 21 points on 2nd place to get closer to a 700-point gap to 2nd. Salvarani parlays the weekly win into a jump onto the overall podium, with less than 150 points separating 3rd-7th. Nakazar and former champ EvansIsTheBest move into the top 10, while JumboVismaFan and Total Package slide out.
This week is Holy Week, with Flanders leading into Itzulia, culminating with of course the big one next Sunday, the National Championships of Paraguay. Along the way, we have 1.Pro Scheldeprijs Wednesday (hopefully all the monumental crashing happened last Wednesday), 2.1 Pays de la Loire all week, and 1.WT Paris-Roubaix to add some flavour to the undercard.
Spreadsheet link
Yes! That's the big one!
Also, I'm totally fine with saying Gregaard didn't score any points last year, and is thus already into profit. Works for me.
Carlos Rodriguez is setting himself up to be such a failure. It's April and he hasn't been competitive once this year. He lost time today again so a good result in Itzulia doesn't seem likely either. If he keeps that up for the rest of the year, he's going to be a loss of a good few hundred points.
Yes, he seems to become a real failure. Even if it´s just a slow build up for the tour like Froome in the old days or what Thomas is still doing, it's not good, because it´s important in this game to deliver for the whole year.
This must be the least excited I've ever been and ever will be to see my riders go two from two in the afternoon's races...
Will be interesting to see how these crashes affect the rest of the season for Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Roglic. Imagine having a season where two top riders like one of these and someone like Van Aert become viable for the game next season. Could be some very tough choices to be made if the points totals end in the right ranges for it.
Being pessimistic, that could make the game quite boring with a lot of teams lumping 3500+ points on 2-3 riders. This year is really interesting because of the variety of picks and Ayuso being the only popular 1000+ rider. I wish them all a speedy recovery
Will see what happens but right now Van Aert and mostly Vingegaard looks to be in the worst condition.
Roglic was taken out for safety measures. He will heal up in the next couple of weeks. "Just" heavily bruised up.
Remco and Van Aert could be back for Tour, probably must be back, if they want to have any chance for the Olympics.
Vinge is the most unknown. Tour could be in danger.
Visma in a big predicament on what to do, but we wont know for a month or so towards where it is heading.
I thought I read Remco had a collar bone and a scapula break. If that's true, I don't see him coming back 'til next year. I'm interested to see what it does for the Tour. It really does put a damper on the season though.
I tend to root for Belgian riders and well, this sucks.
Ayuso looking like an even better pick now, provided he's not too marked by the crash the other day. And especially going forward, looking at Ardennes and the Tour. Podium in the Tour is a real possibility now. Questionable Pog after Giro, Vingegaard might not make the Tour, Remco might be undercooked if he makes it.
I need Pidcock to stop being blown off the road and go collect some big points in the Ardennes.
I need Pidcock to stop being blown off the road and go collect some big points in the Ardennes.
Schachmann looked pretty impressive today. Seems like he can score some points in the gc or at least during the ardennes classics.
Still with Roglic since he wasn't on his best form in Paris-Nice and now that he had trained and was feeling in better shape he left Basque Tour with not much either so he's already 500 points behind where he normally is this time of year. So unless the rest of his season is close to spotless then he'll certainly be in the range of viable for this game.
I think it is still a good chance that he ends up scoring 1000-1500 points this season. He will be back for Dauphine and then Tour + whatever he does in the fall.
I also think, given Roglics age, that you cant look at what he normally has done. He probably wont be able to score 2000-3000 points again. It is more realistic to think that his ceiling, from now on, could be just short of 2000 points or within the range of 1500-2000 points.
You just gotta see where he ends the season with to gauge what the potential profit might be, because he is not gonna win every race going up against the younger guys in the stage-races.
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