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The 2024 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

Page 86 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Not really that surprising for some of the riders at least. Once the GTs start a lot of riders are racing a lot of days without scoring much of anything. It's only really the GC favorites who score well in a GT. Even if you win a stage and get a few stages placings that's basically just 100-150 points in a month of racing. And most GT riders don't even get that. Many would be lucky to even score above the minimum 15-20 points.
Sure but the GTs are held at the same time every year so you would expect that phenomenom to repeat itself every season. We went from having shalgo outscore every team in the history of the game by at least 600 points post Giro and having like half a dozen team ahead of every single 2023 team at the same stage to probably ending up with a single 15k+ team at the end of the season. For context, there's 10 teams on average that clear the 15000 points barrier (7 if you filter out the pandemic affected 2020/2021) and we had 4 in 2023. It's especially notable since we have extra points on offer from the Olympics this season. There's clearly something else going on that explains that drastic drop off and no I don't know what it is.
 
Could it be a consequence of an increasing % of points this year having been earned by the big stars that nobody (besides Googolplex) can pick? In the first part of the season there are tons and tons of opportunities for lesser gods to still amass points but when it's money-time Post-Giro that's simply not the case (as much).

Additionally, this year lacked very high-potential riders that simply had a bad year because of crashes/illness.

This is just a hunch of mine. I'm not sure if the dominance of Pogacar, Evenepoel, Van der Poel etc. in big races necessarily translates to points.
 
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Sure but the GTs are held at the same time every year so you would expect that phenomenom to repeat itself every season. We went from having shalgo outscore every team in the history of the game by at least 600 points post Giro and having like half a dozen team ahead of every single 2023 team at the same stage to probably ending up with a single 15k+ team at the end of the season. For context, there's 10 teams on average that clear the 15000 points barrier (7 if you filter out the pandemic affected 2020/2021) and we had 4 in 2023. It's especially notable since we have extra points on offer from the Olympics this season. There's clearly something else going on that explains that drastic drop off and no I don't know what it is.
Just a coincidence I think. A lot of the popular picks who scored heavily in the spring have fallen off a cliff for various reasons. Ayuso issues, Plapp injury, the Giro guys (Martinez, Arensman) not following up later in the season, Bernal injury, Morgado and Del Toro out of steam, Capiot injury, Rodriguez meh in the GTs.

And as has been pointed out, there was no Roglic/Remco/Boonen etc. who you could really rely on keeping the points rolling in all through the season.

And for shalgo, even the rare-ish picks that have made their team so successful are having issues. Cosnefroy injured, Bennett really only had that one race, Laurance no form anymore, Fisher-Black became a domestique after Lutsenkoing the first couple of months and same for Lecerf really.

Just think it's bad luck coupled with some good luck in that all those not-so-established riders scored so well in the beginning.
 
Are there still teams that scored really well Post-Giro in the grand scheme of things? The top scorers since then aren't the top teams overall (Update 19 to Update 36).

Post-Giro top scorers
1. JumboVismaFan: 6209 points / 10th overall
2. Ingsve: 5884 points / 12th overall
3. Vsd88: 5830 points / 29th overall
4. Yellow Knight: 5691 points / 22nd overall
5. Earns1985: 5671 points / 3rd overall
...
13. Shalgo: 5420 points / 1st overall

Probably not as it does look like most teams are clumped together, apart from JumboVismaFan.
 
Meintjes one of the last DNF in the World race probably means that he will not go into profit anymore this season.. You just had to finish the race, man! At least the very popular Staune-Mittet finished the race and is now also into profit!

We have a new leader in this ranking triley36 together with Squire!

Player% Doing better# Riders better than 2023# Riders in TeamRank
triley3684.85283316
Squire84.8528333
EvansIsTheBest81.8227332
Earns198581.8227334
shalgo81.8227331
Rufs81.82273366
tobydawq81.82273322
Anderis81.82273332
 
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Meintjes one of the last DNF in the World race probably means that he will not go into profit anymore this season.. You just had to finish the race, man! At least the very popular Staune-Mittet finished the race and is now also into profit!

We have a new leader in this ranking triley36 together with Squire!

Player% Doing better# Riders better than 2023# Riders in TeamRank
triley3684.85283316
Squire84.8528333
EvansIsTheBest81.8227332
Earns198581.8227334
shalgo81.8227331
Rufs81.82273366
tobydawq81.82273322
Anderis81.82273332
27 guys into profit. Vuillermoz is a single point short of breaking even but I think he is done. Gloag and Uijtdebroeks won't get there. That leaves Busatto, Kulset and Bruttomesso who are all 5 points below their 2023 score. Could definitely see them get 5 points for finishing somewhere so breaking even seems doable but turning a profit might be a different discussion.
 
Update #37: Green Jersey standings settle as Pogi continues GOAT season

The Worlds are done and dusted, and we have just a few weeks left in this game! While the overall has not been in doubt for some time, there are still the minor placings and the Green Jersey to sort out, and we took some steps towards settling those this week as well.

This Week's Top Scorers

RankTeamPoints this week
1Amethyst669
2Googolplex455
3vladimir380
4Bicycle_Boy378
5peixotini344

This should be a predictable result for anyone who's been following the weekly updates - as one of 2 teams to take the incredibly expensive Pogacar as well as the merely very expensive Evenepoel, Amethyst take the top spot on the week for the first time since a 5-week run in the top 5 every week in a period over June-July. Their total was of course bolstered by Pogi's 400 and Evenepoel's 162, with a few smaller contributions (eg Jan Christen got 39 and Markus Hoelgaard 42). Second place has to be the other Pogi-haver, as no other team reached 400 this week, so Googolplex grabs that spot. The race for third was a bit closer with vladimir coming out on top with 380 thanks to Mas (112, 14), Quinn Simmons (96, 15), and a few riders scoring in the 30s on the week (Brenner, Svrcek, Honore).

This Week's High Movers

RankTeamUp/down
1Amethyst(+10)
2Object(+4)
3tobydawq(+3)
3NorthAmericanScum(+3)
3Blues in the bottle(+3)

Amethyst easily doubles up here, moving a massive (for this time of the season) double digit number of spots up in the rankings. The rest of the podium is different than the first ranking, with former winner Object making an appearance in 2nd, and 3 teams including other former winner Blues in the bottle tying for 3rd.

Green Jersey Competition


This week's top 2 are also now the top 2 overall in the Green Jersey rankings. Googolplex scores 35 on the week and Amethyst 45, making it practically likely these two will be the top 2 on the season. With (I think) only 3 weeks left on the season, and a maximum of 45 points each week, technically if 6th place Yellow Knight won the last 3 weeks of the season and Googolplex got 0 points, we'd have a tie. Everyone below is mathematically eliminated. If none of the top teams got any points in the upcoming week, only Jakob747 and Amethyst would be able to catch Googolplex in the remaining two weeks. And practically, Amethyst is the only one really in contention, but the issue is that with both having Pogi, a good week for one is usually a good week for the other. So it's not wrapped, but looking good for Googolplex.

Top 10 Overall

RankUp/downTeamPoints
1(-)shalgo15685
2(-)EvansIsTheBest14129
3(+1)Squire13870
4(-1)Earns198513845
5(-)MADRAZO13806
6(+2)adamski10113729
7(+2)Gotland13710
8(-1)HoudiniCycling13697
9(-3)Salvarani13677
10(-)JumboVismaFan13666

shalgo gains another 100 points this week on EvansIsTheBest, but I'm sure EITB has eyes turned down the standings more, with Squire also gaining 100 points and moving into third. Still, 250 points is a bit to make up (though not close to the 1500 EITB has to make up on shalgo), and the teams behind are fairly close (10th place is closer to Squire than Squire is to EITB). So the final podium spot may provide some excitement in the final weeks. There's some jockeying around but no one enters or leaves the top 10 this week.

The last weeks of the season are always a bit of a wild card, depending on who has anything left in the tank, who has already ended their season, who hits ripping form for several days of consecutive classics in Italy, who gets a late season look at leadership chances, who gets points against weaker fields in Asia, etc etc. This week we will see who gets points in Langkawi, the CRO Race, the 1.Pro Paris-Tours, Giro Dell 'Emilia and Munsterland Giro, as well as a few 1.1 races. Then we're marching to the season's end!

spreadsheet link
 
I had put together a Collective Wisdom team: the most popular riders in a combination that fits within the budget. It comprises every rider that was picked at least 26 times (the top 27 picks), but for budgetary reasons Carlos Rodriguez (24 picks) had to be omitted. There were 2 places left for the 4 riders selected 22 teams, and to get as close as possible to the 7500 total, Sheffield and Walls are included over Wright and Riccitello.

I then totally forgot to check how they were doing.

The resulting group has, despite Gloag, Piccolo, Hayter and Uijtdebroeks, a current score of 13905 and would be in third place.
 
Doesn't help when the only popular expensive pick that you don't have is the one that brought the best return (Girmay). :mad:
Haha, he is my only hope in the fight against @Squire for 3rd right now.. :D

But with Poole on his way to get the easiest 2.HC GC points of the season in Langkawi, he really has to show a lot in Münster and Paris-Tours in the next couple of days.. But even if I would outscore @Squire , there are a lot of guys very close. The battle for 3rd to 10th is very close at the moment. @EvansIsTheBest in second in the end is becoming more and more probable.
 
Haha, he is my only hope in the fight against @Squire for 3rd right now.. :D

But with Poole on his way to get the easiest 2.HC GC points of the season in Langkawi, he really has to show a lot in Münster and Paris-Tours in the next couple of days.. But even if I would outscore @Squire , there are a lot of guys very close. The battle for 3rd to 10th is very close at the moment. @EvansIsTheBest in second in the end is becoming more and more probable.
Poole winning Langkawi is going to allow squire to take a huge chunk out of my lead though. De Lie is always scary as long as there are flat one day races going on. There's plenty of possibilities to jump in front of my team still.
 
As your season dwindles out into obscurity, or
As you begin to think beyond your celebration events for how well you have done here:

You will be thinking to yourselves, "There must be some way of applying my cycling game skills for the next few weeks and months other than going through my long-list for next year (with its side list for the 2025-27 Emerging Riders' Game.)"

There is: You have a week and a few hours to make a team for the Cyclocross game (2nd edition, this time more closely following the CQ game model, albeit with PCS rather than CQ as the points issuing authority) All the details in the thread.
 
Pogi on over 5000 points, if he wins Lombardy would he make the best possible CQ team?
My gut feeling is that he's been a shoe-in for the optimal team for some time already.

There should be enough Zambaninis and Christens (and not enough Girmays and Carapazes) to make that equation work.

Oh, and despite being bored out of my mind watching it, the Giro dell'Emilia was at least kind to me in CQ terms. Piganzoli was a big pleasant surprise.
 
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