It's just a bit too much for me. Bora has signed now a whole bunch of very strange names - a British track rider in Matthew Walls, a nondescript Danish U23 rider in Frederik Wandahl, an average MTB rider in Ben Zwiehoff and now this Palzer guy with god-knows what kind of qualification for road racing. Yeah, I know, the "numbers" are great with those, but for now this is more a media stunt than sensible recruiting for one of the world's best cycling team.
I'm with you that I'm very surprised by their transfers and there is certainly a lot of questions. This will defintely put their performance testing and Lorang under spotlight.
But as already mentioned, Walls doesn't belong in that list. Only beaten by Groenewegen at the ToB stage to Birkenhead and obviously all the results Zinoviev already mentionend. Generally the British Academy riders have had an excellent training program and he has already shown his capabilities both on the road and on the track.
And with Zwiehoff it was widely mentioned that he lacks explosivity to be a top guy in MTB and therefore should do better in road racing with his power numbers.
Wandahl is interesting as he hasn't got any results, but is supposed to have great numbers (surprise lol). He was recruited by Schrot, who is also running the U19 team of Bora and knows Wandahl from the races they do at junior level. He must've been pretty convinced of him.
It's a weird transfer period for Bora. But if we consider the guys that left the team, they reinforced themselves with a young and promising group. Granted there is a lot of risks and is looks like a trial run but they have a very solid core of riders and if there is a time to try and be innovative with this things, it's now. They don't have to deliver results. They can develop them, and try to bring the power numbers onto the road. If it fails with, say Plazer, Zwiehoff or Wandahl, so be it. They got Schachmann, Ackermann etc. to cover. They are not dependent on every one of them to deliver short term. Furthermore, they have an excellent performance team, coaches and the needed patience. The view is mid- or longterm.
Looking at last years transfers, there were also people surprised by the Schelling transfer. He wasn't very flashy. But he already showed how good a rider he can become at the Vuelta. Same for Laas, who they also singled out as a long term project and who people were wondering over how he got his WT contract. He was very good this year.