The Smaller Team Thread

A very successful year for the Czech CT team ATT Investments.

The article below gives quite a dry, statistical overview of it, but the important stats as I see it are:

• Finishing ahead of Elkov in the UCI rankings and the Czech Cup

• Ranked as the third best European CT team just behind the devo duo of Alpecin and Jumbo which should still guarantee an invite to every .2 race in the continent

• Lots of wins. Many more than previous years

A lot of that success is of course down to Otruba who deserves to go to a higher level, but that is still up in the air.

The article does get a bit more interesting towards the end when it talks about transfers (~50% of the work force will change) and they give some clues about the riders - three foreign nationalities (Slovak, Hungarian? and ????), a pure sprinter and some youngsters.

Boguslawski? Toupalik Jr? Sivok? A few of my guesses.

 
How is the diabetes team going?
Novo Nordisk or Team Skyline? I'll presume you mean the former.

It all depends on which metric you use to judge them.

Obviously in comparison to other teams from the same level they've not had a great season. Zero wins and the only Pro Team to finish outside the top-50 in the UCI ranking and thus not eligible for a GT wildcard next year (not that they were going to ask for one anyway).

However if you view them as a special case and judge them accordingly then things are looking quite rosy I feel. The sponsor has renewed for another three years which is always good no matter who you are. The veterans (Lozano, Kusztor and Peron) gave some decent performances here and there through the season. A couple of podiums for Peron, top-ten in GC in Rwanda for Kusztor and 13th in Hainan for Lozano.

At the younger end of the spectrum, Ridolfo is far from ridiculous on his day, but the real nugget is of course Kopecky. Still only 20, but fifth at the Euro U23s and a top-ten in Dwars door het Hageland this year. That's a real result in a real race. He's been linked with a move away which is almost unheard of.

So I think things are going well.
 
Novo Nordisk or Team Skyline? I'll presume you mean the former.

It all depends on which metric you use to judge them.

Obviously in comparison to other teams from the same level they've not had a great season. Zero wins and the only Pro Team to finish outside the top-50 in the UCI ranking and thus not eligible for a GT wildcard next year (not that they were going to ask for one anyway).

However if you view them as a special case and judge them accordingly then things are looking quite rosy I feel. The sponsor has renewed for another three years which is always good no matter who you are. The veterans (Lozano, Kusztor and Peron) gave some decent performances here and there through the season. A couple of podiums for Peron, top-ten in GC in Rwanda for Kusztor and 13th in Hainan for Lozano.

At the younger end of the spectrum, Ridolfo is far from ridiculous on his day, but the real nugget is of course Kopecky. Still only 20, but fifth at the Euro U23s and a top-ten in Dwars door het Hageland this year. That's a real result in a real race. He's been linked with a move away which is almost unheard of.

So I think things are going well.
That's good, multi billion sales pharmaceutical company is probably an ideal what sponsor.
Pity there are not more of them.
 
A very successful year for the Czech CT team ATT Investments.

A lot of that success is of course down to Otruba who deserves to go to a higher level, but that is still up in the air.

The article does get a bit more interesting towards the end when it talks about transfers (~50% of the work force will change) and they give some clues about the riders - three foreign nationalities (Slovak, Hungarian? and ????), a pure sprinter and some youngsters.

Otruba is currently at the first ATT get-together in preparation for 2024, so we can assume no move up to Pro Tour.....

Dina is also there and with a bit of snooping and educated guesswork we can assume the other returning riders are Turek, Petrus, Schuran, Kaspar and Jakoubek along with the already known Stocek.
 
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Radsport have provided an update and thankfully it seems things aren't as bad as they could have been.


On Sunday afternoon, sporting director Rupert Hödlmoser was at least able to give the all-clear. None of his drivers are in mortal danger. "As brutal as the accident was, the boys escaped almost unscathed. Given the circumstances, they are doing well. Final checks are still being carried out to simply rule out everything.