Re: Rapid Vitesse
Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 2:33 pm
The year 2019 was, like every year so far, the most successful year in the team’s history. We won 63 out of 135 races (excluding 15 national championships) and won an incredible amount of 11 classics. 8 of those classic wins happened between 25 August and 13 October, which even RSF-legend Alkword referred to as “a nice streak”. Really, who could have imagined this when the team started its RSF-career almost 5 years ago with 0 wins in the first 50 races?
Rider of the year is, without a doubt, Jasur Khushbakov. In the past year he won a stage in Pais Vasco, the classics Monte Paschi, Brabantse Pijl, GP Quebec, Tre Valli Varesine and Lombardia plus the tours of Burgos and Wallonie. This makes him the most successful rider ever in our team. Only the great Jason van Poelgeest got more wins in his career (27 vs. 18), but those were mostly smaller races. Jasur was the first rider to win more than one classic and therefore he deserves the rider of the year-award and would have perhaps earned the rider of the century-award, if such an award existed.
Next to Jasur’s wins, other highlights of 2019 were:
- Hunter Manu becoming the second rider to win 2 classics in his career (Milano-Torino and Piemonte). However, he didn’t live up to his promise yet to win many tours. The only tour he won in 2019 was the Windwards Islands Tour, but to be fair: he also didn’t get any opportunities to win other tours from his manager.
- Michael Kaltack taking an unexpected win in Paris-Tours after a sprint of 350 meters.
- Yerbolat Aitmukhambetov getting an escape win in GP Hamburg, while his manager was chilling at the pool during a business trip to Myanmar
- Winning 4 out of 5 stages in both the Tour of Wallonie (well ok, only 1 opponent there) and Tour of Burgos (against 11 opponents)
- Evgeniy Lushnikov winning 2 races in May after a sprint with a 4-man group that contained 2 not too tired riders of the same team. Doing it once could be the result of an opponent screwing up, but doing it twice against different opponents shows that Zhenya really was a sly old fox. That’s also why he joined the team’s staff after his career ended.
All in all, 2019 was a good year for us. For 2020 we have no clear goals again, other than the simple goal of just trying to win every single race we ride.
Happy New Year to all of you!
Rider of the year is, without a doubt, Jasur Khushbakov. In the past year he won a stage in Pais Vasco, the classics Monte Paschi, Brabantse Pijl, GP Quebec, Tre Valli Varesine and Lombardia plus the tours of Burgos and Wallonie. This makes him the most successful rider ever in our team. Only the great Jason van Poelgeest got more wins in his career (27 vs. 18), but those were mostly smaller races. Jasur was the first rider to win more than one classic and therefore he deserves the rider of the year-award and would have perhaps earned the rider of the century-award, if such an award existed.
Next to Jasur’s wins, other highlights of 2019 were:
- Hunter Manu becoming the second rider to win 2 classics in his career (Milano-Torino and Piemonte). However, he didn’t live up to his promise yet to win many tours. The only tour he won in 2019 was the Windwards Islands Tour, but to be fair: he also didn’t get any opportunities to win other tours from his manager.
- Michael Kaltack taking an unexpected win in Paris-Tours after a sprint of 350 meters.
- Yerbolat Aitmukhambetov getting an escape win in GP Hamburg, while his manager was chilling at the pool during a business trip to Myanmar
- Winning 4 out of 5 stages in both the Tour of Wallonie (well ok, only 1 opponent there) and Tour of Burgos (against 11 opponents)
- Evgeniy Lushnikov winning 2 races in May after a sprint with a 4-man group that contained 2 not too tired riders of the same team. Doing it once could be the result of an opponent screwing up, but doing it twice against different opponents shows that Zhenya really was a sly old fox. That’s also why he joined the team’s staff after his career ended.
All in all, 2019 was a good year for us. For 2020 we have no clear goals again, other than the simple goal of just trying to win every single race we ride.
Happy New Year to all of you!