Written by the OCM Season 15 awards committee
Already 1/3 of the new season past and it’s time to see how the best riders and teams from last season are doing this season. We have seen many good things but some disappointments, too. We will now talk about each one of them individually.
Vitaliy Bayer (Gradient Levellers) - Best Tour Rider & Best Young Rider
Being 25 this season, he can go again for Best Young Rider award. Not only won that last season, but also the Best Tour Rider award as you may know. This season started with good performances for Germany Tour winner, as he's already been two times on the podium despite riding focused on big Tours. He's a pure climber, but those two results have been achieved in a hilly and a complete race, so I can say that he's ready for every profile a Tour can have.
I give him a B, not meaning that I can see any weakness in his performances but knowing that his goals for this season are still to come and he is not (and must not be) on his best form at the moment.
Truman Vancil (Equipo Easy On) - Best Hiller
Best Hiller of season 15 (also nominated to best rider category) decided to stay a bit extra of time in Saint Lucia while his teammates continued the impressive performances. He went to the beach lots of afternoons, but mornings were still for long rides, that allowed him to make a very nice fourth place in his first race of the season. Hard races have been a bit too much for him, but his form is respectable as he always finished in top 15, out of only 6 performances, scoring points 4 times.
Raw C for him, as he was only 14th in Melbourne-Canberra, where he won two seasons ago. It seems that he is not finding his form, but if he does there's a lot of season to make this up, so EEO is not worried about it.
Gregory Levis (Equipo Easy On)- Best Time Trialist & Best Rider
Gregory Levis (Equipo Easy On) was the dominant force in time trials last season. A whopping 12 results, containing 4 wins ensured he won The Ame Anderberg Trophy for Best Rider of the Season and the Best Time Trialist Trophy. To maintain such a level of performance is almost impossible but Levis already showed he deserved his awards by winning again this season, even though he hasn't raced very much this season. While losing 2 places in the World Rankings he still is the rider all young timetrialists want to become when they grow up.
1 win might not be the high standard we have come to expect from Levis | | but his performance level certainly deserves a B.
Kristoph Villumsen (Darkwave Recordings)- Best Rider Outside Top Division
The result for the award of Best Rider Outside Top Division (better known as BROTD) was a close call last season. At the end Kristuph Villumsen could lift the silverware. While his biggest rival for the award, Erskine Pettis (Trackstah07) shot up the rankings Kristoph had to deal with his team now mostly competing in Top division. Villumsen had to show he could compete at the highest level and this season so-far shows it's no stroll in the park. While still scoring top 9 finishes he has to reach his first podium yet.
8 top 9 finishes is good, but Kristoph needs to show he can win, competing against the big boys. A B- is more than deserved.
Bywater CT - Best Breakthrough Team
“Getting on top is not the hard part, staying there is”. These words characterize the season thus-far of the winner of Best Breakthrough Team award. Bywater CT struggled to get the results needed to stay in the top 10 of the OCM rankings. Team manager Jacek might take some comfort from the (lack of) results the other contenders for the BBT are scoring. All five of them seem to have problems to keep the high level of performances up. Will this year’s nominees to come already fear the post BBT dip?
Bywater needs to get results fast, but rumors have it Jacek is preparing his riders for a points sweeping second half of the season. For now only a C- though.
Nicodemus Balanchine (Gradient Levellers)- Best sprinter
The Best sprinter awards winner from last season decided that this year he would do the same, or better. That’s why he caught the first place in the World Rankings again. He must feel that the best sprinter price isn’t enough for him. He obviously wants more. This time the second place (in the best rider award) won’t be enough for this star! To achieve that, Nicodemus decided that he would have to do as Kyle Abston did before. Participate in the Tweedaagse van Antwerpen. This cobblers Tour is becoming more and more famous inside the sprinters group. Despite not winning it he became 4th which is great for him. I wonder if this will become normal having sprinters fighting for this Tour… Although he hasn’t won yet this season, he achieved 6 Top places in 10 races. This consistency puts him on Top for now.
Much is expected from him this season. And for now he must receive a B+ for his results.
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Sterling Dorsher (FFL)- Best Climber
After winning the best climber award, His career was over. 30 days in the open market wasn’t enough for him to find a team and no one seemed interested on having last season best climber in their squad. This brilliant career deserved a better ending but even so finishing it with this price is unbelievably good for this star that will be remembered forever!
Sieuwerd Schimmel (Team RI) - Best Cobbler
He won easily the Best Cobbler trophy and the Best Breakthrough Rider trophy last season. He was even nominated for the Best Rider Award, something quite rare for a pure cobbler. So what did he do in the first month of this season? Everything that Team RI was expecting of him, and more! His biggest result last season was winning the cobbler's tour, Tweedaagse van Antwerpeen. You know what? He just did it again! But the 2 very young riders who finished close behind him in the General Classification will be a threat for years to come. The only cobbles race of the World Tour have seen Schimmel finishing on a very decent third place last season. Not enough for the Dutch cobbler: he finished first of the "Clash of Nations Paris" this time! His only disappointment was not being able to retain his title in the division 1 Roubaix Classic, his team having chosen to race it with a different captain this time, Galinatti (who won!)
With 3 wins (including the 2 major cobble races) for a total of 6 major results, Schimmel's season is already a big success so he deserves nothing else than a A.
Equipo Easy On - Best Team
The Best Team trophy of season 15 was won by Equipo Easy On by a margin of 2 to 1 rewarding the German team for an impressive number of podiums in top races. But it's hard to be as good two seasons in a row. No big victory yet for EEO's stars coming from little exotic islands: Broderick Rimmer, Truman Vancil and Gregory Levis. And no podium for the team in any classic so far. One major result nonetheless: the young Stewart Marzec took a surprising third place in the GC of Tweedaagse van Antwerpeen. And now, let's take a look at the number of victories and major results since the start of the season: 3 wins and 9 results, something that most teams would like to have but approximately 2 times less than what EEO had at the same point last time.
So, if Equipo Easy On wants to stay at the top, the German team will need to do a little better from now on. Its already high number of top9 and its amazing number of top riders make us believe that you can expect EEO to do just that so I'm giving the team a B.
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