Written by Don Hamstre of Schiavi di Don
In all my years of committee or reporting experience, I have never seen the Awards go according to plan. But this time, I was going to do it professionally. Therefore, I started with taking interview from some of the most nominated managers;
Tirilla, Team Tirilla (5 nominations, 5 previous Award wins)
1. If you look back on the season, what was your highlight?
The highlight of the season was probably day 51: this day Rowan Baird won the classic Antwerpen - Huy, I had had an almost perfect first half of the season with 10 wins, Cadman Kantor was 1st on the ranking, and my team had been 1st for two weeks, reaching +5000 points for the first time.
2. Which Award would you like to win the best?
The award I would like to win the most is the Best Manager Award. This season I believe it is somewhat within reach. Out of the awards I haven't won yet, I would also love to win Best Cobbler.
3. Which team do you think will get the most Awards?
I think it will be either Drapeau Noir or myself this season, and it will be very close. My guess is that he will take one more award than I will.
4. What will be the surprise of the Awards?
As I don't remember the exact nominations anymore, this is difficult to answer. I really hope that it will be Fred Hasselbaink as Best Hiller! A fairly big surprise would also be Gedeon as Best Rider of the Season.
Jonas, Jonas Pro Cycling (4 nominations, 1 previous Award win)
1. If you look back on the season, what was your highlight?
Definately ending on third spot, best team performance ever. Also having Øsrtup almost winning SC in Germany in his last season for the team.
2. Which Award would you like to win the best?
Best manager, since it is an award that weighs team strenght against results and ranking. I like that because it is the award with most depth to it. But it will be hard with all those good competators.
3. Which team do you think will get the most Awards?
Tough one. I can't remember all the nominations. But a guy like Cadman Kantor is alone probably worth two awards. So my guess would be Team Tirilla.
4. What will be the surprise of the Awards?
That a lot of the catagories aren't won by the riders that have the highest general point score.
Yann, Matrix team (3 nominations, 6 previous Awards wins)
1. If you look back on the season, what was your highlight?
There were 2 highlights in my season : the 7th Essex GC, and a 3rd WC ITT jersey.
Also many victories in TT races, more than ever.
2. Which Award would you like to win the best?
Without any doubt, best TTer : Matrix Team is based on TT since the beginning. And if Sandro managed to win it once more...
3. Which team do you think will get the most Awards?
I think Delion deserves some awards for his season.
4. What will be the surprise of the Awards?
Kantor not being rider of the season maybe?
Delion, Drapeau Noir (7 nominations, 7 previous Award wins)
1. If you look back on the season, what was your highlight?
Winning TvA for the third time (+ YC) was great but reaching 18 wins in one season was completely unexpected and I'm proud of this historical | | achievement. When I won my 18th title on day 69 I couldn't believe it!
2. Which Award would you like to win the best?
"Best manager", having done much better than last season when I won it for the first time.
3. Which team do you think will get the most Awards?
Mine.
4. What will be the surprise of the Awards?
A rider of mine who should have won could miss an award by a few points.
If rider X deserves to be 1st and rider Y deserves to be 2nd, it takes only 4 peoples who "forget" X and place Y as their 1st vote to beat 10 people who vote in a fair way. Mathematics.
With the interviews over and done with, it was time for the presentation of the Awards themselves. It looks like the awards for Best Manager is the most desired one, but only one of the nominated managers can win it of course (except when there is a tie, but 'only one of them can win it' sounds so much better)
The first category of the day is the Award for Best Hiller. This Gala, we have a new feature, which shows the number of votes adding up in columns on a big screen. Two columns look like they're going to end the highest, Fred Hasselbainks and Zeferino Saraivas. It's very close, but Seraivas column stops at 98 votes, while Hasselbainks goes on to 100! It's Fred Hasselbaink who gets the Award!
The Best Sprinter Award had a clear favourite for the win, as Cadman Kantor had an amazing season with over 1800 points inside the Sprinting category! And as the columns rise again, it's clear he's going to take a monster victory. He got 154 votes, the most in known history, beating the old record (which was also his own) by 12 votes. Cadman Kantor is your winner in the Best Sprinter category.
The Sterling Dorsher Trophy for he Best Climber is our next category. It's a battle between Venancio Bento and Ejanr Rosenborg. Bento got 100 votes, but Rosenborg wins with 118!
Rosenborg had a great season, winning two Div 1 climbing classics, so he is a worthy winner.
The Award for Best Cobbler have two tour winners among the nominees for the very first time, after the introducing of Haute Normandie, the second cobble tour. But of course it's the winner of the Division 1 tour who is the favourite. And Cristobal Zubizaretta lived up to the odds, as he wins the Award with 36 votes more then Estebe Mauri and Max Ballette, who share second place.
Next up, it's The Gregory Levis Trophy for Best Time Trialist. After winning his 'I've lost count, it are so many'th victory at Essex Tour, Sandro Montelbano was the clear favourite to win his 5th TT'ers Award. But he had competition form TT World Champion Theodore Castle. However, nobody could prevent the guy with a Tour named after him to win this Award. 136 votes secured a very comfortable fifth win.
The Elias Márquez Trophy for Best Tour Rider is next on the program. This Award always has lot of strong competitors, but because of the new tours, there were even more this season. All the nominees would have deserved winning it, but it's Pétur Snælaugursson from the Faeroe Islands who wins the Trophy. He is very happy with this trophy, as it will officially be the tallest thing in his country now. (and no, it's not that big)
Next up is the Award which makes everyone in the room feel very old indeed. It's the Award for the Young and fresh, for the greenhorns. This does however not mean that the nominees haven't won anything yet. Among them, they won 22 races last season, not to mention the 26
| | other results. Four of them have won a jersey in a Tour, while the other one ended third in the OCM rankings! But enough about their collective achievements and on to the winner. It's the World Champion, Dražen Cetnik!
Still recovering from the shock of the freshness of those young riders, we get some help, because the Award for the Best Old Rider is next. Our eyes are fixed on the columns again. It's going neck and neck between Ottto Beier and Brian Hitchens. And then we see something we can hardly believe. Agony for Hitchens, who got 95 votes but is beaten by Otto Beier, who got 96. Only one vote separating these two amazing riders. Beier is over the moon with his second consecutive Old Rider Award, but Hitchens seems to be hit by a brick wall. Will he ever come so close to winning this Award again?
The next category, Best Breakthrough Rider, is the last chance for 4 times nominated Joachim Kerch to leave the Gala with an award. But he has strong competition from the two cobblers Max Ballette and Cristobal Zubizaretta. As we watch the amount of votes rise again, the three don't give each other an inch. Ballette is the first to go down on 88 votes and then the tension gets unbearable for Kerch. Will he get his award? No! It's Zubizaretta who wins his second Award, with 96 votes against 92 for the unlucky Kerch. Four nominations, but no prize. For Cristobal however, it's two out of three, making him very happy indeed.
I always love the Award for Best Rider Outside Top Division, because this gives us a look at the lesser known teams and shows us that they too have some pretty amazing riders. Team Seidel, 0jejku, mikai, Seeds2 and PegasusFlights even had some world class riders this season. One of these riders will get the Award and that rider listens to the name of Jan-Peter Werff! He won Mito-Tokyo, which is always a much desired classic and now his season gets even better.
Just three Awards left and it's time for another one of my favourites, the Award for Breakthrough Team of the season. Who will get this massive pat on the back by the community, showing appreciation for the way the have performed out of almost nothing? It's Avataria who gets it! The Norwegian team won the Sprinting Classification of RotM and had their best season by quite a distance. Let's hope that they can keep improving themselves at this rate, because then we will have a new contender for first place in no-time!
And now for the Award that kept being mentioned in my interviews, the Award for Best Manager. Of course everyone wants to win this, as it's the ultimate form of appreciation by the community you can get as a manager. And it's not always the number one of the rankings who wins it. This time, that's the case too, as it's Tirilla who wins the Award! He will undoubtedly be extremely happy with this Award and we wish him the best of luck for a lot of seasons to come!
The last Award of the evening, The Ame Anderberg Trophy for Best Rider of the Season. Strangely enough, only two of the nominees have already won an Award at this gala. For Bento, Roels and Gedeon, this is their last shot at glory, but they missed it! Nobody could stop Cadman Kantor this season and therefore the number one of the rankings was always going to be the Best Rider of the season. We congratulate him with his second Award of the evening and his team, team Tirrilla with their fifth! A very happy evening for them.
As the Gala comes to an end, I have an empty feeling. What did I miss about this gala? And then I realise: nothing went wrong. Unbelievable. See you next time, I'll ensure you that there will be things messed up again!
|