Written by KrMees of Velosipedska
  
  Greetings to all, it is my pleasure to announce another statistical analysis for a tour in OCM: the Race of the Minutemen! Let’s take a look at the participants and what the stats have to say about this edition of the American tour.
  
  Team Participations:
  Treaty City CC will be participating in this tour for the 18th time. Their first RotM appearance was in season 7, when Sherard Kalbach finished 22d in GC (4th in YC). Current participant squadra sora was also present in that edition, Dominik Van Hecke took 4th in the SC for that team.
  
  Only BCTeam (22 appearances) has raced this tour more often than Treaty City CC (17+1), Twente Cycling Team rounds up the top-3 with 13 participations.
  
  On the current start list, PtbaGooner will become the 6th team to race this tour at least 10 times, squadra sora will be visiting the tour for the 9th time this edition.
  
  Quick step minded is the only current team that was present in the very first edition of this tour. Izak Van Bethlehem finished 3d in the SC for them at the time, and was also the only recorded rider to finish the tour. At 11’08’, he is the last recorded rider on the GC table of edition #1. This season will be the 4th time Quick step minded race this tour.
  
  rooney17 was also present during an early edition of RotM: edition 4 in S19. Dirk Veldkamp finished 10th in GC for them, whilst Afanasy Tyannikov finished 5th in the YC.
  
  This year, 19 teams will ride RotM for the very first time: Bank Lux, Stavrosslegend, BVB, CARO BIKE TEAM and the incredible 6 are all debutants.
  
  Rider Participations:
  
  Apart from teddybears (8th), the entire top-9 of last season is present at this race. Or at least, their teams are. Defending champion Que Nam Hong and number 3 Ciceron Guinassi are present, but runner-up Alexej Kafka has not joined CyclingClubChomutov this year.
  
   Que Nam Hong will try to become the 7th rider to win RotM twice, after Friedhelm Kuhlmey, Leo Drinkwater, Malcolm Waltz, Otto Hagman, Senel Nedim and Ctirad Jankulovski.
  
  Jankulovski is also present at this edition, meaning he could become the first rider to win this tour three times. The 35-year-old is probably not aiming for the win himself this time though. He is also by far the most experienced GC rider in this specific race with 6 results in 10 participations (2x win, 1x podium, 3x top-9).
  
  The only other riders with at least 3 previous participations are Jerome Stice (4 apps) and Nikolas

Venta (3 apps). The only other present rider with at least 2 top-9 GC finishes is Jose Orozco (1x podium, 1x top-9).
  
   Jose Orozco won the YC of this race in S50, already racing for Sanchx. Combined with a 2d place overall, this is still his best tour result ever, even though he was 23 years old then, and 30 years old now.
  
  Apart from the 6 teams that make their debuts in America, 97 riders will try to finish RotM for the first time.
  
  *There’s a cutoff at around 11 minutes where riders aren’t listed anymore in historical editions. I treat these at DNF. Some riders might have a few more appearances, but you have to be listed to be known*
  
  Nationality:
   Dwayne Chamberlain will be the single American racing RotM this year. Perhaps we can count US Virgin Islands resident Igor Perlee for the home team as well?
  
  The Colonies might need to worry about their original overlords, since 13 English riders make up the largest group of riders from a single nation. Burgess Swenson is probably the most well-known, his entire Stavrosslegend team is English.
  
  Other large national contingents consist of the Dutch (11 riders), Danish and Spanish (both 8).
  
  There will be 6 single nation teams present at the race: the incredible 6, Velosipedska, Universal Soup, Baix Bikers, CyclingClubChomutov and the aforementioned Stavrosslegend.
  
  All 6 riders from South Africa (the incredible 6), Macedonia (Velosipedska), Vietnam (Universal Soup) and Guam (Baix Bikers) that are present at this race, are riding for single nation teams. Czechs riding for CyclingClubChomutov have a friend in Arne Urban at Cotopaxi, and the Englishmen at Stavrosslegend have plenty of compatriots around.
  
  On the other end of the scale, there are also 6 teams that bring 6 different nationalities to the race: FretexHIBAS, Team Arctic, PtbaGooner, Abs stars, squadra sora and Quick step minded. Those last three didn’t manage to bring a rider from their team’s nation, so they kind of represent 7 different nations in this tour.
  
  Rider Skills:
  CyclingClubChomutov (49.3), Baix Bikers (49.0) and Abs stars (48.7) bring the highest AV team to America. CARO BIKE TEAM (43.8), BVB (43.3) and rooney17 (42.3) are the only sub-44 AV teams participating this season.
  
   Ciceron Guinassi is the only 57 AV rider present at the race, whereas weakest AV riders Daunte Preciado and Paxton Sztern (37) might only dream of that kind of skill.
  
  Bank Lux bring their customary high CL-team to the table, this year their average CL sits at 90.3! the incredible 6 (86.2), Himalaya Bikers (84.8) and FretexHIBAS (83.7) also

feel clearly at home in the mountains. The three teams with the lowest average CL happen to bring the highest average SP riders: Korstanje (83.7), CARO BIKE TEAM (78.8) and BVB (63.5).
  
  Berritxaco’s Rodas de la Grosis is statistically the best rider on the rough terrain, with a combined 230 points in CL, DH and HL.
  
  Rider Age:
  As for age, the golden oldies of Korstanje are 34.5 years old on average. No other team has an average age of 30+. The youngsters of Dranac Race Team are only 24.2 years old on average, at least a full year younger than the next-youngest teams.
  
  The three youngest riders at the race are Kenyon Freitag, Basilio Arria, Marciano Incravuglia and Ethen Costigan, each 21 years old. Around the time these riders were born, race nestor Bruno Hesseling (41) was hired by Curitiba in S36. He had to wait until season 37 until he made his first race appearance though.
  
  Stavrosslegend truly field a generationally homogeneous team, with only 4 years between their oldest and youngest riders (26-30). Korstanje’s 18-year difference between Archibald Wuest and Bruno Hesseling might breed some more fruitful mentor-prodigy relations though.
  
  ---Mock Trophies---
  The ‘I also don’t know why I’m here’ trophy for best cobbler at the race: Elias Mutesa (77 CB)
  The ‘Suddenly called up after all’ trophy for worst form: Conroy Christopherson (69 RS at the time of writing)
  The ‘Is passport fraud worth the risk?’ trophy for strongest 25-year old non-YC-eligible rider: Ernst Reiswig (56 AV)
  The ‘faewvfhvsvrehvg’ trophy for name American announcers will butcher: Hoan Nguyên Dat
  The ‘Wait this isn’t Canada?’ trophy for the hiller that should have been at Edmonton: Sondre Skoglund (or perhaps Iosif Murgan from Vojvodina NS)
  The ‘How the hell did you get a visa for the US’ trophy for obvious reasons: It’s a tie between North Korea’s Don Kuk-gyu and Sameer Abdul-Ghaffur from Kuwait!
  The ‘Why is my captain sideways?’ trophy for teams that didn’t bring a wind breaker: Every team except CARO BIKE TEAM ( Magnus Olsson) and Velosipedska ( Eftim Nastevski) - I just noticed only two 80+ FR riders are present!
  
  A special shout out to the riders who tried to start their amazing alphabet of alliteration but got stuck at ‘D’: Adolfo Aristizabal, Benedikts Burtnieks and Conroy Christopherson. Also Wallace Waddington.