Los Galacticos

[el Galactico]

Citta di Stresa 2011

After several good results in the last days Erik Jacobson was today able to win the one-day-race Citta di Stresa by outsprinting several stronger sprinters at the end. What a great result and our first real victory after we came back to do some races. For Erik it is his second career win and the first one for our team. With now 29 years he is still able to get some more.

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

Brazilian no. 7 will join our team at the 1st of August.
The headquarter in Rio again found a young brazilian talent, but this time the way to find him was a very short one as he comes directly from Rio de Janeiro, only a few kms away. He will have the rest of this month to prepare for his step over to Europe and right into the professional cycling.
His talent is extraordinary, but as we all know the brazilians have often not the best attitude when it's about hard training. So we have to see if he is able to use his big talent to become a new superstar for the Galacticos.

Thiago deLemos (56-74-78-52-61-70,4, reg. 36)

[Lizard]

Gorgeous rider, good luck with the training!

[Docteur Raboul]

Good victory

[el Galactico]

Merci Saur, it was a bit surprising that he was able to jump away from the field. He had not even a good form.

Victory number 96, the team is coming closer to 100 finally

[el Galactico]

Transfer News

The next brazilian rider in the Team for next month:

Luiz Lazequeira (50-58-66-51-82)

He should become our next hill sprinter! More to follow after the Summer holidays of the Manager! Then the Team will be back in action for races!

[el Galactico]

Oxford Challenge 2011
Erik Jacobson for the second time...

Today morning the team started in England for the Oxford Challenge in field 1, but in a very bad field 1. With RV Allagen there was only 1 famous team and the rest of the teams were just "nobody's". Nevertheless the race developed very interesting with Erik falling behind the Allagen sprinter Leider Preciado about 60 kms before the finish on one of the hills on the way. From that time on both teams fought against each other. Allagen with the better riders for hills and our team with the better flat riders for the last 30 flat kms. Finally Allagen was not able to hold our group away where Johnnie Walker, Arturo Sarrabal made a lot of hard work to bring Erik Jacobson back. Allagens only flat monster Roger Riviere then attacked when the group was just seconds in front of us but Joaquim Tigre the last one out of our flat armada was able to bring the peloton back and together they were able to bring the group to a mass sprint where then Erik Jacobson showed is strength by winning with just centimeters in front of Leider Preciado.
It's his second stage win for the team and the first one this month for us. A great result and with the 6th place for Tigre in the sprint it was also a good financial aspect in this race as we made about 150 k. Rider number 12 is about to come when we continue like this.

[el Galactico]

Tre Valli 2011
Araujo wins over the Tre Valli

What a day for the semi-active team Los Galacticos today.
In a very active race straight from the beginning on it was Rap Francais with his two strong classic riders who forced the deciding attack against the climbers 34 kms before the finish. With Joaquim Soares and Inacio Araujo we had two of our riders in the front and Soares began to make tempo together with Rap Francais and Sport.
About 15 kms before the end the leaders in front took over the tempo for a while but they also started their tactics. Finally the group reached the last 3 steep kms with 45 seconds in front of the climbers.
Both brazilians Nelson Pessoa (Rap Francais) and Inacio controlled the group with a high tempo so that nobody was able to follow them when Pessoa attacked at the "Flamme Rouge".
In the final sprint Inacio had just a bit more power left and won the race in the sprint of the 2 brazilians.


This is our 3rd classic after the wins from Diego del Rios and Ben Gourgue in 2010.

[el Galactico]

Agostoni 2011
Jacobson wins half-classic Coppa Agostoni

After the classic win by Araujo yesterday it was today Erik Jacobson with his 3rd win for the team and for sure the most important one.
A big group went away at the beginning and the sprinters seemed to be not very friendly to each other as the big favorite in a sprint was not working very properly.
As everybody thought the group will make it, it was an attack by Walker and Sarrabal which brought the needed tempo back in the peloton.
After that our team helped a bit to come back and from now on the sprinter teams worked together very well so that they were finally able to get the group back at the last kilometer.
While the favorite sprinters waited to long Jacobson and Lazequeira started early and at the end Erik was the first one who crossed the finish line with nearly a complete bike length gap to the second. Luiz Lazequeira finished 9th which is also a very good result for him in this age.

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

Today we can present a new rider which will come to our team at the 1st of September. After some advice from our star sprinter Erik Jacobson one of our scouts flew to Norway to meet a young rider which Erik met at a little criterium some years ago. He described the young guy with the following words: " He is young, and very talented at flat races. He is not the rider for early kilometers and he is not the one who can do a 100 kms at the front of the peloton, but it is very strong what he is able to do on the last few kms before the finish. He can do an incredible high tempo over some kilometers. A perfect man for a sprint train you can say..."

So 2 days later our scout came back to Rio de Janeiro and presented us our new rider:

Thor Hjelmstad (47-73-74-54-48, reg. 38)

[el Galactico]

Rider of the month

Inacio Araujo (57%) won the election for the rider of this month close before Erik Jacobson (43%). He won the 3rd classic for our team when he was the best at "Tre Valli".
In 17 races we were able to win 3 races, the other 2 won Jacobson in the sprint. Financially it was a good month with 1,145 million profit out of the 17 races. After 2 months in Division 5 we finally made it back to D4 which will hopefully mean not so much danger to go into field 2 anymore.
Last but not least we can present Thor Hjelmstad.The young norwegian will be rider number 12 in our team.

For september there are no special goals. There are no tours planned but maybe we can ride a little one spontaniously. Lets hope for good training and good results and again some money for the team in September 2011.

[el Galactico]

Mongo Grand Prix
Junqueira and Walker with an incredible ride...Win no. 100

Together with Aschat Schitkejev Ricardo and Johnnie escaped just after the race started and Johnnie took over the tempo for the first 80 kms. Nobody in the peloton reacted as nobody thought such a little group as a real chance to win in this hard race over lots of cobbled roads. The max. gap of 15 minutes was finally to much as the peloton rode very low in the steep hills in 2/3 of this race. This allowed the group, where meanwhile Ricardo and the Freudenfeuer rider took over the tempo, to rescue 28 seconds into the finish. Ricardo was able to win the sprint and Johnnie took the 3rd place. Thiago became 9th in the peloton.

This is our 100th victory in 732 races. For us a good quote even if teams like our friend Allagen will say its not that good.

[el Galactico]

3 years LOS GALACTICOS

Nearly forgot to celebrate my 3rd anniversary here.

We started our first race on the 01.09.2008 and from then on we were constantly on the way into the top of RSF. Last year in July 2010 we reached this place by winning the D1-championship for our first time.
732 races and 100 wins in now 3 years and 1 week. Several stars went through our rows. And 4 of them reached our Hall of Fame. First one was our star from the first days and a member from the beginning on. Alejandro Espinoza, spanish classic rider who won 5 stages and several mountain jerseys. Followed by Leandro daSouza our stage win-leader with 25 stages. Ben Gourgue, 3 times GT-participant and TOP5 finisher. He won 14 stages, each 2 at the Tour de France and Vuelta.
Last but not least our second hill sprinter Guilherme Callado, he reached 23 stage wins, several green jerseys (Vuelta!) and is our current leader in eternal points for the team with over 10.000 points. There were several other riders which could be mentioned here but we will leave it by that and make a little advice to our statistic center on page 1.
Yesterday we were finally able to win our 100th stage after we stopped the game nearly completely during the summertime 2011.

Thanks to a lot of friendly managers around here and this beautiful game we stayed and came back with a new motivation for even one day races.

[Robyklebt]

Pff, unfair, why no thanks to the ape? Why discriminate unfriendly managers? Grrr!

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

Today the team bought rider number 13.
Manuel Sosa from Puerto Madryn, Argentina is a 21 year old young flat rider with the following skills:
48-67-77-48-44 reg. 36

We say welcome to our first argentinian rider in team history. He has a tough job to do with all these brazilians in the team

[el Galactico]

Paris-Bourges

A few days to late, but still worth to be mentioned. Paris-Bourges already has some tradition in our team as Leandro da Souza won it already in 2009. Now 2 years later it was again Erik Jacobson, our sprint leader who won the mass sprint with an early sprint while all the favorite sprinters waited to long. Youngster Luiz Lazequeira fullfilled the good result with a strong 6th place overall. Victory 102 for the team.

Paris - Tours

Cat. 5 classic Paris-Tours and again a result which we already had 2 years ago when Leandro finished 3rd at this big classic race for sprinters. This time it was oldie Joaquim Tigre out of an escape group who finished 3rd. Erik Jacobson also finished 3rd in the peloton. A very good result which will lead the team back into D2 next month.

[el Galactico]

Tour des Pavés - Stage 1: Souvenir Manuel Luchs

Thiago deLemos is the winner of the first stage of the Tour des Pavés 2011 and therefore first leader of the general, sprint and youth classement.

What a beginning of our first Tour des Pavés ever. The Tour des Pavés is one of the RSF classic stage races with a big tradition and prestige for all participants. After 3 years this is now our first Pavés stage race. A very cheap team with the 3 pavé leaders Sabrosa, Sarrabal and deLemos(for white) starts here for the 5 stages, which each honour one of the winners of the big pave classics Ronde and Paris-Roubiax in spring.

The stage today was somehow a very calm one as there was one team which made senseless teamattacks and tempo during 2/3 of the race. After that the race became better with an good attack by 3 riders from team "Dedos partidos". Our team reacted just in time and saved the peloton from being beaten by the escapers. The last 3 pavé kms were unspectacular and Thiago was able to stay in the first group. Afterwards Sarrabal helped to hold everything together with some helpers of other teams. The sprint then was much more clear than expected. Joao Sabrosa finished 7th and Joaquim Tigre as 9th, which is a very good team result as well.

[el Galactico]

Tour des Pavés - Stage 3: Souvenir Pedro Garrido

After he finished 4th on stage 2 of the Tour des Pavés Joao Sabrosa won today the 3rd stage. This is his first career win and maybe the start to win this prestigeous tour. He is now 2. in the GC with 2 seconds behind. Tomorrow will be the last flat pavé stage and on friday the last stage with a very hilly pavé stage where Joao should have the best chances to win this tour. Therefore tomorrow is the most important day as he should try not to lose more time. Thiago deLemos and Arturo Sarrabal are also still in the fight for a good position in the GC. Especially Thiago could have also good chances if he is able to stay close to the best riders tomorrow.
With now 2 stage wins at this tour it developes to one of the most successful tours of the team history, especially with the financial aspect. The current win is incredible 512.200 € in these 3 days.

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

With the money of the 3 stages of the Tour des Pavés we were able to buy a new rider for next season. He is a 20 year young guy from Uruguay with strength in hilly/flat terrain. He is not superstrong in downhills but should become an excellent helper for hilly races for our future hill sprinter Luiz Lazequeira. Lets say welcome to:

Santiago Suarez (54-74-65-51-50)

He should become a strong 62-85 helper for hilly races any maybe with some good chances in escapes and hilly pavé races.

[el Galactico]

Tour des Pavés - Stage 4 & 5

On stage 4 Joao Sabrosa lost his chance for the tour win by losing 11 unnecessary seconds. With then 13 seconds behind Manfred Neumann (Equipe Legende) he went into the last stage where he thought to win enough time to win this tour but Neumann was very strong and even if we made the race very hard very early we were not able to get rid of him so that we finally had to go for the minimum and took the stage win as well as the 2nd place in GC. Thiago de Lemos finished 9th in the GC and became 2nd in the youth classement behind Joao who was easily able to win it. Finally the GC result was not what we expected, before the tour this would have been a very good result which we would have taken without any questions. Now after the tour we are a bit disappointed because the tour win was so close and possible, but the mistake on stage 4 destroyed our chances finally. After all this was nevertheless an excellent tour for us. Especially the financial aspect of this 5 days is just incredible.
Our financial income is not less than: 1.199.850 €

Therefore this month became already the most successfull one in finances with a win of 1,763 mio. €
The 3 stage wins (2x Sabrosa, Thiago) in 5 days make this month already just perfect for us and our youngsters.

[el Galactico]

National Championships

Brazil

The most important Championship was already the first one. Brazil. With 7 very good riders we were again the favorite for the title which we got on the last 2 NC before and all in all today this could become the 4th title for the team in Brazil.
Just in time the manager arrived and Oswaldo Iguacu was directly able to block out the first attacks. After that it followed the counterattack by Tigre and Thiago. One km later the best friend of Thiago, Joao Sabrosa also jumped out of the field and came to them in front. A group of 5 riders was built behind them. In this group there was also one very strong classic rider so that Tigre had to make a high tempo from the beginning on to not let this group come back. Finally this was no problem and when Tigre stopped working Joao took over and lead his friend Thiago to his second professional victory. He took the second place after he was the leader at the Tour des Paves and could win one stage more than Thiago. A great race for the team's atmosphere. Everybody was happy after this race and now the party in our headquarter in Rio can begin as the riders will have at least a day off tomorrow.

Chile

Arturo Sarrabal wins the Championship of Chile by outsprinting his only opponent Rodrigo Valdivia (Team Gismo) by 2 cycle lenghts. This is his first professional victory and the 107th victory for the team. Great!


More to follow...

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

New month, new riders.

We already introduced the young Uru Santi Suarez to the team and all of you.
Today, with one day delay, we are proud to present to you our second new rider for this month.

Oldie Johnnie Walker left the team today after 225 races of excellent help services for all of our leaders in this time. He was the oldest team member, the one with the most races and he was is whole career in our team which is quite a long time. But as we saw this young talent on the market we decided together with him to end his career to create a place for a new young rider who will have the chance to become a kind of a follower of Johnnie in the future.
His strength will also be in flat terrain, downhills and a bit in the hilly races.

He is our first italian rider ever and we hope he will enjoy the life here in Rio and mostly on the roads of RSF.

So now lets present to you - from the little town Glurns in South Tirolia, Italy:

Damiano Wallnöfer (51-74-77-51-44)

[el Galactico]

Tour de Kharkiv - stage 1
Lazequeira wins first stage

Luiz Lazequeira won the first stage of the Tour de Kharkiv in the Ukraine. About 30 kms before the finish the peloton was splitted into parts on a little hill and from there on Sabrosa, Sarrabal and Araujo lead Luiz back to the first group and then they were able to hold everything together with the help of the other teams with a sprinter still in front. The last hill 2 kms before the end then was ridden by Inacio and on the last km Sarrabal took back the last escapers.
Luiz is now the holder of the yellow, green and white jersey which already made the tour to a big success financially.

Tomorrow is a flat stage where we hope to hold all these jersey and maybe make sure to win the green one for the whole tour.

[el Galactico]

Mr. Lazy wins his first race

Unimportant cat. 1 race but nevertheless it was a nice success that Joaquim Soares alias "Mr. Lazy", the Ronaldo of the brazilian cyclists, won his first race out of an 60 km escape by him and his teammate Arturo Sarrabal.
On the first of the 4 rounds which made the end of the race "Valencia Loops" in Columbia they both attacked and with the waiting Thor Hjelmstad they were a group of 3 Galacticos which were constantly able to win time on the peloton where the favorites waited for each other to make the tempo. With 2 minutes and only 30 kms to go it was quite clear that Joaquim could win this race. Finally he saved 39 seconds to a group of climbers and classic riders. For sure his biggest race and maybe a start to begin the training again?

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

Today we sold Erik Jacobson, 2 days before he would have been able to end his career in our team.

Nevertheless there are much things to say about him. Unfortunately he was bought when the manager took a break of RSF. But afterwards Erik was the leader in the team and was able to win 5 races all in all. The most important ones were the Cat. 3 half-classics Bourges and Agostoni. Besides that he became 3rd at the 2 classic races Piemonte and GP de Fourmies.

The reason why we decided to sell him that short before his retirement is that we found a good rider on the youth market, which is not very often in these days. He will be a kind of a new rider for the team as we never had such a rider in the team before. He is a little bit like our former first star rider Joaquin Caparros.

Marcelo Lima 56-71-67-55-65

Our goal is to bring him into the direction of a 72-78-67-55-69. A type of rider like Terranova was in 2010.