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Ok, to the other awards this year too... 2009 Allagen did, he forgot to put a limit to the votes so we still could vote for Reynolds vs Leupold if the forum hadn't crashed... 2011 Lizard, he seems gone. So ok ok, I'll just do it:

Rules. From Dec. first to Dec 15th nominate riders. Max. 3 nominations per person. No need to make an order. No need to nominate riders already nominated by others. Around Dec. 15th Roko Keko will put all the nominated riders in a vote. If there are more nominated riders than there is places in the vote, the ape will simply decide himself which 15? 20? riders get a place in the vote. Ah, he'll draft FL and NoPik to help him in the decision. but unlikely it happens. If it happens, the reasons given for the nomination will be taken into account.

Here: Surprise of the year. Nominations are open.

Although it's Ariostea and therefore perhaps not such a big surprise, I nominate his Monument victories . He won RVV with Anev (71-81-66, Sprint 54 and Pavé 70) and more important: PR with DellaRocca (75-80-6x, Sprint 54, Pavé 71,9).

In the same category: Markos Themistokles winning PR: Like DellaRocca you would expect him to be more successful on other profiles. In his height, Markos was a 80-80 rider...

Ariostea's wins in April classics... that was unbelievable, especially DellaRoca in PR

Wim VanSummeren, only one win in his career: la Wallonne.

with his skills, Paris-Roubaix or Flandres, ok, but la Wallonne...

DellaRocca and Anev for them classic

Ernest Abts...Team Lulu
only 1 stage win, but was for one!

team fl wrote:Although it's Ariostea and therefore perhaps not such a big surprise, I nominate his Monument victories . He won RVV with Anev (71-81-66, Sprint 54 and Pavé 70) and more important: PR with DellaRocca (75-80-6x, Sprint 54, Pavé 71,9).

In the same category: Markos Themistokles winning PR: Like DellaRocca you would expect him to be more successful on other profiles. In his height, Markos was a 80-80 rider...

Anev's RVV I don't remember, but the other two were certainly km1 groups in fields where the favorites couldn't decide who actually is the favorite. Considering that, almost every km1 group win is a great surprise. My nominations for the surprises are the following:
1) Elb's Giro win: Mountain riders were clear favorites, but none of the big favorites sacrified stage wins for the GC.
2) Hugo Marxer winning Piemonte: Won with a perfectly timed attack while he was far from being a favorite

Manuel Schmiedebach, winning RVV. Favorites ... many, among others Austrialia, Marzahn, Lecce and Petit Singe with Qian. All with riders with better pavé and most of them with better mountain than Schmiedebach as well. After being dropped on the Muur the groups in front never can get collaboration going, neither a smaller one, nor a bigger one, in the end the bigger Schmiedebach group comes back and he wins it in the sprint.

Alkworld wrote:

team fl wrote:Although it's Ariostea and therefore perhaps not such a big surprise, I nominate his Monument victories . He won RVV with Anev (71-81-66, Sprint 54 and Pavé 70) and more important: PR with DellaRocca (75-80-6x, Sprint 54, Pavé 71,9).

In the same category: Markos Themistokles winning PR: Like DellaRocca you would expect him to be more successful on other profiles. In his height, Markos was a 80-80 rider...

Anev's RVV I don't remember, but the other two were certainly km1 groups in fields where the favorites couldn't decide who actually is the favorite. Considering that, almost every km1 group win is a great surprise. My nominations for the surprises are the following:
1) Elb's Giro win: Mountain riders were clear favorites, but none of the big favorites sacrified stage wins for the GC.
2) Hugo Marxer winning Piemonte: Won with a perfectly timed attack while he was far from being a favorite

Thanks for the nomination. Just to make it clear. I don't see ONE Ari win as a big surprise as it was a km 1 group victory, BUT winning TWO monuments with non-pavé guys in the same year with such a tactic, this i think is a surprise.

yeah! i was very surprised too!

Mmh, not sure how to do the poll here... any ideas?

"Ariosteas classic wins" or

Anev RVV
Della Rocca PR

thinking it over now... comments in the next 10 minutes might be taken into consideration.

Robyklebt wrote:Mmh, not sure how to do the poll here... any ideas?

"Ariosteas classic wins" or

Anev RVV
Della Rocca PR

thinking it over now... comments in the next 10 minutes might be taken into consideration.

I'd say "Ariosteas classic wins". The combination of the two monuments was the surprise.

I was tending to do it the other way now actually,, mmhh... still thinking.

Because by not having the surprise tied to one specific rider and one specific event, the award as I understood it at least, changes...
Why not the whole career of a rider then? For example I would have nominated Azizi maybe. Nobody thought he would have that much success when he started. Or or Pambele, good rider, good team, good manager, but winning all 3 GTs still surprises me. Or why then not the whole team.. let's say EL? Anybody thought he'd win 5 D1 titles? Not me... was sure it would be Skullz who dominates the D1 for half the year. With some Adler in it, but EL?

Yes, in this case here it's still fairly specific, the 2 cobbled classics with a similar )(or the same?) tactic... but then again, where to make the "cutoff"... Azizi ok? Legende ok? Or let's say FL best pavé manager of RSF, think he is that right now, but surprises me, that ok? Still kind of specific one part like Aris wins, but..

Still not sure. Thinking

There's not much to think about. The element of surprise is an event or a chain of events which comes unpredictably. So the surprising element is that Ariostea was able to win the races in the same year in the same manner. Make the votes wide, so say it's "Ariostea's double classic win" or whatever you wanna call it.

And then, yes, a whole career can count as that too as it's a chain of events not expected. So make it a vote aswell..

Simply forgot this.... pah... ok do it now.

Nipps 3. place at the giro with 23 years and only 14 seconds to place 2. By the way the best Giro this year with Dodo Erdemann (bergwerk), Ange Girard (The owl), Cesare Corvia (Us Lecce), Omar Fahrny (Petit Singe), Erwin Schrödinger (Equipe Mathematique) , Luigi Mastrangelo (Team FL), Mario Schleck (Leopard Trek),...

nominierungen sind meines wissens schon vorbei