Los Galacticos

[el Galactico]

Record entry/change
Foguete climbs the top and is now equal with Espinoza

The unimportant race Cadiz - Gibraltar was a very interesting race because the sprinter had to fight against the other sprinter with better mountain skill. At the end it came to a mass sprint when the group of Cordero, Black and Callado was caught only a few kms before the finish. The sprint then was very nice for Callado, he was able to beat Cordero from his wheel and became...only 2nd at the end, because a newbie was not able to sprint properly. This was used by Fokke Zylstra who won the sprint with about a half wheel in front of Guilhe.

But the more important thing today is that Luiz Foguete now reached the mark of Galacticos-legend Alejandro Espinoza who participated at 284 races. Luiz will establish a new record in the following days. Maybe already tomorrow when the team starts at the Kerala Tour. Congrats from the whole team to our new leader in the categorie of the most races for the team.

[el Galactico]

Kerala Tour
Gourgue wins 4th stage but loses GC?

The first 3 stages of the Kerala Tour were full of action and on the second stage Gourgue already lost his first seconds to 3 classic riders.
The 3rd stage was then won by Demuth while Castillo finished 2nd behind him and won several seconds to the climbers.
Stage 4 was the stage for Gourgue, difficult to control but at the end he was easily able to win the stage, unfortunately no bonifications for the winner so that he is now 6 seconds behind 2 classic riders. Thor Mjölnir from Demuth should be the biggest favorite for the GC now with also only 6 seconds before Gourgue.
We will see if we can get our deserved yellow shirt back. Without some idiots who made tempo for these classic riders yesterday the tour would have been already decided. Hopefully we can take revenge today so this bad luck for Ben doesn't play a role at the end of this Tour.This time there will be bonification seconds in the finish. Maybe the chance for Ben!

[el Galactico]

Kerala Tour
Gourgue wins stage and GC in India

The last stage today, with only 92 kms a very short one, but not so easy because 8 kms before the finish there was a 3 km and in the middle lkm very steep hill which should decide the GC at the end of this tour.
Like in the last 2 days as well the team controlled the race alone from the beginning on and nobody tried dangerous attacks so that the peloton came together to this last hill. Castillo raised the tempo on the first km and on the steep second one it was Ben Gourgue himself who attacked out of the group and landed nearly miles before the next climbers. Again the teams of coconut and World Riders were not able to follow him with their strong climbers. Behind the man in yellow(Templier) lost about 20 seconds on this km and the situation seemed to be decided.
Ben was then able to hold the gap so that he was able to stay in front even if the classic riders closed the gap to 10 seconds on the last km but with the bonifications in the finish Gourgue saved his fist tour win by 11 seconds in front of Templier and Mjölnir.
Ignacio Castillo finished the tour on the 12th place at the end.
Benjamin was also able to win the sprint jersey and in the climbers classement he finished 3rd behind Monfort and Caldera.
From the financial side it was also a great tour with a win of:
+543.195 €

The team is now looking forward to buy a second new rider till the end of this month. Maybe our record rider Luiz Foguete has to leave the team instead. We hope for a good new classic rider....

[el Galactico]

Fleche Jurassienne
Gourgue for the 3rd time in a row...

Today our leader in mountainous races, Benjamin Gourgue, was able to fullfill the triple with is 3rd stage win in a row. What a successfull month for him. And today's race was not only an unimportant race, no it was the RSF-classic (Cat. 3) Fleche Jurassienne.

Going back to 2008 and to the beginning of this team. November 2008 was the 3rd month in team history and the first one with stage wins. After a great Campeonato de los Andes where our ancien leader Nikita Chruschtschow won 1 stage and nearly the green jersey, the team started for this difficult race across the Jura in Switzerland. At the end Nikita raised his hands in victory before several opponents. A strong performance ended up this great and successfull month in 2008 with 5 stage wins.
A nice parallel to the November of this year 2010. Again a very successfull month. 2008 these 5 stages meant a record for a long time. Now in 2010 this win here again was already the 9th in this month which means a new record in this categorie, the old one was 8 earlier this year. But not only that.
For Ben it is already the 3d stage win in a row after he was able to win the Kerala Tour yesterday by 2 stage wins on the last 2 days.

With Lionel Terray we had a strong opponent today which we already saw several times before when we rode with him together the Vuelta or the Tour du Jura. This time the form was clearly for Gourgue who had not started at the Campeonato this year. Terray on the other side started there and won not less than 4 stages, but today this should not play a role anymore. Both were motivated and in a good shape. The manager of Terray started to cry how bad his chances are as usual. Just a normal race you can say...

On the 2nd last climb it was first Terray with the attack and 1 km later Gourgue tried to come back to him when he attacked by himself. On the first descent after this mountain Ben caught him and from this moment on Terray was in the wheel of him doing nothing. The last climb was 3 steep kms long and after Terray let Ben make the tempo in the first 2 kms he attacked on the last 1000 meters but Ben tried everything and was able to stay in his wheel at the end, but not only able to stay in his wheel, he was also able to win the sprint of these 2 by just some inches.

Nevertheless he won - with now nearly 31 years he almost reached every goal he had in his career in our team.
White jersey at the Giro d'Italia, podium at the Champs-Elysee with 2 Tour de France-stages followed by 2 Vuelta-stages as well. GIro dell Emilia classic race and now in November his first Tour win and the victory today as well. A great career...

[Cerro Torre RT]

That's the way to tell it. To describe it as crying as he only discussed the situation without the any emotions and was proven to be perfectly right by the way the race went, Gourge's manager commiting nearly every possible mistake and winning nevertheless. Quite suprising how bad race analyses can be with some like 600 races of experience.

[el Galactico]

Season Balance

Like 2008 the November was the best month for the team of this year. Even if we participated on only 20 races we were able to win not less than 9 of them. But that was not all, Benjamin Gourgue won his first tour and was also able to win the sprinter jersey of this tour(Kerala Tour). One day later Ben won the RSF-classic Fleche Jurassienne, one of the most important pre-season races, it was his 3 stage in a row and the 5th in November.
But not even Gourgue showed his talent this month. Callado also won 3 one day races and is now looking forward for the December Tour.
The 9th victory this month took oldie and new record holder for most races for the team - Luiz Foguete.

So these 3 are also the only candidates for the title of the Rider of the Month(November):

So now lets come to the election!
Luiz Foguete got the 3rd place with 8%... 2nd is Guilherme Callado with 35%!

AND winner and therefore rider of the month is Benjamin Gourgue with 57%!


Financially this month was the most successfull one since February with nearly 1,6 million € profit.

One new rider has already signed a contract for December. Inacio Araujo wants to become the new leader for classic races and we also hope that he can help Callado to some victories as well. Furthermore the managers are still searching and hoping for a second young classic rider. Decision still to come, depending on the refresh tonight...

[el Galactico]

Henan Cycling Cup
Callado wins, days of mouring for the whole team...

Guilherme Callado today won the Henan Cycling Cup. Not much to say about this race. Not a second of problems for the team and an easy sprint in front of several classic sprinters.
But for the manager it was a very important race today. His dog died on Monday this week and so all of the team very motivated to win the race in his honour.

So we dont want to say more about this race. Sometimes these things are just unimportant. Its a time of sorrow!

[el Galactico]

Sheikh Tour 2010
Callado wins 3rd stage from Jeddah to Taif

After Guilherme Callado became 3rd on the first 2 stages of this years December Tour, he won today the 3rd stage to Taif with a long mountain of over 20 kms. On the last 20 kms after this mountain Demont Mitchell and Adriano Perreira had to chase after a group of 2 climbers which were over 2 minutes in front but at the end the excellent work from both of them leads to the situation that they were finally able to get the group on the last km.
Guilherme then won the sprint easily and took over the leaders jersey plus green!

After 3 stages the team is completely in the plan and hopes for at least one stage win more. Tomorrow it will be again a fight between Supernova and Callado - unfortunately the team is very tired after this hard stage today but we wont give up even if Lecce should be the bigger favo tomorrow.

[el Galactico]

Sheikh Tour 2010
Callado also wins stage 4...

One day after and the same procedure, Callado wins in a sprint of a group. The weather was not so hot this time and so we controlled the race easily with the help of Lecce. Lecces Vargas tried to select the group short before the finish on the last steep part but all important guys inclusive Perreira stayed in the group. After that we easily controlled the rest of the group to the finish line where Callado has no problems to win the sprint from Mitchells wheel.

[el Galactico]

Sheikh Tour 2010
Callado for the third time in a row

Last month it was Ben Gourgue with 3 wins in a row. This time Callado made the triple with his 3rd win at the Sheikh Tour 2010. A little group nearly made it to the finish line but Demont Mitchell and the whole team showed a strong performance at the end after the manager was on the way to give up against this strong group. At the end they had no chance against Mitchell and Perreira.


Transfer news

One day after that the team sold daSilva and Dore to buy the new leader for 2011. He is a climber and again he is a guy from Brazil. His skills are 73-53-77-49-58/58,4 Pave / 55 Reg.!!

He comes from Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil, near to the coast but there are also some mountains where he spent a lot of his youth time with climbing them up with the bike. The bad street conditions made him to an excellent pave rider in the climbers world. He should like the Strade Bianche at the Giro d'Italia which will be one of his biggest goals even if he will only be 25 when the Giro starts. In July he will maybe miss the Tour de France but for the Vuelta he is again planned to be the leader. But not only the tours will be his goals. We hope that he will be able to win one of the big races in spring or autumn.

[el Galactico]

Sheikh Tour 2010
Callado completed minimum career goal...

With a lot of luck Guilherme Callado was able to win yesterdays stage in the sprint of the peloton. The favorites waited to long and Guilhe was able to win for the 4th time in this tour from the wheel of Marc Reign (francais). With now 29 years he completed very early his minimum career goal of 20 wins. Only 5 wins missing to big Leandro daSouza! But in difference to legend Leandro it was his first win out of a mass sprint, all other 19 victories were a "hill" sprint finish. The lime jersey should be save now as there is only 1 real flat stage left and on the other hand Callado maybe has the chance to win for another time tomorrow.

[el Galactico]

Sheikh Tour 2010
Mitchell second on the last day, Callado wins his 4th green jersey...

The last day of this years December Tour is now over. It was again a successfull one even if we missed our 5th stage win today. Demont Mitchell became 2nd behind Huang Xiaobo after he set the deciding attack less than 10 kms before the finish. Guilherme Callado finished on place 6 in the peloton and defended his green jersey easily with that ( i think it was already sure before this last stage). In the first week he was able to win not less than 3 stages in a row. On Sunday he added his 4th win in this tour to his palmares, which is now of 20 wins at all and already 4 green jerseys.
In GC he finished on P 20 with that, one place behind our oldie Ignacio Castillo who tried to win his stage yesterday on the second mountain stage but he failed.
To mention is also the 3rd place in the best climbers classement from our young classic hope Inacio Araujo. With a strong escape yesterday he jumped up on the podium there.
A very successful tour, 4 stages, the green jersey and also financially it was a good tour for us. We were able to buy a new leader for 2011 while the tour was going on and after the end we now have again some money to maybe buy an additional one at the end of this month( lets hope so).

GC
1 Carlton Myers (francais) 00:00:00
2 Ruben Zettel (Team Zanarkand) 00:00:58
3 Magnus Torsten (Socca team) 00:01:57
4 Ezequiel Jackson (Team Zanarkand) 00:03:09
5 Didier Chatelain (Zauberlehrlinge) 00:04:28
6 Lexane Fox (Maurice) 00:05:02
7 Emilio Vargas (Us Lecce) 00:05:42
8 Jelle vanNelle (bigmat) 00:05:45
9 Damon Zeynep (lesossies) 00:06:20
10 Victor Prodic (Socca team) 00:07:07
19 Ignacio Castillo 00:10:22
20 Guilherme Callado 00:10:31

Green
1 Guilherme Callado (Los Galacticos) 161
2 Raja Gandhi (lesossies) 109
3 AtliMar Gylfason (LibertySeguros) 103

Blue
1 Didier Chatelain (Zauberlehrlinge) 58
2 Jelle vanNelle (bigmat) 34
3 Inacio Araujo (Los Galacticos) 34

White
1 Ezequiel Jackson (Team Zanarkand) 00:03:09
2 Lexane Fox (Maurice) 00:05:02
3 Emilio Vargas (Us Lecce) 00:05:42

Stage winners:
1. Atli Mar Gylfason (Liberty Seguros)
2. Atli Mar Gylfason (Liberty Seguros)
3. Guilherme Callado (Los Galacticos)
4. Guilherme Callado (Los Galacticos)
5. Guilherme Callado (Los Galacticos)
6. Stefan Kreutzner (RS Ostfriesland)
7. Carlton Myers (francais)
8. Guilherme Callado (Los Galacticos)
9. Didier Chatelain (Zauberlehrlinge)
10. Damon Zeynep (lesossies)
11. Didier Chatelain (Zauberlehrlinge)
12. Huang Xiaobo (lesossies)

Salary: -911.400 €
Earnings: +1.434.500 €

Margin: +523.100 €

[el Galactico]

Memorial Laurent Fignon
Gourgue with the 50th victory in 2010...

Today was the first stage for the "Memorial Laurent Fignon". The stage lead over about 180 kms up on the top of the Puy de Dome. Benjamin Gourgue was the favorite but several teams with 2 climbers wanted to make his life harder. Immediately after the beginning of the climb Ben attacked and tried to make his way alone up to the Puy de Dome. Behind him the first favorite, Iwan Kokorin lost more and more time, at the end of this stage his chances for the GC were far away, but as well as for Benjamin who finished only 9 seconds in front of Matthew Flinders, which is a strong time trialist and should become the new leader after the second half-stage tomorrow! All in all it was a good stage and maybe the fight for GC was just opened by the struggling Kokorin. Flinders is strong, but his team is not even a half that strong as the team of Kokorin would have been. This should be the chance for our team hopefully.

[el Galactico]

Memorial Laurent Fignon
Gourgue takes his second tour win after very offensive last stage...

Benjamin Gourgue wins the Memorial Laurent Fignon after 3 days. On the first day he won the stage up to the Puy de Dome, but yesterday he had to give the lead away to Matthew Flinders (Hansa) after the second half-stage (a ITT).
Today we wanted to use the bad team of Hansa to attack the leader jersey which was 32 seconds away at the beginning. This was no problem at the end. An attack by Castillo and Perreira was not countered by Hansa while in front the team of Kaju with his favorite Iwan Kokorin rode and both of our riders could rest. This was the essential thing when Gourgue attacked on the next hill and nobody of the climbers were able to follow him. They rode it very good and Ben closed the gap to the group exactly on the top of this hill. From then on Hansa was lost because of no helpers for flat terrain left. At the end Ben easily won the GC, Kokorin was able to become 2nd but he was only able to close the gap to 17 seconds at the end.

Finances:
Salary: -401.052 €
profit: +683.700 €

margin: +282.648 €

[el Galactico]

Alpe Fuori Challenge
Gourgue wins in self designed race...

Perfect race for Ben Gourgue again, ok no wonder, it was planned by the manager himself. On of the hardest climbs in all Europe. 9 kms long and with a slope of nearly 14%. Parts of 30% in it. Ben was the strongest climber in the field and so he won the Alpe Fuori Challenge easily before Teschke and Lelievre. In the finish he was 17 seconds in front of them. Now the team has a break for christmas. We wont ride that much races in this time.

[el Galactico]

Year Review - 2010

2010 is nearly over. 2 possible races left but nothing extraordinary should happen in this races so we take the time to conclude year 2010 for the team. What to say about 2010?
In comparison to 2009 it was much more successfull and the team changed a lot during the past 12 months. We were able to win 51 stages, 2009 it was only 32. But this was not all. In 2009 we had only 1 tour win, this year we were able to add 4 more tours to our palmares as well as several mountain, young riders and sprint jerseys. Most important tour wins were the Tour Down Under by old legend Leandro daSouza and Paris-Nice by Jorge Felicandes. In November and December our leader Benjamin Gourgue added two tour wins. We also were able to win our first classic races with the Giro dell Emilia and GP E3 Harelbeke. Mentioned should be that we participated at our first GT this year, after we left out all 3 in 2009. This year the team started in all 3 and showed great results with 6 Tour de France-stages and 4 Vuelta-stages. Benjamin Gourgue showed his big talent by becoming 5th at the Giro (incl. white jersey) and the Vuelta. At the Tour de France he finished on the podium with place 3.
The classic races in spring and autumn were of a lot of action and most times we had a good card left in the final even if we were not able to get a win in a monument out of this. Ignacio Castillo was the best one when he nearly won the "Ronde". At the end he became 2nd after he had finished Mailand-San Remo as 5th in March.
Second very important leader in our team (beside Gourgue) was Guilherme Callado, the follower of Leandro daSouza as the hill sprinter of the team. He came to the team in April and always did a great training so that the results followed fast. Now at the end of this year he is 29 years old and already won 20 stages and 4 sprint jerseys. Most important result is the sprinter jersey of the Vuelta incl. 2 stages. At the Tour de France he was able to win 2 stages as well. The December Tour 2010 then was his next great result when he won 4 stages and the sprinter jersey easily. His big aim is again Mailand-San Remo where daSouza failed this year. With 2 exceptions the team was always able to stay in Division 1, but that was not all, in July after the Tour de France we won the Division 1 championship for our first time. We are now part of a small group of 13 teams which were able to win it since the counting started.
With Benjamin Gourgue, who came to our team from VC Aywaille 1 month before the Giro, our first rider reached the wall of 10.000 eternal points.

We now want to honour the rider of the month and after that the rider of the year:

Rider of the month is Guilherme Callado because of his great performance at the December Tour where he won the sprinter jersey and 4 stages.

With this result we can directly come to the "Rider of the Year"-award.
Both, Gourgue and Callado were able to win the Rider of the Month award 4 times so that we decided to make them both to the "Riders of the Year 2010". Both were essential parts of the team during most times of the year and therefore nobody wanted to decide which of these two guys had a bigger impact on the teams performance. They won together 34 of the 51 stages and won most of the points we reached during this year.

Last point is now some statistics of our year 2010:
255 races
51 stages
4 tour wins
2 classic races (Cat. 4)
2 mountain jerseys
7 sprinter jerseys
2 young rider jersey
2 team classements

finanical margin: 10.752.515 €

[el Galactico]

Transfer news
The half-german Wunderkind...

New year, new leader (hopefully). We like to present to you our new leader for the big tours and the classic races. He is born in Blumenau, Brazil, a german "colonie" so to say. His father comes from Germany and traveled to Brazil 20 years ago where he met his future wife. He stayed in Bazil from that moment on and they build up their home in Blumenau where his father opened a manufactury for typical brazilian food. 22 years ago their first son was born in Rio where they stayed for some months because of the fathers work, his name is Inacio and he is now a 22 years old classic rider in our team. Only one year later - back in Blumenau - their second son came in the world and made the luck of this family perfect. He got the name from his german grandfather who was called Sebastian. In comparison to Inacio's cycling skills Sebastian loved more the mountains around Blumenau than the flat parts there. Nevertheless they usually made their training sessions together, but at the end Inacio goes vback home while Sebastian climbs at another mountain near his hometown.

So lets welcome to our team:

Sebastian Araujo 73-53-77-49-58-58,4

[el Galactico]

Benjamin Gourgue
Galactic legend retires from professional cycling sport


3. Benjamin Gourgue

Today Benjamin Gourgue and the team had a meeting and they decided to end his contract from now on. The races in the following months were so few that he had no power to train for this anymore. Its a very sad decision for the whole team but we will never forget what Ben did for our team. Hopefully nobody buys him from the transfermarket. He dont want to do more races. His career is over.

Benjamin Gourgue came to the team at the 21st of April 2010 and immediately became our new leader beside Callado. Before this he was in the team of VC Aywaille from the beginning of his career. His first race then was the famous Fleche Wallone where the 23 year old belgian became 5th at the end. A excellent result in this age. One month later in May he continued his way of success with several podiums at the Giro d'Italia. At the end he became 5th in General Classement as well as he won the white jersey there.
2 months later, after he trained up to 88 mountain he started at the Tour de France for our team and again he showed some great performances by winning the stages up to Morzine and to St. Jean de Maurienne. At the end he became 3rd in GC with that. Some days after the Tour he also won the little criterium "California Cup". At the end of August the 3rd big tour started with the Vuelta and again Ben was our leader for this tour. He won again 2 stages, the stage to Malaga and the one up to the Cotobello in the last week. In the end he was again 5h in GC.
In October he was then able to win the Giro dell Emilia, a Cat. 4 classic race in Italy. This was the last step to become a cycling legend for our team.
At the end of this month a second stage win followed at the Tour du Jura where he became 2nd at the end. In November, while the Campeonato de los Andes, he won 2 little and unimportant races. At this moment its still missing a tour win for him, but this should end at the end of November, when he was able to win the Kerala Tour, incl. the points jersey and 1 stage.
One day after this Tour he was also able to win the Fleche Jurassienne, a RSF-classic race (Cat. 3). Another big win which made him at least to a candidate for the best climber in 2010.
December was his last month and he wanted to end his career by winning so that he started for the Memorial Laurent Fignon with a maximum of motivation so that he was able to win the stage up to the Puy de Dome and at the end he also got his second tour win against strong opponents like Kokorin of Flinders.
Again one day later in his last race for the team he won the Alpe Fuori Challenge, a self designed race.

Benjamin Gourgue is the first rider to jump over the wall of 10.000 eternal points for our team. So that it is no question that he will be invited into our Hall of Fame as number 3 after Leandro da Souza and Alejandro Espinoza.

At the end some stats about him...

Benjamin Gourgue
102 races
14 stages
-2x Tour de France stages
-2x Vuelta a Espana stages
- Giro dell Emilia
-Fleche Jurassienne
-1 stage Tour du Jura
2 tour wins
Best young rider(Giro 2010)
1 point jersey

10.715 eternal points

[Elaska]

He is not retired, he is on the transfer market !

[el Galactico]

You should learn to read more than the title

[Elaska]

Too long for me

i don't understant why you sold him too ( whithout reading again )

[el Galactico]

Transfer news

After we sold Ben Gourgue we waited 4 days to maybe get a late chance for a new young classic rider but not a single good one appeared on the transfermarket so that the team now decided to wait and to instead buy 2 cheaper riders to make the team bigger, which is one of our goals for 2011.
We present to you our 2 new riders:

Oswaldo Iguacu 47-63-79-49-44-59,4; 49 reg.

Oswaldo is our 7th rider from Brazil at the moment. He should become a cheap guy for the first meters, so he will be the direct follower of Robson and Edilson Iguacu.

The second one comes from France and he should become more than only a flat rider.

Alexandre Geniez 48-73-64-56-51-69,7; 44 reg.

Alexandre Geniez is planned to be part of the Giro and Tour de France team as TTT and Pave leader.


@ Elaska: I sold him because there were nearly no races in the following months for him, so i decided to sell him to make the team bigger. As you can see i already have my new climber for 2011

[flockmastoR]

hm benjamin told me he would like to pull schrödinger up the hills the next 6 seasons, okay we will give him the chance ;D

[el Galactico]

Okay, go and buy him!

[Robyklebt]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhh, what an idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) Selling Gourgue, nooooooooooooo!!!!!! Keep him 2 month more and all is good. Even keep him 3 months and he can make a good result in Tirreno or Paris Nice, races that count again. Don't sell heroes to the TM like that!!!! Not at 32. If anything at 29 or 30, not that it made sense to sell him at that time either of course. Heartless bastard.

2) Alexandre Geniez the pavé leader? Are you insane? Nice rider with the wrong name. DON'T USE REAL RIDERS' NAMES IF YOU GIVE THEM COMPLETELY WRONG SKILLS. The real Alexandre Geniez is a pure fucking climber, first season as a pro was good, confirmed the potential he showed in his last amateur season. One of the many possible future good french climbers, Sicard, Pinot, Geniez, Bonnin... Ok, Coppel could be better than all of them thanks to his TT, but is slightly older too. Anyway, completely stupid name for a flat rider with TT and some pavé. Geniez is a climber!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sell that rider immediately so that he becomes a name geben again. Then rebuy him and call him something else. But not Geniez.