You have manage to get your best choices in your Velogame 2023 team but selecting 4 credit riders is giving you a headache? Don’t worry, you are not alone. George has done an impeccable work when it came to the pricing and classifications of the riders. Yet, there are some riders who still stand out. This is not quite the Velogames preview that I am used to offer but I hope this can still helpful.
Jenthe Biermans:The probable co-sprinter: With so many sprints on offer and Team Arkea Samsic seeminlgy confident with Mozzato, the Breton team is still known for putting more than one man in sprints. Along with Matis Louvel, Jenthe Biermans could also find himself in several stages top 15 finishes.
Lilian Calmejane: The French baroudeur: Had he kept his form from the early season, he would not have cost 4 credits only. He is very experienced and him targeting KOM points in the Tour de Suisse suggests that he will be on the same mission.
Lawson Craddock: The time trial boost: In addition to the slight possibility that he might get some stage finish points for the ITT, the American will get into breakaways and might also benefit from some assist points for Dylan Groenewegen.
Krist Neilands: The Derek Gee and Toms Skujins: Latvians have been drinking dragon blood recently! Surely he will be inspired by not only his compatriot’s, Toms Skujins’ but also by his team-mate, Derek Gee’s very brave performances at the Giro. The form is definitely here as well, He has been regularly finishing just outside the top 20 in al his races (all profiles of stages and one day races) except for those he made the breakaway.
Silvain Dillier, Michael Gogl, Jonas Rickaert and Ramon Sinkeldam: Assists, assists and maybe more: Team Alpecin Deceuninck will be podiuming a lot of stages in the next 3 weeks with Mathieu Van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen. Teammates could be accumulating up to a maximum of 100 points for assists. But, the difference is that they all will have their freedom to get into breakaways and Michael Gogl has a great history of infiltrating legendary breakaways in Grand Tours.
Frederick Frison: The new Taco: The most improved rider in the spring classics has shown tenacity. We have previously seen Taco Van der Hoorn bring such peformances to the Tour de France. Yet, stage wins are precious and not gifted. It takes really great and inform classics rider to first make a breakaway successful. Winning from the breakaway is something else but the Belgian will sure have some freedom on some the 2/3 hilly stages.
Tony Gallopin, The return of a baroudeur: Tony Gallopin’s performance in the extremely hard French National is not a surprise for me. He has been steadily been working up his form for the Tour and he looked really good in the Tour de Suisse as last man standing for eventual winner Skjelmose. He is the designated captain of an extremely attractive Lidl-Trek. The only issue is that Lidl Trek has players to realistically pretend to win all of the 21 stages wins: sprints, mountain top finishes, breakaways: they cancontend all. Tony Gallopin will be fighting for breakaways chances with Simmons, Stuyven and even Ciccone. But if he gets into it, you can bet that it is very likely going to be a group who will make it for the win.
Alex Kirsch: The new king of Luxembourg: The leadout man for Mads Pedersen has gone to another level in 2023. After, brilliantly leading his leader to 5 top 5 finishes in the Giro, the Luxembourg rider stepped up to sprinting duties when the Danish dynamite had to leave the race with illness. He took his chance brillantly by finishing second to Cavendish in Rome. His wins in both the RR and ITT national championship is an indication of his current conditions. While the possibility of him finishing in top positions in sprints win (by chance) is really small given the very big and strong field of sprinters here, he could earn some points in the ITT. Surely he will also be allowed to have a go in breakaways in the last week. Now, was it to happen that Mads has to leave the race, he will be the team’s main sprinter and that will be another story…
Vegard Stake Laengen: The safe domestique :As a teammate of Pogacar, this could lead up to a maximum of 100 assist points. Guaranteed but nothing more as he is unlikely to earn anything more as he will be on stuck domestique duties.
Michael Mørkøv: The Leadout man who brings you stage points. For the Tour de France 2021, he finished 2nd and 6th out of 4 of the Cavendish stage wins with a little than 400 points on Velogames. There are more sprint stages this year but there is also a relatively bigger and much stronger sprinter field here. Soudal- Quick Step have set up a team around Jakobsen but what happens if the latter finishes OTL in the mountains?
Antony Perez: The real baroudeur: In 2021, he earned 101 points. In 2022, 237. His expertise is to get in mountain breakaways whenever he can. His form, you ask? He finished 9th in that legendary 2023 France championship.
Nans Peters : The Grand tour stage winner: The Frenchman has won a Giro stage in 2019 and a Tour de France one in 2020. He is a vaillant rider but his form in the past year has been declining right until the French Nationals championship where he finished 5th and earned him a spot on the team. However, I highly doubt he will be able allowed any freedom in a team desperate to secure a podium with Ben O’Connor.
Florian Vermeersch: The classics expert:It is very surprising to see the Belgian at this price considering his constantly good performances in the classics. Unfortunately for him, he does not seem to be able to make it into breakaways when it comes to stage wins. This could change this year given Caleb Ewan’s past history with luck and crashes.
The Velogame 2023 Communiteam
This is the very admirable effort of Jeremad of setting up a questionnaire to ask Twitter Velogames players to rate the riders and a team subsquently was set up as follow:
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