CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR FSA DIRECTEUR SPORTIF WINNERS!!

Well it wasn’t what we imagined, however the 2024 season will go down as historic and memorable on the Men’s facet, and fewer historic however ultra-competitive on the Women’s facet. And whereas the small print may be lined in our different conventional year-end posts, for the FSA Directeur Sportif it appears an terrible lot just like the yr we simply watched. You’ll by no means guess which Men’s rider was on the entire high 10 groups…

[And you’ll never guess who banked hard on vdP/Remco overcoming… and who finished 519th. It seemed like a good idea at the time.]

[Narrator voice: Actually it didn’t.]

Anyway, let’s not quibble over who made what silly decisions final winter, and concentrate on the individuals who pushed all the best buttons!

Meet Our Winners!

Congrats to our Men’s podium! DiCenta’s Azzurra took a slim 250-point win from Team Andmujika with Simpslb’s Grupetto main dwelling the chase group only a bit off the tempo.

And chapeau to our Women’s Comp leaders! The Peluchen Effect, DS dreamer_mg, scored a 1,000-point victory over seriouscharly’s Lotte Finistère, in a 14-point picture end with Luctor Emergo’s Pride and Prejudice.

Finally, our mixed rating competitors was gained by Moncassin31, whose twin Pédale! groups eeked out a really tight victory.

As all the time, we invite our winners to come back by and inform their story. Every wnning group has a narrative! But I’ll begin off with a little bit of background.

DiCenta is a primary time participant! Obviously no novice to the idea although. By distinction, Andomujika has been taking part in because the competitors went digital in 2010. SimpSLB has been concerned since 2016.

All of our girls’s winners have been round for some time. Luctor Emergo was thirteenth final yr, in addition to sixth two years in the past. Moncassin31 is one other long-time participant and was 4th within the mixed final yr.

Photo by Kristy Sparow/Getty Images

And Now a Win From Our Sponsor…

FSA and Vision have an extended listing of World Tour athletes and outcomes to brag about, and whereas Visma got here again to Earth this yr, there have been nonetheless wins all around the panorama from EF Education, Israel-PremierTech, Astana, UNO-X, Lotto DSTNY, and Arkea. And it didn’t get any larger than Kristen Faulkner’s Olympic Road Race gold medal. [They were actually all over Paris this summer.] We don’t discuss their many disciplines but it surely’s the entire above, together with this week’s IRONMAN insanity in Hawaii. Look for a resumption of highway racing excellence subsequent yr.

Photo by Joan Cros – Corbis/Getty Images

Rider Trends and Tidbits

On the lads’s facet, clearly Tadej Pogačar dominated with an historic 6,580-point explosion, lapping the sector and the document books. I imagine Peter Sagan’s 2016 season held the earlier non-Pogačar document, 4,334 factors, a quantity the newly minted World Champ had topped thrice, together with a 4,803 mark in 2021. So yeah.

But latching onto that taking pictures star was solely a part of the profitable method, one which 216 groups sniffed out. [And a special congrats to herby westside, whose team No reason to kill my vibe finished 16th overall, making them king of the dipshits who were too stubborn, foolish, or otherwise impaired to pick Pogs.] To actually win this season, you wanted to take it to the Maxim! As in Van Gils, the younger Lotto star who 180 groups foresaw making the leap from final yr’s 720-point mark to extra rarified air, cracking the two,000-point barrier, eighth total. His 6-point pricetag was the bottom of the large level producers, however 8-point studs Ben O’Connor and Biniam Girmay stepped as much as fulfill their previous promise.

Photo by Luc Claessen/Getty Images

On the. Women’s facet, Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky. traded locations atop the leaderboard, a consequential growth contemplating the 8-point price distinction, whereas Lorena Wiebes’ manufacturing dipped. The key to victory didn’t contain Vollering or Wiebes in any respect, and Kopecky wasn’t on lots of the high items both. Instead it was a resurgent Elisa Longo Borghini who crushed expectations with a 4,613 tally, proper alongside Vollering, at half the associated fee.

Another dependable veteran (and biking Godess) Marianne Vos, put collectively her personal rebound with 2,726 factors at age 37, her greatest rating since 2021. That made her one of many large bargains at 20 factors, although 2-pointers Puck Pieterse and Thalita de Jongh being up round 1500 undoubtedly moved the needle for 100 and 5 groups, respectively. Congrats to CK Dallas and Crooked Rain for being the one two patrons of each cut price bin specials.

Everyone ought to be at liberty to chime in along with your hits and misses, your non-public league grudges… the entire above. Oh, and alongside these strains, a particular congrats to my large bro, Mr Van P, for his Editors’ League championship! His victory raises the collective household victory historical past to… one. Not for lack of making an attempt, I’ll have you recognize.

OK, because of everybody for enjoying, because of Superted, aka tedvdw, the creator and maintainer of the fantastic web site model with out which this competitors couldn’t exist. Thanks to UMWolverine, Jens, Ursula, Henry (Chabinho), and the many individuals who chimed in with feedback on pricing, outcomes corrections, and all the small print that preserve this working. I’m sorry that my well being didn’t enable me to be very energetic, however I used to be gratified to see the group firing on all cylinders regardless. See you for the FSA DS ‘25!