WorldTour ranking (N/A)
Win count: 18 (up from 10)
Top riders: Edvald Boasson Hagen, Louis Meintjes, Daniel Teklehaimanot, Stephen Cummings, Kristian Sbaragli
It has been a year of firsts for MTN-Qhubeka, who have taken huge strides in their development. They set their stall out early with a busy transfer window last winter, signing riders such as Edvald Boasson Hagen, Matt Goss, Tyler Farrar and Natnael Berhane.
With a string of big-name sprinters on their roster, there was a sense of anticipation going into the season and expectations were high. It was a big risk, and there will be plenty of disappointments and frustrations, but the team can ultimately look back on a largely successful season that saw them challenge some of the WorldTour outfits.
ADVERTISEMENT
Despite the attention surrounding the sprinting line-up, it was actually Stephen Cummings who delivered the team their first win with an impressive solo ride in the one-day Trofeo Andratx-Mirador d'Es Colomer. Aside from a surprise overall victory at the Tour de Langkawi for Youcef Reguigui, it would be the climbers of the team that propped up the early-season results as the sprinters stuttered in the Classics. There was some misfortune, admittedly, but the spring campaign that bore so much hope will be the team’s biggest disappointment of 2015.
There was some good news for the South African team in those first few months, however, when they secured a place at their debut Tour de France. It would be a first for the French Grand Tour, which had never played host to an African trade team (let us not forget the North African national teams of the 1950s). There were some promising results as they geared up for the historic event, with Boasson Hagen getting his first win of the season at the Tour des Fjords and a strong performance from Louis Meintjes at the Critérium du Dauphiné.
The setbacks of March and April were soon forgotten when Daniel Teklehaimanot opened the Tour de France as the first rider off during the prologue. It would be the Eritrean that would deliver one of their most memorable moments of the race when he briefly put himself into the polka-dot jersey of the mountains classification. After giving them their first victory of the season, Cummings also handed them their debut Grand Tour stage win. Arguably their most impressive performance was in the team competition, where they eventually finished fifth despite losing Meintjes in the final week.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://ift.tt/1NpSunK
No comments:
Post a Comment