WorldTour ranking: 10/17 (same as 2014)
Win Count: 19 (Down from 41)
Top riders: John Degenkolb (12), Tom Dumoulin (15), Warren Barguil (97)
Winning two monuments in the one season would leave most WorldTour teams satisfied but Giant-Alpecin are perhaps just as pleased with the breakout performance of Tom Dumoulin at the Vuelta a Espana. The Dutchman exceeded all expectation with two stage wins, six days in the leaders jersey and sixth place overall after three weeks of racing. He showed he could be a future Grand Tour contender.
However with less than half the number of its 2014 wins and with star sprinter ending his contract a year yearly, Giant Alpecin's season could be construed as a disappointment. The emergence though of Dumoulin and confirmation of Warren Barguil as top-ten GC riders suggest otherwise and Milan San Remo and Paris Roubaix victories for John Degenkolb tells a tale of quality victories and performance rather than sheer quantity of victories.
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Marcel Kittel's Tour Down Under opening night criterium win in January started the season brightly for the team but it was Dumoulin, finishing fourth on GC, who impressed in the WorldTour opener. However, Kittel wouldn't win another race until August, while Lawson Craddock's chest became rather well acquainted with some road furniture leaving the young American with the nice memory of a koala selfie bit little else from Adelaide.
Degenkolb won the team's first UCI race of the year with an impressive lung bursting effort at the Dubai Tour in early February as Luka Mezgec then won a stage of the Tour de Haut-var to close out the month.
The spring was all about two races. Degenkolb had ridden Milan-San Remo on three previous occasions, his best result being fifth place in 2012, with a puncture ruling him out of contention in 2014. The German suffered no such bad luck placing himself perfectly in the finale before coming round the outside of Alexander Kristoff with his familiar nodding sprint proving unstoppable and monument victory number one for 2015.
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