Spring Classics
A twelveth place was a solid way to go with the opening weekend, a win later in the Nokere Course by Cees Bold was a strong way to start the final period of the essential classics, eleventh places in De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem and a tenth in E3 were good enough, Paris-Roubaix didn't bring a result but in Flandres Michael Matthews took a strong sixth place.
On the road Dumoulin was eleventh in Milano Sanremo (seems like a pattern there), Walscheid was second in Scheldeprijs, Matthews took fourth in Brabantse Pijl antecipating a strong run at the Ardennes but actually his best result was in Flèche where he took eightth and that was by far his best result.
Stage-Races
Chris Hamilton was sixth in Down Under with a strong exhibition, Soren Kragh Andersen second in the Algarve, Kelderman fifth in the UAE Tour as Dumoulin then finished fourth in Tirreno, it was a solid start to the season with a lot of consistency in the results, there were a couple stage wins in Catalunya from Matthews, things went very slow though in the coming months, only a win from Cees Bol reignited the flame in California followed by another one in Norway.
Roche was tenth in Suisse, Marc Hirschi stormed through the month of August as he was fifth in BinckBank, Jai Hindley also had a breakthrough performance as he finished runner-up in Pologne.
Grand Tours
It was a season that can be considered somewhat of a disaster in this field, with Tom Dumoulin having to miss the Giro due to a crash early on and consequently pretty much having to stop his season there, there was very little reward from what is a mega-talent in the Grand Tours. The Giro in fact went a total disaster that was only saved from Chad Haga taking the win in the final time-trial.
The Tour it was essentially an all-in for Matthews, Kelderman abandoned, Roche was strong but couldn't capitalize and Kragh Andersen was nowhere to be seen, Matthews had a strong setup with him and was close several times but not in the top step. In the Vuelta is where it went the best, Nikias Arndt took a win from the break early on the race taking away the pressure for a win, but it was in fact being a very strong race with Roche hitting his classical Vuelta form, he rode in red but a crash took him out still in the first week, the team's luck was the ressurgence of Kelderman who found good form and consistency, had a lucky and smart day in the crosswinds that sealed his GC stint and gave him a pretty strong seventh place in the final GC.
Season Finale
As I've mentioned San Sebastian was where Hirschi flew for the first time this season, he finished on the podium, there were some solid results in the meantime but in Canada it was noteworthy the return of Michael Matthews to the wins in Québec, the last win of the season came in the Omloop van het Houtland Lichtervelde from Max Walscheid, a couple Top5 placings in some one-day races but nothing too extravagant from the remaining late season calendar, except maybe a Top10 from Tusveld to finish of the season in Guangxi.
Wins (WT): 9 (6)
Highlight: Matthews' win in Québec
Best Performer: Michael Matthews
Biggest Surprise: Marc Hirschi
Negative Surprise: Sam Oomen
Ranking: 4/10
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