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Re:
"So again, why have these rules for adding riders if the team doesn't actually get the points?"
I'm not sure why that is, but one reason might be that they don't want to allow teams to try to bump up their points totals by grabbing unaffiliated/privateer riders who are scoring more points than the existing members of their team.
I haven't tried to thoroughly understand how UCI determines which teams are "World Series" teams, which are just regular DH teams, or which are wild card recipients. My vague recollection is that when they submit their team rosters to UCI the points that their riders earned in the previous year (and I think it's not limited to points earned in WC races) are used in ranking the teams pre-season. So, if a "guest" rider has a good year and is interested in joining the team full-time the following year, the team would benefit from that rider's points, even if they didn't get points in the standings the previous year.
I always root for non-team riders like Roger Vieira and Antoine Rogge (currently 31st in the standings) and hope they find full-time positions with quality teams. It would be great if UCI could find a way to enable that mid-season.
I agree there. Teams shouldn't be able to get points from a rider who wasn't riding for their team at the time. But they are designating this rider to be on their roster for this race, and it seems like the idea is to get that rider's points for this race. Thinking about it more like how fantasy leagues work - if you pick the rider that weekend you get their points, and if you don't put them on that week's roster you get anything they earn that week.
If it's a team competition, then anyone who "scores", the points have to count. Teams have bills to pay & sponsor obligations. If your riders are injured & roster is decimated, points have to be up for grabs for riders representing a team in the competition. You'd not let a run not count in a ball game from a player brought up from the farm system.
I really do hate this stuff now.
i feel like this just got glossed over... crazy to think stevie only won 3 for the overall. i remember that overall being TIGHT. was it the very last round?
and only one one more the year prior. and now Jacko has 5 elite wins. Just like that. Stevie would be stoked on the current state of Canadian DH.
Did Troy win the overall without winning a round? (Semi-related: Lemond won the 1990 Tour de France without winning a stage).
I don’t believe Troy has won an overall. Has come second and third nearly every year on the other hand.
Matt Walker won the 2020 overall (weird, messed up covid season) without winning a race.
Troys been second twice. Troy may have the most seconds of everything in DH history. And most podiums. Must be a weird feeling to know you are that good, but rarely the tip of the spear. Just the sharp edge below the side of it...
Props to Walker for taking advantage, but yeah... That was Loic's to lose. Dunno if he was in the state of mind to think about overall at that first round, cuz he fumbled it. Hindsight, 20/20.
Ratboy only won 2 for his overall. It's honestly super impressive Stevie and Ratboy took overalls during the Gwin/Gee/Minnaar era. Gwin was an absolute nightmare in his era.
Thanks, THAT'S who I was thinking of!
I’m pretty sure Nathan Rennie did it in ‘05 (‘06?) on the yellow IH SGS. #weagleplates
Rennie won the overall in 2003. According to roots and rain he won the Alpe d'Huez race that year.
https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider4108/nathan-rennie/results/
As soon as I hit the big green submit button, I thought to myself, I should probably hit up RandR just to be sure. Thanks for not being lazy on my behalf.
@veefour : homework.
I posted this in the '2025 Race Talk' forum as well, but @Between The Tape is back with another post-race analysis from Val di Sole with some cool insights into how the race unfolded and what could have been for a lot of racers on a track that saw more separation between riders than the rounds before.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/features/simulated-racer-where-was-race-won-and-lost-val-di-sole-analysis
I really enjoy these simulations. Thanks for posting!
It seems quite a few DH race fans would like to see the Finals field expand by 10 or more riders. I wonder if Between The Tape would consider for a future race doing a "what if" analysis for the riders who finished 11-20 in Q2 to see what their potential best times might have been had they been included in the finals. (Obviously the analysis would be based on less data, since there'd be no Finals sector times included for that group.)
[Edited to mention that I forgot to quote Jason Schroeder's post.]
While I wouldn't be able to include racers outside of Finals where the data is contingent on their final time or rank, I've made a note to try and expand some of the other analyses out to see if I can include more racers. At the very least, I can publish simulated rank tables for the whole field. Maybe I will post these in the forum to not swamp the articles with long tables.
Fun anecdote: in the "Elite Men: Simulated Leader Board" graphic for Val di Sole, you will notice the simulated ranks 21 & 22 are missing. These ranks correspond to Andreas Kold (DNS) and Henri Kiefer (Did not qualify) respectively and so get omitted as they don't have a corresponding Finals time. I've updated the plot with a caption:
Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming!
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