Written by Velosipedska at 19:26 31/10-2024
Greetings to fans, press and other readers. With a bit of a delay, here is the Velosipedska season 70 recap! This season was an eventful one, our most successful to date in terms of jerseys and also a season in which we said goodbye to many old guard riders. Let’s start with the team news.
---TEAM NEWS---
After a record-low sponsor income in season 69 (about 110k), we had one of our best sponsorship seasons to date with over 240k in investments in season 70. Velosipedska would like to thank AG Capital especially, for their contribution made up about half of this number. Adding to this, our very successful campaign also resulted in a team-record 220k in prize money this season, further strengthening our financial position. Most of this extra income has been invested in training, on which we were able to spend over 600k for the first time since season 58.
Several rider departures also saved us 220k in wages (350k if you include departures at the start of season 71), allowing us to spend over 100k on new riders, who will be discussed later in this briefing.
Our final economic position after S70:
Income
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Starting Balance: 21,715
Funding: 0,-
Rider Sales: 224,077
Prize Money: 221,500
Jobs: 81,500
Sponsors: 243,750
Merchandise: 33,443
Expenses
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Team Upgrades: 0.-
Supplies: 31,300
Staff: 2,450
Scouting: 0,-
Rider Hires: 105,000
Training: 616,950
Net Balance
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70,285
---RACE NEWS---
First, the bad. Only once this season did a Velosipedska rider actually raise his arms at the finish line this season, and it was an unlikely candidate. In his final season, Damir Hadzievski won Bolgatanga Boabab Race from the breakaway! A great result for a domestique who always helped others. Other early goals did not go as smoothly. Petar Jovanovski was injured during Rundfahrt der Schlösser der Alpen and Slavco Pitoska crashed twice during Perm Tour! However, as the introduction of this article preluded, Velosipedska celebrated their most successful season despite these setbacks. Slavco Pitoska took the youth jerse at Edmonton Red Deer Tour andlater won the Tian-Shen Stone City Cup for the second season in a row. This instantly made Slavco one of the most successful Macedonian riders in history. Meanwhile, our new sprint train captain Armend Mustafi won the youth jersey at the Giro di Sicilia, where he also finished 3d in GC. Mustafi enjoyed a great first season as a captain, with 5 podium places including a runner-up spot at the classic Baltimore Invitational. It seems like we have some worthy captains for the future at Velosipedska!
Currently, our team captains are resting to regain top form later in the season. Our squad makeup is currently:
-Hill Team-
Eftim Nastevski (wind breaker/downhill guide)
Petar Jovanovski (captain)
Slavco Pitoska (captain)
Zlatko Stankov (hill helper, general teammate)
Dimce Pacovski (hill helper)
Shkumbin Nuhiji (hill helper/potential captain)
-Sprint Train-
Artim Nacevski (LO1)
Tomce Gjosevski (LOS/LO2)
Mirko Zendeli (LOS)
Vasko Tofiloski (LO2)
Armend Mustafi (captain - technical)
Jurica Donev (captain - pure sprint)
-Other-
Ilco Kralevski (TT, LO1)
Stojance Meglenski (climbing TT, water carrier)
Ostoja Sakiri (climber, water carrier)
Armend Stojanovski (climber, water carrier)
---RIDER NEWS---
There is a lot of rider news here, so let’s dive straight in with the departures. 7 riders left Velosipedska in season 70, so let’s honour them all here:
Jordan Spirkoski has been one of our greatest riders. His best years were wasted during the rakia incident in which our team was on hiatus for several seasons. Still, Jordan became our second-ever jersey winner with 2 YC wins at Race of the Minutemen in seasons 57 and 58. Jordan is also one of three riders with more than 200 appearances for Velosipedska.
Jovan Georgievski is probably the best climber Macedonia has ever seen. Only winning a few races himself, Jovan helped our GC riders climb whatever mountain they wanted to climb. Some say he did not reach his potentials, since some expected him to be a world beater, but he was the very definition of a luxury teammate at Velosipedska.
Elvis Sljivancanin and Damir Hadzievski were some of the last old guard riders. Both were never captains in their own right, but both were a big part of the teams that won jerseys for Riste Nikolovski and Jordan Spirkoski. Both riders also accumulated 50k for the team from jobs outside of racing, a commitment to the team that few riders can match.
Gjorgji Najdoski, Leco Vasilevski and Muzafer Curlinov were trained together and left the team together. They probably felt the impact of the great pause the most. Spending their best years in a rakia-infused stupor, the three friends were less experienced than all their opponents when they re-joined the peloton in season 66. With similar talent profiles, these riders were not phased and put their all into guiding our new young riders to captaincy. This trio joined almost every stage race together, their only personal succes being a Gjorgji breakaway win at the Oudenaarde Kasseienkoers in season 58.
So many riders left, but what about their replacements?
Shkumbin Nuhiji was purchased from Anonimous. With a very good potential in the hills, he will be yet another hill helper. However, his good sprinting potential combined with some small talent on the flat and technical finishes could make him a future captain. Shkumbin might join the sprint train one week, and the hill squad the next week. We are excited to see what his ceiling is!
Ilco Kralevski is our first real TT specialist since Cedomir Ivanov was racing for us until season 54. Ilco seems to be quite another rider though, possible the best time trial talent Macedonia has ever seen. He is an incredible time trialist, but also easily has average talents for the flat and technical routes. His training is almost complete, after he will join as many races against the clock as our schedule will allow. Apart from that he will join the sprint train as an early lead-out, and tours as a water carrier and time trial specialist.
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We often end this section with some statistics, but they will be here again in a future news update, since this one is so long already! Thanks for reading, and be sure to send all your Macedonian talents our way for evaluation. This was our best season ever with 2 jerseys and a cup victory. Hopefully our young captains can have as much success in season 71. Good luck to all of you racing out there this season!
Kind regards and thanks for reading,
KrMees (Manager)
Vujadin Mileski (PR)
Subscribers: 11
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Comments
Thanks! And indeed it was, record season for us as a union and for my team. Can't ask for more!
Also it was the best season in PU for Velosipedska. ;) Good luck in the next season!
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