Vuelta a España 2019 – Final Velogames Round Up

Well, the final grand tour of 2019 is over and when I wrote my last update on the first rest day, many possible scenarios were still on the cards. Let’s see which ones fell flat on their face; which ones came to fruition, and whether or not your picks were genius or total codswallop! I’m writing this whilst still on holiday, so I’ll need to chase one or two things up when I’m back, but the final dream team should be accurate.

Final Rider Standings

Here, I’ll round up the top five riders from each category, and who are the riders who missed out by a whisker or even entirely.

aLL ROUNDERs

1. Primož Roglič – 2436
2. Alejandro Valverde – 2115
3. Miguel Angel Lopez – 1357
4. Dylan Teuns – 799
5. Wilco Kelderman – 751

There are two clear winners here. Roglič recorded seven top five results including one win, 1st in the general classification (GC), and even 1st in the points classification to explain his massive points haul. Valverde also chipped in with seven top fives and a win, but 2nd in GC and 4th in the points classification proved to be the difference. Still huge value from the 39 year old. Lopez fell off the pace a little after his strong opening week and never looked like challenging for the top spot again. His lack of top five results after week one explain the gulf between him and Valverde.
Teuns and Kelderman quietly accrued points in similar ways, but with different approaches. Kelderman clung onto a strong top ten on GC, whilst Teuns went stage hunting, but also recorded a nice GC position, finishing in 12th.
Notable absentees from this list are Rigoberto Uran, who crashed, Jakob Fuglsang and Tao Geoghegan Hart who finished with respectable scores, and a few others who were just playing domestique.

Climbers

1. Tadej Pogačar – 1863
2. Nairo Quintana – 1757
3. Rafal Majka – 963
4. Marc Soler – 810
5. Sergio Higuita – 748

Just like the all rounders, there are two clear leaders in Pogačar and Quintana. 3rd and 4th on GC with hat fulls of good results, especially from the 20 year old in his first grand tour. Three stage wins would be a result for a ten year veteran, so we can expect great things from Pogačar in the future if this performance is anything to go by.
Others feature on this list thanks to solid results and good showings on GC, especially Higuita, he lost his top ten on GC, but a stage win on stage 18 more than made up for EF’s difficult Vuelta.
Chaves didn’t have the Vuelta he wanted so doesn’t appear here. The same is true for Latour, who showed himself in his 3rd place finish on stage 13, but then went completely absent.

Sprinters

1. Sam Bennett – 1159
2. Fabio Jakobsen – 526
3. Nikias Arndt – 356
4. José Joaquin Rojas – 345
5. Maximiliano Richeze – 329

As expected here, Sam Bennett cleaned up with two stage wins and four second places. He possibly could have done slightly better with some of those second places as well. What is slightly unexpected is the hug gap he has over 2nd placed Jakobsen, who only popped up the rankings thanks to his final stage win. Others are on here thanks to breakaways and assist points.
The one to miss out here is Luka Mezgec, who was looking to have a strong last week, but a nasty crash ended his hopes sadly. Also missing is Gaviria, who had a dismal race. I haven’t heard why that might be yet, but only cracking the top ten once for a rider of his caliber is a fairly poor return.

unclassed

1. Philippe Gilbert – 634
2. Ángel Madrazo – 563
3. Rémi Cavagna – 553
4. Hermann Pernsteiner – 505
5. Carl Fredrik Hagen – 487

Gilbert top scores in the unclassed category after two superb stage wins. He’s joined in the top five by teammate Cavagna who also recorded his own stage win. One of the good things about a team performing well is the assist points, and all the Quick Step boys will have all benefited from the numerous stage wins. Madrazo pushed on, and although he didn’t follow up his superb first week with many more stage wins or mountain points, he did enough to keep 2nd in the mountains standings. Pernsteiner and Hagen continued their good form to record decent GC positions, especially Hagen in his first grand tour.
I will say only two of these riders make the dream team for a few huge reasons, and we’ll get to this below.

Dream Team

So, what was the best possible team from this year’s Vuelta Velogames competition? How did it compare to the winner’s team? Pretty well as it turns out, but once again, the difference comes from selections made in the unclassed category and making one really tough decision. Some made the decision really easily, but solved it in different ways.
The tough decision was to take nearly all of the most expensive riders leaving little for the wildcard spot. It’s rare that five riders dominate the points in such a fashion as here, but fortune sometimes favours the brave. Your final position on the leader-board will have been decided by how you spent the remaining meager amount of credits.

When figuring out the dream team, I try to drop someone more expensive for a cheaper alternative, whilst making points up elsewhere. The fact is that here, the top five riders from the main three categories scored so heavily compared to their competitors that it’s just not worth it. Therefore, the dream team has to take Roglič, Valverde, Quintana, Pogačar, and Bennett. This takes up a whopping 80 credits and leaves only 20 to split between the four remaining riders, including the wildcard. With all that in mind, here is the dream team for the 2019 Vuelta.

Primož Roglič – 24 Credits – 2436 Points
Alejandro Valverde – 16 Credits – 2115 Ppints
Tadej Pogačar – 12 Credits – 1863 Points
Nairo Quintana – 14 Credits – 1757 Points
Sam Bennett – 14 Credits – 1159 Points
Ángel Madrazo – 6 Credits – 563 Points
Rémi Cavagna – 6 credits – 553 Points
Geoffrey Bouchard – 4 Credits – 402 Points
Jorge Arcas – 4 Credits – 270 Points

Total = 11118 Points
Winning Team = 10293 Points

So that’s a wrap on this year’s grand tour fantasy cycling! I’ll look to put together more of these next year. Not just for the grand tours, but for all races. Let me know if you’ve enjoyed these, I’ll be thinking a bit more pieces to write and getting together a proper schedule. I might even put together something for the world champs!

Until next time then, Andy.