Fantasy Directeur Sportif Challenge

Just had a tot up and on provisional start lists I have 16 of my 27 active riders entered in Paris Nice. Knew I'd picked a good team for something... Top 9 riders take me to 180.6 points though, so...

van Garderen, de Gendt, Talansky
Tiernan Locke, Roche, G Izagirre
Kittel, Astarloza, Gutierrez

Astarloza as captain, Kittel as sprinter and hopefully 6, maybe 7 of the top 10 in GC... Hopefully KoM is in there too.

and the other 7?
Voigt, Fuglsang,M Iglinsky, Roy, Cattaneo, N Sorenson and Zandio.

Too much choice aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!

Trouble is that leaves me with just 6 riders in Tirreno.

Palmares so far
my team is doing well, in the real world, just not in the fantasy or wt
1st stage of Tour de San Luis(Cav) and 2nd overall(van Garderen)
Tour of Qatar overall win(Cav) and 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th stages
La Marseillaise 4th overall(Roux)
Etoile de Besseges 3rd (Roux) and 4th (Roy) overall, 1st and second on final stage (Roux, Roy)
Tour Mediterraneo 3rd stage 2 (Roux), 5th overall (Roche)
Tour of Oman 1st and second stage 1 (Kittel, Appllonio)
Haut Var Stage 1 (Hushovd)

and for me
TDU fantasy 119, world tour 30pts.

told you, stone dead last

Just for fun, as DS who would you have entered from your team for races during the season, assuming you were a real World Tour team.
No score limit but keep it real, bearing in mind rider goals and team goals. You also can pick and choose which races you enter from the calendar, so for example with the one day races in mind I've included the Marseille one day, to stretch the legs of those not going to San Luis or Australia. You can also drop races later in the season which are not compulsory for World Tour teams (like San Luis which I nearly dropped). And keep an eye on those air miles, you may not want to fly riders from San Luis to Qatar to the Med to Oman.

For me the team goal is to entertain the spectators, so lots of breaks, lots of combative riding and pleasing the sponsors. Targetted races are the 1 day races and GTs. GT goals will vary but I'd be happy with 1 overall jersey and 1 top 10 GC finish plus say 6-10 GT stages through the year (well I have got Cav). Any more and I'll be hanging out a car window like Marc Madiot

Rider goals - more to be added later after I've 'talked' to the riders. These are hopefully close to the actual rider goals.

Cav in yellow day one and green overall at the TdF.
Cancellara to lose weight and work on beating Gilbert rather than Martin
Voigt to get in every break and have fun
JTL for the Ardennes Classics and the Vuelta
Talansky Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie, TdF top 10

race entries

I would have made

TdU - 7 riders:
Gutierrez, Kittel, Appolonio, Tiernan Locke, Schleck, Riblon, Pichon

Tour de San Luis - 6 riders
Hushovd, de Gendt, Fuglsang, Cattaneo, Roy, Iglinsky

GP d'Ouverture La Marseillaise - 8 riders
Roy, Roux, Cancellara, Astarloza, Voigt, Izagirre, Sorenson, Dowsett

Tour of Qatar - 8 riders
Cavendish, Voigt, Kittel, Appolonio, Cancellara, Riblon, Pichon, Sorenson

Tour Mediterraneo - 8 riders
Hushovd, de Gendt, Fuglsang, Cattaneo, Roy, Iglinsky, Roux, Dowsett

rest of February calendar for team.
Tour of Oman - 8 riders
Cancellara, Schar, Appollonio, Kittel, Guttierez, Talansky, Cattaneo, Izagirre

Volta ao Algarve
Hushovd, de Gendt, Fuglsang, Cattaneo, Roy, Iglinsky, Roux, Dowsett

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

That's a pointed question, if we're doing this for world tour points should we declare appropriate teams from our squad for the TdU, and so on through the year, keeping track of points earned, or is it world tour points howsoever earned by those riders through the year, or are we using the fantasy league to keep track?

So... If we're declaring teams,

for TdU my 7 man team will be Voigt, de Gendt, Iglinsky, Izagirre, Kittel, Gutierrez, Appollonio

For Tour de San Luis Cavendish, Sorenson, Hushovd and Van Garderen are the only riders I can declare.

Tour of Qatar Cavendish, Cancellara, Appollonio, Rasch, Riblon, Kittel, Schar

Mediterraneo Roux, Roy, Pichon, Hushovd, Schleck, Talansky, Roche

Oman Appollonio, Kittel, Schar, Cancellara

bearing in mind this is all fun, and I'm coming stone dead last anyway...

Go on then, give it a go...
348.8 points based on the correct values. 29 riders, since there is one neo pro (I think Cattaneo). I've limited myself to a max of 3 per team. It's probably heavy on classic riders and names I know, rather than being strongly based on form, but who knows, it's a long season.

Mark Cavendish, PC, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, 24.3
due a good year, and with a lead out train, who knows what he might achieve.
Tejay van Garderen, AR, BMC Racing Team, 30.7
if cut loose from Evans, last year showed such promise.
Fabian Cancellara, AR, RadioShack-Leopard, 26.6
again due a good year, and I suspect he will be in transition to a more GC type rider
Thomas de Gendt, AR, Vacansoleil-DCM, 25.9
again performed well last year and has the legs to top 10 in any of the GTs
Jens Voigt, PC, RadioShack-Leopard, 20.9
if this is his last year, it will be a cracker
Jon Tiernan-Locke, PC, Sky, 14
after last year's world champs, should love the classics
Andrew Talansky, DS, Garmin-Sharp, 20.1
another strong GC rider last year
Jakob Fuglsang, DS, Astana, 16.4
time to put his money where his mouth is
Thor Hushovd, DS, BMC Racing Team, 11.9
after illness, this may well be a good year
Marcel Kittel, DS, Argos - Shimano, 9.5
sadly I think he'll see a lot of Cav, Sagan and Degenkolb's back wheels, but at minor tours should hopefully clean up
Maxim Iglinsky, DS, Astana, 9.6
hopefully classics and shorter tours
Jeremy Roy, DS, FDJ-BigMat, 14.8
TdF stage hopefully
Gorka Izagirre, DS, Euskaltel-Euskadi, 17.4
shorter tour stage wins (maybe)
Anthony Roux, DS, FDJ-BigMat, 10.3
another TdF stalwart
Nicki Sorensen, DS, Saxo - Tinkoff, 9.1
towing people uphill
Michael Schar, DS, BMC Racing Team, 6.3
shorter tour stage wins (maybe)
Jose Ivan Gutierrez, DS, Movistar, 7.4
road captain
Mikel Astarloza, DS, Euskaltel-Euskadi, 5.9
road captain, and mountain stages
Johnny Hoogerland, DS, Vacansoleil-DCM, 4.5
spotty jersey type
Alex Dowsett, DS, Movistar, 10.5
maybe will have looser reins for breaks
Christophe Riblon, DS, Ag2r-La Mondiale, 5.4
more TdF goodness
Davide Appollonio, DS, Ag2r-La Mondiale, 6.7
DS
Andy Schleck, PC, RadioShack-Leopard, 3
if he doesn't better last year....
Steve Houanard, DS, Ag2r-La Mondiale, 3
DS
Nicolas Roche, KM, Saxo - Tinkoff, 19.1
being towed halfway up a hill...
Laurent Pichon, DS, FDJ-BigMat, 3
DS
Mattia Cattaneo, DS, Lampre - Merida, 3
DS
Xabier Zandio, DS, Sky, 6.5
super DS
Gabriel Rasch, DS, Sky, 3
DS

EDITS -
after being pointed to the blog post I'd missed (thanks)... I've recalculated and found an extra 17 odd points, so Huguet has been swapped for Roche, and after finding Marzano may have, or may be close to retiring I've swapped in Appollonio, who I hope will be able to thrive outside Sky.

I'm just looking to see if I can set up my purist team with these riders...