2023 Power Rankings - places 45-41.

It's the second part of our Power Rankings series - this time we're taking you all on a trip around the world, as we cover teams from Europe, Asia, and South America.

We start the second round with ATT Investments, who finished in 45th place, and whom I must admit I haven’t heard about at all until this year. This could obviously be because I didn't follow Continental level racing at this amount, but a good part of it was down to the Czech team's performance - which was more than impressive all season long.

Someone I would like to emphasize as a key member of the team is Jakub Otruba. The 25-year-old from Olomouc rode by far the best season of his career and his consistency has certainly attracted the attention of ProTeams. A true stage race specialist, Otruba has ridden 5 2.1 races this year, finishing in the top 10 in all 5, 5th in Hellas, 3rd in the Tour of Sibiu, 3rd in the Czech Tour and 10th in the Slovakian and Croatian Tour. My current information and rumors say that he is in talks to rejoin the team for 2024, if he’d be retained it would be a huge key signing and a statement that ATT is serious about developing the team for the future.

A rider who should not be worried about his contract next year is the current Slovakian champion, Matus Stocek. The 24-year-old Slovakian sprinter won his country's Time Trial and Road Race championships (the latter ahead of Peter Sagan), but perhaps an even bigger achievement was winning the points jersey at the Tour de Hongrie almost exclusively from breakaways. A good rider is lucky, though, because if the last stage in Budapest hadn't been cancelled due to rain, the jersey would probably have gone one of the star sprinters, Bauhaus, Jakobsen or Groenewegen. Other than that, Matus had a good season, I expect a lot of good things from him next year.

I want to talk a little bit ’home’, and the last person I want to mention is Dina Márton, the Hungarian rider stepped back a level from Eolo to compete here and was more than impressive in some parts of this season, he did particularly well between May and July. His contract is not yet secured for next year, but I hope he will stay.

What about next year? Rumour has it that the team is planning to have 17 riders next year, keeping the Czech core, completing it with Italian, Slovakian and Estonian youngsters... I'm very encouraged by the whole project they're doing, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this level of financial support will be maintained next year, which would also be reflected in the results.

44th place went to the team that acquired a main sponsor during the season, which also had a positive effect on the team, Van Rysel - Roubaix Lille Metropole (formerly known as Go Sport - Roubaix). The team didn't have any highlights this year, but perhaps that's why they had an above average season, consistently finishing in the top 5 or top 10 in French Cup races. It's not necessarily the very young, nor the very old who have delivered the good results, the age of the team is mostly between 23 and 31, which is somewhere near perfect.

Celestin Guillon came awfully close to pulling off a miracle on home turf, as he was involved in the breakaway that eventually saw Oier Lazkano win the Boucles de la Mayenne GC - he finished second in the stage, but still didn't make the GC top 10. Jeremy Leveau, the experienced Frenchman, has ridden several pretty good .1 races this year, 7th in the Tour de Vendee, and even more memorable for him was Tour de Pays de la Loire - Stage 4. He was in a group with Kamp, Vauquelin, Dversness, Healy, who ended up sprinting for the win... he finished 4th there in GC, 3rd in the stage, it was a memorable day for the team.

Maxime Jarnet should also be mentioned, the 25-year-old French rider seems to be a fan of difficult races, as he had a 5th place in the Limousine behind Gregoire, winning an uphill sprint ahead of Page and Herrada, 7th in the Vitre, another demanding competition this year, and 10th in the national championships on Mont Cassel. He is also an exciting project.

What's next year? In Emmanuel Morin, they have a big arrival from CIC U Nantes, the veteran Frenchman with World Tour experience comes in to develop the youngsters.

The next 3 teams are all teams that are trying to do something about the globalisation of the sport of cycling in one way or another, and their attempts at their own small micro-levels have not yet been unsuccessful, but at the larger levels it has not yet been demonstrated. China Glory Continental Cycling Team finished 43rd. The Chinese team worked with a lot of foreigners last year, apart from the Chinese, and well... they were the only ones who got results. It was almost the same this year, but I’m a bit more optimistic when it comes to the development of domestic cyclists.

As a statement recruitment, they signed former Israel's Canadian climber James Piccoli, who didn't fail to deliver good results (Hainan stage win + 3rd in GC, top 15 in Qinghai Lake & Rwanda Tour). The experienced Willie Smit and Lucas Trarieux also delivered, no more, no less. But the one who finally started to match them on a domestic, Chinese level was Lyu Xianjing. The 25-year-old beat Martin Laas in Sakarya and then went on to win stages at the Poyang Lake Tour and eventually the GC.

It's an exciting project, but I fear they will be stuck in one place if they continue in this direction, as we don't know anything about the 2024 plan yet, so it's hard to predict.

Finishing 42nd overall at the end of the year was the Japanese team JCL Team Ukyo, which has a very interesting team management line-up, as the name Ukyo stands for Ukyo Katayama, who was a Formula 1 driver for 6 years, racing for Larrousse, Tyrrell and Minardi - and in addition to his very varied duties, he also runs the team, and he doesn’t do it badly. Now obviously, the concept can be mocked, as they own some experienced drivers, but at the same time they are making their mark in the Far East.

At least Nathan Earle leaves a mark behind himself. The 35-year-old Australian rider moved permanently to Japan in 2020 after 2 years spent with Team Sky and has since been able to do well in a high percentage of local races. He won perhaps one of the year's most unusual road stages, an 11.4km stage up Mount Fuji to take the Tour of Japan for the second year in a row - and he has every chance of doing a treble next year.

The role of two home riders, Masaki Yamamoto, and Atsushi Oka was also outstanding for the team. Yamamoto in my opinion, could even do very well in Europe, having won the Japanese championship, consistently performing at a high level in 2.2 Japanese races and is still somewhat young, Oka is blessed with similar skills, but I wouldn't take him over, let him stay as the leader of the young Japanese core of the team.

Next year, though... There will be a lot of changes in the life of the team, as Manuele Boaro, who retired from Astana, will start his post-active life here as an Assistant Sports Director, and at the same time Matteo Malucelli will join the team from Bingoal. I don't know if this means that the team is moving towards a dual identity and looking to sign more Italians in addition to the Japanese riders, or if they are planning something else for 2024... but they'll be worth watching, it's a very exciting project.

The team that finished 41st was the team that participated in about 3 or 4 races that counted in our tally, but they dominated those tours to the point where they still made it into our list. Team Medellin has signed a big powerhouse for this year, as Miguel Angel Lopez returned home and supported them for the first half of the season... and when he was available, he won almost every race. He won the San Juan with a dominant performance, he won the Tour of Colombia with an even more dominant performance winning 9 out of 10 stages, and we thought everything was going well for him...

... then the Guardia Civil came. On July 25 his name was again mentioned in connection with the Operation Ilex criminal case and his licence was immediately suspended for an indefinite amount of time. It has since emerged that this was a very serious case, that there was a very serious network behind the production of illegal substances, especially regarding their outsourcing and the delivery to the right people. Lopez was also involved in this, and the latest news is that he could face a 4-year ban, which would probably be the end of his career - it would be sad to see such a talent fall apart on such a scale.

There have been happier things around the team, though. Namely, Oscar Sevilla for example, who rose like a phoenix for about the 24th time in his career and managed to win the Hainan Tour at the age of 47 with a very smart, tactical race – he’s a bit like Kazuyoshi Miura in football, he will never stop doing it, but as long as he is doing it at this level (legally at least), why should he?! In fact, the strength of the team is also shown by the fact that they have been very dominant in the 2.2 Tours they have entered in South and Central America, although, if you get the best Colombians who don't want to compete in Europe anymore to ride for you, it's easy.

What happens next year? We don't know. I'm a bit worried that the team's career won't continue after the doping scandals, even though there are young locals for whom this team is a very good opportunity to get their first breakthrough results.