Overview

Each player takes the role of a Directeur Sportif of a professional cycling team riding in the 2024 Tour of Italy.

The aim of the contest is to select the best possible team of nine riders, while operating within the conditions set on team selection.

The better your racers perform during the race, the more points they will accumulate for your fantasy squad.

The contest includes an additional Stage Hunter competition, where each director will be awarded a total of nine rider transfers they can use during the race - to cover rider dropouts and to keep their team competitive throughout the contest.

The Stage Hunter competition is in addition to, and not a replacement of, the main Classic Leaderboard competition, as detailed further below.

Overview - Classic Leaderboard Competition

The Classic Leaderboard competition represents the same contest that regular Velogames directors will be familiar with, and remains the main competition leaderboard on the site.

In the Classic Leaderboard contest, directors must select a team of nine riders ahead of the race start.

These nine riders will then proced to accumulate points for the director's team, in line with the full scoring system (which remains unchanged from previous years).

The winner of the Classic Leaderboard competition will be declared as the highest-scoring team director after the Final End-of-tour classification points are awarded at the end of the race.

The Classic Leaderboard competition will continue to be published as the "main" Overall Standings global leaderboard on the site and in Mini Leagues (although as declared in the next section, it will be easy to access the alternate Stage Hunter leaderboard scores too!).

Overview - Stage Hunter Leaderboard Competition

The Stage Hunter leaderboard competition is a recently-introduced contest held within the Velogames Fantasy Grand Tour games.

Each team director will be allocated nine "Stage Hunter Transfers" to use during the race, in between the end of Stage 1 and the start of Stage 21 - in order to keep their team competitive throughout the contest.

Team directors will therefore be able to replace abandoned and poorly-performing riders from their team selection, or tactically target upcoming blocks of stages.

Newly-added riders to the team will score points for the team within the stage following when they were added to the team, until (and if) they are subsequently transferred back out of the team.

Importantly, points allocated to all riders within each team (whether or not they were in the team at the start of the race, or whether they have been transferred into the team as the race progresses) for the Stage Hunter Leaderboard do not include the Daily Classification points for General Classification, Points CLassification, Mountains Classification or Teams Classification, and no final end-of-tour classification points will be awarded to any rider for the Stage Hunter Leaderboard.

The winner of the Stage Hunter Leaderboard will be the team director who has amassed the most points throughout the full 21 stages of the contest, taking into account the active nine riders that were in the team during each stage.

The Stage Hunter leaderboard will be published as an additional leaderboard within the overall standings section of the website, and also as an additonal scoring tab within each Mini League on the site.

Important Notice

Velogames Fantasy Cycling is not an official partner of, nor claims any association with, any professional cycling race organisation, any international sporting body or any professional cycling team.

Team Entry

You must use the Official Entry Form to submit your team. The Entry Form will be made available once the game is open for entries.

Only one team is allowed per player. Multiple team entries by a single player in a single contest is not allowed and could lead to teams being disqualified from the game. If multiple teams are found, only the last team entered by the player will be accepted as the official entry.

Team Names

Users are expected to refrain from entering abusive or vulgar team names or manager names. If vulgar or offensive team names or manager names are identified, Velogames reserves to right to ask these to be changed, to automatically edit the offending text or to summarily remove the offending team from the game. Velogames Fantasy Cycling exists to celebrate the sport of professional cycling and provide safe, clean fun to participants, so let's all keep it that way.

Entry Deadline

The deadline for entries to be submitted is 13:45 CEST (Central European Summer Time) on Saturday 4th May 2024. That is 12:45 in the UK, and 07:45 on the US East Coast. Make sure to check how your own time zone differs from Central European Summer Time to make sure you meet the entry deadline!

Team Selection Criteria

In order that each player creates a balanced team, the following two important constraints are placed on team selection:

Team Budget

Teams are given 100 credits to select their riders. Credits are the Velogames currency. Each rider is given a value in credits, based on their prospective points-scoring abilities. The velocredits values are based on past results and recent form, with an emphasis towards those riders who have been successful in past editions of the race.

Rider Classes

Riders are split into 4 Rider Classes, which reflect their supposed strengths, weaknesses and role within their team. These categories are All-Rounder, Climber, Sprinter and Unclassed Riders.

Each team must contain 2 All-Rounders, 2 Climbers, 1 Sprinter, 3 Unclassed Riders and 1 Wild Card. The Wild Card selection may be from any rider category, and allows a team manager to specialise somewhat in the team they pick.

There are no other team selection criteria apart selecting 9 riders, staying within the 100 velocredit limit and making sure that the correct composition of Rider Classes is selected.

Initial Team Selection

Use the game entry form to select your starting team of nine riders, which will be your eligible team for the Classic Leaderboard.

You can make unlimited changes to your team up until the entry deadline of 13:45 CEST (Central European Summer Time) on Saturday 4th May 2024.

To make these team changes, simply click the Change Riders button on your team roster page and use the resultant dropdown menu to reselect your squad.

Only the last team entered by each player will be activated as an official entry.

Automatic Rider Replacements for non-starting riders

It is the responsibility of each directeur to manage their own team line-up as the entry deadline approaches.

Velogames will provide an indicator on each team roster page in the run-up to the start of the race, showing the status of each rider regarding whether or not they are on the most recent start-list.

If, for any reason, a rider does not start the race, they will be replaced in each Velogames team with a suitable replacement, determined by Velogames. Where possible, this replacement be a a rider from the same pro team as the non-starting rider, at a similar credit value. Where such a rider is not available, another rider of similar credit value (or the next available lesser price bracket) will be selected, based on the order of riders in the Velogames database. The decision of Velogames regarding which replacement riders are substituted in is final!

No automatic substitutions will be made for riders who drop out after the race begins - they are only used to ensure that each team starts the race with a full squad of nine riders.

Team Changes

Team Changes - Classic Leaderboard

Once you have selected a team of 9 riders and they have started the first stage of the race, your team for the Classic Leaderboard is set for the duration of the contest - any subsequent Stage Hunter selections (see below) made during the contest will not contribute to your score in the Classic Leaderboard.

The 9 riders that you start the tour with will be the only riders who will score you points for the Classic Leaderboard during the contest.

Team Changes - Stage Hunter Leaderboard

Introduced in 2022, the Stage Hunter competition allows for a total of nine rider changes (or "Stage Hunter Transfers") to be used by each team director for the duration of the contest, to be used between the end of Stage 1 and the start of Stage 21.

Stage Hunter Transfers allow directors to make tactical changes to their team of nine riders, in order to keep their team competitive, target upcoming stages and react to unfortunate events such as rider abandons and poorly-performing initial selections.

A Stage Hunter Transfer is counted for each rider change. Changing one rider in and one rider out counts as one transfer, two riders in and two riders out count as two transfers, and so on.

Each team director has a maximum of 9 Stage Hunter Transfers to use use during the contest, which will become active for use at the end of Stage 1.

Transfer deadlines - Stage Hunter Leaderboard

Team directors can make up to nine Stage Hunter transfers during the contest, between the end of Stage 1 and the start of Stage 21.

There is a deadline ahead of each eligible stage when team rosters are locked, and any Stage Hunter Transfers made in the preceding transfer period are activated.

If a transfer is made after the published transfer deadline, the change will not take effect until the following stage. So, make sure to get your changes in ahead of the deadline for each stage!

The transfer deadlines for Stage Hunter transfers are shown below.