[Brian Swartz]

What Does That Guy Know Anyway?

I thought it might be interesting here to revisit some of the things I said a year go(game-time), and see how they turned out.

Benda is probably headed into a dominant 2040 campaign.

This one is interesting because it is simultaneously almost completely wrong and not that far off. Obviously Iglar had the dominant year but Benda still had his best season and was head and shoulders above the rest of the tour, to the tune of having almost twice the points right now of his next closest rival.

Elder is still more than a match for most of the elite

This is still true. He slid a couple of spots to 5th, but barely.

All signs point to a fairly quick decline now for the meteoric Hogue.

Or not. Did slide a bit in terms of total points, but he was 4th last year, and he's still 4th. Perry Hogue was as big a surprise as anyone, actually reversing the hands of time if only temporarily.

The general consensus is that he's a one-hit wonder who will hang around for a while, but has probably seen his lone brief moment in the sun.

Goncharenko was in view here, and this was definitely true. It looks like he's on his way out.

Best guess is he finishes this year as #2 behind the German champion.

After all the flowery things I said about Iglar, I missed the boat a bit with this call. I thought it would take him a little longer, and I didn't see him going unbeaten for half a year.

A strong finish to the year, but he's not getting any younger

And then Almagro had his second-best season at age 30, finishing third after an eighth-place standing a year ago. Time to eat a little bit more crow here.

I expect to see him off the top page by year's end.

Yeah I was totally off here, in reference to David Alvarez.

So some I was correct about, others ... not so much.