Ten neo-pros to watch this season from hulking sprinters to towering time triallists, as well as promising classics contenders and stage racers. This year’s list has a coincidental family angle with two famous sons and a brother as well.
We have to begin with Groupama-FDJ as the team has signed seven neo-pros, all of them from its own Continental development team. This alone is remarkable for the in-house shopping and the way it internalises the recruitment process. But also because one quarter of the team changes. In a normal situation this could prove disruptive but since all the riders were together under the same umbrella it could be easier to manage, we’ll see. Marc Madiot has said he will send many of the new signings together to the Vuelta in August. Let’s pick two riders among them.
Romain Grégoire (19 years old) has been racing on a bike since the age of six, and long had a paralell interest in horse riding too. He first made a name for himself in cyclo-cross then began to rack up wins on the road. Last year he was fresh out of the junior ranks and landed stage wins in the U23 Giro and the Tour de l’Avenir, taking Liège-Bastogne-Liège too as well as the European championships (pictured). He’s a versatile rider whose limits are in the high mountains so while French fans have lofty hopes for him in the coming years, he’s not the next Bernard Hinault. The “everything but mountains” idea invites thoughts of Alaphilippe but Grégoire’s not quite got that jack-in-box explosivité.
Lenny Martinez (19), also pictured, is the latest from the Martinez family. His grandfather Mariano was born Spanish but became a French citizen and won the mountains competition in the 1978 Tour de France. Lenny’s father Miguel won gold in the mountain bike race at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 among other wins and tried the road but it wasn’t for him although he’s kept riding and racing. You can imagine the DNA and the cultural inheritance here and there is a “like father, like son” aspect here with Lenny as a pure climber who weighs 52kg. At a team training camp he hit 6.7w/kg for a 20 minute effort and it was in May’s Mercan’Tour Classic that he put this to work, shredding the group on the Col de la Couillole and leaving many big names gasping for air.
Jensen Plowright (22) is Groupama-FDJ’s eighth rider to turn pro, only he’s leaving the development squad to join Alpecin-Deceuninck, a good signing for them and besides, the French team has several sprinters already. A pure sprinter – and a possible gift to headline writers – it’ll be interesting to see how he fits in on a squad already full of fastmen, and they’ve signed fellow Australian Kaden Groves, but if he gets a chance he should be part of promising generation of Aussie sprinters with Blake Quick joining Jayco and Sam Welsford in his second year at DSM.
Staying with sprinters, Gleb Syritsa (22) began 2022 on the Spanish national circuit, racing for a club in Barcelona where he took sprint win after sprint win before attracting the Astana team and being invited to race for them as stagiaire where he quickly got results including a stage win the Tour de Langkawi. An impressive rise through the ranks from club amateur to pro wins in months? Hold your horses, it’s not quite the story of a diamond discovered by surprise. First he’d been part of the Russian track cycling programme and taken world titles as a junior. Then the Russian Lokosphinx team roster was absorbed by the Catalan club as a means to allow the riders to keep racing in Europe rather than being subject to restrictions or conscripted. He’s a hulking sprinter whose bulk and 85kg looks like a lot to haul over the hills but he’s actually far from being the first sprinter to get dropped when the road rises… that’s him in the picture racing for second in the Arctic Race of Norway’s uphill sprint.
UAE have signed Swiss wunderkind Jan Christen (18) on a long term contract until 2027, only he’ll turn pro with them later this year and will spend the first part of the year continuing an educational apprenticeship in a hospital and racing on the road with the Hagens Berman Axeon Continental development team. He’s won titles on the track, in cyclo-cross, mountain bike and the road from national to European to World Championships. When asked by Blick, a Swiss magazine, what he’d like to win, he replied “everything. The Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, the Worlds” but then again, who wouldn’t? While media training might be part of his pro curriculum in the years to come and could muffle such bold claims, Christen’s talents suggest he’s got a shot of winning across multiple terrains.
Thibau Nys (20) is the reigning U23 European road race champ and beat Filippo Baroncini, the 2021 U23-World Champ and Juan Ayuso (both neo-pro picks for 2022). For many though Thibau is the son of Sven, the cyclo-specialist who ranks among the very best. Nys junior’s been a long term project for Trek who brought him up via their Lions cyclo-cross team and now he’s joined Trek-Segafredo as he’s keen to improve on the road. As a Belgian ‘crosser at heart, he’s obviously keen on Paris-Roubaix and the Ronde and will keep up the winter sport although of late a back issue’s been holding him back. Look to him in the classics and he’s got a handy sprint after a lumpy day in those short French and Belgian stage races.
Movistar have seen Spanish talents like Carlos Rodriguez and Juan Ayuso turn pro outside of Spain and this pains the management. So they couldn’t let Ivan Romeo (19) go after he won the Spanish junior road race and time trial titles in 2021. He’s a very different rider though, tall and heavy and if some articles online from Spain try to suggest he could be the next Miguel Indurain, well Romeo’s already excited to race on the cobbles and add more weight to the team’s performances in the spring classics rather than the summer stage races. A new Imanol Erviti would do nicely but there’s room for more as Romeo’s really into the time trials.
Leo Hayter (21) is an Ineos signing and the Londoner ought to be a familiar name because of his brother, and now team mate, Ethan. Comparisons are inevitable, especially as Ethan’s making a name for himself fast as the track cyclist who can perform in time trials, win hilly sprints and take one week stage races as long as they’re not Alpine. Leo is lighter and more of a promising stage racer in the making and so he left the British system and its track focus; he briefly left the sport a couple of years back too. He won the U23 Giro last year and convincingly so and has been British U23 time trial champion, that’s him above with bronze in the Wollongong Worlds and if he can TT that well and climb so well, then you can see why he’s a promising stage racer for Ineos. Getting a look in for GC isn’t obvious but as a Brit on a British team he should get time and space.
Joshua Tarling (18) also joins Ineos, and straight out of the junior ranks. He was unbeaten in international time trials in 2022, including the junior Worlds title in Australia. He should should be easy to spot as he is 1.94m tall and weighs a reported 88kg which means he’s even bigger than his new team mate Filippo Ganna. A big engine, a human windshield, watch for him in the time trials and helping team mates in the classics and some of his ambitions remain on the track and the Paris Olympics.
After an Englishman, a Welshman, now a Scot from Kelso in Oscar Onley (20) who turns pro with Team DSM having been on their development team (it’s striking how many pros Great Britain is turning out these days). After trying several sports including running, he got into cycling in his teens and started to rise up the ranks, including a stint with Ag2r’s junior team. 2022 was a breakthrough year. A crash at the start of the Giro della Vallee d’Aosta hurt but he recovered to win the final stage and then some solid results from them on. But things got spectacular riding with the World Tour team in the autumn and the Cro Race because in two small summit finishes he was narrowly beaten by Jonas Vingegaard, and after the pair had distanced the rest. This performance saw DSM bring forward his signing, presumably in part because he showed what he could do but also to ensure he didn’t go elsewhere. He’s now signed until 2027 and we’ll see how he fares, the battle against Vingegaard easily invites extrapolation to grand tours but that’s a long sweep to make.
Neo-pro?
Technically a rider aged under 25 on their first two year contract in the World Tour or Pro Conti level. But it’d be too easy to pick among riders with a pro season already as prospects to watch so all the riders cited above are first year pros.
Finally if you have any local tips please share in comments below, picking ten means leaving many others out, for example citing Hayter meant leaving out fellow Londoner Thomas Gloag who’s joining Jumbo-Visma…
Groupama-FDJ have a very young and inexperiened squad with more than half the team 25 or under including the seven very young neo-pros. I suppose they will use the real youngsters sparingly which puts considerable pressure on the older hands to carry the weight. Askey, Stewart, Storer and Geniets had decent seasons in 2022 and should get even more exposure in 2023.
An interesting year beckons for FDJ – and maybe a few tense moments for the Madiot brothers. Great 2023 kit too!
Sounds like they are preparing for time after Pinot and Demare but hadn’t realised the amount of change to the team. But if they take 7 riders this year, think they can’t keep doing this?
The music’s bound to change on the team bus with a generational shift.
Pinot’s an interesting case because he’s been on the team for a long time, his contract’s up and if he renews it still means budget for other signings but they tend to buy in help rather than leaders, or at least they’d like to.
Gaudu now seems FDJ’s banker reliable GC rider with Pinot filling the unpredictable – but sometimes brilliant – ‘electron libre’ role. Pinot’s period as a GC hope now seems over with Molard and Madouas better bets for solid GC placings too. There will be even less room for Pinot when Martinez, Grégoire, Paleni and Germani come of age though Pinot is still popular in France and far more so than many riders with more 2022 UCI points.
FDJ have an interesting classics team with Stewart who has a fast finish, able to play off Küng. But so do many other teams although the development team is giving them a lot of options on talent that other teams don’t have. Being able to draft in riders really makes this system look like a good idea for all, more and more teams are trying it.
There seemed to be disappointment in Storer in 2022 but it seemed like they had higher hopes for him than we might have imagined but proved helpful for Gaudu’s 4th place quest in the Tour.
Storer is apparently a very shy introvert so I imagine moving to FDJ was quite a shock having come from such a strictly controlled environment at DSM. With a year under his belt, I think he’ll pick up a stage or two in a worldtour race this year assuming he’s given the freedom (which may not be the case now that Gaudu knows he is a reliable ally). Askey was prominent last year – I agree with INRNG that FDJ’s classics team is taking shape.
With Tarling, Hayter (E), Sheffield, Turner, Ganna, Swift (C) and Pidcock, INEOS look to be pretty stacked for the classics in the coming years too. While on INEOS, I’ve never heard of the 18 year old Canadian they have signed – Leonard – presumably he has some “off the charts” lab results to give them encouragement. Anybody know?
There should be a place with fdj in the future for Pinot. Guys with experience in riding a Grand Tour GC and who can set their egos aside are invaluable for future champions. See Gesink, Majka, Nieve…
Perhaps not quite local, but certainly regional and a rider whom I’ve seen live is 19-year-old Estonian Madis Mihkels. He finished 4th in Wollongong and 3rd in Leuven.
Hasn’t won too many races and probably will never win all that often when the sprint guys haven’t been dropped before the finale, but to me he seems very much the kind of rider who will be like a fish in the water when he finds himself racing among the pros.
Good pick, was on my radar too. One question is whether he can find a niche, many U23s can be good across the board, sprint for a win here, taking an uphill finish there etc but often needs to focus on a speciality in the pro ranks as the level is so much higher, to find out where they have a real advantage or speciality.
He just got hit by a car Monday afternoon during training:
https://sport.delfi.ee/artikkel/120122620/eesti-tippratturile-soideti-ihastes-otsa-autojuht-ulbitses-ja-lahkus-politsei-juhi-ja-ratturi-utlused-on-vastuolulised
Sounds like he’ll be ok despite some injuries… and the driver apparently more interested in his damaged mirror than Mihkels.
Oh, forgot to mention tje team Mihkels signed with for two years: Intermarché-Circus-Wanty.
PS On Monday he was out on a training ride in his home country when a car driver passed him so lose that he was knocked down by the sideview mirror. The driver, an elderly man, stopped and demanded that Mihkels sign a paper (for the insurance company) admitting that he was the guilty party for it was plain to see that the driver hadn’t swerved to the right and therefore couldn’t be at fault!
(Mihkels was taken to a hospital, but he was lucky enough to get away with no worse injuries than a 7 cm long gash in his lower back.)
Oscar Onley at the Cro-race was an impressive surprise but we’ll have to see if he’s just as good in earlier season races.
Gleb Syritsa will in my mind always, thanks to Mr Ring, be linked to piano moving. But he looks an interesting guy for Cav if he arrives.
It now seems he’s certain to arrive. Syritsa makes a huge windbreak and has a background in the team pursuit too. However, that’s a starting point rather than meaning he’s ready to slot into a lead out train, let alone go to the Tour de France.
I see Syritsa is down for the Saudi Tour so it’ll be interesting to see how he does. Does Astana have a lead out train?!
I would keep them apart. Astana is not exactly brimming with team leaders so I would opt for two seperate programs where Astana isn’t just peloton filler waiting for a good day for Lutsenko…
Arguably the most promising British rider to turn pro this year is Thomas Gloag for Jumbo-Visma. He had a fairly quiet year in 2022, but still managed a stage win at the Tour de l’Avenir plus other placings, so it’ll be interesting to see how he develops away from Ineos.
Several Groupama-FDJ names in there but Sam Watson could have been another. A likely P-R and Flanders rider who thrives on tough days (2022: Gent-Wevelgem espoirs, 5th Tro-Bro, 2nd UK Nats…) with a decent sprint from a reduced bunch. It will be interesting to see what programme his team decide on for his neo-pro year.
That UK nationals result was pretty special and promises a lot.
Nice to read Christen will finish his education because I worry the trend to hire juniors means riders dont get to finish school or college first and if pro cycling doesnt work out for them they dont have anything to go back to.
I share the concern in some ways, several U23 teams would insist riders also enrol on some kind of educational course at the same time. But pro teams can also let new recruits do this, eg Carlos Rodriguez was hired by Ineos and has been attending university, Tobias Steinhauser at EF is also finishing an apprenticeship as well at the same time.
Tobias ist actually Georg’s dad and was one of Jan Ullrich’s teammates back in the days ascwell as Ullrich’s former brother in law. Georg is with EF where JV did praise him as the likely most talented U23 rider right now – let’s see whether he can convert this into success.
Looking forward to see how some the younger Australians go. Matthew Dinham I will have an eye on, along with the others mentioned. From Team Bridgelane and riding for DSM in 2023. A few good results, including 7th at the U23 Worlds, off the mark by 3 seconds & 2nd at the Aus Nationals in both the ITT & Road Race along with others.
Not WT and too old to be a neo-pro but keep an eye out for Paul Double, newly signed to Human Powered Health at the ripe old age of 26.
He’s been around the houses and done it the hard way on the way to a first pro contract, but on his day can hang on the climbs with the very best. I’m biased as he’s come out of the ranks of my local club, but I fancy a strong ride or two now he’s finally at pro level.
Saw him in the Italian races and he was impressive on the climbs, potentially a clever signing by HPH and he should get better with more support. HPH should be a team to watch this year as several of the second tier teams try to find ways to get noticed and ahead of the others as they compete for invitations, talent and attention in general.
In the last (italic) paragraph I think you meant to mention Leo Hayter.
Certainly a promising bunch of neo pros, I hope they’ll do good.