Ten riders were picked to watch for the season and now it’s time to revisit the post and see hw they fared in the course of the year.
Remco Evenepoel was the first pick because he was still an unknown proposition going into his sixth season a pro. A star, yet the sense that he hadn’t been tested to his limits. He won his first race of the year, the Figueira Champions Classic à la Remco with a long range solo attack.
Paris-Nice was his early goal, curiously his first race on French soil but the test wasn’t conclusive: he finished as the strongest rider but, without a team to lock down the race and marking Primož Roglič, he ended up third on the podium in Nice.
He was among the wounded in the Basque country’s infamous crash but resumed racing at the Dauphiné where he took the time trial stage but was off the pace in the Alps, visibly overweight but also contracting Covid around this time. It didn’t bode well for the Tour but he showed up Florence looking leaner. The next three weeks settled plenty, even if Tour de France settled remains just one data point. He won the time trial and was firmly in third place in the mountains and if he was nine minutes down on GC in Nice, he was ten minutes clear of fourth place.
He then won the Olympic double and then the Worlds time trial so he’s clearly the best time trialist going and if it wasn’t for Tadej Pogačar he’d have had a runaway season. He’s now looking more consistent and reliable to the point where third place next July looks like the obvious outcome.
Tom Pidcock was picked as a talisman for Ineos, he and the team alike are not winning like they’re supposed to. No longer the biggest budget they’ve been overtaken financially and don’t look as clever. A pivot to hiring some young riders is a response but it’s been done within the World Tour team rather than a development squad; similarly other riders have their special projects whether it’s time trials, track, triathlon and in the case of Pidcock mountain biking; all with a core of old timers who a decade ago would have been ruthlessly culled for being on the wrong side of the curve.
For Pidcock 2024 depends on the view point, another Amstel and the mountain bike gold are solid results and he was close in the Tour’s gravel stage… but it also looks a lot like 2021 too. Crucially expectations, especially from his team, have grown since. Like Evenepoel above, Pogačar’s monopoly season has left Pidcock in the shade. The year finished with a public spat with his team management and talk of breaking contracts as he was pulled from Lombardia at the last moment. All this goes back to the managerial issues at the top of the team creating a Catch-22 scenario which looks likely to persist. But clear of an Olympic year there should be more focus more on shared road racing goals.
Could Valentin Madouas land a big win? No. In fact he didn’t get a small win either. As a strong rider who had been close, the challenge was to see if one of Groupama-FDJ’s leaders could convert presence in the finale of big races into triumph. No alchem but the silver lining, literally, was his continued presence in some big races notably the silver medal in the Paris Olympics. He proved the team’s second biggest scorer of UCI points, helping them keep well clear of the relegation stress. His challenge is exacerbated by Pogačar, him again because if the likes of Evenepoel or Pidcock are almost outside picks for the Ronde or Liège, what chance has Madouas got? You can have all the stamina in the world but explosivité counts for so much.
Now for the counter example because you can be explosive but what if you can’t use this talent because you’ve been worn down long before the finish? In January the question was if Fabio Jakobsen is fastest sprinter in the world? Never mind the world, if we rank DSM Firmenich-PostNL’s sprinters right today then Jakobsen might not make their top-3 given superior results from Casper van Uden, Pavel Bittner and Tobias Lund Andresen. Still the Dutchman still showed quality at times, the photo above as proof.
There is the pattern of riders leaving Quick-Step and stalling it can make sense, the team signs sprinters on short term deals looking for a turn around; and backs them with beefy classics riders for the lead-out. Then riders signing comfortable contracts elsewhere are bound to see the edge come off their appetite, all while a new lead-out train means a greater risk of being derailed in the finish.
Yet Jakobsen’s case seems different, it’s not that his win rate dipped, it’s how he was too often completely out of the picture: not defeated in a photo finish but dropped long before the final kilometre. This seems to be his central problem as he has the power available for the sprint but getting to the finish without being left ragged. So while this post is a retrospective, a test for Jakobsen next year is less landing a win in the UAE Tour but whether he can do it in Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico.
Felix Gall had such a great summer in 2023 could he repeat or even improve for 2024? No but he had a solid season. It wasn’t made public but the Austrian had a knee injury in the summer and so he came into the Tour de Suisse unprepared and couldn’t salvage anything from the Tour de France either; but he was still 8th overall and can reliably climb into the top-10 of any stage race he tries. Injury-free he had a solid Vuelta where he was there for Ben O’Connor… most of the time. The comfort for the team was that he was still dependable and Gall’s lack of fireworks was compensated by the rest of the team which enjoyed an exceptional year led by O’Connor.
A Giro winner, Tao Geoghegan Hart went into 2024 with big move to Lidl-Trek, one of several to leave Ineos and a blank canvas ahead. Coming into the season after a long rehabilitation phase from his crash in the 2023 Giro, just resuming racing was an improvement and he was picked to see if he could get back to his best. A top-10 in Romandie and things looked on track. But then came the mass-crash in the Dauphiné, that day riders were sliding downhill like bowling balls along lacquered maple boards. This left him sore and worse, unable to start the Tour. A discreet Vuelta in the service of Mattias Skjelmose followed and the hope is the consistency will set him up for next 2025.
Lidl-Trek’s other big signing was Jonathan Milan. A year ago the question posed here was whether he was a sprinter. Sure he’d won the Giro points competition but it could he beat the best, or was he someone with more range but maybe at the expense of top speed? He settled this by proving he could beat the best, starting in Tirreno-Adriatico.
He kept his range too. He was all over Gent-Wevelgem on the day he helped set up Mads Pedersen’s win, took the Deutschland Tour’s opening prologue and broke the 4km record in the track worlds, which makes Jasper Philipsen’s San Remo to Tour stage capacity look niche. There’s now molto anticipation for 2025. Will he start the Tour de France and the knock-on effects of his rise. Lidl-Trek won’t become a sprint team but we’ll see how they blend the ambitions of Milan and, say, Skjelmose.
Luke Plapp broke his contract to leave Ineos for Jayco. Things started well with a yellow jersey in Paris-Nice and impressive in the manner he acquired it. Second in the previous day’s team time trial, he attacked on the hilly roads to Mont Brouilly with Santiago Buitrago and stayed away to take the tunic. He’d finish sixth overall. He was punchy in Romandie. The Giro was the big goal but he lost time on the opening weekend. A bad crash in the Olympics time trial ruined the rest of his season. He’s a big talent but at 72kg he’s outside the mould of a grand tour contender and Jayco have other GC riders with new signing Ben O’Connor and Eddie Dunbar in the understudy role so we’ll see where Plapp fits.
Many riders get picked to see stories of evolution or tactics but Oier Lazkano was cited as a talent to watch. The manner of his Spanish champs title in 2023 impressed, barging clear and then keeping Juan Ayuso at bay on the final climb suggested versatility. Lazkano proved very visible all year and not just because of his rojigualda jersey. He won the fun Clásica Jaén in February and was third in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne after hanging out with Wout van Aert and Tim Wellens for the afternoon. Solid but he also finished ninth in the Dauphiné, not ninth on a stage but ninth overall. Fifth in the time trial and fourth in the giant Samoëns 2000 summit finish stage, where he was ahead of Carlos Rodriguez. He’s off to Red Bull for 2025 and it’ll be interesting to see how he adapts to a new environment and the role he gets where he could be a leader for the classics as well as a bodyguard for the grand tours.
Here’s a quiz question: who completed a “grand slam” of winning every stage and the GC in a stage race this year? Maxim Van Gils, but only because the Vuelta a Andalucia was abbreviated from five stages to a 5km time trial and in the end he didn’t get any UCI points for the GC either. Trivia aside, the more interesting angle was in the result, Van Gils scalping Juan Ayuso and Antonio Tiberi even if it was a tricky course. Antoine Blondin used to quip “show me who you have beaten and I’ll tell you who you are” and if flip this then on the opening stage of the Tour de France only Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar finished ahead of him in the bunch sprint, in Montréal only Pogačar, Pello Bilbao and Julian Alaphilippe were ahead and he racked up results like third in the icy Flèche Wallonne and fourth in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, behind Pogačar, Bardet and Van der Poel. It meant he finished the year as Lotto-Dstny’s best UCI point scorer, a handful of points clear of Arnaud De Lie. The challenge for next year is to consolidate this and possibly convert it into more wins, all while his team probably can’t afford to keep him for much longer even if he renewed with the team back in March to stay until the end of 2026.
If it wasn’t for the seasons of Remco and Milan, we might be asking if there’s an Inner Ring curse!
I did think of “and new for the good news” as we got to Milan. Lazkano and Van Gils were picked for hopeful racing results and they did well although just not on the top step of the podium.
Van Gils was especially impressive. I’m very interested to see how he progresses in 2025.
If you read the full list of Plapp’s injuries from the Olympic ITT, you’ll see that he accepted Remco’s share.
“Another Amstel” about Pidcock was good… I’m counting him one more, too.
Yes he got it this time but showed what he could do before.
But let’s be honest, nobody knows who won that race because it’s impossible to know who would have been ahead if the photo finish line had been at the same place as the line drawn on the road.
https://www.tglyn.ch/blog/amstel_gold/
It feels like only cycling would create this problem.
Yep. But even the most critical fan must admit that it’s not so common even in cycling.
Still, what I didn’t understand is why just not going with an ex aequo, far from unprecedented in the sport. Modern betting? Lack of flexibility when repairing failure is needed?
I agree (having looked up what ‘ex aequo’ means – my Latin’s not all it could be) – the draw was the obvious option.
A draw for the race win would have been a great outcome, because the UCI’s manual for commissaires directs them to obtain a result by taking the two (or possibly more) riders back to the 1km marker and hold a single heat match sprint race.
It would have been a great spectacle.
DaveRides, can’t believe the Amstel organisers didn’t do that. Imagine the spectacle!
You are presumably referring to the “Practical guide for the finish judge”
“In the event of a dead heat, for the purposes of awarding a title after a road event, the two riders will be separated in accordance with the following:
– if the finish takes place on a road, the two riders will race against one another over a distance of 1000 m, from a standing start”?
I am tempted to read “for the purposes of awarding a title” so that the race in question would have to be a championship race.
I may well be wrong, though.
Monday – in cycling ALL races are a championship of some kind.
Really cool feature to select a winner!! That would be quite a spectacle indeed.
Seriously nothing beats this sport of ours’.
Yeah only cycling.
So glad there are never no line prublems in football ever, no Wembley goal (or not goal), no VAR rage every game day, no debates over offside or not or hand plays for ages.
J Evans will correct me, but I think he meant that the question is having a virtually perfect tool for the purpose (which in football hasn’t been implemented yet for a series of reasons, as VAR long wasn’t – and VAR is obviously far from that level of adequacy; tennis is now a more appropriate comparison, perhaps) but still failing to use it properly.
Which still isn’t the core of the issue, probably (accidents happen), or at least not as much as the poor management of the situation and the lack of insight into the reality of the sport vs. the rigid reading of (part of) the rules.
You “sprint to the line”, hence as a rider you can only compete for the visual marker, not the photofinish cameras which, OTOH, are the ultimate judge; so, organisers and institutions must acknowledge responsibilities for any lack of adjustement which as such hinders fair competition. For example, you might go with a draw result or a heat match, both possible according to the rules themselves (no need to invent anything on the spot).
And the heat match, as noted above, would grant a further great show, news opportunity, positive clickbait etc., whereas the decisions taken brought disappointment and loss of trust.
Football isn’t great as far as trust is concerned, but for sure they can make of all that chaos a great show, VAR included. Not that I deem that’s the path to walk down (as I said, in this sense I prefer tennis’ attitude), but I think that we can perceive a range of differences in mentality, with cycling choosing in this case the stubborn, uncritical, narrow-minded approach. Denying at any cost any wrong doing or mistake by the institutions being chapter one of their book.
VAR requires a human judgement.
This just required putting the camera’s line and the line on the road in the same place.
Outside of England there is zero debate about the 1966 goal because everyone can see that it doesn’t cross the line, or even come close. Same as Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal and many, many others. Pre-technology, these things happened, and the result stands, regardless.
The INEOS question has still not been fully answered. The management problems appear to have started several years ago from the very top. The the continuing outcomes of these problems has effected everybody, managers, officials and riders, including Pidcock. There appears to be a little of the BC management crisis about the present situation. One must expect the full story to come out eventually. Lets hope the team survives and the riders get the support they need and deserve.
I don’t know if there are two separate issues. 1. Ineos stagnating. They seem to have been Brailsford project, and now he’s not involved they aren’t anybody’s. 2. Pidcock being an abrasive character who usually gets what he wants and doesn’t like it when he doesn’t.
Regardless of 2. Pidcock should probably move on because of 1., but I guess the money is good.
Here’s my reading of the situation: Ineos put their eggs in the basket of Pidcock, who has shown that he is unusually talented but not really a “team player,” and Carlos Rodriguez, who has been good but not Pogi-Jonas-Remco good. The leadership vacuum left by Brailsford allowed some pretty toxic situations to develop, including Pidcock having more power than he normally would have and Cummings and Bigham being no longer happy at the team. In a normal team (without the history of massive success) and a normal time (without the superhumans at the top of the sport gobbling up almost all the big results), it wouldn’t seem so bad, but as things stand it looks really bad.
Bernal’s terrible crash coupled with the almost overnight rise of Pogacar & Vingegaard I think created panic with management. The conveyor belt of TDF winners suddenly derailed, and no B plan with Thomas getting old, Bernal out for season and future doubts. In response they spent money like water on every young pretender they could spot, good racers but none gave them a Pog. They then overlooked decent riders like Dunbar who didn’t get chances to prove, used up as mountain domestics to keep some form of the Sky train going when the game had changed. As you say Brailsford turning to Football or whatever does seem to have left an indecisive vacuum. And now we hear there is less money. 2025 will certainly be interesting to watch.
Also, Irish cycling site Sticky Bottle reports that at Rouleur Pidcock admitted he hasn’t enjoyed the last couple TDFs and sees his future as a Classics rider. Just words maybe but if Ineos is looking at the Classics & stages after the disastrous 24 season then maybe they’ve calmed down and are pragmatically looking at the cards they have. That might give them a reset/starting over momentum if they can get some decent one day wins in 25.
The loss of Nico Portal cannot be underestimated in the ineos decline. The fact that Steve Cummings and Dan Bigham couldn’t get their voices heard is baffling. They still need someone at the top who has ‘bought in’ emotionally, rather than just been bought in.
I agree about the tragic loss of Nico Portal. BUT, in my opinion the problems originate from the top. Brailsford moved on but appears to have maintained the final word at the bike team. Everything still had to go through him via an unwieldy, endless management structure. The result of all of this was that riders were lost because contracts took too long to agree, potential new signings got lost in the endless and time consuming bureaucracy, junior management got frustrated because they could not implement anything without going through the whole cumbersome process and riders like Pidcock thought they were bigger than the team because of all the indecision.
One day someone on the inside will explain clearly why there were so many problems and mistakes.
.
If I were to guess, assuming someone does give a factual reason as to what’s gone on, the answer will be pretty much what you’ve said.
DB moving away from day to day operations but wanting to maintain control. If you stop doing a job but only delegate to your replacement responsibility and not decision making power, you end up in a mess. He’ll need to acknowledge that internally and change things if next season is to be an improvement for the team.
Rowe choosing to go somewhere else is also telling.
that raised my eyebrows, unless he was avoid the clash of managing your mate. With the exception of Pidock most of their results have still come from riders that signed to Sky. I think there’s an article to be written on how many dominant teams have come back after falling from the top perch. My not too reliable memory is that once they slide they go (Team postal, GAN, Banesto – different eras and maybe different reasons for collapse)
Banesto / various title sponsors / Movistar was still able to become again a top team across the following decades (much more than INEOS today), although maybe in different sectors or different ways.
With Valverde they long were the dominant team in hilly Classics and with Quintana they still were Froome’s main opposition (even if during those seasons there was often a sinergy of sort, not only during races, which somehow prevented them to be seen as the kind of rival which Astana was on different occasions).
Plus, no doubt that behind Sky they were by far the strongest GT *team* 2012-2019, also collecting great Giro results which Sky long lacked.
Of course, Ineos is now in a similar place as Banesto was in the second half of the 90s, and if they’re still around in 5 to 20 years, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they had some more golden moments as Unzué’s structure had.
Lotto, Quickstep, Lampre are all teams which could be seen as a very top team in some specialties of cycling for some seasons to then drop and come up strong again, maybe for different kind of races, after a number of years.
Of course, if your reference is TDF only… it becomes all pretty obvious (a matter of probabilities).
As Gabriele says, long standing teams can go through cycles – Visma-LAB were Rabobank not so long ago, a team of great riders not quite making the leap in the grand tours, or of Oscar Friere being a strong rider with an apparent monopoly on the worlds.
Postal are referenced, but we could call the continuity versions the Bruyneel teams, who did indeed have more success. With asterisks, at least.
So what makes INEOS/Sky so special that they get all this attention? I think a bit of rubber necking because we all like to see a car crash. But they were only ever the dominant team in the Tour and in Tour prep races. I’d say Sky and Quickstep were in lockstep in that recently past era, one dominant in the Tour and one in the Classics.
(Well, not 100% in that order, because we must never forget Ian Stannard and the Greatest Race Win Of All Time)
JV, you say, ‘So what makes INEOS/Sky so special that they get all this attention?’ – I’ve always assumed that this is only the case in the UK. But I’ve no way of knowing if that’s true or not.
It seems to be the case in this blog recently, was really the reference. Although I think there is a fair spread of nations represented in the comments, it certainly can be Anglo-centric (it’s written in English, after all).
Also, as I said, the real reason I think its getting so much attention is just how public a car-crash it has been. A bit of a pop-corn moment for us to enjoy. To draw back to Quick-Step comparisons – well, they have certainly given us enough of those over the years too!
Brian Smith has a lot of things to say on Twitter.
Pidcock, whatever team he’s on, should focus on one-day racing (and MTB, etc.), not grand tours. Otherwise, he’ll be yet another one-day talent who sacrifices that to come top ten in the TdF.
Pidcock himself said this past week that’s his plan for next year.
A short recap for people lacking Twitter access?
😉
https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-6-november-2024-311131
Thanks!
Credit where credit is due, it was reported by Sticky Bottle, on comments Pidcock made at the Rouleur Live show in London:
https://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/pidcock-says-he-didnt-enjoy-tour-de-france-wants-to-focus-on-classics/
Oops sorry, your link is ref for the Brian Smith comments. I thought it was replying to the “said this past week” comment. 😉
Apols. The Sticky Bottle report is on what Pidcock said this week about focusing back on classics next year.
Pidcock is in a team that has forgotten how to pick a team and race. He is also in a team that knows how to win GTs in a previous era.
He has had a few ill timed injuries concussion at critical times in the season. I think he can win a GT and maybe the Tour de France. It needs a plan though and something has to give. Ineos are Manchester Utd.
More accurately, Ineos are Manchester City!
It can’t help that Jim Ratcliffe has effectively become an absentee landlord as his focus on the cycling team has been diluted by his increased involvement in football, F1 and the America’s Cup.
@Jon Booth. I’d be interested in hearing your explanation of how Pidcock can win a Grand Tour. I don’t think he can even be a viable contender (especially as I don’t think three-week stage races are where he wants to be). He’s certainly shown no evidence so far of having the ability/skills to win a GT, let alone the Tour
He rode the 2023 Tour with an eye on GC and the plan to see what he could learn here. But patiently riding for three weeks and hoping others fall away while he stays steady doesn’t seem to be his style of racing, it looked like he was in the wrong mould, think of an artist not only being taught how to use a spreadsheet but told this is going to be their career.
He’s a fascinating rider but if he can’t outclimb Pogačar and Vingegaard or beat Evenepoel in a time trial, grand tours are going to be tough. So what to aim for?
I get you Kevin. On paper he has the skills. He is a winner. I don’t think he can beat Pog or Remco at their best but I can’t see them doing that every year. If he can win a top level week long stage race next year then I still say he could win a GT one day.
If he doesn’t do that then I would concede.
Everything can happen, but I’d be hugely surprised if a pro whose *only* GC *top 5* to date was runner-up at a poor ToB edition, even admitting that had the Queen lived one more week he’d probably win that (heck, his single top 5 across 4 seasons as a pro and some ten stage races!)… I’d be surprised, I was saying, if he could suddenly win a “top level” short stage race, especially if that’s meant as a hint of things to come (I mean, I can see him getting the final GC of one of those stage races made of several Classics-style days, but this wouldn’t mean much in terms of GT future). He perhaps might start podiuming, if that’s the way to go? But, as inrng writes, I think the issues are different one, starting with his own plans.
Anyway, I admire the guy as an impressively polivalent athlete and no doubt he’s got a superior engine, which even granted him some GC victories in lower categories just out of mere physical superiority; yet, unlike say Remco, things as they are as far as GC is concerned his problem isn’t the presence on the startline of some super-generational champions, it’s just that for what we could see until now, he just hasn’t got the required qualities for that kind of racing, whereas in CX or one-day racing, yep, his problem are the rivals, but note that when it’s “just” that, you simply end up winning less, as it happened to him, indeed, not lacking any win or top placing at all.
Good ol’ Sky could make a GT winner out of Froomey or Thomas, so if they still had that trick in their tool box, it might work with Pidcock, too. But it looks like times changed.
I think the minimum requirement to enable Sky to turn your pis ear into a potential silk purse was an aptitude for time trials (and long steady climbing). Wiggins, Froome and Thomas all had that to varying degrees. Pidcock doesn’t. So even of he was 10 years older I think they would have struggled to turn that trick with him.
Richard S, pre-miraculous improvement, Froome had nothing. Wiggins and Thomas were top time trialists.
The review of IR’s 2024 picks just shows how hard good squad recruitment is. There are no bankers for 2025 beyond Evenepoel and Pogacar – and even then things might go wrong. Let’s see IR’s 2025 choices.
As already said Pidcock needs to concentrate on races that suit: Flanders, Amstel, La Flèche…
Those races suit but Ineos are paying big bucks and so we have to add a Tour stage too, the Worlds as well and so on. The opening week of the Tour next year could be interesting for him.
Thanks Inrng – a great recap.
I’m pleased to have seen Remco in the riders to watch. Despite his palmares he *still* seems to be underrated. Perhaps that will finally be put to bed now… and yet a question lingers. He seems to be able to rise to each challenge he is presented with, so a little more honing of his race-craft, a bit more time at altitude and I think there might just be more to see. I enjoy watching him race and the passion/arrogance (delete according to your view) he shows.
There’s still some room for improvement, not a comment so much from an onlooker but he himself has said he’s only done his first Tour and can refine things. Plus… if he was given stronger support with a new team? I think all this gives him fresh challenges, he can see new things to aim for even if he’s now been around for some time.
Yes, some athletes look like they’ve been around forever when they’re still young or relatively so (back in the past I had sometimes this feeling with Urán, now retiring), and besides agreeing on Remco I’m also happy to add a simliar footnote to what I wrote about Pidcock above. He’s actually still young, and even if many a new talent blooms early only to lack that classical later powerful step-up around 26-27 yo, it’s not true that being an early winner prevents you to grow further up at that same age (ask Pogi), nor is it true that “today with tech you don’t improve at that age anymore” (ask Vingo and many others). So, while the total duration of a soon-competitive career is yet to be assessed, the improvements which age can bring with aren’t a thing of the past (which, of course, doesn’t mean that each and every athlete will necessarily follow that same growing curve).
Will be very interesting to see if Remco has already hit his ceiling. He appears to be in the Roglic mold, as in not able to win (aside from TTs) if the big boys are there at MOST events, but will still have a great palmares. But he’s young and ambitious, and things can change rapidly in cycling. I would prefer that everyone stays healthy, but injury and illness often come into play. If he has another year like 2024, that would already be amazing.
I wonder if a riders to watch for 2025 should also include Demi and Kasia? Or, perhaps a key rivalry to watch in 2025.
I don’t remember, did Kasia attack when Demi fell this year? Or, did Kasia merely follow the wheels and gain a bunch of time while Demi had trouble catching back on?
Kasia had no responsibility at all, racing was full on. SD Worx themselves didn’t commit fully to wait with the whole available group of teammates in order to help Demi, it made no sense that anybody else should wait.
The issues were within the team and maybe across the peloton.
However, with SD Worx previous attitude towards AVV in mind, as Kasia said, this is just karma.
Personally, I’m very happy Demi moved on and I’m extremely keen on seeing what the impact on her performance is going to be like.
Ps The piece was exclusively focussed on men cycling, I think, as it is more often than not the case on inrng for reasons that have been explained many times. This is probably going to change little by little (already happening, indeed).
Among women, lots of riders to watch for me. Right now I’m positively surprised by Casasola in CX and very happy to see Ceylin back to hugely solid results. On the road, I hope very much that Pfeiffer Georgi can recover from her horror injuries, just as I’m watching Cavalli as a long term Bernal case of sort. Same for Shirin with the long recovery from the iliac artery thing. Will Pieterse develop further her ambitions on the road, and is Van Empel going to join? What about the strong French patrol (Labous, Kerbaol, Muzic etc.)? And the upcoming pure climbers (Gigante, Realini, Bradbury)?
As a local, I also hope Persico can be back on top.
This is just about athletes to watch for some specific reasons, not even starting to name the big names…
…including… is Anna really coming back?
Women cycling is currently in a great moment.
Once more, it’s a shame that coverage is often not up to it (I’m not speaking of inrng’s personal decisions but mainly of CN and other big cycling hubs).
Don’t forget Cat Ferguson…
Well said! Potential next big thing. I had her already racing (and winning) with Movistar colours this Autumn, but the elite level is now way higher than some years ago, so I’d be happy if she takes it (relatively) easy for a couple of years at least.
Generally speaking, I feel uneasy both in men and women cycling with teenagers having to tackle the requirements of top pro sport (a bit of a children crusade to me), but OTOH for women you don’t have much option. In the past, the lower average level of the women peloton made such an aprubt transition a bit more acceptable, I’m not sure about today, if it’s still the same. Surely it’s not yet the same as men’s, for now, and still… That said, Movistar is probably the best place in such a moment of your sporting life.
And a footnote for Van Gils who now wants out of his contract with Lotto-Dsnty.
A deal can suit all sides, he leaves and they save money for a team that still doesn’t have a co-sponsor and they’ll be back in the World Tour without his points. But ideally he’d stay and score big for them of course but looks like that’s become awkward.
It shows an asymmetry to contracts which can be broken by riders but not by teams, which is why the UCI is moving in here to regulate more and particular to try and stop other teams tampering/tapping up riders. But that’s hard to prove and an agent can always act as a catalyst, pocketing a transfer/advisory fee along the way too.
The tampering restriction seems like it would be in conflict with labor law. I understand the need to protect legitimate contracts, but in a situation with such an imbalance of power between worker and employer it seems reasonable to give the worker the opportunity to renegotiate if someone else wants to pay them significantly more.