THE STORIES OF 2020
Procycling’s writers look at the stories which will define road racing in 2020, from the classics to the Tour and beyond
The battle lines for the 2020 Tour, and even beyond, have already been drawn.
Team Ineos remain the team to beat at the world’s biggest race – they’ve won it seven times in eight years, through Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal. With Wiggins long retired, Froome facing a slow recovery from the injuries sustained in his terrible training crash last year and Thomas moving into the final phase of his career, the succession plan is already in place. Bernal is only 23, and the team has also signed Giro champion Richard Carapaz, who at 26 can hope to develop into one of Ineos’s primary Tour riders. Ineos also have Pavel Sivakov, a top-10 finisher at the Giro last year at 21. In short, the 2020s could look a little like the 2010s at the Tour, with more wins for Ineos. However, Jumbo-Visma have operated a high-risk, high-reward strategy for this year’s race. The Dutch team have assembled a cast of Tour contenders which looks almost the equal of that of Ineos. Assuming the riders can stay healthy, they will start the 2020 Tour with Vuelta champion Primož Roglicč, whose record in grand tour GCs goes 58-38-4
3-1 (in short, an improvement every time), 2017 Giro winner and 2018 Tour runner-up Tom Dumoulin, and 2019 Tour podium finisher Steven Kruijswijk. Their back-up is Robert Gesink, Sepp Kuss and Laurens De Plus on the climbs, and Tony Martin and Wout Van Aert in the flat stages. It’s a formidable line-up, and by focusing on the Tour, instead of spreading their leaders across the grand tours, they have declared their intent.
On paper, there’s little to choose between the two teams in terms of leaders and domestiques. Ineos have the greater experience and results, but Jumbo still have the margin for improvement. It will be a fascinating battle.
Of course, Pinot being Pinot, he shipped time in the most careless of circumstances
Thibaut Pinot faces the challenge of living up to the buzz he generated at the 2019 Tour. After years focusing on the Giro and avoiding the heat and the pressure of France in midsummer, he returned to his home grand tour and looked for most of the race like a winner. He was confident through the opening stages. In the Pyrenees he was the strongest climber, and he even turned in a decent time trial to put him in fourth overall going into the Alps, and only 15 seconds behind Geraint Thomas. Of course, Pinot being Pinot, he also shipped time in the most careless of circumstances, getting dropped in the crosswinds of Albi – he’d have been seconds from Julian Alaphilippe’s yellow jersey and clear of the others if that hadn’t happened. But in an even more characteristic denouement, Pinot’s Tour ended in melodramatic circumstances as a freak muscle tear put him out of the race in the Alps on stage 19.
The paradox for the French will be how to deal with the fact that Pinot is now a bona fide favourite to win the Tour and end the 35-year home drought of wins, and the fact that Pinot reacts adversely to pressure. In 2019, he was lucky to have Alaphilippe to shield him from the full glare of national expectation. There’s no doubt that Pinot has the physical capacity to win the yellow jersey, but does he have the mental strength?
Mathieu van der Poel’s rivals will have breathed another sigh of relief that the young Dutchman will be targeting the mountain bike race in the Olympic Games, which will take him out of commission on the road for a month or two in midsummer.
Van der Poel was the revelation of 2019 with his performances in the classics, and his strike rate on the road was extraordinary. The bare stats are that he did 26 days on the road last year in races ranked .1 and above and he picked up 10 wins and seven more top 10s. However, the real story could be summed up in two races. The incredible comeback win he took in Amstel Gold was a freak occurrence, and one of the most exciting race finales in many seasons – of course, sober heads can point out that while he did ride the final kilometres extremely fast, if Alaphilippe and Fuglsang hadn’t been playing games up ahead at the same time, he’d have been riding for third place. However, the panache and never-saydie spirit was one of the highlights of the season – he chased the break down, led out the sprint and then simply stayed on the front. This win came on the back of fourth places at the Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem.
But he’s not invincible. The other really revealing race for followers of Van der Poel was the World Championships. In the men’s road race, he was a strong favourite and he’d been ruthlessly dominant in his build-up race at the Tour of Britain, but he cracked with a lap to go on the Harrogate circuit and finished a disappointed 43rd.
In 2020, he’s got a stronger team and the confidence of knowing that he has the strength to win any of the spring classics. Since Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen retired, the flatter classics have lacked a patron. Van der Poel may fill that role in 2020 and beyond.