PATRICK FLETCHER

Features Editor, Cycling news. com

YOUNG GUNS TO SHINE

2019 was the year of the kids but it wasn’t a one- off. The U23 and junior ranks have become so advanced in terms of training, that some riders hitting the WorldTour now have been living like pros for nearly five years. After Evenepoel, Pogačar, and Bernal, there’s no dead space on the conveyor belt, with Bjerg, Simmons, Foss and Hayter turning pro this year.

THE END OF FROOME

Chris Froome dominated the Tour over the last decade but the crash he suffered last June still looks career-threatening. He was unable to take part in a sponsor exhibition event at a training camp in mid-December, and there was confusion when an Ineos DS recently cast doubt on his recovery. At this point, at 34, returning to his best looks unlikely. Doing so in time to win a fifth Tour, without a decent base of winter training, looks fanciful. I’m here to be proven wrong. Either way, it will be one of the storylines of the season.

THE BERNAL ERA

I can’t see anyone else winning the Tour, even if Jumbo-Visma look set to mount a true opposition to Ineos.

SAGAN’S DEFINING YEAR

The sport’s biggest star won just four races in 2019, at the end of which he struck a weary tone in pondering the end of his career. Was it a blip, or a portent of decline? Sagan has always said he’s here for a good time, not a long time, and while his three world titles ensure his place in the pantheon, he has still has only two monuments to his name. That’s unfinished business that, with a certain Mathieu van der Poel about to hit full flow, needs taking care of sooner rather than later.