WHAT WE'VE LEARNED THIS MONTH

THE GAP BETWEEN THE SPRINTERS IS CLOSE IN 2018

In the opening races of 2017, a clear hierarchy emerged very early on. Caleb Ewan won four stages of the Tour Down Under, while Marcel Kittel won three stages (and the GC) at the Tour of Dubai, then a stage at the Abu Dhabi Tour for good measure. Four wins by midFebruary is a good haul by any sprinter’s standards.

However, the theme of 2018 so far has been that no single sprinter has been able to dominate, or establish superiority. Instead, the riders are taking it in turns to win. At the TDU, André Greipel won a sprint stage, then Ewan, then Elia Viviani, then Peter Sagan and finally Greipel again. In Dubai, the order was: Groenewegen, Viviani, Cavendish, Viviani. Fernando Gaviria was carving out an impressive list of wins in South America, with four as we went to press, between San Juan and Oro y Paz, but the level of opposition had not quite been the same as in Australia and the Middle East.

One other takeaway so far: the leadouts are getting more and more chaotic, and the margins between riders finer and finer. Teams know that the days of the eight-man leadout are more or less gone, and are surging and attacking at unpredictable moments. Perhaps this explains the lack of a single dominant sprinter – with the teams all cramming each other out in the finale, only the riders well-placed with 200 metres to go can hope to win, and with so many teams and sprinters getting involved, there just isn’t room for everybody.