TOM DUMOULIN JUMBO-VISMA
On the comeback from injury, if Dumoulin can rekindle his Grand Tour winning form of previous years, the Dutchman could be the joker in the pack
For any rider to miss a significant amount of racing time, finding the physical and mental skills to reach the top level of the sport once again may be tricky. But if anyone can, Tom Dumoulin may be just that man.
He may not have made the start line of the Tour de France last year, but 2018 was one of the most epic Grand Tour campaigns seen in the recent history of the sport – despite not standing on the top step of the podium. Finishing second in both the Giro d’italia and Tour de France to Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas respectively was impressive, and if a couple of key stages went his way it could have seen the Dutchman pulling off a Grand Tour double for the ages.
Those near misses of 2018 seem a long time ago now as since then Dumoulin was only able to race 27 days in 2019 in part due to a debilitating knee injury at the Giro d’italia, which stunted the rest of the season and has continued to hamper his preparations for a 2020 campaign. But that may be about to change thanks to a change of scenery for the 2017 Giro d’italia winner.
Into the unknown
Dumoulin has since left Team Sunweb to join the powerful Jumbo-visma outfit in the off-season, where he is in competition for team leadership duties with Steven Kruiswijk and Primož Roglič who have strong Grand Tour credentials themselves. But if he can he will have the belief and support that he will be backed up by a turbo-charged team primed to help their leaders on to top GC spots.
If Dumoulin can find the form that saw him win the 2017 Giro d’italia and multiple Tour de France stages in the seasons either side of this victory in 2016 and 2018, the man from Maastricht will be very hard to ignore when it comes to the crunch point of the Tour in both the high mountain stages and the cross winds where his powerful team will take up the heavy lifting. Not to forget that Dumoulin is also a former world time trial Champion and is formidable against the clock.