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 by: Bill Oetinger  12/1/2020

2020 Racing Wrap-up

December is the month when I do my traditional end-of-the-season racing wrap-up. At least it is when I don’t do it in November or January. This year it’s December. In recent years I have packaged this retrospective as a Top Ten list, ranking the best riders. Those are always fun, for me anyway. 

However, with 2020 being such a strange year, all topsy-turvy and ass-backward, I’m not sure I can organize it into anything as simple and linear as a countdown. Numerous stage races and one-day races were cancelled because of the pandemic, so we don’t have our usual big batch of results to study. Not so easy to assign rankings based on such an abbreviated body of work.

So this time around I’m just going to toss a few names out there, look at who did what, and let you—and history—decide. The order in which I toss out the names may suggest a sort of ranking, even without numbers assigned. I can’t help that. I’m just trying to make the point that we don’t have enough data to draw definitive conclusions.

Honorable Mention

Into the Honorable Mention basket go a few riders who almost did great things this year…almost grabbed the brass ring.

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net

Richie Porte, 35, Australia, Trek-Segafredo

PortePorte’s pro career spans 13 years now with more to come: a new contract with Ineos-Grenadiers for next year. He has flirted with greatness year after year but has almost always come up a little short. This year he won the Tour Down Under in Australia—back before the virus—and then gritted his way onto the podium at the Tour de France—3rd place—by doggedly clinging to the heels of the leaders on all the big mountain stages and then throwing down the time trial of his life on Stage 20…his first Grand Tour podium after so many years of being so close.

 

Jai Hindley, 24, Australia, Team Sunweb

HindleyUnlike his countryman Porte, Jai Hindley is a new face in the pros. He has had a pro contract since 2016 but hadn’t done much until this year when he won the Herald Sun Tour in Australia—another pre-virus event—and then really opened our eyes by taking the leader’s jersey at the Giro d’Italia with just one stage to go…only to lose it in the time trial on the final stage, finishing second at :39. In theory, he was riding shotgun for his team leader Wilco Kelderman but in the end, he was a little bit better than his boss. Was this a one-and-done or can we expect to see more from him in the years ahead?

 

Wilco Kelderman, 28, Netherlands, Team Sunweb

KeldermanHere’s another rider who’s been around for quite a few years, often nearly doing big things. Five times in the top ten at Grand Tours, including a 4th at the 2018 Vuelta and now 3rd at this year’s Giro di’Italia…which is what gets him on this list. He wore the maglia rosa for two days before his teammate Hindley took it away from him. He was the fastest among the GC favorites in that final-stage time trial, so if things had played out a little differently on a couple of the big mountain stages…who knows?

 

Hugh Carthy, 26, UK, EF Pro Cycling


Carthy
Carthy is on this list because he finished 3rd overall at the Vuelta a España and won the monster mountain stage to Alto de l’Angrilu. He’s another rider who has been flirting with fame for a few years but never quite putting it all together…until now. Not only is he killer in the hills, he’s a better-than-average time trial rider. That’s a good combination. With some good team support, he will probably be stepping onto other important podiums in years to come.

 

The Big Boys

These are riders who really jump out at us as having done important things in 2020…at least a step up from Honorable Mention.

 

Wout van Aert, 26, Belgium, Jumbo-Visma and Mathieu van der Poel, 25, Netherlands, Alpecin-Fenix

 

van Aertvan der PoelIt’s probably overly simplistic to lump these two young riders together. But they are so similar: their riding styles, their strengths, their trajectories through the sport. Both started out in the punishing winter discipline of Cyclo-Cross and both became masters at that craft. Wout van Aert was World Champion in 2016, ’17, and ’18; Mathieu van der Poel was World Champion in 2015, ’19, and ’20. 

Both have now come over to road racing and are doing good things. This year, Van der Poel won the BinckBank Tour stage race, including winning Stage 5. He won Stage 7 at Tireno-Adriatico. Won the Belgian National Road Championship. Best of all, he won the monument Tour of Flanders, just nipping Van Aert in a two-up sprint. All of that landed him 4th in the season-long UCI standings. Van Aert did perhaps a little better. He won the Belgian Time Trial National Championship. Won Stages 5 and 7 at the Tour de France while working tirelessly for Jumbo-Visma and Primoz Roglič. He won the Points classification and Stage 1 at the Dauphiné. We was 2nd in the World Championship Road Race and Time Trial and at the Tour of Flanders. He won the classic Strade Bianche and won the monument Milano-San Remo, outsprinting Julian Alaphilippe to the line. He ended up 3rd in the UCI World Rankings.

 

Julian Alaphilippe, 28, France, Deceuninck-Quick Step

AlaphilippeThe Great French Hope didn’t have quite the season he did last year, when he ended up 2nd in the UCI World Rankings and 3rd on my Top Ten list. With so many lost dates on the calendar, he didn’t have many opportunities to do his thing. He won Brabantse Pijl and Stage 2 at the Tour de France, which got him into the maillot jaune for three stages. And he was 2nd at Milano-San Remo. All of that collectively would probably not have earned him a place on this list, but he did one big thing right at the end of the year that made his season: he won the World Championship Road Race. My sense is that Alaphilippe, van Aert, and van der Poel are going to be the favorites in almost any classics or monuments they enter for the next few years.

 

Richard Carapaz, 27, Ecuador, Ineos Grenadiers

CarapazCarapaz switched over from Movistar to Ineos this year and was expected to be one of their major players in the Grand Tours. It didn’t work out quite as well as he and the team had hoped for but was still not too bad. He was supposedly co-leader with Egan Bernal at the Tour de France but he fell down the standings early and was never a factor, finishing a quiet 13th. But he redeemed himself somewhat with a battling 2nd at the Vuelta. He gave eventual winner Primoz Roglič a very stiff challenge…some of the best racing of the year.

 

Tao Geoghegan Hart, 25, UK, Ineos Grenadiers

HartThis is not someone we would have expected to be on this list. But he won the Giro d’Italia and how can you argue with that? That’s pretty much all he did this year but it’s enough. He was supposed to be riding in support of Geraint Thomas but Thomas crashed out on Stage 3 and that allowed the younger Brit to strike out on his own. He climbed with the best and time trialed with the best and it added up to a GC win. With Carapaz and Bernal and Thomas on the same very strong team for 2021, we have to wonder who will be the team leaders.

 

And Finally…

Top of the heap: two Slovenians…but who’s number one? I’m going to punt and say: who knows? If you count the Tour de France as the ultimate prize and if you count head-to-head competition as the best metric, then Pogačar comes out on top. But a case can be made for Roglič as well. I’m glad I don’t have to decide.

 

Tadej Pogačar, 22, Slovenia, UAE Team Emirates

PogacarThis wunderkind burst onto the pro scene last year with an overall win at the Tour of California and then 3rd place at the Vuelta. This year his signal accomplishment was winning the Tour de France with that storming time trial on the last real day of racing…all well documented elsewhere and all of it leaving the cycling world agog. Youngest winner in 111 years. Best Young Rider jersey. Mountains jersey. He also won the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, winning Stages 2 and 4 and the Best Young Rider jersey. Second overall at the UAE Tour, winning Stage 5 and the Best Young Rider jersey. Third at Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Fourth overall at the Dauphiné. First in his National Time Trial, beating Roglič. Second in his National Road Race, behind Roglič. That’s quite a year, and it placed him 2nd in the UCI World Tour Rankings.

Is Pogačar the next great champion? Based on his accomplishments so far, he could well be. But there is an old saying: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. We have been burned so many times over the years by doping…it’s hard not to take such amazing results without a pinch of salt. On the surface, he looks like the most wholesome boy next door; clean as can be. But his numbers are so good, they cause sports physiologists to do double takes: can anyone really be that good and still be clean? Personally, I very much want to believe in this kid, partly because he seems so likable and…innocent. (Innocent until proven guilty, right? And so far he’s never failed a test.) But also because I want the sport of bike racing to be clean. No more of those Dark Ages, please. If you want to dig a little deeper into this, here’s a link to an article that airs it out in detail.

 

 

Primoz Roglič, 30, Slovenia, Jumbo-Visma

RoglicIt may be unfortunate that the enduring image of Primoz Roglič in 2020 will be the final moments of his time trial at the Tour de France: utterly shattered, aero helmet askew, drooling, exhausted, etc. But that prime time collapse doesn’t accurately represent his very good season. So let’s get the TdF out of the way first. With the exception of that final meltdown, it was impressive. He won Stage 4 and held the yellow jersey from Stage 9 through 19 (the fateful, fatal time trial). All good except for having one uncharacteristically bad day in the ITT. To his everlasting credit, he picked himself up off the pavement after that time trial and congratulated his friend on his amazing victory. Classy.

So okay, only 2nd at the Tour. But then consider the rest of his season. He won his National Road Race, ahead of Pogačar. Finished second in his National Time Trial, behind Pogačar. Won the Vuelta a España, winning Stages 1, 8, 10, and 13 (the only time trial). Also won the Points jersey. Won the Tour de l’Ain, winning Stages 2 and 3 and the Points jersey. First at the monument Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Won Stage 2 at the Dauphiné. So…1st at the Vuelta and 2nd at the Tour: the only rider to stand on two Grand Tour podiums this year. That’s quite a year as well, and it placed him 1st in the UCI World Tour Rankings.

 

As noted above, in this truncated, misshapen season, it’s hard to crunch the numbers and get a good read on what just happened, at least in itty bitty detail. But in broad outline, it’s easy to see that these two riders are the pick of the litter. Which of them is best? Maybe let’s wait until the end of 2021 and revisit that question.

There are many recent “heads of state” who didn’t make this list, including six out of ten on my Top Ten list from 2019. Alejandro Valverde, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal, Tom Dumoulin, Jakob Fuglsang, Miguel Angel Lopez, Vincenzo Nibali, Enric Mas, Nairo Quintana, Mikel Landa, Thibaut Pinot, Simon and Adam Yates… Injuries took out some of them, either injuries incurred in races this year or injuries from prior years not yet fully rehabbed. In other cases there aren’t any excuses except, for some, the implacable march of time. 

With the exception of Richie Porte, the average age of the riders on my list of top performers is 26. They’re all in their prime or haven’t even reached their best yet—their hypothetical best anyway. Some of the riders noted in the prior paragraph are still young and may have better seasons ahead than they had this year. Others are near retirement or at least are looking at a future of diminishing returns. Some will be changing teams, with all the new dynamics that may entail. Some will work their way back from nagging injuries and others may not. And so on.

We have two or maybe three months before we begin to see how things shake out in 2021, not least with respect to where we are with the virus and possible vaccines and some return to normalcy. Figure the whole Spring campaign will still be tangled up in health restrictions. But we at least have reason to hope we’ll get past this and back to a world more-or-less the way we like it…including all the races we so enjoy. Hang in there. It’s going to get better.



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