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The Next Twelve Months
Cycling, like every other sport around the world, took a highly unprecedented hit in 2020, with the rapid spread of the coronavirus bringing all professional and amateur leagues to a grinding halt in mid-March. With the vast majority of countries imposing nationwide lockdowns in an attempt to gain control of the virus, and with billions of people effectively housebound for several months, athletes were left to train individually to maintain some level of fitness while waiting for some indication as to when their season might resume. Given the incredibly bleak situation at the beginning of the pandemic, with many countries including Italy and Spain being hit particularly hard by the virus, there was widespread doubt as to whether sporting activities would resume in 2020 at all.
However, as Summer approached, many countries across Europe began to experience a reduction in coronavirus cases and, as a result, began to ease Covid-19 restrictions, including the prohibiting of professional and amateur sporting activities. With the relaxation of these restrictions, various sporting bodies including FIFA, World Rugby, and the UCI could begin planning for the resumption of their seasons. Facing into an unknown and highly unpredictable situation, these organisations were left with the unenviable task of running a sports league in a world where international travel has become an increasingly risky and complicated ordeal, where spectators are widely prohibited from attending events, and where the threat of a potentially deadly virus is constantly looming.
The UCI, after extensive calendar rearrangements and the implementation of numerous public health measures, resumed its 2020 World Tour on 1st August with Strade Bianche in Sienna, Italy. With a highly condensed calendar, including the running of all three Grand Tours between August and November and the cancellation of nine events, the UCI has managed to run its competitions without any major virus-induced incidents, with the season due to finish tomorrow with the conclusion of the Vuelta a España.
While the UCI has escaped the latter half of the 2020 season relatively unscathed, it appears that the issues they have been dealing with since the resumption of competitions will continue to be major factors in the planning and execution of races for some time to come. With a vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 not expected to be widely available until mid-2021 at the earliest, the international cycling body will need to be steadfast in their approach to dealing with the threat of the virus, while also enabling the World Tour to run as smoothly as possible.
Border Checks
The primary issue facing the UCI heading into 2021, and one which threatens to de-rail large parts of the proposed racing season, is the international make-up of the calendar.
Unlike other sports, where teams play a mixture of home and away fixtures, the 2021 UCI World Tour involves seventeen teams travelling constantly between eleven different countries over an eight-month period, which could prove to be a logistical nightmare for race organisers at a time when countries are constantly enforcing and relaxing Covid-19 restrictions of varying severity.
Many countries across Europe, particularly those on the Continent where the majority of the World Tour is scheduled to take place, are currently experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases. While measures have been put in place by governments in an effort to regain control of the virus, there is no guarantee that further waves of infection will not arise in 2021. While many countries currently allow elite sports to continue their leagues regardless of the severity of coronavirus restrictions, cycling would likely not be extended the same permission due to the inability for races to be held ‘behind closed doors’, and the risk of spectators congregating in large groups along the roadside.
This lack of certainty surrounding future Covid-19 restrictions across Europe and the wider world means that the UCI will have to be incredibly flexible in its approach to the 2021 season, with the risk that races may be cancelled or delayed, possibly with very short notice. The flexibility of the UCI has, of course, already been displayed this year with the cancellation of both the Santos Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race due to a combination of factors including low levels of participation, apprehension surrounding long-haul travel, and also the logistical difficulties brought on by Australia’s current fourteen-day quarantine policy. While there are still a further thirty-three races to take place over the year, it is highly likely that more could see the chop as months progress.
Show me the money
During initial coronavirus restrictions, all non-essential activities, including professional and amateur sports, were brought to a halt for several months. When the UCI recommenced the 2020 World Tour, cyclists had not raced for almost four months and, as a result, their team sponsors had not received any television exposure for the same amount of time. This lack of media coverage, combined with the steep economic downturn and potentially imminent global recession due to the coronavirus, means that some companies may enter financial difficulties and look to end their sponsorship of a team. This is already the reality for two teams, with CCC and NTT Pro Cycling due to part ways with their main sponsors at the end of this season, although the latter is now reported to be close to securing a new partnership which would allow the team to continue competing in 2021.
Cycling, when compared to other sports like soccer, rugby and golf, is widely underfunded, with teams heavily reliant on sponsorship deals to fund the various running costs involved in competing at the top level such as salaries, equipment, clothing, and travel. Without a headline sponsor, teams are unable to finance their existence and inevitably fold unless they are able to secure a new line of funding. Discussing the financial impact of the coronavirus on cycling sponsorship on their podcast Cycling Insights, Simon Gerrans and Matthew Keenan noted that if a company is now faced with a reduced sponsorship budget, they may choose to part ways with their World Tour team as they can no longer afford to back them.
Therefore, it is essential that in 2021, the UCI is able to run the World Tour as close to the proposed schedule as possible and with minimal disruption so that teams are able to race consistently and provide their sponsors with the television coverage and media exposure which they lacked for much of 2020. With many team’s sponsors potentially entering a difficult financial period, it is more important than ever that they are able to reap the benefits of their relationship with their World Tour team and why it is beneficial to continue with their sponsorship. If this is not achieved, then the World Tour make-up may look vastly different in a year’s time.
Crowding them out
Unlike soccer, cricket, tennis and multiple other sports which have banned spectators from attending fixtures, this has not been the case for road cycling. This, of course, is due to the very nature of the sport, with races taking place on public roads and no ticketing system in place for attending fans. However, this inability to exert complete control over who or how many people come to watch a race could prove to be a contentious issue for the UCI during the 2021 World Tour as the coronavirus continues to spread.
Prior to March, World Tour races would normally be thronged with fans stretching along the roadside from start to finish, decked out in their chosen team’s skinsuit and encouraging the riders on as they whizzed past them. However, since Covid-19 emerged, and with crowded areas quickly identified as a driver of virus transmission, attendee numbers at races has reduced dramatically as people were asked to keep to the start and finish lines. These requests appear to have been accepted for the most part, with many races, particularly the Vuelta a España, showing large stretches of stages with no spectators at all.
However, this is not always the case, with large crowds of fans in attendance at both the Giro D’Italia and Tour De France as seen above, swarming the road with no social distancing and with some not wearing masks. These scenes were shocking to see, with people nearly on top of the riders and creating a situation which directly contradicts current health measures. It is these very incidents, although rare, which the UCI must address going forward into 2021.
While it is obvious that policing fan attendance and behaviour at every stage is a likely impossible feat for the UCI, they must continue with their stance of asking spectators to stick to the start and finish lines and to wear a mask at all times. Otherwise, if the UCI allows spectators to go unchecked, a situation could emerge where the organisation is reprimanded by a government for creating an environment where transmission of the virus is likely.
Spreading like wildfire
Apart from the risk of spectators potentially spreading the virus by congregating at the roadside, there is also a risk that riders or team members could contract the virus and spread it to others at the race, including within their own team. With symptoms often taking several days to appear, and with some carriers being asymptomatic, it is crucial that the UCI continues to implement the health measures it has enforced since August to prevent a widespread outbreak of the virus within the World Tour. These include grouping each team on a separate hotel floor and separate dining room, consistent testing of all team members, and regular cleaning of all commonly used surfaces.
Another measure implemented to prevent a Covid-19 outbreak is that if a team reports two or more confirmed cases, they must exit the race. This particular measure was implemented during the second week of the Giro D’Italia with Jumbo-Visma's Steven Kruijswijk and Mitchelton-Scott's Simon Yates, along with three team members, returned positive tests, with their teams consequently abandoning the race. However, there is a risk that this regulation could lead to disarray in a tour’s GC standings if a team was forced to abandon the race when they are ranked highly, even if their GC rider has tested negative. While this situation has not yet arisen, it is a scenario which the UCI may have to consider to avoid stirring up disquiet among the peloton.
These are the issues, along with many others, which the UCI has faced since the resumption of the 2020 World Tour, and will continue to face as they begin the 2021 season next February. While the UCI has shown in the latter half of this year that it is not impossible to run races in the midst of the pandemic, it will be no mean feat for the international cycling body to navigate the next year without any serious incidents emerging. While it is hoped that a more ‘normal’ way of life will start to return sometime next year, the pandemic has not ended yet and hopefully the UCI is up for the challenge ahead.
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7 Days Out
With seven stages and 1,043km left before the 2020 Vuelta a España reaches Madrid, the race for the general classification lead is far from over with several riders still within spitting distance of the maillot roja.
Primož Roglič, who came into this year’s Vuelta in flying form following his recent victory at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, secured the leader’s jersey in the first stage from Irun to Arrate, with his nearest rivals, INEOS Grenadier’s Richard Carapaz and Dan Martin of Israel Start-Up Nation, down 5’’ and 7’’ respectively. The Slovenian national champion then managed to hold onto the red jersey for five consecutive days, until he was forced to concede the lead to Carapaz on Stage 6; the climb up the Aramon Formigal proving too much for Roglic, who lost forty-three seconds and fell back to fourth in the overall GC.
Richard Carapaz, riding in his first year with INEOS after four seasons at Team Movistar, looked to be holding his own, maintaining a modest lead between himself and those looking to knock him off his perch. Unfortunately, the twenty-seven-year-old Ecuadorian proved to be incredibly unlucky on Friday’s Stage 10 after Roglič took off just before the finish line to snatch another victory, his third of this Vuelta and tenth overall for this year.
This result has since been marred with controversy, similar to Stage 9’s finish when Deceuninck-Quickstep's Sam Bennett was relegated for illegal sprinting. It was found after the conclusion of the race that the UCI had changed its previous decision to implement a three-second time gap at the finish and had instead reverted to the standard one-second, with Carapaz losing his three-second advantage over Roglič and having to concede the maillot roja on the slimmest of margins as a result. This decision, unsurprisingly, did not go down well with the riders, who staged a small protest at Stage 11’s starting line to express their anger and frustration at the cycling body’s last-minute rule change and its subsequent effect on the race’s general classification standings.
However, despite the contentious swapping of the red and green jerseys between Roglič and Carapaz, the formulation of the final La Vuelta 2020 GC standings is still to be confirmed, with a number of riders and teams vying for a podium place come this day next week.
Primož Roglič (Team Jumbo-Visma)
Best Grand Tour Finish: Overall GC, Vuelta a España ‘19
Of the top five contenders for the maillot roja at this year’s Vuelta a España, I think it’s safe to say Primož Roglič has had the best run of them all.
Roglič has performed extremely well over the past few years, particularly in the Grand Tours where he has regularly placed in the top five of the general classification. This year, the thirty-one-year-old Slovenian will be looking to replicate the success he enjoyed at last year’s Vuelta when he topped the GC, beating out close competitors Alejandro Valverde and Tadej Pogačar. Also adding fuel to Roglič’s fire will, of course, be the disappointment of missing out on the top-place finish at this year’s Tour De France, where the honours instead went to fellow Slovenian Pogačar.
Given his excellent form and consistent Grand Tour performances, Roglič looks, on paper, to be the obvious choice for who will be wearing the maillot roja come 8th November. However, there is one thing that stands in his way: Stage Twelve.
Today’s stage, a 109.4km race from Pola Laviana to Angliru, is an absolute leg-burner with five categorised climbs spread across the course. While the first three are reasonably manageable with average gradients of 6.6 percent, 4.9 percent and 8.4 percent, it’s the last two that will really test the riders and likely be a major factor in deciding the make-up of the GC.
The first, the Alto de Cordal, stretches on for 5.4km with an average gradient of 9.3 percent, while the second, the Angliru, is an absolute monster, with a second-half average gradient of 15 percent before reaching a crescendo of 23.5 percent for the final 3km. Therefore, given the task ahead, Roglič will need all the support he can get from his Jumbo-Visma teammates today if he is to avoid losing serious seconds, or even minutes, to his rivals in the GC.
While it is certainly not out of the question for Roglič to secure a Vuelta double this year and close out 2020 with the Grand Tour victory he was denied only a few weeks ago, I’d argue that he’ll be hard-pushed to hold onto the maillot roja today and will probably have to pull another few stellar performances out of the bag over the next week to ensure he finishes top of the pile.
Richard Carapaz (INEOS Grenadiers)
Best Grand Tour Finish: Overall GC, Giro D’Italia ‘19
Time Behind GC Leader: 0’0’’
Apart from Roglič, Richard Carapaz is the only other rider in the top five of the Vuelta GC to have previously won a Grand Tour, with his coming last year at the Giro D’Italia as part of Team Movistar. This success provides him with an obvious advantage over the other three cyclists below him as he is keenly aware of how to manage a race, when to push himself and when to conserve energy, and, ultimately, what it takes to win a Grand Tour.
Given their similar experience levels and excellent racing form over the past few years, I would expect Carapaz and Roglič to be the ones fighting it out for the maillot roja as La Vuelta draws to a conclusion. However, I feel the next two stages and how Carapaz and his team perform could spell the making or breaking of his chances to secure the general classification win for INEOS Grenadiers.
Stage 12, as for all the other riders in this race, will provide a steep challenge for Carapaz as he looks to regain the red jersey and start putting some daylight between himself and Roglič again. Although Carapaz has proven to be a strong climber, and may even manage these mountains better than Roglič, he will still need the support of his team to make sure he isn’t too fatigued before he reaches the finish line.
Apart from the tough ascents, Stage 13’s ITT could also prove an Achille's heel for Carapaz and his chances of wearing the maillot roja in Madrid. Over the past three years, Carapaz has only finished in the top ten of a time-trial on three occasions, while Roglič has achieved sixteen top-ten's, including eight first-places.
With this tipping of the scales seemingly in Roglič’s favour, it therefore is crucial that when Tuesday rolls around, Carapaz is ready to clock an excellent ITT performance so that his GC hopes don’t slip away.
Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation)
Best Grand Tour Finishes: Two Stages, Tour De France, ‘18, ‘13
Two Stages, Vuelta a España, ‘20, ‘11
Time Behind GC Leader: 0’22’’
Rounding out the top three of this year’s Vuelta GC is Irish rider Dan Martin. A professional cyclist since 2008, Martin has significantly more experience than those ahead of him, having completed thirteen Grand Tours since 2009, more than that of Roglič and Carapaz combined.
However, despite his long list of Grand Tours and career achievements, Martin has never made the podium of any of the three major competitions, his best finish coming in 2017 when he finished sixth overall at the Tour De France. This lack of podium finishes, along with the challenges which the remaining stages will throw up over the next week, means the Israel Start-Up Nation rider may find it difficult to close in on the top spot and make up time on Roglič and Carapaz, who appear to be duking it out amongst themselves at the moment.
As well as his lack of Grand Tour wins, Martin has not been in the best cycling form over the past couple of years, which will make trying to close in on Roglič and Carapaz that much more difficult. Martin won the third stage of this year’s Vuelta, his first in over two years since he took victory in Stage Six of the 2018 Tour De France. He has also struggled to break into the top of Grand Tour general classifications, with his 41st place finish at this year’s Tour De France the worst of the top five.
While it would be fantastic for Martin to win and continue the success of Irish cycling in 2020 after Sam Bennett’s points classification win at the Tour, I don’t think that he has the racing form needed to knock Roglič or Carapaz down the table.
Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling)
Best Grand Tour Finish: 11th ,Overall GC, Giro D’Italia ‘19
Time Behind GC Leader: 0’58’’
Similar to Tao Geoghegan-Hart's situation during this year’s Giro D’Italia, twenty-six-year-old British cyclist Hugh Carthy has been thrust into the spotlight at La Vuelta after the intended team leader of the EF Pro Cycling team, Danny Martinez, dropped out of the race after 3.
It will be difficult for Carthy to avoid comparisons with the INEOS Grenadiers rider, who beat Sunweb’s Jai Hindley in a nail-biting time-trial last Sunday, and the pressure that comes with being high up on the general classification as the final week of the Vuelta comes around.
Their situations, though, are not, I feel, at all comparable: in Italy, Geoghegan-Hart was tied for the lead on the final day against a rider of similar age and experience, with it to be both their first Grand Tour victory; in Spain, Carthy is fifty-eight seconds down on the leader with a week of difficult racing left, and is competing with riders who have years of Grand Tour racing and wins under their belts.
While Carthy’s performances during this Vuelta have been excellent, holding onto a top-five GC spot since Stage 3, I feel he simply lacks the experience to make a serious dent in the podium spots for the Vuelta. This, of course, is not for lack of his cycling ability or determination, but simply that those ahead of him are more experienced in Grand Tour racing and will likely not let their lead slip enough for Carthy to make any real progress up the GC.
Enric Mas (Movistar Team)
Best Grand Tour Finish: 5th, Overall GC, Tour De France ‘20
Time Behind GC Leader: 1’54’’
Rounding out the top five in this year’s Vuelta general classification is twenty-five-year-old Enric Mas of Team Movistar. After losing a rake of their usual general classification challengers last year, the Spanish team are now resting their hopes on the rider from Artà to be their next Grand Tour success story.
However, it looks like their success story might have to wait until next year: at nearly two minutes down from Roglič, Mas is significantly distanced from the top spot, and with an extremely tough stage to come today, there is a good chance that he could leak more time and potentially fall out of the reckoning for a top-five finish.
Movistar, looking to replicate the Vuelta a España success enjoyed by Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde, has tried their best to push Mas towards the top of the leader board, but have been outmatched by the performance and immense work rate of other teams like Jumbo-Visma and INEOS Grenadiers. As with all the other cyclists today, Mas will be reliant on his teammates, including veterans JJ Rojas and Valverde, who is cycling in his fourteenth Vuelta, to help him up the steep Stage Twelve climbs and protect his GC standing as much as possible.
Thankfully, all is not lost for Mas and Movistar at this year’s Vuelta however. He is still the holder of the Young Rider’s jersey and looks likely to win the overall classification as his nearest competitor, and winner of yesterday’s stage, David Gaudu is 3’08’’ down.
The maillot roja at the 2020 Vuelta a España is still very much up for grabs and could, like its Italian counterpart, come down to the last minute to decide who will claim victory at this final Grand Tour of the year. While it looks as though Primož Roglič and Richard Carapaz will be the ones battling it out in the end, there’s still time for a Dan Martin, or maybe even a Hugh Carthy, to cause an upset and turn this whole race, and everyone’s expectations, on its head.
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Last One Standing
Yesterday marked both the start of the second week of the 2020 Vuelta a Espana and also the rapidly approaching conclusion of this year’s UCI World Tour calendar, with the next scheduled race, the Tour Down Under, due to begin on 14th January 2021. After the conclusion of this year’s Giro D’Italia in Milan on Sunday with Ineos Grenadiers’ domestique Tao Geoghegan-Hart becoming the latest recipient of the Maglia Rosa, the race is now on to find out who will win the overall general classification at the last of this year’s Grand Tours.
For the first time in the history of Grand Tour cycling, due to a severely condensed race schedule brought on by Covid-19 restrictions, the Giro D’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana overlapped for one week, meaning that no riders would have the opportunity to complete a Grand Tour hat-trick this year. In addition, the commencing of the Giro on 3rd October occurred just two weeks after the final stage of the Tour De France, cutting the usual time-gap between the races in half.
This meant that many of those who competed in the TDF chose to forgo a trip to Italy and instead made their way to Spain for the 75th edition of La Vuelta. Those cyclists included Dan Martin from Israel Start-Up Nation, Cofidis’ Guilleme Martin and Alejandro Valverde from Movistar. Also undertaking the TDF-Vuelta double-header this year is Team Jumbo-Visma leader Primoz Roglic who is looking to defend his general classification win from last year and secure a second Grand Tour win after being pipped at the post at this year’s Tour by felow Slovenian Tadej Pogacar.
With six stages down and 1,013.2km, the first week of the 2020 Vuelta a Espana has already been filled with plenty of exciting moments: Roglic, coming off first-place success at Liege-Bastogne-Liege a few weeks previous, took the leader’s jersey on day one after a 173km stage from Irun to Arrate, with Ineos Grenadiers’ Richard Carapaz and Israel Start-Up Nation’s Dan Martin trailing close behind at five and seven seconds down respectively.
Roglic continued to hold onto the maillot roja for the following five stages as the cyclists snaked their way towards northeastern Spain, with support during this time coming from his Jumbo-Visma teammates including Sepp Kuss, George Bennett and Robert Gesink. Unfortunately, the 146.4km Stage 6 route from Biescas to Aramon Formigal proved to be too much for the seven-year pro who was distanced by other GC contenders on the final 14.5km climb and fell back to fourth place, now sitting thirty seconds behind the new leader Carapaz.
Along with the increasingly tight competition between multiple GC contenders for the maillot roja, the Vuelta’s first week saw six different teams enjoy stage success: Movistar’s Marc Soler took Stage 2 after missing out the previous year when he was called back to help then-team leader Nairo Quintana, while Stages 3 and 4 saw an Irish double-header with Dan Martin winning his first Grand Tour stage since 2018 and Sam Bennett continuing his run of success this year after winning two stages, along with the overall points classification competition, at this year’s Tour De France.
Stage 5, a 184.4km cycle from Huesca to Sabninanigo, was won by Belgian Lotto-Soudal rider Tim Wellens, while Astana took the final stage before the first rest day with Ion Izagirre crossing the finish line first after his teammate and older brother Gorka put in the leg work during the final climb.
With the fight for the maillot roja now certainly under way between GC contenders like Carapaz, Martin, Roglic and Hugh Carthy of EF Pro Cycling, and with more teams hoping to achieve stage win success, the Vuelta’s second week was shaping up to be an exciting and eye-catching 945.8km of racing, and Stage 7 certainly didn’t disapoint.
Consisting of 159.7km of racing between Vitoria-Gastiez and Villanueva de Valdegovia, this stage would be a tough course for the riders with almost sixty kilometres of cycling before coming into a circuit featuring two climbs of the Puerto De Orduna, oft-described as one of the most challenging climbs in the Basque Country. Richard Carapaz would be looking to hold onto the leader’s jersey for another day while fending off competition from Carthy, Martin and Roglic, while Jumbo-Visma’s Sepp Kuss would be looking to claw back points in the Mountains classification.
The race started off quite calm and relaxed, with only Deceunik-Quick Step’s Remi Cavagna attempting to distance himself from the peloton before being quickly swallowed up again, with the riders continuing to move at a steady pace for around the next 60km. However, as the first climb up the Puerto De Orduna, a 7.8km trek with an average gradient of 7.7% and maxing out an eye-watering 14%, began to loom, a sizeable sixteen-man breakaway began to form. Some of the riders in this initial group included Kuss, Rui Costa of UAE Team Emirates, Magnus Cort Neilson from American team EF Pro Cycling and Astana’s Alex Aranburu. As this breakaway hit the beginning of this steep climb, they had managed to build up a two-minute advantage over the main peloton, but were still faced with competition from a quickly approaching second breakaway group.
With eighteen riders including AG2R La Mondiale’s Nans Peters and Kenny Elissonde from Trek-Segafredo, along with Michael Woods and Omar Fraile, whose respective teammates Cort and Aranburu were already up the road. Not wanting to be distanced, a trio of riders made up of previous Vuelta a Espana winner Alejandro Valverde, riding for Movistar, along with Mitchelton-Scott’s Mikel Nieve and UAE Team Emirate’s Davide Formolo, also broke away from the main peloton soon after in an attempt to catch up with the groups ahead.
Their efforts, along with those of the eighteen-man breakaway, paid off in the end, catching up to the initial group of sixteen cyclists mid-way through the ascent of the Puerto De Orduna; the three groups eventually merged to form a final thirty-six man breakaway, with those eager to gain points in the mountain classification fighting to get towards the front.
Meanwhile, back in the main peloton teams including Team Jumbo-Visma, Israel Start-Up Nation, Astana, and Ineos Grenadiers were pushing on the pace, with this main group never conceding more than three minutes to those out in front throughout the entire stage. Chris Froome, riding in his first Grand Tour this year after suffering a horrific crash at last year’s Criterium De Dauphine, set the pace for Ineos Grenadiers at the head of the peloton for a time, showing that he is on the way back to reaching close to his prime cycling form once again.
Out in front, Kuss was the first of the thirty-six-strong breakaway to cross the summit of the Puerto De Orduna, picking up the maximum ten points and virtually securing the Mountains Classification jersey. As he and the other riders entered the descent and began heading towards Espejo, Peters and Guilleme Martin of Cofidis tried to distance themselves from the group to catch up with Kuss who was now a short distance up the road. This attempted three-man breakaway was quickly nipped in the bud however, with the thirty-three riders left chasing behind quick to prevent any significant time gap from opening up.
With the thirty-six man breakaway now reconvened, they continued to cycle together until just around the 60km to-go mark approaching Subijana-Morrilas when another trio of cyclists attempted to gain some daylight between themselves and others in the group. Valverde, AG2R La Mondiale’s Dorion Gordon and Stan DeWulf of Lotto-Soudal were those who decided to go the lead; the maneuver worked well for a time as they were able to maintain a modest thirty-second gap between them and those they had left in the breakaway until around 35km to the finish when they were eventually caught by George Bennett (Team Jumbo-Visma), Wellens and Cort.
After being initially caught, French cyclist Gordon once again managed to distance himself from the breakaway as they began the descent before facing the Puerto De Orduna for the second and final time of the stage. Gordon, who turned pro in 2016, kept a thirty-second gap between himself and the chasing group during this latest shot for the line, but found it difficult to keep up the pace once the ascent began and was eventually caught by a sizeable chasing group at 25km from the finish.
As the group merged once again and began to weave their way up the Puerto De Orduna for the second time, EF Pro Cycling rider Woods decided to take his chance at 3km from the peak and made a dash up the remainder of the climb, with the other cyclists behind clambering up the mountain in an attempt to catch up to the Canadian. A quartet of riders, Guilleme Martin, Omar Fraile, Nans Peters and Alejandro Valverde, were the only ones to catch up to Woods, eventually reaching him during the descent with 15km to the finish line; in the process of chasing, Martin also secured the maximum mountain points for this second ascent of the Puerto De Orduna, taking away the polka-dot jersey which Sepp Kuss had virtually secured earlier in the race.
As the five riders out front began to make their way towards the finish in Villanueva De Valdegovia, what followed next was a game of cat-and-mouse, with the cyclists dashing away from the group momentarily to see if anyone would take the bait and chase them down. This back-and-forth continued for the next four kilometres; Woods and Fraile, with 3km left, tried to make a break for it but were soon closed down again by the other three, led by Valverde.
The decisive moment in the race, in fact, did not come until the final kilometre when Woods made a final sprint for the line, leaving the others scrambling to once again close the gap. Their efforts were for naught in the end though, with Woods crossing over the line for his second Vuelta stage victory to go along with Stage 17 win in 2018. Richard Carapaz also managed to hold onto the maillot roja for a second day, with his closest competitors Hugh Carthy and Dan Martin remaining unchanged at eighteen and twenty seconds down respectively.
With another eleven stages to ride until the final 124.2km from the Hipodroma de la Zarzuela to Madrid on 8th November, there’s still plenty of time for more exciting moments to come from this year’s Vuelta a Espana in a cycling year which has already thrown up plenty of surprises.
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Nothing in It
Tensions were higher than ever going into the concluding stage of this year’s Giro D’Italia in Milan on Sunday. Usually in a Grand Tour, the overall winner of the General Classification has already been decided by the time the final day rolls around. However, this year with the UCI calendar already thrown out of kilter by Covid-19 and the Giro bumped from its usual May timeslot to a much colder and rainy October start, it should have been expected that the second Grand Tour of the year would be as surprising and unpredictable as the rest of 2020.
During this twenty-first stage, a 15.7km ITT from Cernusco Sul Naviglio to Milan, all eyes were firmly focused on the two young riders battling it out for the iconic Maglia Rosa: twenty-five-year-old Ineos Grenadiers domestique Tao Geoghegan-Hart and twenty-four-year-old fellow domestique Jai Hindley from Team Sunweb who wore the pink jersey on the day. With only a fraction of a second separating them, it would all come down to this final race to decide who would ultimately secure the win, a first in nearly one-hundred-and-twenty years of Grand Tour cycling.
Apart from this unique aspect of the race, this final stage was also remarkable as neither Geoghegan-Hart nor Hindley had been earmarked as potential contenders for the Maglia Rosa by cycling fans, the media, or likely even their teams. Both riders had come into the Giro in domestique roles for their respective leaders, Ineos Grenadier’s Geraint Thomas and Team Sunweb’s Wilco Kelderman, and would not have initially been vying for any high placings in the GC with their focus instead on assisting their team’s primary cyclist towards the lead. Of course, we now know that none of this went to plan and that the tour, often described as ‘the most beautiful cycling race in the world’, unfolded in ways which no one could have anticipated.
Prior to the commencement of the 103rd Giro D’Italia in Sicily on October 3rd, some of the early favourites to take the lead in GC included Thomas, Kelderman, Team Jumbo-Visma's Stephen Kruijkswijk, Simon Yates from Mitchelton-Scott and Jakob Fuglsang of Astana. Deceunik-QuickStep's Remco Evenepoel had also been an early favourite to lead the Giro but was ruled out of the tour after he sustained a fractured pelvis and right lung contusion at August 15th's Il Lombardia.
After the first two stages, Geraint Thomas looked to be a main contender for the general classification, sitting in third place and just twenty-three seconds off the lead held by fellow Ineos Grenadiers teammate Fillipo Ganna. However, disaster struck the following day on a stage from Enna to Mt. Etna when Thomas crashed in the neutral zone after cycling over a discarded water bottle; a scan later showed he had fractured his pelvis and he was forced to drop out of the race. There was no luck either for GC hopefuls Stephen Kruijswijk and Simon Yates with both riders abandoning the Giro in week two after testing positive for Covid-19 and with their respective teams, Team Jumbo-Visma and Mitchelton-Scott, eventually abandoning the race entirely due to Covid-19 diagnoses.
With the early exit of these general classification contenders, along with the absence of many other top riders at the Giro due to the shortened time frame between start of this race and the conclusion of the Tour De France, some previously under-the-radar riders were brought to the fore and given the opportunity to showcase their talents on the world stage.
These include, most obviously, Geoghegan-Hart and Hindley, but also include the rider sitting in fifth place heading into Stage 21 and who had held the Maglia Rosa until only a few days previous. Deceunik-Quickstep's João Almeida had become the leader of the Giro D’Italia on Stage 3 in his Grand Tour debut and held onto the pink jersey for the next fourteen stages, fending off other strong GC contenders like Pello Bilbao, Domenico Pozzovivo and Wilco Kelderman. However, Almeida eventually conceded the Maglia Rosa to Team Sunweb’s Kelderman on Stage 18 after a tough 207km ride from Pinzolo to Laghi De Cancano, including a steep climb up the Stelvio, where he ultimately lost over two minutes and fell back to fifth place.
Some of the other young riders who enjoyed stage wins during the 2020 Giro D’Italia included Ineos Grenadiers riders Fillipo Ganna who won four stages, including all three ITT’s, and Jhonathan Narvaez who took Stage 12. Twenty-four-year-old NTT Pro Cycling rider Ben O’Connor took first place in Stage 17 after narrowly missing out the previous day, securing a new team contract for next year with AG2R La Mondiale into the process. Rounding out the group of successful young riders were, of course, the final day Maglia Rosa contenders Geoghegan-Hart, who had taken both Stage 15 and Stage 20, and Hindley, who had triumphed on the incredibly difficult Stelvio-punctuated Stage 18.
Coming into the final 2020 Giro stage in the Lombardy capital Milan, there was more room for movement across the general classification than is typical this late into a Grand Tour. Apart from Geoghegan-Hart and Hindley being neck-to-neck in the fight for the pink jersey, there was also room for other riders to potentially move up or down in the GC standings. Team Sunweb’s Wilco Kelderman, who the previous day had conceded the leader’s jersey to teammate Hindley, was riding to hold onto his podium position; an accomplished time-trialist, Kelderman would have to ride a quick pace over the 15.7km route to prevent Bahrain-McClaren's Pello Bilbao leapfrogging from fourth to third place. Equally Bilbao, who had ridden a fantastic Giro D’Italia following his work in the Tour De France as a domestique for Mikel Landa, would have to keep an eye out for fifth-place Almeida who would be looking to move up a spot to fourth in the GC after making up nearly thirty seconds on him on Stage 20.
While Geoghegan-Hart and Hindley remained friendly and affable to the end, sharing a Covid-compliant fist bump before they took to the starting ramp, it was clear from watching the television coverage that the atmosphere was incredibly tense for the riders and their respective teams. It would be a first Grand Tour win for both Geoghegan-Hart and Hindley, a possibility which neither likely expected when they began the Giro three weeks earlier in Sicily. For their teams, it was likely an equally unexpected scenario to face: for Ineos Grenadiers, they probably thought their hopes of contesting the GC were gone when Thomas exited on Stage 3 , while Team Sunweb would have been working for Dutch rider Kelderman to secure the pink jersey.
The 2020 Giro D’Italia, taking places months later than usual, had already thrown up a whole host of scenarios, GC leaders and stage winners which no one could have anticipated coming into this Grand Tour, so, in a sense, it only felt right that this most unusual of Giro’s should end with an all-out sprint to decide who would wear the Maglia Rosa on the final winner’s podium.
Geoghegan-Hart took off first at 4:09pm Italian time, with Hindley following in quick pursuit three minutes later. Keeping a close eye on the time difference between both riders, it appeared from the start that Geoghegan-Hart was riding a much better time trial; the Ineos Grenadier appeared to be working off a high gear and powering up the straight road towards Milan, while Team Sunweb’s rider was peddling furiously from the outset but could not seem to make up the lost ground despite his efforts.
Geoghegan-Hart's Stage 21 dominance was confirmed at the 5km time-check, passing at 12’06’’, while Hindley reached the same point over thirty seconds later, recording a time-check of 12’38’’. Geoghegan-Hart eventually crossed the finish line in 18’14’’, coming in thirteenth place and effectively securing the Maglia Rosa save for an increasingly unlikely last-minute resurgence by Hindley. The resurgence unfortunately never materialised and Ineos Grenadiers were confirmed as winners of the overall general classification before Hindley even reached the finish line.
After a brilliant final stage performance, Tao Geoghegan-Hart became only the second Briton to win the Giro D’Italia after Chris Froome’s success in 2018, and also became the only winner of the Giro D’Italia to never wear the Maglia Rosa across any of the previous twenty stages. It was heartbreak and disappointment in the end for Western Australian Jai Hindley who finished in second place after losing thirty-nine seconds in the final TT, while his teammate and former Giro D’Italia leader Wilco Kelderman held on to finish in third. The top five of the 2020 Giro was rounded out by Almeida and Bilbao, with the riders trading GC spots after Almeida secured a fourth-place TT finish and overtook the Spaniard by twelve seconds.
The 2020 Giro D’Italia was nothing if not unpredictable: GC favourite Geraint Thomas ruled out after only three stages, two major teams abandoning the tour entirely, a Grand Tour debutant leading Giro for fourteen stages, and the securement of the Maglia Rosa coming down to 15.7km of all-out cycling between two domestiques who had come into the race initially to support others, and Ineos Grenadiers, after losing their leader so early, to finish the second Grand Tour of the year with seven stage wins and the overall general classification with the most unexpected of riders, Tao Geoghegan-Hart.
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