The calendar has flipped into 2023 and the brand new males’s WorldTour season is simply days away, with the marketing campaign getting underway on the Tour Down Underneath on January 17. Not all rosters are but full – Mark Cavendish’s vacation spot remains to be to be confirmed – however among the probably themes of the brand new season are already obvious.
In preparation for the 2023 season, Cyclingnews seems at among the key storylines to observe within the males’s WorldTour.
Pogačar seems to reclaim the crown from Vinegegaard
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Workforce Emirates) loved one other season of just about informal dominance in 2022, as he racked up 16 wins throughout all terrains, together with a victory for the ages at Strade Bianche in March and the third Monument of his younger profession at Il Lombardia. For the primary time, nevertheless, Pogačar met his match on the Tour de France, the place Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) overpowered him on the Col du Granon and Hautacam to divest him of the title.
As ever, Pogačar must shine throughout the calendar in 2023, however regaining his Tour de France crown would be the apparent centrepiece of his marketing campaign. Earlier than Vingegaard’s victory final July, for example, there had been whispers that Pogačar would make his Giro d’Italia debut in 2023, however any such ideas have been banished as soon as the Slovenian surrendered the yellow jersey.
Pogačar’s 2023 marketing campaign can be all about successful it again, however Vingegaard is not going to be a straightforward out. The Dane had already matched Pogačar blow for blow via the second half of the 2021 Tour earlier than getting the higher of him final July, and his Jumbo-Visma staff’s energy in depth is startling. UAE Workforce Emirates have introduced in some reinforcements for 2023 with the arrival of Adam Yates, however in the end, Pogačar must win the head-to-head battle towards Vingegaard. Count on a race of attrition on a Tour route that visits 5 completely different mountain ranges, beginning with the Pyrenees within the opening week.
Spherical two for Evenepoel and Roglič on the Giro d’Italia
Vingegaard is just not the one menace to Pogačar’s pre-eminence within the up to date peloton. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), in any case, received the Vélo d’Or after a outstanding 2022 season that noticed him win the Vuelta a España, the Street World Championships and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, although the Belgian has postponed his Tour debut for an additional season, preferring to carry his rainbow jersey to the Giro d’Italia.
The close to 70km of time trialling on the route was sufficient to steer Evenepoel, however though he would be the favorite to hold the maglia rosa to Rome, he is not going to lack for competitors, with the Giro set to draw arguably its deepest area since Chris Froome, Tom Dumoulin, Simon Yates and Thibaut Pinot jousted for the spoils in 2018.
The obvious challenger is Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), the person who pushed Evenepoel closest on the Vuelta till his race was ended by a crash. With Vingegaard put in as Jumbo-Visma’s chief on the Tour, Roglič has been persuaded to return to the Giro, the place he positioned third general in 2019. The time trial-heavy route can be to his liking, whereas he can anticipate ample native help when the race scales Monte Lussari on the Italo-Slovenian border on the ultimate weekend.
Certainly, an Evenepoel-Roglič duel appears the most certainly state of affairs, although Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), and João Almeida (UAE Workforce Emirates) have additionally confirmed their participation in what may show to be the race of the season.
Evenepoel being Evenepoel, after all, he can be making information throughout the calendar, beginning together with his debut on the Vuelta a San Juan. Of explicit curiosity within the early season, can be his potential head-to-head with Pogačar on the UAE Tour, whereas he has signalled his intention to defend his world title in Glasgow in August.
Van Aert and Van der Poel resume their endless duel
Along with Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grandiers), Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) have illuminated the cyclocross circuit over the Christmas interval – a foretaste, maybe, of what’s to come back on the cobbles in March and April. Earlier than that, after all, Van Aert and Van der Poel have the minor matter of disputing a cyclocross world title in Hoogerheide subsequent month. However it’s their potential duel on the cobbles that the majority whets the urge for food, not least as a result of circumstances restricted their head-to-head contests in 2022.
Van der Poel was absent for Van Aert’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and E3 Harelbeke wins as he nursed a nagging again damage. Van Aert, in the meantime, wasn’t round for Van der Poel’s second Tour of Flanders victory after he contracted COVID-19 within the build-up to the race. They each later raced a breathless version of Paris-Roubaix, although it was laborious to shake off the sense that neither man was on prime of his recreation that afternoon.
By the Tour de France, in the meantime, Van der Poel was struggling for kind, whereas a skirmish on the World Championships by no means materialised both, with the Dutchman abandoning early after his arrest on (subsequently quashed) assault prices the earlier evening.
The endless Van der Poel versus Van Aert contest has already resumed in latest weeks, and it ought to color a lot of the Spring besides. Jumbo-Visma have added Dylan van Baarle to a redoubtable squad that already consists of Christophe Laporte, but Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Deceuninck staff – now within the WorldTour – continues to punch above its weight.
Van Aert and Van der Poel received’t have all of it their very own means, after all. Pidcock will hope to be within the combine on the head of a younger and promising Ineos Classics staff, Pogacar has additionally pencilled in a return to the Tour of Flanders, whereas Soudal-QuickStep will certainly enhance on final 12 months’s troubled Flemish marketing campaign. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), such an assured winner of Gent-Wevelgem final 12 months, can be set to trip a full Classics marketing campaign for the primary time, and he received’t be daunted by the Ronde, whereas Hour Report holder Filippo Ganna (Ineos) is concentrating on Paris-Roubaix.
Egan Bernal’s lengthy highway again
When the information first broke slightly beneath a 12 months in the past, it wasn’t clear if Egan Bernal would ever trip a motorcycle once more. The Colombian’s horrific coaching crash on January 24 left him with fractured vertebrae, a fractured proper femur, a fractured proper patella, chest trauma, a punctured lung and a number of other fractured ribs. For all of the dedication obvious within the social media messages Bernal posted from his hospital mattress, it appeared tough to think about that he would ever pin on a quantity once more.
And but, by August, Bernal was again within the peloton on the Tour of Denmark, and he would clock up a dozen racing days earlier than present process further knee surgical procedure at season’s finish. Through the winter, Bernal confirmed his intention to trip the Tour in 2023, and he takes the primary steps in the direction of that appointment when he traces out on the Vuelta a San Juan this month. Logic says that Bernal shouldn’t be in a position to compete with Pogacar and Vingegaard in July, however then the 25-year-old already defied expectations together with his speedy return to racing final 12 months. One can be ill-advised to write down him off.
Even earlier than his accident, Bernal was already among the many most compelling figures within the sport. Few riders of such expertise admit so readily and publicly to their vulnerability, as Bernal did when he spoke of the existential disaster that adopted his 2019 Tour victory: “I’d received the Tour at 22 and I didn’t know what to do with my life. It was like – what now?” Nevertheless it performs out, Bernal’s journey in the direction of the Tour can be price following carefully.
Julian Alaphilippe seems for revenge
Soudal-QuickStep supervisor Patrick Lefevere is just not a lot given to subtlety. His staff might more and more be constructed round Evenepoel, however he nonetheless calls for bang for his buck from all of the staff’s galacticos. Two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe had a maddening 2022, with crashes and sickness blighting him at each flip, however his supervisor targeted on the underside line when he spoke with La Dernière Heure over the winter. “Julian has a wage of a champion, however he wants to substantiate that he’s nonetheless a champion,” Lefevere mentioned. “I need him to bounce again.”
Alaphilippe desires the identical factor, after all, and he’s set to tackle a very busy Spring schedule, with each the cobbled Classics and the Ardennes on the menu. His return to the Flemish races, specifically, is of explicit curiosity, as QuickStep, so lengthy the usual in late March and early April, have been a shadow of their former selves in his absence final Spring.
At his greatest, like on the Imola and Leuven World Championships, Alaphilippe can journey to locations few others can observe and, even amid the ordeals of 2022, he nonetheless produced some sparkles of inspiration. A thought to maintain him as 2023 begins.
August World Championships modifications complexion of season
The UCI’s first multi-disciplinary World Championships in Glasgow sees the highway race shift to a novel – and one-off – early August date. The boys’s highway race takes place on August 6, simply two weeks after the tip of the Tour de France, which makes for a big alteration to the configuration of the season.
The obvious change is that the Worlds will certainly favour riders popping out of the Tour on kind, very like latest editions of the Olympic Video games. Pogačar, for example, has already spoken of his curiosity in concentrating on the Glasgow Worlds, whereas Van Aert has, for now at the least, dominated out chasing the inexperienced jersey with a view to spare himself for a tilt on the rainbow bands a fortnight later.
The August Worlds additionally leaves one thing of a niche within the latter a part of the 12 months. Because the UCI’s final main calendar reform in 1995, the Vuelta a España has doubled for some as a preparation race for the Worlds, whereas newer additions just like the GP de Québec and Montréal have been nearly akin to decorate rehearsals for the principle occasion. It appears unlikely, thoughts, that the change in Worlds date will dilute the fields in Canada or Spain in any significant means. As final season’s fraught WorldTour relegation battle demonstrated, each WorldTour level counts. In 2023, there isn’t a such factor as a preparation race.
Ayuso and the following technology take flight
Pogačar remains to be eligible for one of the best younger rider competitors on the 2023 Tour, the place a fourth white jersey would see him surpass the document he shares with Jan Ullrich and Andy Schleck, however the subsequent technology has already made its mark on the highest stage, a development that appears destined to proceed within the new season. Biking, as Pogačar and Evenepoel started suggesting in 2019, is more and more a younger man’s recreation.
Amongst these younger males in a rush is Pogačar’s UAE Workforce Emirates companion Juan Ayuso, who was nonetheless just a few days shy of his twentieth birthday when he positioned third general eventually 12 months’s Vuelta. The Spaniard will return to the race with sensible designs on general victory in 2023 – although one wonders if his capability will but see him drafted into the Tour staff alongside Pogačar.
Ayuso’s close to up to date Carlos Rodriguez, seventh on the Vuelta, has singled himself out as an Ineos Grand Tour chief in ready, as has new arrival Thymen Arensman, a relative veteran at 23. Different rising abilities to look at embody Magnus Sheffield (Ineos), quick man Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Soudal) and Cian Uijtdebroeks (Bora-Hansgrohe), who so impressed in successful final 12 months’s Tour de l’Avenir. The long run comes round more and more rapidly as of late. Count on the Belgian to make vital strides in 2023.
Hindley and Vine tackle new challenges
Jai Hindley’s victory on the 2022 Giro confirmed what his break-out show in the identical race two years earlier had already instructed. The Australian and his Bora-Hansgrohe squad raced well all through the Giro, choosing and selecting their moments to strike. In outlasting Richard Carapaz to say the maglia rosa on the Marmolada on the penultimate day, Hindley proved that his powers of endurance are among the many most redoubtable in the complete peloton.
In 2023, Hindley will eschew the Giro in favour of constructing his Tour de France debut. With simply 22km of time trialling on the menu in July, he may hardly have hoped for a extra amenable route. Pogačar and Vingegaard have been in a race of their very own final 12 months, however Hindley is among the many choose cohort of riders trying to break up their duopoly. It is going to be fascinating to see simply how far he can go.
Hindley’s compatriot Jay Vine, in the meantime, can be broadening his horizons in 2022, swapping Alpecin-Deceuninck for UAE Workforce Emirates. He’s pencilled in for a Giro d’Italia debut and, after his glowing mountaintop victories eventually 12 months’s Vuelta, he would be the man to look at when the highway climbs in Italy. Vine insists that he has designs solely on stage wins and the mountains jersey, however his relative inexperience at this stage suggests there’s ample margin for enchancment – and no apparent ceiling on his future GC ambitions past 2023.
Tom Pidcock’s abundance of alternative
The period of specialisation could also be over, however riders of Tom Pidcock’s dexterity nonetheless should make tough decisions. The reigning cyclocross world champion confirmed this weekend that he is not going to defend his title in Hoogerheide subsequent month, preferring as an alternative to arrange rigorously for a Classics marketing campaign that may see him deal with Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and the Ardennes Classics.
A recurring sickness restricted Pidcock final Spring, even when he nonetheless positioned third in an particularly high-octane version of Dwars door Vlaanderen. If he will get a transparent run this time round, absolutely anything is feasible between Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Pidcock will then flip his consideration in the direction of the Tour de France, nevertheless it’s not but clear during which guise. With Thomas using the Giro and Bernal’s kind unsure, Pidcock – sixteenth general on his debut final July – is a possible GC chief for Ineos, even when the person himself is uncertain whether or not that is essentially the 12 months. “At some point I need to try to win the Tour,” Pidcock instructed Cyclingnews in October. “Whether or not I am adequate subsequent 12 months, I do not know.” Both means, it will likely be one of many tales of the season.
Cavendish and the sprinters take intention on the Tour
Final 12 months’s Tour marked one thing of a contemporary nadir for the fastmen, with simply 4 phases being determined by bunch sprints. Regardless of the succession of mountain ranges on this 12 months’s route, the lie of the land seems fairly extra amenable this time round, with Mark Cavendish reckoning there to be “seven or eight” alternatives for riders like himself in July.
The pure sprinter might really feel more and more like an endangered species in trendy biking, however a number of groups have already pencilled their quick males in for choice in July, with Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-Alula), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny) and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) all set to trip. Fabio Jakobsen, arguably the person with probably the most speedy flip of tempo within the bunch, will certainly be available for Soudal-QuickStep, whereas Arnaud Démare will hope to steer Groupama-FDJ to provide him one other tilt on the race.
Most early intrigue, in the meantime, will deal with Cavendish’s personal path to the Tour. The Manxman has but to announce his 2023 staff, however he has been in talks with Astana-Qazaqstan in latest weeks, with the transfer anticipated to be confirmed shortly. The 37-year-old already collectively holds the document for Tour stage wins (34), however his want to surpass Eddy Merckx and declare the mark as his personal seems apparent.