2023 road cycling season - review

Last year was entirely about creating my Power Ranking that was completely independent of the UCI rankings. Following this method, I have compiled this year's top 50 team list, which I am presenting to you here and now, hopefully you will enjoy reading it. Some of these will actually match the UCI rankings, and some of them won't.

We start with the 50th place team in our rankings, British-registered Trinity Racing, who were also sailing in truly international waters in ’23. Nico Roche, Pete Kennaugh and Mark Christian have put together a really good team for this season, and there have been several standout performances throughout the year. Let's start with Luke Lamperti, who has picked up 8 of Trinity’s 9 wins this season. The Californian is a God-given talent who is at his best in the middle of stage races, but is no stranger to the slightly hilly and gravel roads. Lamperti will continue as a Soudal-Quick Step rider next year, as a second sprinter behind Tim Merlier, and I’m confident he'll settle into the pro peloton very quickly - I rate him very highly in terms of potential.

Lukas Nerurkar is also a rider to watch for the future. The 19-year-old rider comes from a truly versatile and multicultural background, having lived in Ethiopia, ran long distance and now preparing to wow the world with his climbing skills. The first half of Nerurkar's season has been nothing short of amazing, finishing 6th in the Gran Camino, winning stages in the U23 Giro and the ORLEN Nations Cup. He signed a two-year contract with EF in September, and I have a feeling that he could follow a similar path to Ben Healy in his neo-pro season.

Two more riders I'd like to highlight: 19-year-old Paul Magnier was third at the U23 European Championships, had a second place at Limousin - he's rumoured to be joining Soudal next year, but for now I can only see his place in the Devo team. In the case of Liam Johnston, the situation is even more interesting, his physique would make him more of a sprinter, but his GC 11th place at Arctic Race and his performance at the Tour of Japan makes him more of a multi-dimensional rider. Johnston has no contract for 2024, nor does Trinity have a confirmed rider for next year at the time of writing - I'll be very interested to see what lineup they will end up with for next season.

The Leopard TOGT team finished in 49th place, which formed a very strange mixture, the Danish-Luxembourg axis, however, took the team particularly high in many cases, which was reflected in the results of several riders.

We must definitely start the list here with Mathias Brenghoj, the 27-year-old Dane from Vejle has had stable results throughout the season, in which, in addition to winning the 2.2 races, he also achieved several outstanding 2.1 results. After top 15s at the Tour du Var and the Tour of Austria, he finished in the top 10 at his home race, also at the Danish Tour, which could perhaps lay the foundation for a contract with a ProConti team for next year - I really hope that there will be a place for him next year also in the pro peloton.

Andreas Stokbro is our next rider worth mentioning. Stokbro visited the fifth team in 5 years in 2023 (behind this stats, there is a good reason: he was often hit by bad luck), but at the same time he was able to stand on his feet everywhere, and this was no different in 2023. Stokbro is a real gravel/cobblestone specialist, he won the Norwegian Paris-Tours called Gylne Gutuer, finished 10th at Samyn and also brought a top 15 from Binche-Chimay-Binche. Next year, at Bas Tietema’s team, he will surely flourish and will be a sort of road captain.

I feel the urge to point out two more riders: 21-year-old Tim Torn Teutenberg has really stood out during the second half of the season, he has achieved top 5 and top 10 results in 2.1 races, he can prove his sprinting ability next year in the Devo team of Lidl-Trek, and possibly, in World Tour, too. Mads Ostergaard Kristensen brought the Canaan to me by finally being able to win a stage at the Tour de Bretagne - I'm sorry to see him retire at the end of the season.

The team folded after this season… I really hope every rider will have a place quite soon for 2024.

In 48th place on our list is the Dutch team ABLOC CT - which next year will go back to the Parkhotel Valkenburg brand, which was used in the beginning and is actually a success story in female cycling. A good chunk of the team picked up wins on the Chinese Tours, and Jesper Rasch, who was the eventual winner in the team rankings, was no exception. The 27-year-old from Zandvoort sprinted with the speed of a touring car in Hainan and on Lake Poyang, but he was not idle in Europe either, with his victory in the Loir et Cher against some very good opposition. 

He is showing a definite development curve, which will hopefully be reflected in a professional contract.

Frank van den Broek is the one who doesn't need to worry about this, as he has it in the back of his pocket. The youngster, now a DSM rider has had an outstanding season, with 2 very big breakaway wins at lower level, showing potential that was enough for DSM to sign him. It was a good decision by the Dutch team and he could become a really complex racer by the end of the three-year contract.

However, it is difficult to find other good things this season, Pluto, Rasenberg or Juntunen have shown positive signs, but these have not translated into wins. Next year could bring a very positive turnaround, and I hope that more young Dutch riders will turn up.

47th place went to Poland's HRE Mazowsze, who also did well in Chinese races, both .Pro and in .1 level... and here comes the first team where I can report a disappointing result. Last year, Mazowsze ploughed up the continental terrain, scoring 17 victories, half of which were won by Marceli Boguslawski, who has since left for Alpecin. Obviously this set the team back, but at the same time the others could not match them or couldn’t take the responsibility of the task of replacing them. The Banaszek brothers have not been able to be as lethal as they were a year or two ago, Grosu, who was signed as the primary sprinter, has been kind of a bust this year, and the others are solid but not good enough for this level. Maybe Marcin Budzinski's GC places are the ones that can really be mentioned at a positive level, but that’s not really enough. The team will be retained next year, but it's not clear who will ride in it, it will be interesting to see what the strategy will be for 2024.

Finished in 46th place of this year's Power Rankings was the Belgian continental team Tarteletto-Isorex - and here, as with Mazowsze, there is a significant quality drop occurrence - while last year, the team had two focal points in Gianni Marchand and Lennert Teugels, this year it has been reduced to one thanks to the very experienced, former Wanty rider, Timothy Dupont. Obviously the strategy was to replace Teugels, who left for Bingoal, with Dupont, and for Marchand to try to maintain the very high level of 2022... sadly, it didn't work. At least not in Marchand's case. Dupont brought a reliable level, many top 10 in 1.1's and in Chinese .Pro stage racess, that's what you would expect from Tarteletto at peak level. The problem is that we can't mention any of the youngsters who can compete at a very high level, although I would add that Johan Geens did really win a Tour de la Mirabelle GC, which is not a negligible fact, but his future with the team is not assured...

They will also start next year with this Marchand-Dupont axis, and are confident that both can perform at a high level and finish higher on our list.

We start the second round with ATT Investments, who finished in 45th place, and whom I must admit I haven’t heard about at all until this year. This could obviously be because I didn't follow Continental level racing at this amount, but a good part of it was down to the Czech team's performance - which was more than impressive all season long.

Someone I would like to emphasize as a key member of the team is Jakub Otruba. The 25-year-old from Olomouc rode by far the best season of his career and his consistency has certainly attracted the attention of ProTeams. A true stage race specialist, Otruba has ridden 5 2.1 races this year, finishing in the top 10 in all 5, 5th in Hellas, 3rd in the Tour of Sibiu, 3rd in the Czech Tour and 10th in the Slovakian and Croatian Tour. My current information and rumors say that he is in talks to rejoin the team for 2024, if he’d be retained it would be a huge key signing and a statement that ATT is serious about developing the team for the future.

A rider who should not be worried about his contract next year is the current Slovakian champion, Matus Stocek. The 24-year-old Slovakian sprinter won his country's Time Trial and Road Race championships (the latter ahead of Peter Sagan), but perhaps an even bigger achievement was winning the points jersey at the Tour de Hongrie almost exclusively from breakaways. A good rider is lucky, though, because if the last stage in Budapest hadn't been cancelled due to rain, the jersey would probably have gone one of the star sprinters, Bauhaus, Jakobsen or Groenewegen. Other than that, Matus had a good season, I expect a lot of good things from him next year.

I want to talk a little bit ’home’, and the last person I want to mention is Dina Márton, the Hungarian rider stepped back a level from Eolo to compete here and was more than impressive in some parts of this season, he did particularly well between May and July. His contract is not yet secured for next year, but I hope he will stay.

What about next year? Rumour has it that the team is planning to have 17 riders next year, keeping the Czech core, completing it with Italian, Slovakian and Estonian youngsters... I'm very encouraged by the whole project they're doing, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this level of financial support will be maintained next year, which would also be reflected in the results.

44th place went to the team that acquired a main sponsor during the season, which also had a positive effect on the team, Van Rysel - Roubaix Lille Metropole (formerly known as Go Sport - Roubaix). The team didn't have any highlights this year, but perhaps that's why they had an above average season, consistently finishing in the top 5 or top 10 in French Cup races. It's not necessarily the very young, nor the very old who have delivered the good results, the age of the team is mostly between 23 and 31, which is somewhere near perfect.

Celestin Guillon came awfully close to pulling off a miracle on home turf, as he was involved in the breakaway that eventually saw Oier Lazkano win the Boucles de la Mayenne GC - he finished second in the stage, but still didn't make the GC top 10. Jeremy Leveau, the experienced Frenchman, has ridden several pretty good .1 races this year, 7th in the Tour de Vendee, and even more memorable for him was Tour de Pays de la Loire - Stage 4. He was in a group with Kamp, Vauquelin, Dversness, Healy, who ended up sprinting for the win... he finished 4th there in GC, 3rd in the stage, it was a memorable day for the team.

Maxime Jarnet should also be mentioned, the 25-year-old French rider seems to be a fan of difficult races, as he had a 5th place in the Limousine behind Gregoire, winning an uphill sprint ahead of Page and Herrada, 7th in the Vitre, another demanding event this year, and 10th in the national championships on Mont Cassel. He is also an exciting project.

What's next year? In Emmanuel Morin, they have a big arrival from CIC U Nantes, the veteran Frenchman with World Tour experience comes in to develop the youngsters.

The next 3 teams are all teams that are trying to do something about the globalisation of the sport of cycling in one way or another, and their attempts at their own small micro-levels have not yet been unsuccessful, but at the larger levels it has not yet been demonstrated. China Glory Continental Cycling Team finished 43rd. The Chinese team worked with a lot of foreigners last year, apart from the Chinese, and well... they were the only ones who got results. It was almost the same this year, but I’m a bit more optimistic when it comes to the development of domestic cyclists.

As a statement recruitment, they signed former Israel's Canadian climber James Piccoli, who didn't fail to deliver good results (Hainan stage win + 3rd in GC, top 15 in Qinghai Lake & Rwanda Tour). The experienced Willie Smit and Lucas Trarieux also delivered, no more, no less. But the one who finally started to match them on a domestic, Chinese level was Lyu Xianjing. The 25-year-old beat Martin Laas in Sakarya and then went on to win stages at the Poyang Lake Tour and eventually the GC.

It's an exciting project, but I fear they will be stuck in one place if they continue in this direction, as we don't know anything about the 2024 plan yet, so it's hard to predict.

Finishing 42nd overall at the end of the year was the Japanese team JCL Team Ukyo, which has a very interesting team management line-up, as the name Ukyo stands for Ukyo Katayama, who was a Formula 1 driver for 6 years, racing for Larrousse, Tyrrell and Minardi - and in addition to his very varied duties, he also runs the team, and he doesn’t do it badly. Now obviously, the concept can be mocked, as they own some experienced riders, but at the same time they are making their mark in the Far East.

At least Nathan Earle leaves a mark behind himself. The 35-year-old Australian rider moved permanently to Japan in 2020 after 2 years spent with Team Sky and has since been able to do well in a high percentage of local races. He won perhaps one of the year's most unusual road stages, an 11.4km stage up Mount Fuji to take the Tour of Japan for the second year in a row - and he has every chance of doing a treble next year.

The role of two home riders, Masaki Yamamoto, and Atsushi Oka was also outstanding for the team. Yamamoto in my opinion, could even do very well in Europe, having won the Japanese championship, consistently performing at a high level in 2.2 Japanese races and is still somewhat young, Oka is blessed with similar skills, but I wouldn't take him over, let him stay as the leader of the young Japanese core of the team.

Next year, though... There will be a lot of changes in the life of the team, as Manuele Boaro, who retired from Astana, will start his post-active life here as an Assistant Sports Director, and at the same time Matteo Malucelli will join the team from Bingoal. I don't know if this means that the team is moving towards a dual identity and looking to sign more Italians in addition to the Japanese riders, or if they are planning something else for 2024... but they'll be worth watching, it's a very exciting project.

The team that finished 41st was the team that participated in about 3 or 4 races that counted in our tally, but they dominated those tours to the point where they still made it into our list. Team Medellin has signed a big powerhouse for this year, as Miguel Angel Lopez returned home and supported them for the first half of the season... and when he was available, he won almost every race. He won the San Juan with a dominant performance, he won the Tour of Colombia with an even more dominant performance winning 9 out of 10 stages, and we thought everything was going well for him...

... then the Guardia Civil came. On July 25 his name was again mentioned in connection with the Operation Ilex criminal case and his licence was immediately suspended for an indefinite amount of time. It has since emerged that this was a very serious case, that there was a very serious network behind the production of illegal substances, especially regarding their outsourcing and the delivery to the right people. Lopez was also involved in this, and the latest news is that he could face a 4-year ban, which would probably be the end of his career - it would be sad to see such a talent fall apart on such a scale.

There have been happier things around the team, though. Namely, Oscar Sevilla for example, who rose like a phoenix for about the 24th time in his career and managed to win the Hainan Tour at the age of 47 with a very smart, tactical race – he’s a bit like Kazuyoshi Miura in football, he will never stop doing it, but as long as he is doing it at this level (legally at least), why should he?! In fact, the strength of the team is also shown by the fact that they have been very dominant in the 2.2 Tours they have entered in South and Central America, although, if you get the best Colombians who don't want to compete in Europe anymore to ride for you, it's easy.

What happens next year? We don't know. I'm a bit worried that the team's career won't continue after the doping scandals, even though there are young locals for whom this team is a very good opportunity to get their first breakthrough results.

In 40th place, to my slight surprise, Roojai Online Insurance finished from Thailand, who has earned this very high ranking thanks to their versatility. For those who don't know, Roojai as a sponsor is a Jakarta-based insurance company, one of the largest in Indonesia and the region, who can support the team financially (in fact, I think if things worked really well, they could even field an Asian super team). And thanks to their French GM, they can field a truly international line-up for the races.

Lucas Carstensen is the cornerstone of this international line-up. The 29-year-old German rider left his local continental Bike Aid team to try his luck in Asia, and let’s be real here, it's worked out well for him. Carstensen is perhaps the most consistent sprinter on the Asian calendar this year, having won a stage in almost every stage race, be it .PRO, .1 or .2. This has been the best season of his career and, as he will be with the team next year, he is very confident that he will be able to maintain this form.

Mongolia has made rapid progress in the sport of cycling, and we'll soon talk about the man who made the country's first European transfer a few days ago - but now we'll talk about Tegshbayar Batsaikhan, who was defeated and finished runner-up in a huge battle at the Mongolian championships and who won the team's home race, the Tour of Thailand, immediately after a stage one breakaway to which the rest of the peloton had no answer to on the remaining days. He's an ambitious rider who is young, not afraid to attack at all, and hopefully he'll be riding in Europe soon.

The future of 7 riders is assured for next year, with the youngsters from home, Laos champion Phounsavath and the aforementioned Carstensen, joined by Greek Polychronis Tzortzakis - somehow I get the feeling that 2024 is going to be a very good year for them and I look forward to more positive results from Roojai.

The best team on the Asian Continental Tour, Terengganu Polygon CT, finished 39th. The Malaysian team has again this season very cleverly mixed local Malay riders with experienced foreign riders  - and they have done pretty well.

One who deserves a special mention is Jambaljamts Sainbayar. The 27-year-old rider from Ulaanbaatar has been getting better and better every year, which has helped him secure a contract in Europe for 2024 from Burgos, which will be a huge step forward for him at all levels. Sainbayar has done well this year in those races where there was plenty of climbing but not a mountain-top finish, stages and races with 1500-2500, in special occasions up to 3000 d+ metres are his favourites. On the basis of these (as there are plenty of them in Spain), he will have a chance to either go for himself or to do some amazingly valuable domestique work. His involvement will be exciting, I look forward to seeing what he can do with this chance.

Jeroen Meijers is also worth mentioning as a positive contributor - the 30-year-old Dutchman is in his third season with the team and has definitely had his best performances this year - he won the Tour of Taiwan and has had several good performances in Asian races, the only slight problem with him is that he is not under contract for next year - his knowledge and complex skills would be sorely missed by the team.

If the team will exist next year, I definitely expect a good season from Metkel Eyob next to Meijers, I think the Eritrean climber has plenty of skills and positive jump in him, Anatolii Budyak had a better season last year, but I would be lying if I said that he didn't have the form for the second half of the season, if he keeps up this trend next year he could have a very positive season, and well Mohd Harrif Saleh, Malaysia's highest ranked sprinter. He could show that he still has gold in his legs.

38th place goes for a team that was in its first year of cycling, but they have already produced some excellent results and will certainly be aiming higher next year. I have to admit that I didn't think about the TDT-Unibet team as a serious contender before the season. Although Bas Tietema's squad was filled with some good Belgian and Dutch riders for their first season, and obviously the exhibitionist attitude of the management was reflected in the squad, I really didn't think they would be that good in terms of results.

Hartthijs de Vries has probably been the number one man this year. The 27-year-old Dutch rider has been racing for smaller Dutch continental teams, he moved over to Tietema’s team this year and hasn't disappointed - especially in the second half of the season. 10th at the ZLM Tour GC, 5th at the Egmont one-day-race, 6th at the Elfsteden Dutch race, are some of the results you would expect from him. He's staying on next year, moving up a category, so it's fair to expect him to move up a level personally.

The first professional win in the team's history came from 23-year-old Yentl Vandevelde in the opening stage of the ZLM Tour. The Belgian cyclist went into a very ambitious 177-kilometre breakaway with 4 other riders and with 1.5 kilometres to go, he went on a solo that no one caught, totally embodying everything that is in the DNA of this team. This, however, unfortunately did not earn him a contract, so to all team managers reading this: please, give Yentl a chance.

Another huge positive about the team is that several riders have achieved either stage top 10s or one-day top 10s in .1 races, and that kind of versatility can be very valuable down the road. Joren Bloem finished 8th in GC at the ZLM Tour, 9th at the Van Merksteijn Classic, Davide Bomboi was 3rd at Elfstedenrace, 5th at Van Merksteijn, and Martijn Budding was 6th at Ronde van Limburg and 10th at the Veenendaal Classic. All three will stay with the team next year and good things can be expected from Bloem and Bomboi in particular.

However, next year... I don't want to be biased, but one of the best transfer seasons this season is of TDT-Unibet. If there was one thing they were lacking, it was the climber section... well that was almost completely remedied (at least at ProConti level) with Cedrik Bakke Christophersen and Zeb Kyffin, Owen Geleijn from Jumbo Development as a classics rider, Andreas Stokbro as a road captain is almost a perfect choice, Adam Toupalik strengthens the sprinter section, and then we haven't even mentioned the French signings. Brilliant, but that's what it takes to make it at ProConti level and I'm rooting for them next year.

Coming in at 37th and 36th are the French continental teams whose performances I have watched with great anticipation this year, as both teams have had plenty of commendable performances that have attracted the interest of ProTeams and in some cases World Tour teams.

We start with CIC U Nantes Atlantique, where Anthony Ravard, the Sports Director appointed for this year, has embarked on a very spectacular and in some ways successful youth project. The average age of the squad was just over 22, which is terribly young and could almost be considered a development squad, but still, the whole team was a perfect and independent unit on such a level that it is hard not to totally hoot.

The clear leader was Jordan Jegat. The 24-year-old Vannes-based youngster has spent the last 4 years with the team, but this year was the one where he clearly became a leader, and he has had several excellent results - 6th in the Tour de Limousin, 3rd in Le Polynormande, 8th in the Tour de l'Ain, and on top of that he has had several top 15 results in .1 races. What's really great about Jegat is that he can actually do well in one-day races with smaller hills and GC races that can include climbs - he can do well in both and can score important UCI points for the team. That team will be TotalEnergies next year, so I'll be rooting for them specifically in 2024.

Among the young riders, the racing of first-year U23 rider Noa Isidore is definitely worth highlighting. The youngster from Troyes finished the second half of his junior year very nicely, and it was in the period from June onwards that he really started to come up and pick up the pace in the elite this year, winning stages in 2.2 races, winning Eure-et-Loir in particular, and at the end of the year in Isbergues, he was already in the top 15 in a .1 race, so his progress is very stable gradual. Next year we'll see him in one of the French team Devo ranks (I think it will be AG2R), with whom he'll probably also be stepping up to World Tour level in 2025 - it will be interesting to see his development curve.

Adding to the versatility, the experienced Pierre Barbier finished 3rd in the Tourangelle, Mael Guegan 7th in the Isbergues, Nolann Mahoudo 2nd in the Tour of Brittany, but also, for example, Emmanuel Morin, mentioned in the previous section, one of my favourite Danish riders, Rasmus Sojberg Pedersen and Enzo Boulet all had top 10s in .1 races - and then I've almost listed half the squad.

Next year will bring big challenges for the team, with the departure of Nolann Mahoudo (Cofidis) and Sojberg Pedersen (AG2R Devo Team), in addition to the aforementioned Morin, Isidore and Guegan. The newcomers are okayish so far, not really something that would raise eyes to normal fans, although I secretly expect a good season from Canadian rider Matisse Julien and French newbie Clement Braz Afonso, and I hope they will live up to my expectations.

The team of St Michel - Auber finished in 36th place. They built their team according to an inverted principle of Nantes’s, a small squad, with a very experienced Sports Director, and this certainly brought them success this year, although this did not necessarily show in the number of victories. but in the top 10s, stage results, and in their attitude towards the whole sport.

Let's start with Joris Delbove, as the 23-year-old French rider is perhaps the best rider of the team in terms of price/value/results. Delbove definitely improved this year compared to last, especially in the last 2 months of the season. In the Limousin-Ain combination, he finished in the top 15 both times, and in addition, on Ain, he took the white jersey, which was a pretty serious achievement. We can remember him best from the Paris-Tours at the end of the season, where he got into the breakaway and stayed there until the end of the race. He was able to stay with the Sheehan-Askey-Johannessen trio and finish fourth - a very strong indication of what he can do in the team. He will stay here next year, but I think he could land a World Tour contract to his pocket for 2025 if he delivers such performances in 2024.

Another youngster who is also very talented, and whose talent was noticed by TotalEnergies, is Thomas Gachignard. The 23-year-old guy from Niort is a typical offroad specialist, even if he hasn't participated in cyclocross races for quite a few years now, since in the two main French cobblestone, mud, gravel, non-asphalt races, at Denain and at Tro-Bro Leon, he finished 9th. I think that's why Total signed him in the end, because with Sagan's departure, the classic squad needed to be strengthened a bit, and Gachignard is exactly the type of rider who can get to the front at any time on his better days.

I would also list here the riders who reached the top 10, at .1 races since there were plenty here too – the experienced Romain Cardis was the team's statistically best rider, top 5 in Cholet, top 10 in Morbihan and Loire Atlantique, and several top 15s were accomplished during his season, he was quite confident all season long and guided young inexperienced talents properly. Nicolas Debeaumarche was the breakaway king, there wasn't a race where he didn't have at least one attack, there were some that were crowned with success, he finished 4th at Vitré, which was achieved through a very difficult race, and this earned him a World Tour contract with Cofidis.

Next year they won't have an easy task either, there are riders who signed here from the World Tour and Pro Teams (Delettre and Cabot), but overall it seems that the team is weakening - I will be curious to see who will win the competition between the French Continental teams.

The Italian Corratec - Selle Italia team finished in 35th place. This was the young team's first time at ProConti level, a very commendable result for a debut season - and if you add to that the fact that they crowned it with a Giro d'Italia appearance, you can immediately feel better about what was a rather mixed season. If we only consider that the Giro exceeded expectations by far with two top 5 stage results, this could be considered a successful season... but in the case of the whole picture, they did not necessarily deliver what was expected before the season.

Statistically, German Nicolas Tivani was the best of the squad. The 27-year-old Argentine sprinter was the clear leader of Corratec in the first half of the season, specifically, finishing 12th on GC in San Juan, it was him who sprinted into the top 5 on the Giro at stage 5 (if I can recall correctly), who almost took Corratec's first and biggest win in the Reggio Calabria one-day race... he had a miraculous season, which came to a sad end - in the last month something was not right for him, he couldn't finish a race, his fitness was not right - as it turned out it was caused by mononucleosis, which unfortunately hit Tivani, but after the offseason rest he will hopefully be able to get back to the same fitness he had at the beginning of the season

The team delivered a .Pro victory at the Qinghai Lake Tour, thanks to Davide Baldaccini. The 25-year-old Italian youngster won a quite tough stage in a very brutal way - as he made a long breakaway with Burgos' Eric Fagundez on a stage that often climbed above 3,500 metres and sprinted against the Uruguayan at the end in a heroic fight. Baldaccini has improved a lot this year and could even set himself bigger goals next year.

Other than the two, Valerio Conti is a 30-year-old Italian rider with many years of World Tour experience who joined Corratec this year and, although he unfortunately had to give up the Giro early, the numbers show that he was by far the only rider who could really finish in the top 10 or top 20 in a really high-level race. Karel Vacek went on a rampage on stage 7 of the Giro - it was the Campo Imperatore climb that was a total borefest - but Vacek took the opportunity and managed to finish on the podium on the Giro stage, which might save his career in the long run, at least at a level where he could have a contract next year.

2024 will bring positive changes in the life of the team. We don't know yet who will go, but we know for sure that Jakub Mareczko, Niccolo Bonifazio and Kristian Sbaragli will arrive on the sprinter front, which will definitely be a reinforcement, and Mark Stewart will come in the climber front... we'll see what this brings, of course it also depends on who stays, but a little progress should be anticipated for next year.

Human Powered Health finished our competition in 34th place, and it hurts to write about them because this is the last time I can write about the team in this form, since the men's part of the team will not continue competing next year, only the women's division will remain as participants. This season was interesting, since from August they competed, knowing that they were going for their own further careers and contracts, and this released new energy in some of the riders.

Stanislaw Aniolkowski was one of those who could capitalize on the opportunities. The 26-year-old Polish rider was able to consistently finish in the top 5 in the .1 races throughout the season, supporting this with two stage victories in Hellas, and he was able to reach the top 10 in the stronger .1 and .Pro races. Aniolkowski has been able to achieve this level very stably for years now, the reward for this was a World Tour contract from Cofidis, and in some ways this is a perfect move, as he will have the same (maybe even more) opportunity to succeed than he had in his previous teams.

Bart Lemmen, a former air force soldier, is perhaps the most unique member of the entire peloton, his life path is quite different even from riders with eccentric and strange career paths. His rise is incredibly rapid, last year he even competed at Conti level, this year he didn't bring any shame in the ProTeam category either, top 5 at the Slovak Tour GC, Top 15 at the Belgium Tour and Castilla y Leon, he showed quite a lot in only 43 racedays... result: contract from the best team in the world. Really, I don't think you can get more than that out of a season, and the next two years will be a bonus - if he wins his first pro race, that would be really extra.

Who else was good? Paul Double has been brilliant again this year and has performed beyond his abilities and the abilities of the team, the reward for this will be a Polti-Kometa contract for 2024, where he might finally get all the opportunities, including a Giro d'Italia. Sasha Weemaes did not excel at the Belgian classics races this year, but he did particularly well in the sprints of the Tour de Langkawi, winning a stage, and Bingoal at the same time pounced on him with a two-year contract. Adam de Vos was 3rd in Drenthe held in horrible conditions, and Scott McGill was 7th in Maryland and 8th in Paris-Chauny, for example, I think he deserves a contract next year as well.

The Spanish Caja Rural-Seguros finished in 33rd place - and perhaps here is the first time where you can be a little surprised at this ranking, because to my eye test, the team looked much, much better than what the final standings showed - a clear jump follows compared to previous teams.

There were a lot of very positive performances this year, much more than originally expected, but Orluis Aular can clearly be named as the clear leader and #1 rider in the team. The Venezuelan sprinter produced by far the best season of his career and showed much more than what can be expected from a natural sprinter. I say this even though the first half of the season didn't turn out the way he and the team thought it would, then from May he slowly got his engine moving, he finished 4th on the Morbihan, and then he also had a top 10 on the Occitanie Tour and meanwhile he also won the Central American Games and the Venezuelan Championship - and here something really clicked for him. At the Vuelta, he was brilliant, he took advantage of the opportunities that presented him perfectly, with 3 top 10s, and then, to everyone's surprise, he won the Cro Race GC, even though he literally fell on his head in the last stage. He will stay with Caja Rural next year, but after a season like this, it is worth thinking about if he maintains this level, will he have a chance to get a World Tour contract in 2025, at the age of 29? It's not the current trend, but he deserves it terribly...

Another extremely positive surprise of the 2023 season was Iuri Leitao. I wrote about the Portuguese sprinter at the end of 2021 that it will be a huge question when his talent will be able to convert from track cycling to road cycling - this happened definitively this year. Interestingly, in the second half of the season he started delivering the results he was meant to achieve, top 10 at the Tour of Burgos, 2 top 6 at Poitou-Charentes, 3 top 7 at the Tour of Slovakia and the crown for the season was his stage victory at the Cro Race up. Although it was a very difficult decision for him and for us, journalists, to figure out what to do with his career, in the end he made the very best decision: he signed a 2-year contract extension. The future is bright for him, and, in principle, he is only now entering his prime as a sprinter.

But what happened to the climbers? Cause we haven't talked about them yet. Well, they were fine too. Jon Barrenetxea, for example, who will be a Movistar rider next year, had a particularly versatile season behind him, he finished 5th on one of the Vuelta's most difficult stages, with mud and irregular climbs, won the mountain jersey at Itzulia and 3rd at Boucles de l'Aulne, which is quite a difficult sprint/hill race. The two of them, him and Lazkano will blow up the 1.1 races next year. The Scots-named but very Spanish Abel Balderstone is also steadily improving, his top 10 GC at the Tour de Hongrie is an indication of his ultimate potential, and the Ethiopian Mulu Hailemichael has also improved in the second half of the year, especially at the Tour of Slovakia, with a GC 4th place, which drew attention to himself – all in all there could easily be several similar appearances in 2024.

The squad will remain almost unchanged for the 24th, 4 riders have come from the Devo team so far, apart from Barrenetxea, the team has no major departures, and this constancy can bring more great results to Caja Rural.

In 32nd place is Flanders-Baloise, where we will look back on this year, but I am more interested in what will happen in 2024, as the team has strengthened a lot in the off-season. It was clear the situation for the 2023 season: sprinters, a Belgian one-day classics rider, and a single Kamiel Bonneu who can climb mountains.

Well, that one Kamiel Bonneu was by far the best of the 2023 bunch. The 24-year-old climber and puncheur has surpassed last year's already decent level this year and had the consistency I expected from him after last season. This was especially true for the second half of the season, when he finished in the top 10 on GC level at the Czech Tour, the Arctic Race of Norway, and the Tour of Britain. Bonneu has a particularly difficult task, as he is the only climber in the team who is worth a lot of money, and without a team you can only get good results on these stages with full skills. Kamiel has this - so it is particularly strange that he is still not sure about his career, even though he has every chance and opportunity to continue his career at a high level.

Behind him, it's hard to pick anyone out as deserving of a highlight, so I'll just pick out a selection of riders who did reasonably well in ’23. Milan Fretin was one of them. The young 22-year-old sprinter has produced at least 1 stage top 10 from every stage race in the last six months, and that included everything from .2 races to World Tour races. He's a complex rider who has already proven his speed, so if he can add a one-day race skill to his repertoire, he could be a contender at a higher level - and he'll have the opportunity to do so next year at Cofidis.

Another 23-year-old sprinter, Vito Braet, has also had a great season, which I could even call very complex, starting the season with a mountain jersey in Besseges, followed by 2 top 10s in Samyn and Monsere, and later in the season 2 stage top 5s in 2.Pros in Hungary and Denmark. Braet is a great talent in my opinion, the time should finally come when he can do it at a very high level - I don't know if that will happen next year at Intermarche, but I'm rooting for him.

But next year... That said, a very strong transfer window is an exaggeration, with both Fretin and Braet leaving, Bonneu's future is uncertain - what is certain is that in Dylan Vandenstorme and Jasper Dejaegher we have two riders coming in who were performing tremendously well in Belgian U23 races this year, I expect them to make an instant impact - and Lars Craps, if Bonneu stays, will finally be able to help him in the hills.

Finishing in 31st place, Burgos-BH, who had a couple of ups and downs this year, but had a disappointing season in some ways, with several riders not performing to the level expected, but fortunately they stayed in the top 40 and secured the chance to receive Grand Tour wildcards - and with some very out-of-the-box tactics next year, they could even have a very positive season in ’24.

The one who doesn't fall into either category, as he was a total genius and will be riding for Movistar in World Tour next year, is Pelayo Sanchez. The 23-year-old Asturian has had a total breakthrough season this year, with a string of excellent results from January to September. Mallorca, Galicia, and the Tour de Doubs were already signs that he was on to something special this year, and his solo win on home soil in Oviedo, the first professional victory of his career, only reinforced that fact. And just when we thought that was it for this season in July, the Vuelta came, the penultimate stage came - and that's what I think we can expect from him next year at Movistar, endless energy, attacks and hopefully more wins. One thing is for sure: this season has proven that Pelayo Sanchez is ready for the World Tour.

The man who is not ready, and due to his age is unlikely to make the World Tour, but whose progress could get him to Sanchez's level next year is Monegasque Victor Langellotti. Small country with a big heart, you could say in his case, but Victor has really proved that he is a decent climber. Stage win over Lutsenko and Pelizzarri at the Tour of Turkey, top 10s in Valencia, Galicia and Oman, and he really seems to be step up year on year - obviously the higher the level the harder it is to do, so I'll be curious to see what he can achieve.

Let's talk about the positives rather than the negatives, Jose Manuel Diaz finished in the top 20 in World Tour race on GC in Catalunya, on Andalucia, he was 16th, the Vuelta took a bit of a hit of his season, but overall, it was a good one, as was for Ander Okamika, another experienced Spaniard in the team.

Next year is also worth talking about, as Burgos will be quite international. Already the signing of Guatemala's best rider, Sergio Chumil, has made the team exciting, but the way they have snapped up Bolton Equities' bests, the mullet George Jackson, and Aaron Gate, Mongolian champion Jambaljamts Sainbayar, and Greek Georgios Bouglas... 10/10. One of the most exciting projects for next year, even with the departures of Penalver (Polti-Kometa) and Sanchez.

Welcome to the fifth part of the analysis of 2023 Power Rankings, in which the 26th-30th placed teams will be investigated from Bolton Equities to Euskaltel.

Bolton Equities Black Spoke finished in 30th place, which, since I'm writing about them in mid-November, gives a kind of bittersweet aftertaste to their otherwise brilliant season. When I heard back in the day that they were going to be a Pro Team this year, I was thrilled, as an Australian/New Zealand Pro Team would be an amazing way to help the sport, but also feared that the jump would be a big one for them professionally and financially. Professionally they have reached the bar and the general level, Scott Guyton and his team have done an amazing job in getting the riders ready for every challenge... and despite this, they have not been able to maintain their sponsorship for more than one season, and not only have they lost their ProTeam status, but en bloc the team will be gone by December 31st.

However, I would certainly like to pay a lot of tribute to the team members, because they deserve it. Starting with George Jackson, who became one of the favourites of the cycling community in the last part of the season, both for his unique mullet hairstyle and his surprisingly fast legs. The sprinter from Wellington wasn't necessarily someone to really look out for in the first half of the season, in fact he didn't even have a really valuable record in the 2.2 races... Then we went to China and Malaysia in September, and the turnaround mentioned in previous episodes was completed, finishing in the top 3 in 6 of the 17 stages on Hainan, Langkawi and Taihu Lake, which, considering they included plenty of mountains, is a very commendable set of results. Jackson will be getting much more attention at Burgos next year, which, knowing his style, will have a positive effect on him.

Next up is Rory Townsend, who falls into the more traditional, classic one-day racer category, a sprinter like Jackson but who likes a hard race. Maybe that's why he loved the La Roue Tourangelle in 2023, which he happened to win in the slushy, rainy conditions, getting Bolton's first win of the kind that I personally caught my attention, saying that: “whoah, they're cooking”. Townsend stopped at wins here but didn’t stop with good performances. He finished 5th in the Druivenkoers-Overijse (another race full of attacks and chaos) and yet he also delivered top 10s in the Tour of Belgium and Charleroi Wallonie, he's a valuable rider, which Q36.5 noticed and secured his future until 2025.

Our third man here is Mark Stewart. The Scottish climber has success in some pretty special areas, winning the Tour of Romania last year and the Tour of New Zealand, and this year he did well in Italy, on the men's version of the lesser known Per Semper Alfredo, he was second behind Felix Engelhardt, and on the Industria third behind Healy, for example. This Italian streak was seen by Corratec, who desperately needed such a rider, they signed him for 2024, which was a very good move, Stewart can continue the work he started.

I still really hope that Logan Currie will get a contract from somewhere next year, the young New Zealander could be an extremely valuable domestique in the coming years, and I could imagine him in any World Tour lineup even now. (plot twist: after I wrote this part, Currie signed with Lotto-Dstny, that was kind of a genius move from both of them)

Equipo Kern Pharma took 29th place, where compared to last year there was a definite strengthening, maybe even a slight overperformance, which at the same time, I don't know how sustainable it is for next year, considering that their two riders with the greatest potential will leave in 2024.

It is difficult to list what Roger Adria did for the team, but one thing is certain: he put them on the map of cycling, and he raised the team to a very high level. This year, Adria has become an extremely confident one-day rider, which is also proven by the statistics. He ran 16 one-day races this year, in half of them he finished in the top 10 - an extremely stable rider. The mid-mountain races go very well for him, and I have a feeling that he was only able to do this kind of results because, like Bonneu, he didn't have the additional help for it. He will be fine with Bora next year, though, the question for me is how many opportunities he can earn for himself. Seeing his results, his attitude - there will surely be an opportunity for this purpose, and I hope that he can prevail in the World Tour as well.

Behind him, however, it is difficult to highlight an outstanding person who really deserves big shoutouts. Jordi Lopez Caravaca was 2nd in the Tour de Taiwan, 10th in the Tour of Slovenia, supporting this with several top 20 performances in Spain, he can produce similar results next year. Pablo Castrillo arrived in the Pro peloton in the second half of the season, second behind Sepulveda in the final stage of Castilla y Leon, and then he carried this momentum to Burgos, where the 11th place in the GC was a wonderful result, he can be the number one cornerstone next year in Kern Pharma. Raul Garcia Pierna is the other valuable rider who is leaving, he was top 15 in GC at Burgos and Slovenia, he is the one who, if he could strengthen himself a little bit more on the mountains, could be a very serious force in the World Tour as well – at Arkea, he will have a lot of chances to show this in 2024, since there is a lack of climbers as a speciality as such.

Urko Berrade is the last positive element in this season, he was outstanding in the last two months, top 15 in Burgos, top 10 in Croatia and Slovakia, the work done by the newly arrived DS, the former great climber, Mikel Nieve, was already clearly visible into the life of the team.

2024 without Adria and Garcia Pierna will be interesting for the team. Antonio Jesus Soto and Marc Brustenga arrived to make the sprinter class a bit more varied, and 4 youngsters from the development team arrived, but it is very difficult to say what Kern Pharma's ceiling could be next year - I wouldn't be surprised if this year's 29th place would be over 30 for 2024.

28th place went to EOLO-Kometa, which will be Polti-Kometa next year, after a big comeback from the leading sponsor. The team has taken part in the Giro d'Italia this year, as well as in a lot of big races, and has actually performed to the expected level - but I am a bit uncertain about the future, as a lot of good riders will be leaving, although I think they have managed to replace them quite well, sometimes on a project basis, sometimes mano a mano.

There were two very serious MVPs at team level this year, one of them was Vincenzo Albanese. The 27-year-old Italian has had relatively few days of racing, with only 44 days to his name (21 of which came on the Giro), but he has been very consistent and has performed well throughout the season. It's hard to pick out any of his many achievements, but third place in the Giro di Sicilia GC, given that he's basically a punchy sprinter, is particularly brilliant, especially as the final stage was a mountain stage with 4000+ d+. The Asturian points jersey was an easy task for him, and although the stage win on the Giro didn't arrive, he had to be happy with 5 top 10 stages. He also had 5 top 10s in 5 out of 9 races in the Italian block in the autumn, at Bernocchi, he only lost to Wout van Aert, which admittedly is no disgrace. Next year he's got a one-year contract from Arkea-Samsic, and I have very mixed feelings about whether this whole thing can work. The French Cup races could suit him very well, I think he could ride there, but I can also see that the change of environment could be so big for him that it will prevent him from progressing further.

The other MVP of the season was the King of Zoncolan, Lorenzo Fortunato. For the third year in a row, the rider from Bologna has put in a solid performance similar to this year's, which has certainly been accompanied by a win every now and then. He showed his climbing form at the Gran Camino at the start of the season, where he didn't finish in the top 10 due to the TT, but he did so at the Tour of the Alps with a 5th place. The highlight of the season was clearly the Vuelta a Asturias, where he won a stage after a 20km solo, and then the GC at the same time. The Giro was quite awful for him, which he made up for a bit in Slovenia, and the end of the season was again a mixed bag. It was all so Fortunatoish, there were periods when he stood out, and there were also periods when he completely disappeared - this, if he wants to stand out at Astana next year, isn’t something he should do.

Who still needs to be mentioned… Mirco Maestri, the veteran Italian sprinter, had the best season of his career at the age of 32, he brought top 10 stage results from Turkey, Slovakia and of course from the Giro, Davide Piganzoli, the young climber showed his claws as he finished on the podium in the Tour de l'Avenir GC, as well as in the top 10 in the 2.Pro Tour de Hongrie, he will still be with the team in 2024, we will almost certainly see him in the World Tour field from 2025... and Davide Bais... Bais, who won a Mountain Top Finish at the Giro, Campo Imperatore in a quite surreal way, reaching the pinnacle of his career, and I think this may be his goal somewhere next year: to go to a breakaway at the World Tour and try to win something from there.

In 2024, both Fortunato and Albanese will leave the team, and they will be replaced by very good people. Jhonatan Restrepo can once again experience his flourishing at Polti, Manuel Penalver wants to have a better season on the sprint front, Davide de Cassan can be an absolutely perfect replacement for Albanese in the long run, and Double and German Gomez can be of great help to the team on punchy terrains. Complex signings for a complex squad, the future of Polti-Kometa looks promising overall.

Bingoal-WB finished in 27th place, where I don't think it was necessarily the individual performances that were the most important, but the team, as they were ahead of a lot of teams with outstanding franchise players.

Of course, there were also better and worse performers, but we will list the better ones here, starting with the Italian Marco Tizza. The Italian rider has brought plenty of UCI points to Bingoal this year, including top 10s in Industria, Finistere and Aulne, but also top 10 stage results in the stage races. Tizza has quite a varied and diverse profile, if he would be… let’s say 6-8 years younger he'd have World Tour teams lining up for him. With his contract with Bingoal lasts until 2025, I think he'll retire from there now, but he's certainly got 3-4 good years left at this level.

Let's continue with Lennert Teugels. Last year, Teugels was quite special on the continental level, he was brought to Bingoal from Tarteletto-Isorex, and he showed something this year that his miracle season last year (even if he did it in smaller tournaments) was no fluke. As for this year, he finished top 15 at the Tour of Britain, 12th at Polynormande, 9th at Muscat, spreading his good results and form over the year, which is the advantage of being experienced and having experience in what you do. He'll stay with the team next year (I think they signed a 2-year contract back then), so he can continue this kind of mission.

Alexis Guerin is also very much worth highlighting, with perhaps the most extraordinary win in the sport this year - he took stage victory in the Coppi e Bartali after a 116km breakaway and a 90km solo. Guerin is already quite an ambitious rider with a great spirit, he showed it in Sicily and Turkey this year - perhaps that's why it's such a shame that for age/other reasons unknown to me he won't be staying on next year and will be joining Philippe Wagner's Continental team - a setback in any case, it hurts me personally, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for him in the future.

Among the top 10/valuable results achievers, the 7th place of 23-year-old Louis Blouwe from Nokere Koerse is worth mentioning, Remy Mertz’s 6th place from Per Sempre Alfredo, and Luca van Boven (who I highlighted before the season and although he didn't live up to all hopes in his first pro season, he wasn't hopeless) 8th place from Aulne, but really, the strength of the team was that they had almost at least one top 10 in every race.

What's more good news is that for next year, the team has made some very valuable reinforcements to the few departures, Loic Vliegen will be very useful with his routine, Sasha Weemaes comes to the team after a wonderful last two months and can get a lot of good results in the .1 classics, and Davide Persico has been massively impressive during his stagiaire contract, so the full-time contract is fully deserved and I trust that he can reach his full potential here. The future is definitely positive for Bingoal.

Finishing in 26th place was Spain's Euskaltel-Euskadi, whose high ranking was due to a number of things - most notably their amazing .1 results, often having 3-4 or even 5 riders in the top 20, and finishing ahead of several very good teams who certainly had better and stronger franchise players.

It is strange and paradoxical that the Basque team had the best rider in a guy from Valencia, but Joan Bou was everything we expect from a top rider. After a slow start to the season, the climber built momentum with a 12th place in Asturias, then 11th in the Qinghai Lake Tour, 10th in Burgos and built his way up to Langkawi, where he capped off a fantastic season with a 4th place in the Malaysian mountains.

Of the youngsters, Carlos Canal is worth keeping an eye on, even if he won't be part of the team next year. The 22-year-old Spaniard is a terribly complex rider, he has a little bit of everything, and while he has shown it at a low level so far, it is totally understandable and visible why Movistar have signed him until 2025. If you look at his season this year, 2 top 10s in the first two races in Mallorca, 6th in the Gran Camino TT, he had a top 15 in a Belgian classic, a near top 10 in a French Cup hilly race, and was close to a top 15 in a high mountain stage at Langkawi. Canal is a brilliant prospect and I hope Movistar will bring out the immense potential in him.

Txomin Juaristi has had the season of his life, actually holding the front alone against the Vorarlberg-Glassdrive duo all alone at Grandissima, he very much secured his place among the top Euskaltel guys with his second place at GC and a top 10 stage at the Tour of the Alps, Antonio Jesus Soto was great at the start of the season, then faded away towards the middle-end, he could blossom again at Kern Pharma. And of course, the experienced Mikel Bizkarra-Gotzon Martin duo had a decent season again.

Next year, two huge reinforcements are coming to Euskaltel, Jon Aberasturi, about whom I still feel that he has the mojo to perform at a high level, and Victor de la Parte is about to return home, and this can generally have a good effect on the team's results. Overall, a decent season, and the same is expected next year.

Top 25 now - 25th place goes to Tudor Pro Cycling Team, who show a rapid and clear improvement year by year, both in equipment and in the quality of the riders, which has an impact on tactics, DS and the like. Even last year, it would have been very difficult to imagine that they would have a top 100 rider in the world by the end of the season - but now it is a very realistic idea and has become a reality.

That top 100 rider is Arvid de Kleijn. The 29-year-old Dutch rider comes from a fruit-growing village, and in addition to reaping the rewards, he has also won six races, all at the Pro level, which is a rare feat and shows that he has a good percentage of sprints at a very high level. Obviously, Milano-Torino was the most memorable win, but either the two stages in Langkawi or the Deutschland Tour are two that he can remember with a very happy heart. He's at a perfect sprinter's age, he may not be able to repeat these feats next season, but I don't expect him to have a huge drop.

If the team had a surprise this season, it was Alexander Kamp. Not necessarily because of Kamp's ability, because last year we saw what it's like when he can stay in shape for a long time, and he had a pretty good season at Trek. But to go down a level, to do it as a franchise player, so to speak...that's a different level. And Kamp did it, quite brilliantly. He put Tudor on the high shelf of the World Tour level with his 7th place in Quebec and 9th in Amstel. It's crazy. Obviously, he's also ridden well at the Tour of the Pays de la Loire, and as a Danish rider he's done some amazing things on the Tour of the North, 5th in the Tour of Norway, 6th in the Tour of Denmark, - it's been a complex season for him, which has highlighted his strengths. What's next for him? I really hope that he can take it up a notch and that he can get into the top 100.

Not only did the older generation come up with some clever performances, but 2023 was also a banner season for the development of youngsters. 25-year-old Swiss Yannis Voisard, for example, really exploded this year. The Jura-based guy had his first pro win in Hungary, at the top of the Dobogókő, in a way that was very dear to my heart, but he also finished 7th in the Giro di Sicilia - as we've said many times before, consistency is what separates the good from the best, and Voisard will have to work on that next year. Rick Pluimers pushed hard the last 1.5 months of the season, backing that up with several top 10 results, if he can repeat that for a season next year, he could be a big breakthrough in 2024.

The systematic strengthening of Tudor will go to a whole new level next year. In Matteo Trentin comes someone who can add a totally new dimension to the team at the Classics races. Alberto Dainese and Marius Mayrhofer, the DSM duo, can really push at the sprints, while Michael Storer will be the #1 climber. What's also arrived as a reinforcement is Matteo Tosatto for the Sports Director role - I'm expecting a lot from Tudor next season.

Green Project-Bardiani came 24th on our list, which is a very good position for the Italian team - and in my popularity list, they are also real high, the project they have built up over the last 3 years is very promising, so no question that I'm happy to write about them.

I'm also a bit confused by the riders, as I don't know how and with whom to start this whole list. Let's perhaps go in order and start with Henok Mulubrhan, now 2x African champion, from Eritrea. We've been waiting for something outstanding from Henok for years now and this year, if not where and when we expected it, I think it happened and that's what's important for the future. Henok started the season in the home races that mattered to him, the Amissa Bongo and Rwanda, finishing the latter with two stage victories + GC, while also winning the African Championships. After that, he disappeared a bit, spent his days in a domestique role, started the Giro, but didn't really have it there either - then third place in the Giro Dell' Appenninos... for me, that was the breakthrough. And I know it's hard to draw consequences from one race, but to be able to finish on the podium in a race with two inhumanly difficult mountains on the programme is brutally positive and impressive. He also won the Qinghai Lake Tour, so he's had a lot of points on races, but that's an advantage of going ProConti on some level. Next year, going to World Tour level at Astana, I think he'll have a harder time, but at the same time I can really see his place in the pro peloton for the long haul.

If not in terms of results, Giulio Pellizzari from Marche, who is just turning 20 at the time of writing, has become hugely important for the future. Half the World Tour peloton is salivating over Giulio, which is not surprising when you consider that he has ridden his first real professional season this well.

He started this 2023 year slowly, he had a 12th place in Taiwan, but we can't say that it was some kind of a wow result. Then he spread his wings at the Tour of the Alps with a top 3 breakaway place, an epic battle with Mühlberger and Torstein Traeen at one of the venues of the 2026 Olympics, Predazzo. After the 2nd place in the U23 Central European showcase, he disappeared a bit in the wilderness, he came back with the 5th place in Transfagarasan, and then the explosion really happened in L'Avenir - he ended up 2nd in the GC behind del Toro, but if he would have done the 5th stage, which was only a bit hilly, better, he could have even won the race. And at the Tour of Turkey, he proved that he can compete with climbers belonging to a decent tier. To my greatest joy, Pellizzari will stay with Bardiani next year, so that he can go to the World Tour in 2025 - according to the current situation, Movistar is the most likely to acquire him, which can easily make him a leader in the team, the only problem is that, like at Enric Mas, his a time trial... well, that's not his strength either, and I wrote it very delicately at this time. And this… it can already be seen that if he does not lie on it, it can seriously limit his future performance.

And then come the riders who are also worth remembering, but we will not pay so much attention... (there will be many, be prepared). Enrico Zanoncello is the main sprinter-type sprinter of the team, who actually almost specializes in the lower level 2.1 and 2.2 races, he won stages in Taiwan, Bosnia and China, with this you can collect enough points to be around the top 200 , this will obviously be the strategy next year as well. At the age of 28, Filippo Fiorelli can be said to be one of the most experienced members of the team, who is also very decent in sprints, hills and gravel, this year he brought at least 15 top 10s from .1 and .Pro competitions, yet his Roman bronze medal at the Giro may have remained the most in people's minds about him, he is a very stable element of the squad, and it will remain so until the end of 2025. We discovered Martin Marcellusi this year, the young, 23-year-old rider feels good in the mountains and with his 10th place in Eschborn-Frankfurt and 7th place in Gran Piemonte, he showed that he can be the man of the big races next year - and then I haven't mentioned Gabburó, who ran big last year, or Matteo Scalco, who can put a breakthrough season on the table next year.

With regards to the transfer season, extensions were in the foreground, but the Pan-American champion Vicente Rojas is a very exciting project, the 21-year-old Chilean was quite decent on the Spanish amateur calendar, with better equipment and better preparation, he can do a lot. I really like Bardiani and this story is not expected to end until next year.

In 23rd place was the Q36.5 team (which is the same as the UCI ranking), where Doug Ryder in his first season with this team has perfectly mixed the experienced riders with the young ones, the sprinters with the climby guys - and somehow the whole system he has built is very sympathetic and I have full confidence in them for the future.

Matteo Moschetti won the overall within the team, which I can fully support, given how many historic feats he's put together. Moschetti has put in a solid performance all season, winning the first race in team history in February and then topping that with success at Isbergues in October - and in the intervening 8 months he has had 9 top 5 finishes, including some very prestigious World Tour races. Although Moschetti spent 5 years at the highest level of Trek, it was perhaps here that he was able to reach his full potential. The question is: can he maintain this level next year and what will happen after 2024? Does he want to go back to the World Tour, or does he like this level, the family-like environment, maybe with a bit more chances? We will find out next year.

If there was a common model and set of grey hair and cycling, Damien Howson would fit in perfectly. Like Moschetti, the 31-year-old Australian made the switch to ProConti level after 10 years as a World Tour member, and how well he did. Howson hasn't been bad this year in general, but he's had some outstandingly extra rides, such as at the Tour of Burgos where he was able to keep up with Vlasov, Adam Yates and the Jumbo contingent on many occasions, he also finished third at the Tour of Britain on GC, in short, his August-September was almost perfect. I'm very confident that Howson can keep it up next year, he's a rider I've really liked since his Tour de Hongrie GC win and deserves a few more great climbs.

Who else has been good this year? Mark Donovan, who for some reason I keep picturing as 30 years old, when in fact he's not even 25. The Cumbrian rider finished 5th in Sicily after finishing 12th at the Saudi Tour, won the Tour of Sibiu (gaining time on everyone in a 2.8km time trial) and capped it off with a top 5 finish at the Tour of Britain. Donovan is a particularly good .1 specialist, and he can continue to do so here next year. Walter Calzoni is the next one, the 22-year-old rider from Brescia was the team's young discovery of the season, and if you can say that, everything came together for him except for the win - 13 top 10s throughout the season, a lot of attacks which, despite being opportunistic, almost succeeded... it's really fun to watch him and in the longer term, that first victory is sure to happen - next year it will happen.

Nicolo Parisini, the 23-year-old Italian rider who can be called basically a complex sprinter, won the Cro Race in Opatija - he is still young, so he can overcome the minor difficulties he faced this year as well next year.

What is a huge positive for 2024 is that the core of the team will remain and will be supplemented with missing elements, to say the least. In the person of Giacomo Nizzolo, Frederik Frison and Rory Townsend, the one-day squad in particular, gets three amazingly good options alongside Moschetti, the possibility opens up that they can score more UCI points with the multiple options - and James Whelan and Xabier M. Azparren can possibly be on the climbs to cook something. Thoughtful concept, right directions - the Q36.5 will be good next year as well.

Astana finished in 22nd place on our Power Ranking, and here it was time for the first team, where, since we were talking about the World Tour level, we also asked pre-season questions, which I will hopefully answer for you now with more or less success.

The first such question was the presence of big holes in the team (after all, we saw at the end of the 2022 season that the previous transfer period did not succeed in the team building) and I wonder what effect may it have for Astana. We got the other answer: big. And half-jokingly, at the end of the first year of the UCI cycle, it can also be said that it is unbeatable, because at the moment, the team that is in 18th place seems awfully far away. What could be the reasons? They have no franchise climbers. I'm saying this even with the fact that Alexey Lutsenko, by far their number one man, did particularly well this year, especially in the one-day races, Pantani & Getxo wins, 5th place in the Amstel... but he's starting to get older, and we haven't seen the next generation this year that is needed to keep up with the better teams. Among the climbers, there were 2-3 new names, overall, quite positive effects and people in the squad. I honestly predicted Harold Tejada after the Tour de Suisse to win a stage at the Tour de France, this prediction failed miserably, but the Turkey top 3 GC has shown that there is a possible jump in him, and some level of consistency is starting to emerge, which is a very positive feature for climbers. Javier Romo is the other one, unfortunately he will ride in Movistar, Javier went huge at Burgos, he finished 7th and was the best youngster, but at the same time, apart from that he was totally lost for the whole season. It's very difficult to talk about a classic lineup, although Cees Bol tried everything to prevent this, there were parts of this season when he was absolutely amazing to my eyetest, in fact the victory was always in his racing, but it’s hard if you're alone in such a crowded peloton, right? but I really liked what I saw of him..

Sprinters... this year my feeling was that they had to put everything on Cavendish, and actually it went well, he won in Rome, he was second on the stage before his abandon at the Tour, he was really able to focus on these two competitions - it's sad that it took away some focus from the development of Gleb Syritsa to achieve it.

II. The Italians. Because of their role, many chapters were written about them, and it is worthwhile to mention them here as well. In truth, their strength is not in their condition, but rather, in their intelligence, which was huge, and this was Astana's real strength in 2023. If they really can't win on their own merit, then select the stages where they can do so, go to the breakaway, and solve it somehow. And this somewhat contrived solution went very well, Samuele Battistella also got podiums and top 10s from them, Christian Scaroni did too, although he was a bit worse after the wonderful breakthrough of 2022, but the one who should be mentioned in all respects is Simone Velasco. This was by far the top season of his career, and it is very difficult for me not to get excited and say that, despite his age of 27, he is only scratching the surface of what he is truly capable of. Actually, in the second half of the season he reached very high levels, he became Italian champion, which is one of the highest recognitions for an Italian biker, he finished 5th in Montreal on a very hard course, 2nd in Matteotti, which is also quite difficult, and what is most beautiful is that his riding style was beautiful, relaxed... it's really nice to look at it. If this Italian cultural menu is completed with Gazzoli (who has shown since August this year that he can make a difference) and Fortunato... mamma mia.

And then let's look at the questions for 2024.

1. Did Vinokourov fill holes properly in the team?

In short: yes. Longer: the situation with Astana was extremely difficult, since it was not even possible to talk about a squad building, there were so few quality people with the team - and now, Vinokourov made up for it, and he also fulfilled the first golden rule of the squad: push the limits with those who they are not at the best level, but they can bring points, results, and possible sponsor appearances. The climber section is strengthened with Anthon Charmig, who arrived from Uno-X, and former Eolo member Lorenzo Fortunato from the ProConti peloton, where they were considered elite for a reason, although they both have very strong limitations, as do the two young Colombians, Harold Martin Lopez and Santiago Umba. Indeed, the concept here was that Vino was not very interested in anything else, it's just that they should fit on uphill sections, and they will solve the other sections somehow from their experience. Henok Mulubrhan, Ide Schelling and Michele Gazzoli have to make a classic line, so together with Bol they will form a very good foursome in certain competitions, all three of them have a slightly different profile, the whole team has become more diverse, which, well... it was time to do it. Among the sprinters, Kanter, Ballerini, Morkov came, but it is clear here what the goal was: Mark Cavendish's 35th Tour victory, for which they also acquired Mark Renshaw as his former leadout man. So, I think that they did everything and more in order to stay in World Tour.

2. Well then... will Cavendish now have the Magic 35. or not?

I didn't do this last year, but I can't avoid this question this year. My problem with this whole discussion is that Cavendish did really decent sprints last year as well, and he performed very well in the big races, but they brought him 2-3 good leadout people and they couldn't form anything in the world in certain racee. I don't know what can change in such a stacked peloton, not even if Renshaw, Ballerini and Morkov can be useful help on a theoretical level. What can be brought up as a positive is Cav's combativeness, he will really fight until the end so that this can be achieved, he has come back from many mental and physical points. However, this Tour route, which they served for 2024... well, it doesn't suit him. He is not the climby punchy sprinter who can reach half of the sprinting possibilities - and from now on he will have very few chances (this was also seen at the presentation as he grinned his mouth a little because of this). And I assume that this ‘one last stage win’ will not happen - even with the small chance, there are too many sprinters for everyone to get close to the top 5, and maybe he will be the one to miss out on the podiums/wins. Regardless, I hope Manx Missile will have a good final season.

TotalEnergies is in 21st place, where it is not only necessary to analyze the previous year on some level (we will, of course), but we also have to give a more complex perspective on the entire phenomenon that Peter Sagan and the Slovak’s arrival have achieved in the past 2 years. As we all know, in 2022, Peter signed with the team for financial revenues, cash and possibly the opportunity to fight for the Roubaix, Flanders, Tour victory circle. We can investigate the reasons of failure until daylight, you can start from two directions. One of them blames everything on the rider, quite simply it is possible that Sagan could have gone with the best, but he was not unconditionally interested in the sport as a whole, he was mentally burnt out (we admit that at the age of 20 he was among the top 40 riders in the world, and to maintain a top 10 performance over a whole decade is extremely difficult, this can also be a disappointing sign for the current generation, that you can quickly get tired physically and mentally), otherwise Sagan would have been able to ride close to the top for 3-4 years, quite simply, it didn’t go well. Obviously, the other thing here is the physical aspect, which, at the age of 33, interfered with the development of things, did not allow the old Sagan to develop... it's a pity, because we lose a rider of a huge format, but with this the team opens up an opportunity for the new beginning, which they did now.

And even with Sagan's so-called net negative, TotalEnergies had a great season, and they can thank Jean-Rene Bernaudeau and Benoit Genauzeau for that. TotalEnergies quietly built up an absolutely gigantic and brilliant sprinter/one-dayer line, which has 4 elements. First: Anthony Turgis. Turgis is an extremely experienced rider with full of great results, last year he came very close to winning the monument, he came second in Milan - San Remo. He had a bit of a lackluster season this year, 2nd at the Super 8 Classic, 9th at San Remo, not bad at all, just a little short of what we expected before the season. I would like to add that in quite a lot of stage races here, he started, and we know he’s better in one-day efforts. He probably asked for this, it's not for me to believe that they would disimprove him so much, the rider who’s one of the bests of the team. Second: Dries van Gestel. In age, they are close to each other with Turgis, they are close to each other in terms of skillset, but somehow much, much less is said about him. Van Gestel's huge advantage is stability, 12 top 10s this year, half of which came from Belgian/Dutch one-day races, which is a very good series of results. . Maybe he also needs a win to really get things underway, I think he will get all the energy for that. Third: Valentin Ferron. 2023 was by far the best season of his career. You could guess from Ferron early on that he wouldn't be a bad rider, I think his real breakthrough came this year, when we could really think that yes, he could be the next great hope of this squad. However, it can still be seen that he is raw and feels good on his home track, since his 4 podium places (victory in Paris-Camembert, 2nd in Marseille, Besseges stage and La Polynormande) were all achieved in France. He needs to prove in 2024 that he can transfer this form and his good domestic performance to abroad, too. Fourth: Sandy Dujardin. My favorite. Dujardin joined the team very late, in 2022, but he immediately made an instant impact, and this was also true for this season - although only from May. Until then, he had disappeared a bit, but from then on, he was constantly near the top 10, including Plouay, where he finished 10th, which is already a serious level, and also, he became a very stable rider in .1 competitions. However, in order to step up to the next level, he has to start winning these more difficult French/Belgian one-day races, I see that he is winking towards the World Tour, if he is really serious about this, then he has to do an upgrade, there is no other solution for him.

A few words about the others, especially the climbers. Mathieu Burgaudeau, also called mini-Alaphilippe based on his physique, also stood out from the team, his May-July period was phenomenal, with a Dauphine stage podium, a Tour 2x stage podium, at Plouay, he was also second and on Morbihan, sixth. There is a perfect development curve in Mathieu's career, and by increasing this stability a little more, he could go one step further next year. Steff Cras is my other huge favorite, he is an amazingly unlucky guy, he really fails a lot, has a lot of problems, but almost never due to his own fault, circumstances very often conspire against him... but when he has good days, they are really spectacular, it didn't take much to reach the top 10 at Vuelta – if he has more luck next year, he might even make the Grand Tour top 10.

I also really, really liked the transfer season, cleaning up the Sagan-clan, they took a step back towards their own identity and brought in riders from lower French levels. For example, I recommended Jordan Jegat to everyone on social media for half a year, the fact that they took him made TotalEnergies instantly likeable in my eyes, and Thomas Gachignard, Lucas Boniface and Baptiste Vadic are three prospects who are people of the future, but at the same time they fit very well to this whole Bernaudeau-philosophy, they have a good amount of TotalEnergies' DNA, so I will cheer on them personally and the whole team in an extraordinary way in 2024.

DSM finished in 20th place in our rankings, who were placed almost always 17th-18th during the season. They fell a bit lower by the end in our little ranking, and this also resulted in a change in the team structure to some extent.

The rider who needs to be talked about because of last year is Romain Bardet, who I assumed/wished to have a last great run, a season that was achieved for example in 2016 or in 2018. And although it wasn't a bad season (8th in Var, 7th in Paris-Nice, 9th in Fleche, 7th in Romandie, 5th in Suisse, 11th in Lombardy), I'd say it's more of a balanced one than an outstanding one. For this reason, I’d rather not believe in him is a legit and serious GC contender, or as someone who can achieve Grand Tour podiums during his career. Quite simply, the core of the team is not there around him (there is always a question as to whether he should be the one to build upon after 2024) and there is also a glass ceiling above Bardet's performance, which he almost always reaches (this can be seen as a strength), but beyond that, he cannot break through. However, what is extra, and this will appear in a later part, is that he can serve as a mentor to the youth, and there are now 4 climbing talents in the squad who can certainly be mentored and taught at this stage of their careers.

The other concept was about the explosion of youngsters, I listed 4 names before the season, some of them was a banged on prediction, some of them weren't. About Oscar Onley, my expectations were huge, since whoever keeps up the pace with Jonas Vingegaard in any kind of competition, it can rightly be assumed that he is the man of the future. And although he didn't have a bad season either, he somehow fell short of my expectations - but it is very important that we learned that he is a more punchy, than climby lad, which limits himself and the team's expectation about him more than what we would have thought before this year. I also wrote down Lorenzo Milesi, who was a very bold pick at the time, but he caught me by surprise, as he almost out of nowhere became world champion in the U23 time trial and finished 5th in the road race, after which he wore the red jersey at the Vuelta, he completely maxed out August, this also gave him a contract extension, with which he can further develop in many aspects. Casper van Uden, the 21-year-old Dutch guy, of whom I thought as a sprinter/one-dayer who could make a big jump this year… but instead DSM used him as a leadout man for Welsford or Dainese many times, but when he got the chance, he excelled, 3rd in Milan - Turin, 2nd at 4th stage of Tour of Britain, so speed is always in him. Andreas Leknessund will not have a chance to improve here, since Uno-X has signed him for 2024, but at the same time, his 8th place in the Giro GC was the best result of the whole team in 2023, but after that he showed little to nothing, after all, a lot of abandons he had to suffer, so it is difficult to summarize his season. On top of these, there were 4 youngsters who also had a great 2023 here, Tobias Lund Andresen among the sprinters/one-dayers, Matt Dinham, Max Poole and Kevin Vermaerke among the climbers - but we will talk about their role in the 2024 squad, which is coming up now.

Questions of 2024:

1. How much was it worth trading the Dainese-Welsford-Mayrhofer trio for Fabio Jakobsen?

DSM had a pretty obvious recruitment at the very beginning of the transfer season, as they signed the Dutch star sprinter, Fabio Jakobsen, as their number one sprinter, but as we progressed in the season, we saw that the team has cleared the sprinter lineup in a somewhat incomprehensible way. Alberto Dainese and Marius Mayrhofer went to Tudor, and Sam Welsford to Bora. Now let's look at the profiles of these riders. Dainese is a Tour-type sprinter, one-day events are not his strong point, and he is quite a one-dimensional sprinter. To be more precise, he does very well on pancake-flat stages, but as soon as there is a small hill on the road, he immediately falls to the bottom of the peloton. Sam Welsford is a much better rider, both in sprints and in solving these uphill situations, but at the same time he had a lot of problems from losing his leadout, and it was impossible for him to do any sprints on those stages. This can also be a problem with Jakobsen, who had some parallel problems with Soudal in the last 18 months. And Marius Mayrhofer… even though is a raw talent, his release is the most unfathomable to me, as they could have developed him better... Along with Jakobsen, Tobias Lund Andresen and Casper van Uden are also considered superb talents for me - this trio can be good in the long term, but at the same time they also have limitations, I did not understand this whole move totally. What's really good, and what I like was that the leadout line has remained. The role of Alex Edmondson who worked wonderfully for Welsford throughout the season will be crucial, he can now help Fabio to achieve big things in 2024..

2. You can love young climbers, but do apprentices surpass their masters?

In terms of the climbers, a paradoxical harmony appears in the DSM team, because there are 2 highly experienced French riders, Romain Bardet, who has been discussed before, and Warren Barguil, who has already proven himself and achieved serious success at Sunweb, the legal predecessor of DSM. and now he came back after a half-successful Arkea period, on the one hand, to build himself up again at the age of 32-33, and on the other hand, to mentor and help the young, but very talented guys who have accumulated here at DSM in the last 1-2 years. After last year, Max Poole can clearly be called the #1 climber of this young core. The one who, as the youngest in the team, can be close to the top 10 at the Tour of the Alps at the age of 20, then 4th in the Romandie, 4th in the Hongrie, 2 top 5s in the Dauphine and a top 5 from the Vuelta... he has the mojo, a very large one. Despite his young age, he should be the leader of the youth, the u25 climbers, and show the way to those who have the potential, but haven’t been consistent yet. An example of this is the newly signed Gijs Leemreize, who left Jumbo for DSM, and already in Giro 2022 he showed that he is indeed capable of fighting with the best, he had 2 top 3 stage results from there, but last year… compared to himself was also tragic, he must swing his pendulum back in the right direction. Kevin Vermaerke is the exact opposite of this, he swung his career last year, especially with the top 6 GCs at the Arctic Race & German Tour in August, he also needs to find some kind of consistency, and obviously the wins should come after a while, and maybe that’s what you can expect from him next year. Frank van den Broek was signed during the season to replace Vanhoucke and found his place in a short time. Matt Dinham is also here, we should pay special attention to him after his 7th place in Glasgow Worlds this year. So... these names also show that lowkey DSM has a great squad again, but we've seen this from them several times already. But I hope that the positive leap will happen for many, because then they will return to the path of winners many times.

Uno-X finished in 19th place, which is a magnificent performance, considering that a) as is known, they operate only with Danish and Norwegian cyclists, and b) they are a ProConti team. Jens Haugland and Vegar Kulset put together a fantastic core in the past few years and the gradual development doesn’t seem to stop for a long while.

The distribution of the team is also quite close to perfection: the various elements at all levels fit together very well in age, and the few brilliant and complex riders are complemented by extremely talented, hard-working lads, and this harmony brings out wonderful things from almost everyone. Let's divide the team into two here as well. Let's start with the climber/puncheur section and Tobias Halland Johannessen. I expected a jump from him, but I got much, much more than that. In one season, he went from the beginner level to the elite level. What is special about him is that he is really good on very high mountains, on medium mountains, and of course, gravel is not far away from his competence, he is also very good in small group sprints (although there is room for improvement here), he had a brilliant Tour this year and was incredibly consistent at all terrains. The victory, as such, was achieved in quite a few places (the victory on the last stage of the Tour of Luxembourg was, let's say, quite extra!). The best comparison of him, to be honest with you, is Tom Pidcock. And yes, Pidders is ahead in everything, a slightly better climber, a slightly better sprinter - but Johannessen is kinda close to him. He is in the contract year at 2024, and there is a great chance that someone will make him an offer that Uno-X cannot match financially, and he will have to leave.

Here, let's say, the problem with the team was that there were not enough climbers, not enough quality besides Johannessen, even though at least 20-22 people can climb to a certain level, which is perhaps one of the most diverse in the entire peloton. His brother, Anders Johannessen, had a very bad season again, he is starting to become a domestique, which, if he could learn himself into, would be a great help for many riders. Anthon Charmig had a so-so season, he won't be here next year. Torstein Traeen was very stable, he was the other rider who produced absolutely brilliant climbs, but he is also leaving, Niklas Eg retired, although I could have seen as a mentor and domestique racing with the team for example... and so the qualitative options have been disappearing.

However, this area will be strengthened by two amazing riders, and both of them are excellent people. Johannes Kulset is the youngest son of the Kulset family, a great climber at a generational level as well. Even at the age of 20, he sometimes rode .1 competitions last year, and there were places where he stood out already in an early neo-pro age. And Andreas Leknessund would still be eligible for a Tour top 10. What is more exciting, though, is the sprinter section.

Among the sprinters and classic riders, there started to be a kind of crowdedness, which was very nicely dispersed by the team between the races. And as much as we didn't feel that he was a bull in terms of results, Alexander Kristoff had a very decent and competent season, many top 10s, 1-2 important victories, see Algarve Tour - but the super talent Soren Waerenskjoeld played a big role in this. I would risk to say that there were several stages of the Tour de France where he was the best leadout man in the race, even in the world, despite his young age, he brought Kristoff to the front of the peloton with an incredible routine and attention – the sprints were not successful for Alex in the end, for example, on Tour. Soren is a great TT specialist and is showing early signs that he will be able to hold his own in the classics as well. And as much as I love Kristoff, to some extent the team should put its energies on Soren - or rather, let's give the key to Rasmus Tiller. In the hands of Tiller, who is a real bulldog in the best sense of the word, he starts from a very high floor, and when he senses the opportunity, he explodes. Very much. And he exploded many times this year. And this was the season for him when the breakthrough really happened, and with his routine, with the experience he gained in the past years, he can only get better. So, I think that he should be given the keys to the sprinters and classic people and should lead those talented people who showed positive things, Fredrik Dversnes, Erlend Blikra, Jonas Abrahamsen, Tord Gudmestad... and then we didn't even talk about the people who came here such as Magnus Cort (who could be a leader in the future, but I think he will need time to settle in) with Rasmus Bogh Wallin, who became a legend in the Danish competitions, and Sakarias Koller Loland, the winner of the Paris-Tours U23. What a damn good squad this is, and that depth which was desired for a long time by me has finally been achieved, I think they will have the first Grand Tour stage victory in 2024.

Jayco AlUla finished in 18th place on our list, where, despite the negative answers to our questions, a relatively positive vision of the future will unfold before our eyes. I won't waste any more time, I'll start, moreover, with the question of the retool based around Simon Yates, which actually came in full force, but there is only one problem with this: I don't think Simon Yates can be considered an A-tier GC rider anymore. That is to say... he still has this skillset, but by no means it should dominate the rest of his career. Although it is also true that he hasn't had such a complex season as this one in a long time, the fact that even I myself was surprised by this shows that he has to concentrate on one-day races from next year onwards.

It is worth highlighting his consistency as a positive trait, he started with a 2nd place in Tour Down Under, which he topped off with a 4th place in Paris-Nice - and after the Itzulia top 10 came the Tour, where he took two stage 2nd places and a GC 4th. Afterwards, he went to the autumn one-day classics, overall, the 6th place in Montreal and the 5th place in Lombardy stood out from this period, but he was really often at the front, but he could not react well to the decisive moments. At the same time, if Jayco decides for the future that they will continue to build their team around Yates at the biggest races, then there are enough people to do it now, and it is not only the quantity that matters here, but based on the last year, they established a kind of quality here too. Welay Berhe was a neo-pro this year, but he was surprisingly great especially in the second half of the season, he had very good results at the Austrian Tour, top 10 at Castilla y Leon, top 20 at the Tour de Suisse, there are obviously areas where he needs to improve (time trial, consistency ), but it can already be seen that he can fulfill his role within 1-2 years. On the contrary, Filippo Zana had a leap upwards this year. However, it was not completely free of bumps, sometimes he even had to somersault for it, but the fact is, he won a Giro stage, won the Tour of Slovenia, and even held himself very well in the Italian one-day races at the end of the year (even in a 1-2 situation against powerhouses like UAE). Zana is becoming more than just a climber, and if he can carry this one-day form into next year, he could trade his current late top 100 status for top 50 next year. Eddie Dunbar's first season at Jayco went quite well until the Giro, the Giro went surprisingly well, he dropped out of the top 5 due to a weaker mountain TT, after that he wasn’t that outstanding, but his form is definitely encouraging for the future. Felix Engelhardt is also a brilliant man, the new star of German cycling, next year I think he will rise from this list of climbers and win a Grand Tour/World Tour competition. Then there is also Jesus David Pena, who in my opinion achieved the most interesting solo victory in the history of Tour of Slovenia, right after Zana's somersault. I have never seen anyone ride a 10 km solo on a flat surface with such a high pedal rate - he has and will have his limitations for the sport, but he will be a damn good climber... and then Luke Plapp will come here next year, and he can prove that he can do excellent climbing not only in Australia. A compact lineup, with which either Yates or Dunbar should reach a Grand Tour top 5 again in 2024.

Sprinters. The question here was, whether by sending Groves to Alpecin and keeping Groenewegen, they made a good move. Based on numbers, not, but based on consistency, yes. And I know I use this word a lot, but for me it's a really basic concept in cycling. 73 race days, 26 top 10s, this is Groenewegen's record from 2023, it's amazing, 6 wins is not a bad ratio either. At the same time, it cannot still be denied (and this will not change in 2024 either) that Dylan is a completely one-dimensional, so to speak, classic sprinter. If there is a flat stage, then he goes there very well, but if there is a small rise, he will immediately be in trouble. Now, in addition, Caleb Ewan is brought next to Groenewegen, who was looking for a new team due to his affairs with Lotto-Dstny and after his almost forced departure, the domestic atmosphere will solve a lot of things at this time. Caleb Ewan is perhaps even more of such a Groenewegen-type sprinter, so the two of them need to be provided with enough race days and opportunities, which the organizers have recently stated that they will make sure that there are not many flat parts in the whole calendar. Maybe that is why Jayco signed Davide de Pretto and Anders Foldager as well, since the two youngsters will be the perfect second/third option behind Michael Matthews and the also newcomer Mauro Schmid, the tactical repertoire with this Jayco also increased for in the future.

There are the classic guys, too - well, the big breakthrough here was not coming from the O'Brien-Stewart duo, so they needed someone to pull them, so the choice fell on the German rider of Cofidis, Max Walscheid, who is a perfect choice at his age and has a lot of skills to achieve a lot of good results, strengthening will be needed here even beside that, and I think this will be the focus in next year's transfer season. Regardless, Jayco's future looks good, they had one of the sexiest transfer seasons and I wish them well to turn most things around.

17th place: Arkea-Samsic. An overperformance compared to the original UCI ranking, and my assessment of the team is not necessarily positive either, although there were promising elements. The basic problem with Arkea was perhaps that none of the two things that made them possible to get to the World Tour last year were fulfilled, and by answering this, perhaps all the questions and problems that arise can be answered, and we can also see if something was done about it in the last 1-2 months. The first thing was Nairo Quintana's brilliant performance in 2022. The Colombian climber single-handedly pulled the team together, scoring 1,500+ points during the three-year UCI cycle, which was just enough to secure a World Tour spot ahead of Lotto-Dstny. The problem started when Quintana was banned for the second half of ‘22 due to tramadol use, and the team did not replace him, but instead gave the keys to Warren Barguil and Kevin Vauquelin to carry the whole team on their backs in such a peloton. And while both are talented and complement each other perfectly because of the old-young distinction, neither of them had the season of their lives. Vauquelin is more interesting from this point of view, since he was particularly good until April, then 2023 was ruined due to falls and illnesses. But at the same time, he has spirit in him, just like in Cristian Rodriguez, who surprisingly rallied and achieved a good 2023, especially in the second half of the season, his 13th place from the Vuelta was totally surprising, but he was certainly needed for Arkea to be taken seriously at this level. The question is whether it is possible to take Arkea seriously as all traditional climbers have almost been cleaned out, Warren Barguil has left, and a good number of climbers (Vauquelin, le Berre, Huys, Garcia Pierna, Costiou, Barre) are more punchy style riders - I will be curious about Garcia Pierna, he is the kind of guy who, if he could pick up a little climbing in addition to his good TT skills, would be a perfect GC man for Arkea - in any case, since there were not many climbers left, they went in the other direction, which is the point farming.

Because the key to the success of 2022 Arkea was that they were able to be in the top 10 with 2 or even 3 riders in races, and this happened very rarely this year - in such a field, a kind of reshuffle was definitely needed, which fortunately, they did. Arnaud Demare's surprising mid-season Arkea signing was a new beginning for the team, which they seized to the fullest. Honestly: it's been a long time since I've seen Demare this happy, and if Demare is happy, then he's really flying, since August, this team looks much more like the old Arkea - and if this trend continues, and Demare starts winning races not only on the one-day events, but on the World Tour as well, then Arkea will have a positive season in 2024. The other positive act in this sense was Luca Mozzato. This year was a kind of do or die season for the Italian, as he was close to the professional victory many times, but so far it never came his way. This has happened twice this year, once in Limousin and once in Binche, and while the consistent performance has been lacking, these two wins have put him high on the map. If he could somehow combine his 22 and 23 seasons into one, i.e. wins and lots of top 10s, then Mozzato could have a career peak season next year...

There were two (let’s say, at least two) disappointments in this area as well. Let's start with Hugo Hofstetter, who is leaving the team on December 31 and is going to Israel - he hasn't had such a bad season for 6 years, this is partly due to injuries, bad form fluctuations, and the fact that he was taken to the Vuelta in an almost completely unattainable way, even though in the period (and in the period before it as well) there would have been competitions where he could have achieved results, if he had been able to carry on the form at the beginning of the season (he finished second on Samyn for example), then we might have talked about something completely different, so in Israel a new with a start, maybe it can perform better. Matis Louvel is our other such delinquent. The young French giant has been my favorite for the past two years, he has been constantly building himself, World Tour top 20s, podiums in smaller races, victory in Druivenkoers... this year it really, really stopped, the Norman boy literally stood still - Omloop 13th place and the 8th place in Veneto this year alone showed the potential he has. And to be fair, which was Mozzato's current year, it’s gonna be Louvel's next year - do or die. He has to win, put on a show and show that he has a place among the best. By the way, he got two good mentors for this. Florian Senechal was very vintage in the second half of the season, I was a little surprised that Arkea signed, but here he can even take on the role of a so-called leader and Clement Venturini is a very multidisciplinary cyclist, gravel, classics, cobblestone, road, he knows everything a little - and this must also affect the team as a whole. Arkea has started to build back himself in the right direction, the question is whether this will have a positive effect on 2024, because otherwise there will be a 2025 that has to be performed under incredibly high pressure, resembling a game of chance.

16th place - AG2R. It was an extremely disappointing season, where there were definitely positive elements and people, but overall it was a big hot mess.

What was a hot mess in the first place was that the team has two different poles - these two poles are still there, but not with the distinction of climber and puncheur, but in the connotation of climber-puncheur and punchy sprinter... and we saw during the season, what should be focused on in the long term, and they did not focus on that in terms of the transfers. Obviously, the climber-puncheur part is the better part, which would have been insurmountable even a few years ago, but this time it turned out to be a double-headed dragon and something can be done about it now. Ben O'Connor was already in this structure, the still very young Australian showed very good signs this year as well, his bronze medal position at the Dauphine could have indicated a lot about the Tour, where he caused a bit of disappointment, he was only in the top 3 of two stages, which can give cause for optimism, but the results of the top 10 during the season showed that the level is still there, now he became really constant in his 3rd year - contract year will be in his favor and it would be very essential for the team to keep him. Because the one with whom this has already gone right is Felix Gall. The Austrian took one of the biggest leaps in one season, causing a huge shock and waves in the World Tour. Tour de Suisse stage, Tour de France stage on Col de la Loze... these are results that everyone dares to dream about, let alone achieve in a month. The reassuring thing about Gall is that he made a lot of evolution even during the season, for example with his descent, which was legendarily bad at the beginning of the season, and in the Tour he actually won the fight against Simon Yates at the part between Loze & Courchevel.. And then there are plenty of puncheurs, Benoit Cosnefroy, who didn't show much here other than a Brabantse Pijl podium, but we know what kind of rider he is, Nans Peters, who won a horrible Laigueglia, Aurelien Paret-Peintre, who won a Giro stage, and Victor Lafay, who won a Tour stage... Berthet, Geoffrey Bouchard... so basically this wouldn't be a bad squad. The problem is that this will not be the direction that will be strengthened for 2024 and beyond.

After all, more of the sprinters (if there are any) left/failed. The likes of Clement Venturini and Marc Sarreau were a guarantee that AG2R would win 1-2-3 French Cup races, collect 600+ points and stay in the World Tour. If we add Dorian Godon, Stan Dewulf and Andrea Vendrame to this, we get a very compact line. This is broken by the official news today that the Irish, former Tour de France point jersey winner Sam Bennett will join the team for 2 years. And don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Bennett. Bennett is a damn fast guy who, on his best days, can pick up the rhythm with all his body and strength. At the same time, in the last two years, even with Danny van Poppel, who is said to be the best leadout man in the world, he was totally lost, he couldn't perform, he was eliminated from all kinds of "who is the best" "sprinter" discussion. To be honest, my problem with this whole thing is that Bennett is not a punchy sprinter, so it won't be easy for him to carve out his own chances in a small group sprint, and in the big bunch sprints there will be no one to leadout the sprint for him. Come on, who would do these duties? Because there are good people, Dries de Bondt, Lapeira, Retailleau, Touze, but none of them have proven themselves at the highest level. And just like the others, he also has to get used to the new Van Rysel bikes, which will either be a huge success or a big bust, this will be a huge test for the team, and such a choice when they will be on the edge of the World Tour... I'm not entirely sure that this was the best decision of this period.

However, what has changed is the appreciation of the youth and the collective gathering of the U23 team. For years, I've been saying specifically that if AG2R has the best junior team in the world for years, why shouldn't they try to take advantage of this. And after a couple of years, it finally came to consciousness, and a 10-member devo team was launched for 2024 - and in terms of numbers, it's not the most populous team, but in terms of quality, they really did everything they could, they brought up Leo Bisiaux from the juniors, who is one of, if not the most talented climber of his generation, and Oscar Chamberlain, time trial junior world champion and cobblestone specialist. They brought Noa Isidore, who is a very good sprinter, Rasmus Sojberg Pedersen, who is a very exciting one-day racer, and two Frenchmen from French amateur teams, Killian Verschureren and Baptiste Veistroffer. They wouldn't surprise me if we’d see some of them from 2025 in the World Tour as well.

In overall, AG2R ensured its long-term success, slightly undermining the present. At the same time, this will only pay off if they stay in the World Tour, and they will be able to begin the new cycle with a much better distributed team.

15th place: Bahrain-Victorious. And here it is very worthwhile to make more comments about this entire team performance, because it is deceiving on some level. After all, the team completed 50 less race days than the team with the most ones, and this had an impact on the UCI points and therefore in my points system on the final results - since, if only 30 of these days would have been completed, I  they would have scored so many points that an 8-10. place they could have achieved for the season. Of course, you can't ignore the mental pressure either - Gino Mader's death hit the entire cycling world, Gino was a great person, a great rider, and he leaves a huge void, not only in the team, but also en bloc in the history of Swiss cycling. For the time trial-based Swiss cycling, a climber like Mader was needed... and I'm terribly sorry that he's gone. The team remembered him very fondly, they seized more chances and opportunities, the Tour victories for example, especially Mohoric's, were absolutely being emotional and memorable.

The team's 2023 was solid, reflecting on the riders you can see that, but somehow you can feel that some kind of refreshment is needed in the squad. The climbers were fine, the Pello Bilbao - Mikel Landa duo formed a very strong 2023, Landa would actually have won the Vuelta without Jumbo's dominance! If we look at the results of 2023, there are 6 climbers (also, Matej Mohoric, who can climb mountains at a given level) among the top 8 Bahrain riders, this dominance and unipolarity in this form (because we can see this from several places from the sprinter side) is unprecedented. And there are some very good elements here, Santi Buitrago had the breakthrough, both at a domestique and GC man level, Caruso and Poels are still incredible, especially Wout's performance surprised me here, he was really able to find something for 202e - and Jack Haig also had a slightly more positive season compared to previous years. You may think that everything is fine here, but in reality, it is not. Because a) Mikel Landa is sailing away. With the departure of Landa, Bahrain will lose the man who was actually their most competent GC chance, and who in some cases could have even reached the top 3 in Grand Tours, but that has passed, Buitrago is not ready for that, and the others... and then here comes point b): the very bad aging. Somehow, I could imagine the ideal structure to be 4-5 young people for every 2-3 experienced people. It will be reversed this year, Santi Buitrago and the newly signed Torstein Traeen will be accompanied  bya lot of older riders. This is not optimal. And I adore Bahrain, and I know that the team has solved a lot of tricky situations, and they have the best DSs in the peloton - but once the irreversible processes of the human body start, (and if it starts at the same time) it can have very rapid and serious consequences the team supporters.

As for the sprinters, the stakes are high there as well. Thanks to my somehow impossible skills, I managed to predict very well that Jonathan Milan will have a good season, even though I didn't expect such a good season from him either. Green jersey winner of Giro, several stage wins at World Tour races, classic-type rider signs - Milan is the kind of prospect that could be epitomized... and someone will, but it's not gonna be Bahrain. The most unfathomable mistake of the entire transfer season was the release of Jonathan Milan to Lidl-Trek. For two reasons, it sucks. After all, at 23 years old, Milan will surely be at one point leader of a team in the coming seasons. Not only the sprinter team, but an entire association. Another important point is that, if he really has the classic skillset, then he could have been a brutally good complement to Matej Mohoric and Fred Wright. Both of them approach this entire process from the hills and the cobblestone part, and Milan would have had the opportunity to do this from the Philipsen-like sprint side. With the departure of Milan, the quality options have decreased on the sprinter front, Phil Bauhaus (who by the way was particularly good in 2023) will be the numero uno choice, Dusan Rajovic may step forward for the second number, but this is a significant quantitative and qualitative decline - this can be balanced by the neo-pro Alberto Bruttomesso , but it would be unlucky to put too much pressure on him in his first year. And if we have to talk about the classics lineup - Matej Mohoric, he surprisingly caught the good form for the second half of the season, this is the form with which you can win a monument. Milano - San Remo has already been done, Liège and Lombardia can only have a chance with a very special preparation - Flanders and Roubaix remain. The past weeks I pushed the Mohoric for Roubaix campaign - I can't say that he will win next year, but this is where he will have the best chance, especially if it is a half-mud, half-wet race. In the dry, he won't stand a chance against the pure powerhouses, but otherwise, the bike handling can come out as an important skillset, and that could tip the balance to the other side.

The 2024 Bahrain season will be interesting to watch, it will be a very exciting season, because the talents are coming from Friuli, and they have already started to think about their future, but somehow, I wonder if this transition that is happening now will not be over soon, and whether this will be too drastic...

14th place: Movistar. It was an interesting season from many points of view, at the same time I have the dissonant feeling that a lot of things didn't work out, but at the same time, it can be argued that they solved some of the challenges they faced.

We have to start with Enric Mas. With Mass, against whom we could always have believed that everything was right, all kinds of negative countermeasures related to GC campaigns were removed, since in the last month of the 2022 season we got a person who was both very strong and, what is more important: proactive. Being known as a good rider is not only being able to react to other people's actions, but also being able to initiate them when appropriate. And if we look at 2023, this has definitely not come true. The form at the end of the season was maintained at the beginning of the following season, at Andalusia he had a good race, where he held himself very well with Tadej Pogačar, it is true that he lost in every sprint, but somehow, I had the feeling that this trend would reverse somewhere, at some point. Let's face it, it turned around, but unfortunately it was the form at the beginning of the season that was the outlier in this equation. Ardennes Classics: DNF, Tour de France DNF after 160 kilometers, and the Vuelta wasn't the triumph I imagined for him before the season. And he is still in the timeframe in which he can win a Grand Tour, but at the same time there are a lot of things that can hinder this process.

After all, he won’t have mountain support of the right quality. With the departure of Carlos Verona and Matteo Jorgenson, Movistar lost two excellent mountain domestiques, and I don't think the signing of Nairo Quintana will permanently compensate for this. Nairoman is still very decent, but I have a huge question about what role he can be used for, because I think he is not enough for a GC person. If Mas can cooperate, and with that he can convince the Colombians, Rubio and Sosa as well, he can get the most out of it if he wants to. But in the meantime, he may also worry that he is the team's only viable GC option. If we accept the universal principle that a team needs a 50/50 climber/TT skilled man in order to be a good GC person, and someone with whom this ratio is shifted in 70/30 then there are plenty of the latter here, because Mas, Sosa, Rubio and Quintana are also like this - and the planned signings for 2025 also feel like this. This is not good, it must be understood that the TT is also an essential element of the sport, and somehow the team also needs young people. It's hard to guess what Mas can achieve, so I'll put my expectations lower and say that stages and Grand Tour top 5, which could be the maximum for him.

As for the other ones, and especially the ones who stay here, there are more positives to talk about, and even if that can be included in the way things are going in terms of Movistar's statements. Fernando Gaviria was solid, I'm not saying that he had the best sprinter season in the world, but there were periods of the year when he was really great - but it causes a little bigger problem that the number two sprinter in the team, Max Kanter was lost, and Movistar filled that position with people unlike him, I will mention this soon. Einer Rubio and Ivan Sosa were already mentioned here, they had a particularly exciting season, with opposite signs. I completely gave up on Sosa, quite simply, it is difficult to get Sosa to have two consecutive good days on the road, and thus it is quite difficult to function as a GC man in a team. Einer Rubio is the exact opposite of this, he showed here that no matter how limited his skills are, he can indeed be a good number two rider in races where there are not/not many time trials, this is his only kryptonite weakness. And then there are the breakaway people, of whom Movistar has now accumulated quite a large amount. This is due to one person: Oier Lazkano. If anyone guessed that Oier would be so decisive in his first year in the World Tour... I tip my hat to him, the biggest surprise here was his performance and appearance and his particularly aggressive manner, which we got haven’t got used to from Movistar these years. The success rate of him meant that they obtained 5 similar riders, and if only 2 work out well like Lazkano, it will be a net positive period. Remi Cavagna… we know what kind of engine he has, if he gets the inspiration and the guts, he is unstoppable. Davide Formolo is also a giant, he has won a lot of good races for the UAE, and he has also shown, especially at the Veneto, how useful he is - the problem with him is that in 2v1 situations so far he was the one of the 2 players who could save energy and attack, now he will certainly be the one who has to fight, it is not sure that this would suit him well. Pelayo Sanchez is my little favorite, he is the miracle of the hilly one-dayers, who I think will be a huge star in a few years, he really tested himself this year in Burgos, and he will surely achieve many, many successes in the professional peloton. The two smaller names, Jon Barrenetxea and Carlos Canal, are extremely complex riders, and the team will really know what kind of rider they will be in the next years.

Movistar won and lost at the same time in this year's offseason, they will be one of the most unpredictable teams in the 2024 season, there is a big jump in many of them, and a possibility of a big collective disappointment, too.

13th place: Israel Premier-Tech. If I want to be honest, this is a huge overachievement compared to the expectations before the season, a result that could not have been achieved thanks to the tremendous and self-sacrificing work of all the members of the team. Last year, Sylvan Adams finally listened to the demands of many of us and this year he put together a very sexy team with young and very experienced people at the same time, which turned out to be a perfect match and fusion. It makes sense to start with the experienced people, since the points were brought by then with a bigger share, and Michael Woods is still the biggest name here. Woods, who is well into his thirties, is a very reliable climber-puncher combo, who you know will perform well in the spring Ardennes and Italian one-day races in autumn, and will certainly bring a couple of extra results, this year this was Tour stage victory at the Puy de Dome, the Ventoux Classic second place, and after all, he can still also help the team if he wants to. There were interesting reports that he would not stay, but he stated unequivocally that he will continue in 2024, and if he continues like this, then he can be a very good rider for this Israel for the next 2-3 years. Last year, Dylan Teuns moved from Bahrain to Israel in a somewhat shocking way, and after 15 months it can be said that this move... has not yet had the desired effect, as neither Israel remained in the World Tour, nor Teuns fulfilled his dreams - the typical type of the quiet rider, who has good results, sometimes he is in the top 5, but something (which is not a very small thing) is always missing in order for him to raise the hands up at the end of the race.. Giacomo Nizzolo has changed teams, as he continues his career with Q36.5, even though he should not have done this move. He won the most beautiful race of the year, the Tro-Bro Leon, and brought many top 10s. Obviously a decline started compared to the previous years, but he is 34 years old, and the decline doesn't seem sudden, it's not something he should be terribly worried about. And Simon Clarke is still a very useful helper and can sometimes show how much of an extra sprinter and puncheur he is at the same time.

Well, the young riders are different, because they mean the future for the team, and they have a lot of confidence from the team leadership here. Corbin Strong came out on top of them. The punchy sprinter from New Zealand is definitely the most interesting young prospect of the team, because after some very promising days last year and the year before last, he exploded this year, the way how well he can handle the hills, the small group sprints, and in fact, everything, was astonishing. He is a particularly versatile rider. 17 top 10s, i.e. the base is there, obviously the next level will be when he starts to really win, starts to show that he has a legitimate chance to compete with de Lie, Pedersen and van Aert. Then there is Derek Gee, the Canadian cult hero, who burst into the peloton at the Giro this year out of nowhere, and he was able to occupy the second place role of Giro himself, as he was both in stages and points classifications. The huge problem I have with him is that neither before nor after he brought almost any results. And if they want to start something serious with Gee (and it was not by chance that he received an almost unreasonably long contract), then you have to start working on bringing out the greatest possible potential from yourself as often as possible. Although Stephen Williams is not the youngest prospect, he can always be considered a prospect on some level, the first place in the Arctic Race GC showed here that he has a lot in him, at the puncheur level, for example, a Dylan Teuns-like career can be ahead of him, although for this, he should not be used as a domestique. I mentioned Riley Sheehan's story on X, it's quite unbelievable that he reached a professional victory in three months from Denver, it took a surprisingly long time until he finally got a contract for 2024 - to be honest, I don't know what you can’t expect from him, because the sky is the limit for him, just like for Matthew Riccitello, who may have a big jump up at 2024, fewer climbers ahead, better skills, he knows how to go on a World Tour, and going into this year together with these experiences will mean a lot to the young American man.

2024 will be an interesting year for Israel, there is now a lot of sprinters/punchy sprinters in the team, Pascal Ackermann is a huge signing, and I always think that on his better days he is a top 3 sprinter in the world, in Ethan Vernon, Jake Stewart there is much, much more than what we have seen so far, Hugo Hofstetter has a bounceback season ahead of them, Oded Kogut, a particularly talented Israeli sprinter, is finally going to the big dogs, and George Bennett can also help in the field of climbers this year. A compact team, a lot of people have a kind of "can do more" potential and magic - but how much this comes out will determine their final goals and results for the coming year.

12th place: Cofidis. It will be a very mixed, with a positive tone in the first part, but then the problems that arose during the team's structure, which are not particularly financial, rather they are/were formed during the building of the team. Before 2023, Cofidis was a fair mass, where slightly different elements tried to get as far as possible together. Here, they fried their steaks in their own fat, animated them, tried themselves, and somehow, I think, they made this organization sympathetic to a lot of people's minds. They broke the 15-year winless streak on the Tour, which I think was a completely satisfying, iconic moment for every fan, and maybe it's worth starting the story here too - because Victor Lafay was ultimately the person who brought this about. The French guy is a very special personality, he seems both a bohemian to someone and a person who can be an introvert if he needs to and wants to. And this duality gives us a very human rider, which I think also came out during the Tour victory - at the same time, he also had one-day results, sixth in the Fleche, victory in Besancon, and this at 27-28 years old, seeing the structure of Cofidis, should have been enough in order to get a new contract. Ag2R, however signed him in front of them, and yes, he will have a good place there, I understand why they signed him, but he would have been in a much better place if he had stayed. Ion Izagirre was our other Tour stage winner, but he had a much complex season next to it, Itzulia podium, Indurain win, two top 7s at another Spanish one-dayers, and there was that Tour victory, Ion is still very stable, it has been the case for almost a decade now, and there is no sign that it will stop in 2024 either. The bigger problem, in my opinion, is with the so-called stadpadders, who bring the points needed for outstanding performance, but we have no memory of the person. Guillaume Martin is the ultimate archetype of this. The rider, called by many a philosopher, is now consistently in the top 40 for the eighth year, but this year he only had two podiums, the Japan Cup and the Tour du Jura. He had results of one-day races, and including Liege. He finished 10th on the GC at the Tour as well, but it is certain that I could not recall a single meaningful moment. Because of this, Martin can be considered a bit weak, because he is very stable, he knows what a numero uno GC person needs to know - but different if you are consistent, and different if you are consistent and you can win, quite a lot. In my opinion, Martin should give up on the latter, and the situation is that it is not very clear who can replace him, which could cause problems for Cofidis in the longer term. This is the category at the level of Bryan Coquard, but among sprinters. Le Coq won his first ever World Tour stage here, and on top of that he worked with the usual consistency, the effort rate was high, and with Cofidis you can't really complain about not having enough leadout man for him either, but against all odds, Coq did not succeed in placing himself among the top 5 sprinters in the world. Jesus Herrada and Anthony Perez were also solid here, but for some reason they were far from the Izagirre-Zingle duo in terms of frequency.

The next year… huhh, it's hard to say, the Cofidis transfer season was not one of my favorites. Inexplicably, the top squad was replaced, and for some reason a similar substitute could not take the place of the better people. Stefano Oldani was definitely needed, the punchy Italian can be a very useful recruitment for Cofidis in the long term, Aniolkowski was saved, rightfully so, Nolann Mahoudo is a huge talent, but he is very raw and needs to achieve a lot, and apart from that... nothing. Tough luck for Cofidis, but somewhere inside I hope they will prove me wrong.

11th place: EF-Easypost. This was a particularly exciting period in the life of the team, as we started this season with the acquisition of a five-star GC man in the name of Richard Carapaz, Mikkel Honoré, who we thought could be Magnus Cort's successor/assistant in the one-day races, there was Andrea Piccolo, who was in top form last fall, and many other people had potential for the future. This kind of prediction of mine was such a failure that I can only laugh because of the agony.

Let's start with Carapaz. With Carapaz, whom everyone spoke of with a very positive sign, that yes, the change of environment, yes, now with Vaughters, in a very open environment, he will once again find the real Richard he left at Movistar - at the same time, there were negative signs. Quite simply, in 2023 it became clear that it is not possible to build a mountain train solely by climbers, now in today's world most cyclists are so versatile that you can easily get to one level with this structure, but the last step that separates the GC people between tier A and B, you can no longer pass with them. And if you look at the people who can climb in the EF mountain train in 2023, you will find almost all such people, whether you think of Hugh Carthy or Chaves or, say, the newer faces. And somehow Carapaz also, surprisingly, needed much more time to settle in, both the Volta a Catalunya, Itzulia and the Dauphine were a disaster for him. And then we were there in the middle of the season, before the Tour, and Richard Carapaz had, I won't lie, about 4 interpretable race days. That's very few. And obviously, fate hit him hard, because he was also involved in the downfall at the Tour where Richard and Enric Mas had to abandon, so it was a very bad season from him. It's a joy in sadness that after all the suffering, he recovered a bit for the autumn, Emilia and Varesine already looked very good, we saw the Carapaz, whom I've wanted for a long time, who won the Olympics, who could even upset the Slovenian duo... It is my hope that this bad shape will not last forever.

The other two signings should also be mentioned here, but both Piccolo and Honore were horrible this year, I expect a better season from them in 2024, the negative swing of the pendulum this year may reverse a little next year. But then who was it that made the entire season more positive? Because of the American-Irish defense and defiance alliance, because of the duo who, although they didn't compete much together, but separately both produced a sumptuous 2023, i.e.: Neilson Powless and Ben Healy. I have to start with Powless. The Florida rider has been developing better and more dynamically for years, and although he is slowly progressing in terms of ranking, I can rate the jump from the top 50 to the top 25 greater than the progress from the top 100 to the top 50. By the way, Powless' season contains interesting anomalies, he won the French season opener Marseille and Besseges, he finished 6th in Paris-Nice in the GC (I wouldn't have expected this to be the case), then he finished 7th in Milano - San Remo, 5. at RVV, (who would have thought that he could also walk on cobblestones...), and here there was a break, a fall, which simply could not be avoided with such a pace and such a high performance - he was able to climb out of this after the Tour at San Sebastian, at the World Championship, and at Maryland, he shone again in his old light. Is it higher than that, the question may come, and the answer is that it is not certain. I mean, Neilson has come a long way this year, to heights that I only hoped for him, if he can pull it off next year as well, then we really have to say that one of the best and most complex cyclists in the world is currently an American guy.

But what can we say about the Irish lad? Ben Healy's sophomore season was such a damn MIP suspect season that I have no words for it. The way he started already boded well, as top 10s and victories in .1 races, this is already more than what he achieved in 2022 overall. Then came the Ardennes Classics and it's here you and the world's name, the way he twitched the lion's mustache, the way he almost crushed pepper under everyone's noses, it was sensational. Second in Brabantse Pijl behind Dorian Godon, second in Amstel behind Pogacar, 4th in Liege behind Evenepoel, I don't know if anyone can dream of more. He didn't just dream, he made it happen, winning the 8th stage of the Giro with a 50 kilometer solo... his uncompromising style and his eternal attacks left an indelible mark on people this year. Even after the Giro, he still had a sense of success in Luxembourg, but the real question is whether he can keep it up, whether he can be even better than this - this year he achieved that a lot of people will pay attention to him next year, and a lot of his attacks will be followed, the question will be what he will do with it, how much effort he will put into developing his tactics.

Marijn van den Berg, who still needs to be mentioned in a positive connotation, has also improved a lot in one year, and as the only all-around sprinter. Van den Berg's greatest strength is consistency, out of 67 race days, excluding TTTs, he achieved 21 top 10 places, which can be said to be very good, the 3 win ratio is a bit low, but without a real leadout it's not bad either. He is a smart sprinter who can clearly see the gaps and places where he can enter and gain positions without endangering others. He has to continue this next year and then he can actually have a winning case both within the team and the peloton.

And speaking of the future: this was a very strange transfer period, because the team only signed young people, some were too young, like Markel Beloki, and there were also great talents. Archie Ryan, Lukas Nerurkar and Darren Rafferty will form a kind of Anglo-Saxon mountain train, making the team's mountain train bipolar (it will be very strange to see how they can coordinate people from Columbia and Britain, from completely different backgrounds within the team), and Jack Rootkin-Gray, who could be a B option for Alberto Bettiol in the future. I will be very curious to see how this rejuvenated (perhaps too rejuvenated EF) will perform in 2024, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a slight drop in the team's results.

10th place: Bora-Hansgrohe. We could talk about a lot of things here, the dynamics of the Hindley-Vlasov-Uijtdebroeks trio, their opposites, Sam Bennett's total stupidity, Nico Denz's rise... but it is sure that the majority of our analysis will be about the signing of one person, who was supposedly a ’PR move’ - as Primoz Roglic will officially become a Bora-Hansgrohe rider from January 1, 2024. It is worthwhile to look at this singing from both sides, since both sides had a kind of need for each other, which was met even after long negotiations. In my opinion, Roglic wants two things now in this relatively short, but more than complete career: to win the Tour de Suisse and to win the Tour de France, completing the Grand Tour collection. Which one could you have achieved with Visma? The first is true, yes, in Primoz's case, they would have been able to send a mountain lineup that would have been favorable for him in that race. The second one… I don't think so. There are more elements to this, but the main reason for this is that Jonas Vingegaard's dominance grew to an amount that Roglic could only have matched if Jonas had abandoned the race. We got here, in 2023, and this was the point where the departure is completely true and justified, regardless of the fact that Roglic is still among the top 5 GC people in the world, and I can argue for the top 3 as well. What was Bora's need? A person who can climb and can do time trials. So far, there is no such person in the squad, at least there was not in the past, and this limited the skills and the upside of the team, and it was also very questionable who is really the number one GC person, because three of them applied for it. After last year's Giro stunt, I think Jai Hindley tried to approach the starting line of the Tour with confidence this year, and he even made us believe in the Pyrenees for 24 hours that he could legitimately compete with the Pogačar-Vingegaard pair - no, he didn't. And it wasn't because he wasn't a good time trialist, but because he simply couldn't get into good enough shape. I've had this problem with Hindley for a while now, when he's in shape, he's one of the bests in the world and has the right to call him Tour-ready, but he's not like that more often than he is, luckily he can catch this form for the big races. I'd take the other two GC contenders, Vlasov and Uijtdebroeks, under the same hat (they're really good friends... well, nope.) Vlasov has proven that he'll never be a good three-week racer, quite simply he can't be on a very weak day (where you get 5 minutes) to reach a Grand Tour podium. And Cian Uijtdebroeks, in my opinion, is oppressed by the pressure to fulfill himself. I'll explain this: right, Cian is a huge talent, and he always wants more and more, and this sometimes leads to totally unjustified hysterics and nervous breakdowns. He should reduce these and be very patient, although now he wants to leave the team, which I do not understand at all. Naturally, everyone in Belgium, the Mecca of cycling, willy-nilly liken him to Evenepoel, which also adds to this depressing situation... his situation is difficult, he has a year to figure out what he wants to do for the next few years, and this will also determine his own career.

But there was a huge difference not only among the small mountain people, but also among the big sprinters. Sam Bennett is gone, and we have to stop here for a moment. Bennett's fall is quite sad and shows somewhere that the sprinting profession is a kind of hero to zero thing - because not long ago we celebrated him on the Champs-Elysees as an undisputed winner of the points jersey, and now we are complaining about the fact that he will be a man without a concrete leadout with AG2R - on the other hand, I cannot say that Bora solved the problem 100%. Sam for Sam, Bennett for Welsford, this was the tactic, and Welsford is a particularly interesting rider, he was fast in DSM, but he lost the leadout many times, he had to start from afar. It was a bit his own fault, as well as the fault of the leadout - here, however, you can learn a lot from Danny van Poppel, who I think is the current best in the genre. Somehow I have the feeling that if the two of them can work together, then a lot of beautiful things can come out of it, and somehow I think they will match each other. Adding Jordi Meeus, who miraculously won the last stage of this year's Tour, we see that Bora now has two moderately fast, two moderately good one-day riders, who can help each other, pull…it is not as bad as many people think. And the whole Bora is now very compact, good signings, with a good squad, Martinez, Adria, Denz, Sobrero, the German-born Schachmann and Buchmann will all be good here, I'm really looking forward to the overall Bora season, I have a lot of positive hopes about them.

ps: Cian just signed to Visma, this is a good move, in short.

9th place: Alpecin-Deceuninck. I think that this is the first team where I will give almost only positive comments, as a counterpoint to the fact that I think even more could be achieved from this concept. There are 3 indispensable elements of this team, who contributed to the giant share of 35 victories, who give the Alpecin DNA the foundation. We have to start with Mathieu van der Poel, who was one Tadej Pogacar away from winning 3 monuments + the world championship this season. Obviously, it is difficult to come up with statistics for this, but this accomplished series of results is also something that makes it totally unprecedented status in modern times. I remember before the season, everyone thought that he was tired, that it would be difficult for him to get in shape, if he could be in good shape for the Flanders-Roubaix, and somewhere on Tirreno we saw these doubts, but then he brought in front of us the best 3 weeks of cycling history possibly. Milan - San Remo: win. So how? Soren Kragh Andersen and MvdP worked extremely well together, Kragh took a lot of the burden off him, and the way Poggio started, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was a thermonuclear attack. Somewhere this fuga de la fuga stuff wasn't in his repertoire until now, and I don't know how many chances he would have had in a sprint alongside van Aert, whether he would have been really good at this attack, but in hindsight he made the best decision. Ronde van Vlaanderen: second place. He should have reacted to a historical Oude Kwaremont attack. Paris-Roubaix: gold medal. This was a bit controversial at the same time with the Degenkolb-knockout action, I still have a bit of an emotional burden there, but at the same time it must be admitted that here the team again worked excellently for him, they came up with a very good plan, and with that they were able to take it to the end of this monument. After that, the world championship was really just the icing on the cake, it will be a real curiosity to see him in the rainbow jersey, and he totally deserves it, I think that even if it is not completely the case, both MvdP and Alpecin have improved a lot in terms of tactics, they are not only relying on crushing their rivals with mere force, but have a well-developed plan and can build on it if necessary.

The one who didn't need a plan many times, but rather a complete leadout, was Jasper Philipsen, who by 2023 was clearly the best sprinter in the world. This required his own development, the fact that he was given the keys as the number one man, and with that he went to full force. If we only look at the sprints, then we can see with great confidence that Alpecin does everything so right in the leadout section, in the sections between 1500 and 400 meters they surpassed everyone, and if you do things well there, it will not be difficult for the sprinters to finish it. But can Jasper be called only and exclusively a sprinter? The question arises from the fact that this year he showed signs that, basically, he can play a decisive role in classic races, even on more difficult terrains. Brugge-de Panne's victory was really inspired by the greatests of the genre, the way he handled the wind, the way he handled his rivals, showed a serious potential that very few have. His development will be key for the future. Another such person is Kaden Groves, who joined the team this year and made an instant impact, to a lesser extent in the spring, to a greater extent in the division - his victory in the Vuelta and Limburg was a fantastic sign that there is more to him than a classic sprinter, he can go up a hill, in the cold, hot, he attacks, he defends, he can win in a long sprint, in a short effort, basically, victories are in his DNA. And here comes the only burden for the team: both of their contracts expire in 2024 - and knowing that the team is not doing so well financially, it is currently difficult to imagine that both of them will stay. If one of them were to leave, it would be a serious effort to have a good replacement. It is true that the young riders are very good, Kielich, Uhlig supplemented with the veteran duo Kragh Andersen, Gianni Vermeersch and the rest of the team together form a very nice mixture, but the injuries/sicknesses of the three main riders may cause problems due to the still existing one-dimensional squad structure. So, the key to Alpecin's season will be how healthy they can stay, if everyone is available in full force this year, they will have a better season than this year, if not, they will fall back to the bottom of the midfield.

8th place: Groupama-FDJ. We are after a season where we had huge expectations for the team, and where these expectations were fulfilled for a while, but at the same time, in the second half of the season, this entire organization fell apart at all levels. You can't start this review by skipping David Gaudu. What I expected was that he will climb to the best climbing level, and with his lagging time trial skills, he can come up with something that can work for him. And the joke is that he started the season that way, on the hills and mountains of Paris-Nice, he was the only one able to keep up with Tadej Pogacar at some level. The 4th place achieved at Itzulia was to some extent the result of this wave, but then - a big fat zero. Seriously. He was more preoccupied with belittling Demare to the direction of the team leader during their debate than taking care of his own form, taking the most unimpressive 9th place in the Tour's history. He is a very strong and powerful rider, but David Gaudu can be an extremely toxic person who thinks a lot about himself, always believing that he will be the one who will bring great success to FDJ at the Tour, and in the meantime for years we've been saying that he can't bring this, and in the meantime he's chasing the team's best sprinter out of there. Will it be OK, Marc? Moreover, since Thibaut Pinot (who, by the way, was having a much better season than Gaudu) retired, Madiot did not replace him in any capacity, so even if they had such ambitions, it would be difficult for them to fulfill this. And to be fair, the two main mountain men, Lenny Martinez and Romain Gregoire, will rightfully get their own people, their own line as they have worked to the maximum for this on the basis of their neo-pro season.

About Demare. I'm not sure if I saw this correctly, but I think the majority was not on his side in this debate, which smells a bit like bullshit, to be honest. It's true that even Arnaud Demare doesn't believe that he would have won a bunch sprint at the Tour besides Philipsen. But we are talking about a team legend, someone who breathed together with the team for more than a decade and deserved a chance at the Tour. You know, there is a saying, "A smart man lets things go, a donkey suffers" - this perfectly describes the current situation. After Demare's signing to Arkea, he opened his floodgates, got all the keys to the door of sprinter/easier one-day races, and kicked it in once and for all, with victories, consistency, but most importantly, you can see the relief on his face, the fact that he is glad that he was able to escape from this environment, while Gaudu and the FDJ are facing a difficult year - and even if they are facing many negatives, there were also positives in 2023.

And these are the young riders. FDJ sticked to a very risky and almost incomprehensible thing for 2023, they signed 7 riders from the Devo team into the pro team. And this… succeeded. Ok, not 100%, but I think the desired effect was well and truly achieved. Romain Gregoire was the best from this class, but we knew that he was a great talent even in Devo years and in his junior year. Gregoire did a very good job of showing his talent in a couple of Pro races last year and this year... he had a very amazing neo-pro season. When you look at Gregoire, you wonder if he's really a newcomer, or if we're talking about someone who's been here on the World Tour for 5-6 years? He is not the unqualified giant climber that the French would like to see as a new Richard Vireneque, but he is a better puncheur now than many Frenchmen who have won competitions at the same time. The future’s big question next year will be how much he can improve in his sophomore season, but also whether there is more to him than what he really is now, how well he can really bring climber skills, can he go on cobbles... seriously, he is an exciting prospect. Lenny Martinez is also very strong at the prospect level. Leading a Grand Tour at the age of 20 is a huge feat, and Martinez did it, and he looked very good on the bike all season - of course, I say this with the fact that he will never be good at ITT, he will never win a Grand Tour, but he can reach top 10 or top 5 at Grand Tours and World Tour stage victories, too. Paul Penhoet is the third key element here, with the departure of Demare he will be the number one sprinter in the team, and he will have the huge demand to be able to bring raw power to the action with finesse. He has already proven himself in the one-day races, the time has come for him to do the same in the stage races.

As much as I was optimistic about FDJ last year, I am as pessimistic now. Neither the transfer season, nor the structure of the team is optimal right now. I'm worried about them, and I can only hope that the point hunters, Madouas, Gregoire, Gaudu, Penhoet will all improve, this is what is needed for the FDJ to be able to maintain the current level.

7th place: Lidl-Trek. Lidl-Trek has had a very busy season, starting with the fact that the team wasn't even called like this until the middle of the year... however, with the Lidl grocery chain flying in, the team got a lot of money, which was used very smartly, but they were also able to offer the current riders much better conditions in terms of equipment, and thus a super team under Luca Guercilena was sealed for 2024.

The super team must start with Mads Pedersen, who we can say is one of the most complex cyclists in the world today. I said about the Danish rider here that he would become world champion, I also predicted that he would win Flanders... None of them did he win, but we saw that he can do well on such very punchy tracks like the world championship, also on San Remo he finished in the top 10, and besides, he is the kind of person who knows, loves and wants to fight, because in the current peloton, perhaps this is one of the main elements if you want to win, if you want to be successful, and this also boosts your appetite, which is important in the case of a franchise person, because we build a team based on this. Obviously, he didn't just have bad streaks, for example, his victory at the Bemer Cyclassics was the most impressive 1-2 punch of the year, 24 hours after his victory at the Tour of Denmark. He can easily do and go for everything again, he wants the Olympics too, that course will also suit him, he will have the help of Theuns, Stuyven, Alex Kirsch, who is damn underrated in my opinion... and Jonathan Milan, who approaches the classics from a similar side like Pedersen, with the similar sprinter skill, but he has a worse puncheur skill - this is what, if he develops alongside Mads, with the help of the Dane, he can be a lethal force in the next years, and he will be a great help for Pedersen in his peak years.

There was another Dane, whom I mentioned in the introduction, and with whom I was satisfied here, and with that I will move on to the GC section. I saw Mattias Skjelmose Jensen's jump. But to be fair, the jump was so high that he is now a very world-class puncheur, and at certain times he can win one-week races, even at the World Tour level, like this year's Tour de Suisse. Skjelly developed a one-day skillset, and with that he opened the gates for himself, as it shows that despite everything he is not a bad climber, at Tirreno next year, for example he can be very good, the question is that besides the two main GC people, next to Ciccone and the newly signed Geoghegan Hart, what role do they assign to him? Because this trio will truly attack the Tour, and perhaps here is the best symmetry in cycling world between three such big names, three such big GC people. Ciccone is the oldest member of the team, and it would be a mistake to think that he could and still can get noticed just by throwing glasses. Because obviously, if he throws glasses, he wins, and he's done that quite often lately. What is particularly exciting is that he is very smart. When he's in shape, he competes with the best, look at Catalunya, where Evenepoel and Roglic were rivals for many occasions, look at the Dauphine - but now we can obviously say that he won't be a Grand Tour winner. He will be a luxury domestique for the man who blew up perhaps the biggest hit in the transfer market this summer: Tao Geoghegan Hart. Geoghegan Hart is a typical Grand Tour rider who is actually a Grand Tour specialist. This year, he would have won the Giro for the second time after 2020 without the crash, and somewhere one has the feeling that his mental strength, fitness and under the radar approach (because I think he is a very underrated rider) might be enough to take on the competition with the people of the UAE-Visma duo. They will use a traditional, one-captain line-up, Ciccone, Skjelmose (who could one day be the number one Grand Tour man in certain situations, in the right way), Verona, Konrad in the mountains, Tim Declercq on the flat, and then there are a bunch of people who are experienced, with whom you can fill this 8-member Tour squad. And that's strong. I don't know how much, but it will be strong, it will be good, and they will start as favourites in almost any event. And this is what, although I usually oppose the sudden sponsorship in the middle of the season, I still adore this whole process that takes place there. Continuous proactivity, continuous development, very proper marketing and a good concept, with people who stand out in all areas. I will place the team in the top 3 overall for the coming year.

6th place: Intermarche. The biggest overachievement on the list compared to the original result, I saw them on 14-15. places on different rankings. It was a very interesting start to this season, as many members of the team achieved MVP numbers in the first two months, and then for the next 5 months it was almost a collective letdown, and it was unbelievable that they rose again in the last two months. We have to start with Biniam Girmay, since after 2022 we rightly thought that we have the main creative element to whom we can epithet. This creative element, Girmay, stopped his development here, he lacked the kind of lethal punch that characterized it in 2022, for example. It is also not entirely certain that we fully know what kind of rider he really is. More than a sprinter, but less than a De Lie-type puncheur. But if he's not fast enough... then he can't be a number one man, but if he's not going to be number one here, then who is? This year, Gerben Thijssen was able to fill the role of this question. Thijssen is an interesting figure, we knew that he was fast, but so far he has shown this quite rarely, but this year he blew up, he is a really fast guy who is not completely dimensionally versatile, but he is on the way. On the other hand, considering that he has routine, he is still very young, so he and Girmay can form a very good core - here the big question will be whether Thijssen can step up to the task (so to speak, knowing what happened in Guangxi), because looking at the team's structure, he must be the leader, because the leaders on the other side, the punchy-climby side, have run out.

The punchy-climby side was completely reduced, despite the fact that there were also more outstanding performances - starting with Rui Costa's vintage season, the fourth resurrection of himself. Costa was truly, in the strictest sense of the word, ridiculously good, this was the year when he could use long years, decades of experience to a truly positive advantage, and he could turn all his energy to suffocating and mentally belittling your opponents. He also won the Japan Cup, he won the Valencia Tour, he won a stage at the Vuelta, he had an absolutely fantastic season, and yes, I think they tried to maximize his potential as long as possible, but quite simply, financially, they did not have the ammunition that was needed for keeping him, and signed to EF, which, if I want to be honest, is good and also bad in some respects. Kobe Goossens was, once again, huge in January, two wins in two races, in the span of 24 hours, and actually this 24 hours was where he only brought out his inner mojo - now this was not the first time in his career when he did this, and somehow this should stop, because we know that there is a lot in him, and when this breaks out, he is a damn useful member of the peloton. The situation is basically the same with Louis Meintjes, this was not his best season, and I can't decide if it was due to his own frustration or because he didn't have enough help in the mountains. We are starting to slip out of the positive timeframe, so the next year can be difficult from this point of view.

Next year: Alexy Faure is gonna be here and he is changing the world. I'm serious, it's rare to see as much progress from year to year/month to month as he experienced here, which is why they brought his World Tour debut a year earlier, which was a rare thing at the time, zusammen. First of all, you should take an example from their Development team, they identify talents very well, they give everyone a chance, and there are plenty of opportunities where they can stand out so much that they can be included in the World Tour later on. This structure works well, the scouts are also great, so if there is a way forward for Intermarche, it should be this: train young people and hope that they will bring a lot to the points tally.

5th place: Ineos Grenadiers. In one sentence, we can describe 2023 as a season of missed opportunities. They missed the Giro chance, they missed all kinds of classics chances, and they have great elements again if we look at a grand scale, but for now they couldn't get them together into a very coherent mass. Let's start with the youngsters, because this is where the INEOS phenomenon can best be grasped. They signed a lot of very high-profile youngsters in the past years, from whom I was absolutely sure that they thought that World Tour, Grand Tour stage wins and similar results would come out. And damn… 2-3 years after the start of the experiment, we can slowly say that it wasn't the best idea. This could also be due to the changes in the leadership, there was not a completely unified structure regarding how and on what basis they prepare the team. For example, I'm pretty sure that Ethan Hayter would be near world class if he didn't have to move up from 120th almost every single day to be able to doh is otherwise great uphill sprint. I'm also sure that they told him this in vain, somehow even then he doesn't manage to do this task. Then there is the Tu-duo, Tulett and Turner, the former also left the team, the latter remains – they are in the 'little gray mouse' category because of a reason, they’re good up until a certain point, but otherwise... they’re not good enough that we bring them up at once in any race as undisputed favourites. Kim Heiduk is a very decent last leadout man/sprinter, but at the same time, it is difficult for me to decide what the team wants to get out of him, since with Viviani's near retirement, there will be no one to lead the sprint squad, and there will be no leadout man for his own sprinting. Luke Plapp was the undisputed king of January-February, who at the beginning of the season was always able to lift himself up, only to fall down - now here is an interesting question, whether the team lifted him up, or his own training method was not suitable - in any case, Plapp is also leaving, and with that we get to the part that is more important, the young key riders who can be the team's main assets.

I think if we are talking about missed opportunities, one missed opportunity is Thymen Arensman's role within the team. The Dutch guy came to the team after a very good DSM season, and even if I didn't think he would have an instant impact in his first season, I saw more in him. When he got the chance, he worked very well - but this happened very few times. Arensman's 2024 will also be about deciding whether he wants to be the number one domestique of a very good team or the number one man of a mediocre team. There is a difference between the two, and I don't know what he really wants, he can be developed to a very good Castroviejo, but I don't know if that was INEOS’s primary aim with him. Then there is the newly signed Tobias Foss. As a time trial world champion, I have the legitimacy to say that they should try him as a GC man, because one of the elements of someone winning a GT is there. The other, climbing... there are imperfections in that aspect. He does not start from a bad floor, of course he got some great bases with Jumbo, but he lacks a lot of extras. He is not old either, and Ineos is very famous these days for the fact that his talents are trained very well, so I see upside in him. Josh Tarling. Brilliant talent. I would combine it with Magnus Sheffield, this duo can concrete the classics squad for long years. Tarling will be the best time trialist in the world in three years, but at the same time he is not bad on the cobbled terrain either. Sheffield is a similar rider, with a year more experience and a degree of better climbing, Ronde, Harelbeke, these goals could be in front of him in the next 2 years. It would be very important to keep them for at least 5, but preferably 8-10 years, because the next Ineos will have its supporting pillars and components with them.

Tom Pidcock - what does INEOS want with him now? Because a massive GC Pidcock campaign started this year, which was not a bad effort, but at the same time giving up a thousand dreams for the classics, when he won Strade, for example, dominantly... it's a tough question, obviously the optimal thing would be to try to improve both and become elite in both, but I don't know to what extent it is possible to do both extra in such a peloton, does he have to subsidize something? And it’s the same issue with Carlos Rodriguez, but in the opposite direction - he has a very decent GC skill, top 5 at any time, at any Grand Tour at 22-23 years old, but can he win a Lombardia or a Liege? I do not know...

INEOS is facing an exciting season, with many unsettled questions and many unsewn threads ahead of us. One thing is for sure: you can't miss as many chances as this year.

4th place: Lotto-DSTNY. Basically, we can talk about overachievement here, but at the same time, I think that this year showed that to a certain level, this team is very good, but above that, it is lacking quality. The alpha and omega of this entire organization is Arnaud de Lie. The Belgian bull topped last year's incredible debut season and developed new dimensions in his racing. De Lie should be seen as a kind of a solar system element, perhaps the perfect archetype of the phenomenon that is slowly becoming common in the NBA, according to which there is a superstar of the team, who epithets everything, to whom others pass the ball to solve situations, who has a very high usage rate. Lotto works in a similar way, but around de Lie, they put together a particularly good team, and Arnaud can live with this in many cases. Up until now, we knew and assumed that de Lie is basically a sprinter, but here he has developed a very serious puncheur skill, not something that he can use against Remco in Liege, but he has shown himself in races with less climbing. That's how he dominantly won the Binche, an uphill finish in Besseges, Quebec, where his sprint was absolutely brutal on the 3-4% false flat... and here comes one of de Lie's problems - the positioning. A totally perfect example is the one-day race in Hamburg, where he produced one of the biggest 1 km climbs of all time on the Waseberg, with huge numbers, but he didn't even touch the surface of gold, as he was between the places of 40-45 when he started the hill and got up from there to the top 10, but he didn't have enough strength left to do a meaningful sprint. The other such issue, in my opinion, is what he can develop further, he is obviously aiming for a Grand Tour stage win, which would be beneficial, but at the same time, I don't think he should start aiming towards that, because the potential is currently in him to be one of the, if not the best one-day rider. And this should somehow have a motivating effect on him.

But who are the others who made this season so successful? Florian Vermeersch. After the Belgian rider's second place in Paris-Roubaix in 2021, everyone was waiting for an explosive backup season, so that he can make this form into a consistent one... and not immediately, but it finally happened. He is a multifaceted man, since we are talking about one of the best gravel riders in the world , who can also be in the top 5 in smaller stage races, and was in the top 10 of a bunch in .1 and .Pro races, but he didn't succeed in winning here - so his status in the top 40 seems much more impressive and extra, with realizing these facts. What is the aim for next year? To win. Honestly, he can't be more consistent than this, he has to learn how to hunt like a hawk for wins, be it solo or sprint. Milan Menten's first Lotto season also turned out to be excellent, he started well at the beginning of the season, won the Samyn, had several top 5 and top 10 finishes to his name. The punchy-climby section is also very united, Andreas Kron finally surprised and performed well at the highest level, a Grand Tour stage win was the crown on his 2023, Lennert van Eetvelt's first pro season was brilliant, and with the young core, of which Vandenabeele and Vanhoucke are also members, and with the strong Development team formed for 2024... this Lotto can be brutally good and I think the top 10 is guaranteed for them, in case de Lie stays healthy.

Bronze medalist this year is Soudal-Quick Step, where more things happened than in a Latin soap opera. And to be fair, it came from several things, for example Remco Evenepoel's season, which I think can definitely be called a bad luck streak. Because yes, it's a fact that he won San Sebastian, he won Liege, these are the places where the Belgian feels damn  home, but both the Giro and the Vuelta didn't work out for him this year, at the Giro from first place, with a Covid infection, he had to give up (and although I argued at INEOS that Geoghegan Hart would have won without his fall, I can make the same argument twice here, because from an advantage, in a race of the type where very few stages had real 100% pace, Evenepoel could have won with a good chance), and at the Vuelta was simply cooked and could not withstand the pressure of the triple Jumbo army, but for that reason I would very much forgive him, I don't think anyone would have been able to do that. Remco is still brilliant and the thing is I'm starting to like him more and more as a rider and as a person. He is not afraid to stand up for himself, and even tries to protect others (just remember the completely scandalous time trial in Barcelona, which had to be completed in pitch darkness without lights), it seems that he is very much in one piece. And somewhere he started to think about himself in a totally realistic way - because the moment will finally come next year when he will aim for the Tour de France, but in his own way. That's what makes him so damn likable in my eyes, he didn't immediately bash on the others, but - regardless of knowing his skills - he admitted that yes, there are better people than me, I don't have a good record in France anyway (specifically, I think he didn't win pro race there, which is amazing, considering that I think they are in the top 3 countries with the most events), so a top 5 would be good. And the reality is somewhere in this, although of course there is still plenty of time until the end of next June, but it would be a good result for his first Tour at the age of 23, especially since I think he is consciously going for longevity in his career, which is also welcome, so a big round of applause for Evenepoel, and hopefully everything will be back on track next year.

What was very fine and shows the genius of Patrick Lefevere was Tim Merlier's first Soudal season. 11 wins without taking part in a single Grand Tour was his best season so far in his career. Before the season, we had the fear of what kind of correlation with Fabio Jakobsen would have with each other - they were on such separate paths due to scheduling and positive/negative context that it was not worth talking about. What will be interesting to see for the future is that Merlier was a one-day racer this year, but obviously it is important for him to go to the Grand Tour, and seeing the goals, next year it could be either the Giro or the Vuelta for him, or even on both, because the Tour will clearly be the terrain of Evenepoel and the climbers. This question is also interesting because Luke Lamperti, who replaces Jakobsen, is a total stage race sprinter, his skillset is much more on the surface than his one-day skills. It will be interesting to see how the two will agree, how they can work together for a common goal.

Because they will keep this Quick Step alive. Evenepoel's mountain éineup will look quite interesting, Vervaeke, Serry and Jan Hirt remain, Ilan van Wilder also remains, who is known not to have a good relationship with Evenepoel, and who proved at the end of last season that he could hold his own as an independent element, and Mikel Landa came, with this, no matter how strange it may sound, but can bring calmness to this turbulent state, not to mention that he can still be good for a Grand Tour top 6. In addition to these and Merlier, a lot of young riders came, I expect a hell of a lot from William Junior Lecerf, after the victory of Piccolo Lombardia, he can have an instant impact next year, just like the inclusion of Gil Gelders and Warre Vangheluwe in the classics line, which is a bit hollow. This season will be difficult, a lot will depend on Remco's performance, if he is good, then they will be in the top 5 team level, if he is injured, if he will have weaker days, then it is harder to imagine - it will all be exciting.

Second place: Jumbo-Visma. A historic season, and they were still very far from the first place of the year. As you know, the fact that if you take part in a lot of races and simply dominate them, last year's points system valued it much more than the triple Grand Tour victory. Regardless of this, we can say 99% positive about the Jumbo season, and the remaining 1% will not be in this room today. The big question before the season was whether Jonas Vingegaard's king would be short-term, whether Roglic would hit back at him, and how the relationship between the two will actually determine the entire team dynamic. I mean, it went really well. And I think we got a very clear answer, Jonas is the best GC rider on the planet right now. I can say this now. As long as everyone else is working with many different goals during the season, this Danish man has one goal: to be the best three-week rider in the world. And he is on the right track. He improved further this year, he perfectly achieved the form he really had to bring to the Tour, but at the same time he was able to maintain it for the Vuelta, which I personally would not have thought. A lot of people think this style is boring, it's not very adventurous, one-day races are almost never done, and yet there is something quite romantic about it, as it actually beats everyone in terms of endurance and in many aspects. And what made this whole season really spicy is that his rival within the team, Primož Roglič, did the same. The strategy of the two did not differ in any way, so the Slovenian also had a really brutal season - but at the moment when the two of them got together, it seemed that the perfect season with Primoz was in vain, a level of difference, if not in terms of results, but in the eye test was visible between them. The consequence of this was that Roglic went to Bora, and Vingegaard was given the keys to everything, but the team currently has no real 1b option, which could cause problems later. After all, Sepp Kuss, the American who won the Vuelta, has a serious ceiling due to the TT, and if Cian Uijtdebroeks arrives, he will need time, especially, to reach the next shelf, when he can fight for the Grand Tour podium. Well, Jonas will have to deal with this pressure for next year, it is true that so far he hasn't given the slightest sign that he won't be able to handle this, but from this point of view, it will be good to have a look at next year.

Well, if we talk about pressure, then Wout van Aert has a growing amount of this pressure. We're slowly starting to wonder if Wout will ever win a cobbled classic. The signs are always telling me that yes, he will win, he can do it, he is peak/close to peak on such races. What doesn't help him is that Nathan van Hooydonck, one of the best gun carriers, had to retire due to heart problems, and with that he will be at a disadvantage in terms of manpower for next year, and even if there is a Dylan van Baarle, a Matteo Jorgenson, who can also be used for such a purpose, even if I hope that they will raise him a climber domestique, Per Strand Hagenes, who can be a good rider, with such a line he will not have a bad result sheet. But there is a lot of demand, more than in previous years. There will be a lot going on with finding coherence, if he can get really perfect for these 2 weeks, then I can't rule out the double, that would really silence all the critics. And then there is Olav Kooij's case, who I think is very happy to have extended his contract with the team, as the Dutch sprinter has proven enough to be included in the team at any time and in any role. Here Olav really gave the team time to figure out what they wanted with him. The fact is that Jumbo's lineup was not designed for a Kooij-type rider to be able to compete in any Grand Tours. But I don't know how fair it is not to take him to any of the GTs, since he has been able to be in top 5 sprinters for the second season in a row. I'm really curious about what the new year will bring him, there are many things in which he can still get ahead.

There are a lot of questions for the next year, both at racing level and at the sponsor level, since the next year will be called Visma-LAB, and also at the power relations level, because Richard Plugge's plans are masterful, but sometimes scandalous. I don't know how long he can keep up this dance between genius and crazy, but as long as he does it so well, Visma will be a brilliant team. What will happen after that... will be decided by the future.

The winner of the 2023 Power Rankings is the UAE-Team Emirates, with a very convincing advantage, although their season was not perfect either. First of all, however, I have to give a huge congratulations to Fernandez Matxin, because in terms of squad construction, his work was by far the best, he was able to incorporate elements that stood out from the others, with whom you can compete in terms of management, and of whom you can be proud both professionally and personally. Who else could we start with than Tadej Pogacar, who once again entertained me, who was the best in the world again, is still the best in the world, and slowly there really isn't an area left that he doesn't know. This year, he tried the Milan-San Remo, a race that is becoming more and more a lottery from a sprinter's classics - the wind almost favored him, he came second due to a small tactical error, it was not up to the team. The Harelbeke-Ronde van Vlaanderen duo came, he was also strong at Harelbeke, and in the end he had no chance in the sprint against the cyclocross legendary duo van Aert-van der Poel, but he could not be stopped at the Ronde. His attack at Kwaremont was incredible, I have never seen anything like it in my life, it was impossible to follow. That Sunday was perhaps the greatest coming of the instinctive genius so far. A week of rest, then he ticked off Amstel easily, ticked off Fleche, easily, and maybe the only negative in his season was his fall at Liege. Then came the Tour, where he kept pace with Jonas Vingegaard for 15 days, and if we take it that way, it was an improvement compared to the year 2022, where he gave up on the 11th stage. The disintegration was spectacular, that's a fact, but if we take as a basis how much more diverse his style and repertoire is than the Dane's, then he can raise his hands in the air with satisfaction. Next year, moreover, with the arrival of gravel as a genre, I think his chances will continue to increase, despite the fact that otherwise the last days could be Vingegaard's.

What is again and still problematic is the question of the GC people behind Pogacar. And no, I don't mean Marc Hirschi, he luckily brought himself back from great depths and is once again in the clouds. So the catfight between Juan Ayuso and Joao Almeida for the second place is starting to be annoying, and if you asked me, the answer is clear: this role should go to Juan Ayuso. Almeida is in an interesting shape, he has done very well many times, but he does not have the fatal blow, the dominance that should characterize a person who wants to win a Grand Tour. Ayuso has that, it's true that he's still an extremely raw talent, someone who still hasn't reached his full potential - but we've seen him dominate in time trials, we've seen him dominate in the mountains, and more than that. And if we consider that a Jolly Joker option in the person of Adam Yates is always there for the UAE, then the situation is not so bad.

But to shade the picture a little, we have to look at next year. The positive thing is that Nils Politt came. UAE was thirsty for a flat domestique similar to Politt, who can help Pogacar on two fronts, that's a fact. I don't know how much the team vacillated about Pavel Sivakov, but he also came, and a bunch of young riders arrived, del Toro, Christen, Morgado, in whom it is not yet known how much upside and how much real talent they have. But after a while this will cause a problem for management, because everyone wants to win, everyone wants to be a leader, and many will have to make sacrifices for that, which I don't know how many, how much, and how they will be able to do. The biggest problem is that as long as Tadej Pogacar is so versatile, he will reduce the Tour chances of winning for himself. You're going to have to sacrifice some goals to make it work, you're going to have to structure your program differently... And so far, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. In any case, as the French say, le champion reste champion, the champion remains the champion, and no matter what happens in 2024, UAE has a chance to win every single race day with the most complex and best squad.