Power Rankings - Part 6

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 competitors 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 competitor, 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.