Power Rankings - Part 7

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 competitors, 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 competitor 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 competitions, 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 competition 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 driver 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 competitors - 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 competitor, 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.