the battle of generations. part 1/3.

With the Tour de France and every Grand Tour approaching, the idea of who is gonna be the 8 people who could be part of our favourite team is on everyone's mind. We analyse them according to who could be the GC favourites, who could be in with a chance of winning the sprinter's competition, who are the good climbers... and of course, we're always surprised at the end when we look back at our pre-race predictions. But what if we don't sort the 176 participants by teams, but use a different criterion? Many people have tried sorting by orienteering, which is easy but considerably limited, and unfortunately the sport is still not diversified enough to allow us to put together 22 teams of nearly similar strengths.

What I am trying to do now is an approach that I have not encountered elsewhere. Each vintage is represented by a team of eight in this imaginary competition. The stipulation was to have someone who could be a contender in the overall, a great sprinter, mountain goats, flat gods, stage chasers, and sometimes a little extra was thrown into the pot. I tried to have a) a maximum of 2 riders from a team, and b) a maximum of 3 riders from a country in a team, helping to internationalise the race. The teams are born between 1984-2004 + there is an extra team with riders born 1983/ before. The list will be from old age to young age and of course each team will contain a few lines of justification.

TEAM -1983

Alejandro Valverde

Domenico Pozzovivo

Philippe Gilbert

Luis Leon Sanchez

Dani Navarro

Dries Devenyns

Maximilian Richeze

Cyril Lemoine

Last dance for the big mountaineers, both Valverde and Pozzo should be able to produce good results even at this age. Richeze as sprint leader could be interesting, the big question is who he will lead the sprint for, maybe Gilbert who is still in good form. This is more of a team specialised for mountains and could cause a few surprises.

TEAM 1984

Vincenzo Nibali

Heinrich Haussler

Mathieu Ladagnous

Francesco Gavazzi

Daryl Impey

Luis Angel Mate

Niki Terpstra

Mikel Nieve

The shark attacks... but how much, at what cost and with what help? Because let's face it, I haven't really managed to put together a meaningful support squad around him, with Mate and Nieve well past their prime. There's no problem with flat helpers though, there are plenty of them who can help and on a luckier day could even fight for the stage win, even by getting into a good breakaway.

TEAM 1985

Julien Simon

Mark Cavendish

Jakob Fuglsang

Greg van Avermaet

Michael Morkov

Sander Armee

Jonathan Hivert

Jose Herrada

Now the situation is getting interesting. Mark Cavendish has got one of the best lead out men in the world, Morkov, along with Julien Simon, who is performing in 2022 as if he would be in his prime at 36, and the still reliable van Avermaet. There's no way that something big doesn't come out of this for him. Fuglsang and Herrada could also be good options in the tougher stages, this is a very strong team with big goals.

TEAM 1986

Michael Woods

Bauke Mollema

Simon Clarke

Simon Geschke

Jan Bakelants

Geraint Thomas

Thomas de Gendt

Ben Hermans

Wowza. It's hard to decide if a captain is needed here or not, or if so who it would be, maybe based on past history I'd say Thomas. But he'll get such help here up to 2000m that's hard to beat, almost everyone can step in to help and create a great mountain train... the problem here is going to be with the flat parts, I don't necessarily know who, outside of Bakelants, can be a real help there for the leader.

TEAM 1987

Alexander Kristoff

Wout Poels

Nicolas Edet

Rigoberto Uran

Gianluca Brambilla

Ben Swift

Daniel Oss

Eduard Prades

The roles are relatively well-distributed in the '87 team. Poels/Uran are the front runners, both are doing great in one week events, 3 weeks is a bit much for both of them, but with Edet and Brambilla they could be good for top 10 in GC. As for the sprints, Kristoff is having a very good season, no question he is the top sprinter, Swift and Oss are leading up and Prades is the jolly joker man. Interesting line-up, they could go far.

TEAM 1988

Andrea Pasqualon

Alexis Vuillermoz

Baptiste Planckaert

Luka Mezgec

Tony Gallopin

Angel Madrazo

Boy van Poppel

Winner Anacona

It was very interesting to see how the '88 generation didn't produce any outstanding riders, this team was the hardest to put together. In the end, this lineup was born, stage hunting mode completely turned into maximum, but in their favour, need to say that they have some great sprinters fishing in the turbulence in Pasqualon and Mezgec, but I don't give them much chance of stage wins.

TEAM 1989

Primoz Roglic

Mikel Landa

Giacomo Nizzolo

Ion Izagirre

Matteo Trentin

David de la Cruz

Rudy Molard

Rafal Majka

There is a two-captain system, which will probably be changed after the first longish time trial. For Roglic, it's a perfect team with plenty of luxury helpers, Majka will be a superb support for him in the mountains, as will Ion and de la Cruz. In sprints, both Nizzolo and Trentin are guys who don't necessarily need a lead-out, so in that respect it's not necessarily a problem that there is no classic flat unit. It'll be weird to see the dynamic between Rogla and Landa but this could be the winning group of riders.