I meant to write this before the Tour de France, but alas, I was occupied with other things. So now instead of it being a ‘mid season’ review, it’s going to be more of a ‘fighting over what’s left of the season’ review. So let’s look over some of the highlights of the season so far; discuss the most surprising and the most deserved results; which teams have impressed and which have faltered; and what are the expectations for the rest of the 2019 season.
Most Surprising Results
We’ll start with those results that came out of the blue, either from a ridiculous performance or the rest of the peloton were caught napping. These are in no particular order.
Alberto Bettiol – Ronde Van Vlaanderen
Bettiol had a pretty amazing Spring classics campaign by anyone’s standards in what’s been a break out season for the 25 year old, but I don’t think anyone foresaw his victory in the Tour of Flanders coming or the dominant fashion with which he achieved it. He was helped by some incredibly poor organisation in the chase group behind, with half of them wanting a sprint, but not doing any work, and the other half scared of pulling them to the line. Still, a cracking ride from the Italian.
Mathieu van der Poel – Amstel Gold Race
This is here not necessarily because he wasn’t expected to be up there fighting for the win, but because of the manner with which he won. On the final climb, Alaphilippe and Fuglsang were alone and looked certain to add another thrilling conclusion to what was the “bromance” of the Spring classics. They had a minutes lead on the group with van der Poel with around 5km to go, and looked in no danger from the chase of Trentin and Kwiatkowski. But van der Poel single-handedly obliterated the gap and brought the chasers back up to the front like a freight train, and no one could match the Dutchman’s sprint. It was a finale that will live long in the memory.
Richard Carapaz – Giro d’Italia
Not that Carapaz wasn’t touted as one of the potential favourites from the start, only that there was doubt around team leadership within Movistar and to finish head and shoulders above other climbers such as Simon Yates, Miguel Angel Lopez, and a grand tour legend in Vincenzo Nibali was an incredible achievement.
Damiano Cima – Stage 18 Giro d’Italia
I’m including this for a bit of a laugh. I love it when plucky breakaways, wearing their hearts on their sleeves, manage to outfox a marauding peloton and win the day. Watching the peloton gobble up Cima’s breakaway companions in the closing metres was a nail-biting experience, but Cima hung on by a bike length, much to the annoyance of Pascal Ackermann.
Most Deserved Results
These are the wins that riders clearly deserved. Either through the effort made to achieve them, or from race after race of heartbreak only to finally cross that finish line with arms aloft. Again, in no particular order.
Jakob Fuglsang – Liège-Bastogne-Liège
The theme of this year’s hilly Spring classics was of an epic dual between Jakob Fuglsang and Julian Alaphilippe. It began with the latter taking the spoils at Strade Bianche in March, Fuglsang was 2nd. Alaphilippe then added to his palmares with victory at Milano-Sanremo, Fuglsang wasn’t there this time. They resumed their rivalry at the Ardennes classics. Both went on the attack at the Amstel Gold Race only to be undone by a certain Dutchman, and a few days later, it was the same pair who fought for the win at La Flèche Wallone with Alaphilippe prevailing once more. So it was fitting that Fuglsang should pick up the win at La Doyenne with a brilliant attack over la Côte de la Roche-aux-faucons, finally distancing his Spring classics rival.
Hugh Carthy – Stage 9 Tour de Suisse
Mad solo breakaways over insane mountain stages are very rare these days and victories from them are even rarer. More obscure still if they go from the early slopes of the stages first climb only a few kilometers into the days racing. And that’s exactly what Hugh Carthy managed to pull off here on stage 9 of the Tour de Suisse. Three monstrous mountain passes stood in his way and he seemed to tackle them all with ease. It was incredibly mature racing from the then 24 year old who managed to stay out in front and win by just over a minute, despite a GC battle developing behind.
Julian Alaphilippe – Tour de France
It has been the Frenchman’s year so far and what a way to cap it off than 2 stage victories and 14 days in the yellow jersey. His valiant performance in the mountains won him many new fans. He’s one of a number of young cycling talents who are rewriting the rule book of what we as fans think possible. What can he accomplish in the years to come? I think the only thing that would surprise us is a full on switch to a cobble classics specialist.
He’s potentially going to finish up this season at the Deutschland Tour, possibly the Italian classics as well, but I think we can all agree that he’s done enough to call this a successful season.
Thomas de Gendt – Stage 8 Tour de France
Mr breakaway himself was at it again in the Tour de France and was rewarded with his 2nd career stage victory. Stage 8 was almost designed specifically to suit him, but he still had to contend with a couple of charging Frenchman trying to spoil his party. He held them off in fine style for a thoroughly well deserved stage win.
Teams Review and What’s Coming Up
For a well rounded look at how teams are faring, who might be a little disappointed and who is sitting pretty, I used the ProCyclingStats (PCS) season rankings and teams analysis to create a table of results. I’ll do this again at the end of the season to wrap things up, but here is what it looks like as of the morning of the 15th of August:
From this, we can see that Quick Step, Bora, and Jumbo-Visma have hoovered up nearly half of the world tour wins available this season. Ineos are up there thanks to consistent GC placings and the monumental performances of Egan Bernal. Richard Carapaz is flying the flag for Movistar, and this season has been something of a revelation for Caleb Ewan.
Further down the list the wins start drying up. Team Dimension data are in a similar position to last year although with one more win. It took a Ben King double at La Vuelta to save them last year. I doubt we’ll see the same heroics this year, but stranger things have happened. CCC and Katusha aren’t faring much better. Only 10 wins between them and only one a piece at the world tour level.
The season is not yet over however, and La Vuelta, Gree-Tour of Guangxi, plus 5 world tour one-day races remain on the table, as well as numerous non-world tour level races. Things do look a little bleak for those bottom 3 teams though, and with relegation potentially on the horizon, they’ll need all the points they can get.
As this is getting a little long I’ll wrap up now. I’ll pop up a short review of the Vuelta in the coming days, when more is known about the start list perhaps. I’ll also throw up a Velogames guide when George opens it up. So stay tuned for those, cheers.
The Pelotonian 