5 Potential Breakout Stars to Watch at the 2018 Vuelta a España
The Vuelta a España, alongside the Giro d'Italia, is often used as a proving ground for talent and can be a breakthrough race for general classification hopefuls and sprinters alike: take for example Chris Froome (2011), John Degenkolb (2012), Michael Matthews (2013) and Tom Dumoulin (2015).
With quite a handful of top bracket GC riders and practically all of the sprinters focusing instead on the Autumn classics, Tour of Britain and the World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria, many young riders are getting a chance at Grand Tour level.
Here are five riders under-26 who've impressed in the smaller races throughout the season and could take a massive step forward at this Vuelta.
Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Sky)
After a tremendous showing at the Tour of California in May (fifth) and Criterium du Dauphiné in June (13th) there was mass clamour from the British public for Geoghegan Hart to be included in Team Sky's Tour de France squad.
Unfortunately the Brit's racing programme would never have had room for Le Tour but he was eyeing La Vuelta as soon as the Dauphiné finished: "I heard some talk about doing the Tour this year but for me, it was never going to happen, just because of the way my season had been planned.
"Up until July I'd had no real time off or extended periods of rest. My big race from that period was the Dauphiné and I was intent on making the most of that chance. That was my first time racing with any semblance of the Tour squad.
"As soon as that race finished I was thinking about the Vuelta. I can't wait to get stuck in."
After a months rest from racing following the British National Championships in late June/early July, Tao came back to action at the Vuelta a Burgos in the second week of August. The Londoner impressed again with another fifth on GC:
"It was hard because I wanted to do well and challenge for the win at Burgos, especially as it's one of the few European stage races I get to do in the year. I already had two and half weeks of training after nationals and I ended up overdoing it a bit after the Dauphiné, training too much, which is so easy to do when you're feeling good. I learned some good lessons from that but overall Burgos was good."
Geoghegan Hart heads to the 2018 Vuelta as part of what is the least GC focused squad the British outfit have sent to a Grand Tour in an incredibly long time; Michal Kwiatkowski, David de la Cruz, Pavel Sivakov, Salvatore Puccio, Dylan Van Baarle, Sergio Henao and Jonathan Castroviejo.
Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome and Wout Poels have all been confirmed for the Tour of Britain and Egan Bernal has been hospitalised after a horrific crash as San Sebastian, opening the door to De la Cruz, Kwiatkowski and Tao to ride with freedom - or at least as much that can be expected given it's Team Sky.
Prediction:
There's no reason Tao can't finish within the top 20 in the GC. It's worth remembering though this is his maiden Grand Tour so he's unknown over three weeks of racing. It all depends whether he's given team orders or a free role.
Geoghegan Hart has a good time trial in his repertoire - he came sixth in the Nationals and third in the Tour of California - so it's possible he could find himself in the top 10 from the opening day.
Michael Storer (Team Sunweb)
Yet another prodigious talent to come out of Australia and make a home at Sunweb, 21-year-old Storer has raced a lot this season (7,206km - 4,400km more than injury-blighted team leader, Wilco Kelderman) but when he's been given license to race for himself he's picked up very good GC finishes: fifth at both the Tour de Yorkshire in May and Tour of Slovenia in June.
BMC-CCC bound Simon Geschke (32-years-old) and Johannes Fröhlinger (33-years-old) aside, Sunweb are taking a very promising youthful team to Spain. The obvious target is GC with Wilco Kelderman but they'll also be looking at the sprints with powerhouse, Max Walscheid, who sprung onto the scene at the 2018 Tour de Yorkshire with a win in Scarborough.
Team Sunweb directeur sportif, Aike Visbeek said: "We’re excited to have three riders making their grand tour debut with Jai Hindley, Michael Storer and Martijn Tusveld. Heading to Spain will be great for their long-term development and we’re looking forward to seeing what they do with the opportunity."
Storer is yet to notch a win on his palmares, but has been registering top fives in one-days and stage race since he placed fourth at the 2016 Oceania Continental Championships as a 19-year-old.
Prediction:
Storer could finish anywhere on GC, which as a prediction is designed to be vague to cover everything from a pure service role to a magnificent Tom Dumoulin-esque maiden Grand Tour win, no matter how unlikely the latter is.
He should be a mountain domestique for Kelderman which means he can get a top 20, but if his Dutch counterpart falters - which wouldn't be surprising considering he's only just coming back from a shoulder injury at the Dutch Nationals - Storer should be given the chance to plow his own furrow: he's already shown he can hold is own against the likes of Primoz Roglic, Rigoberto Uran (Tour of Slovenia); Greg Van Avermaet and Serge Pauwels (Tour de Yorkshire).
Marc Sarreau (Groupama-FDJ)
Sarreau is an almost complete unknown quantity in the arena that is the WorldTour, but the 25-year-old has been a force on the Pro-Continental scene since last August.
The Groupama-FDJ sprinter has taken five victories this season at Etiole de Besseges, La Roue Tourangelle Region Centre Val de Loire, Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and 4 Jours de Dunkerque, rightfully earning himself a Vuelta spot in the absence of the team's only other recognised fast man, Arnaud Demaré, who is racing the Autumn classics.
His final tune-up race before La Vuelta was the Tour of Poland, where he registered a seventh and eighth place on stage two and three respectively.
The race was his first week-long WorldTour outing of the year and cemented his selection for Spain in the eyes of Groupama-FDJ directeur sportif, Thierry Bricaud:
"He took it to the next level this year, and the Vuelta will validate all the progress made. He now needs to show himself at WorldTour level. Raising your arms on a Grand Tour is never easy. But we will put everything in place so that he finds himself in the best conditions."
Prediction:
Thibaut Pinot will lead the team's GC aspirations - after a horrible end to the Giro where he contracted pneumonia and spent several days in hospital - and team directeur Bricaud has been clear they'll work for Sarreau to make his mark on the stages that end in a sprint.
Sarreau is one of several lower echelon sprinters - Ivan Garcia Cortina (Bahrain-Merida), Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb), Simone Consonni (UAE Team Emirates), Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and Tom Van Asbroeck (EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale) - that fill out the sparse field so his chances of a good result are not bad at all.
Sepp Kuss (LottoNL-Jumbo)
LottoNL-Jumbo seem to be churning out new talent with each cycle of racing; 21-year-old Pascal Eenkhoorn took stage 1a of the Coppi e Bartali back in March, 24-year-old Antwan Tolhoek was consistently prominent across the Tour of California and Criterium du Dauphiné before helping Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk to fifth and fourth overall in the Tour de France, and now 23-year-old Kuss has come from nowhere to take his first ever stage wins and overall victory at the Tour of Utah in early August. It was a win that came with as much surprise as his unusual name.
The Colorado native dominated three of the six road stages (he placed 25th in the 5km prologue time trial), winning the race by over two minutes to Ben Hermans (Israel Cycling Academy).
The story goes the Dutch riders in the squad were keen to take a pair of cowboy boots home - awarded to the winner of the race and his teammates - so Kuss took it upon himself to fulfill his comrades wishes.
How true the story is doesn't really matter, but it may by accident have accelerated the team's faith in him to perform at Grand Tour level.
Before Utah, Kuss was quite an unknown quantity within his own team and was the second lowest ranking points scorer in his team; lower even than compatriot Neilson Powless and Tolhoek.
Prediction:
LottoNL-Jumbo boast a very strong GC focused team for La Vuelta, with Steven Kruijswijk and George Bennett their main protagonists for the red jersey, so it's unlikely we'll see Kuss given much leeway to ride the way he wants. He could be deployed like Tolhoek was at Le Tour: sent into breakaways on days when the team wanted support later in the mountains.
Whether his goal is just to finish the race or aim to be part of a successful breakaway along the way, it'll be a baptism of fire as he makes his Grand Tour debut in a race two of his teammates are heavily favoured to do well in.
Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb)
Just one look at Walscheid and immediately you draw comparisons to Andre Greipel and Alexander Kristoff - well over six foot tall and probably wide enough to fit two Caleb Ewans.
To this point in the year the 25-year-old has been very impressive, both against modest opposition and the best in the world.
He won a stage of the Tour de Yorkshire in May into the coastal town of Scarborough (beating Magnus Cort Nielsen into second) and a week later battled Sagan, Ewan, Gaviria, Kristoff and Kittel in California: picking up eighth on stage one and second place on the final stage.
Walscheid showed at the Tour de Yorkshire he's a sprinter who can get over rough, undulating terrain - although he hasn't yet shown he can get over mountains - and in the pure sprints he's regularly placed better than several of his more experienced contemporaries; Binck Bank Tour stage one (beat Groenewegen), German Nationals (beat Greipel), Tour of California stage seven (beat Sagan, Ewan, Kittel and Kristoff).
Prediction:
This Is Walscheid's first chance to perform at a high level as the team's number one sprinter - more often than not this season he's been working for Michael Matthews or compatriot Phil Bauhaus.
Sunweb have openly said the sprints are their priority until Kelderman's form is clearer once the race develops.
Luckily for Walscheid most of the flat stages come early in the race, so he should get plenty of chances for a few good results.
While he's not going to claim the points jersey (unusually won by a climber in the Vuelta), it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he could surprise Viviani and Sagan with his raw power.
With quite a handful of top bracket GC riders and practically all of the sprinters focusing instead on the Autumn classics, Tour of Britain and the World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria, many young riders are getting a chance at Grand Tour level.
Here are five riders under-26 who've impressed in the smaller races throughout the season and could take a massive step forward at this Vuelta.
Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Sky)
 |
| Geoghegan Hart (right of centre) was an instrumental domestique as Geraint Thomas won the 2018 Criterium du Dauphine Photo credit: cyclingnews.com |
Unfortunately the Brit's racing programme would never have had room for Le Tour but he was eyeing La Vuelta as soon as the Dauphiné finished: "I heard some talk about doing the Tour this year but for me, it was never going to happen, just because of the way my season had been planned.
"Up until July I'd had no real time off or extended periods of rest. My big race from that period was the Dauphiné and I was intent on making the most of that chance. That was my first time racing with any semblance of the Tour squad.
"As soon as that race finished I was thinking about the Vuelta. I can't wait to get stuck in."
After a months rest from racing following the British National Championships in late June/early July, Tao came back to action at the Vuelta a Burgos in the second week of August. The Londoner impressed again with another fifth on GC:
"It was hard because I wanted to do well and challenge for the win at Burgos, especially as it's one of the few European stage races I get to do in the year. I already had two and half weeks of training after nationals and I ended up overdoing it a bit after the Dauphiné, training too much, which is so easy to do when you're feeling good. I learned some good lessons from that but overall Burgos was good."
Geoghegan Hart heads to the 2018 Vuelta as part of what is the least GC focused squad the British outfit have sent to a Grand Tour in an incredibly long time; Michal Kwiatkowski, David de la Cruz, Pavel Sivakov, Salvatore Puccio, Dylan Van Baarle, Sergio Henao and Jonathan Castroviejo.
Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome and Wout Poels have all been confirmed for the Tour of Britain and Egan Bernal has been hospitalised after a horrific crash as San Sebastian, opening the door to De la Cruz, Kwiatkowski and Tao to ride with freedom - or at least as much that can be expected given it's Team Sky.
Prediction:
There's no reason Tao can't finish within the top 20 in the GC. It's worth remembering though this is his maiden Grand Tour so he's unknown over three weeks of racing. It all depends whether he's given team orders or a free role.
Geoghegan Hart has a good time trial in his repertoire - he came sixth in the Nationals and third in the Tour of California - so it's possible he could find himself in the top 10 from the opening day.
Michael Storer (Team Sunweb)
 |
| Storer secured fifth overall at the 2018 Tour of Slovenia with 17th in the final stage time tial Photo credit: teamsunweb.com |
BMC-CCC bound Simon Geschke (32-years-old) and Johannes Fröhlinger (33-years-old) aside, Sunweb are taking a very promising youthful team to Spain. The obvious target is GC with Wilco Kelderman but they'll also be looking at the sprints with powerhouse, Max Walscheid, who sprung onto the scene at the 2018 Tour de Yorkshire with a win in Scarborough.
Team Sunweb directeur sportif, Aike Visbeek said: "We’re excited to have three riders making their grand tour debut with Jai Hindley, Michael Storer and Martijn Tusveld. Heading to Spain will be great for their long-term development and we’re looking forward to seeing what they do with the opportunity."
Storer is yet to notch a win on his palmares, but has been registering top fives in one-days and stage race since he placed fourth at the 2016 Oceania Continental Championships as a 19-year-old.
Prediction:
Storer could finish anywhere on GC, which as a prediction is designed to be vague to cover everything from a pure service role to a magnificent Tom Dumoulin-esque maiden Grand Tour win, no matter how unlikely the latter is.
He should be a mountain domestique for Kelderman which means he can get a top 20, but if his Dutch counterpart falters - which wouldn't be surprising considering he's only just coming back from a shoulder injury at the Dutch Nationals - Storer should be given the chance to plow his own furrow: he's already shown he can hold is own against the likes of Primoz Roglic, Rigoberto Uran (Tour of Slovenia); Greg Van Avermaet and Serge Pauwels (Tour de Yorkshire).
Marc Sarreau (Groupama-FDJ)
 |
| Sarreau claims his third victory of the season at La Roue Tourangelle Photo credit: letelegramme.fr |
The Groupama-FDJ sprinter has taken five victories this season at Etiole de Besseges, La Roue Tourangelle Region Centre Val de Loire, Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and 4 Jours de Dunkerque, rightfully earning himself a Vuelta spot in the absence of the team's only other recognised fast man, Arnaud Demaré, who is racing the Autumn classics.
His final tune-up race before La Vuelta was the Tour of Poland, where he registered a seventh and eighth place on stage two and three respectively.
The race was his first week-long WorldTour outing of the year and cemented his selection for Spain in the eyes of Groupama-FDJ directeur sportif, Thierry Bricaud:
"He took it to the next level this year, and the Vuelta will validate all the progress made. He now needs to show himself at WorldTour level. Raising your arms on a Grand Tour is never easy. But we will put everything in place so that he finds himself in the best conditions."
Prediction:
Thibaut Pinot will lead the team's GC aspirations - after a horrible end to the Giro where he contracted pneumonia and spent several days in hospital - and team directeur Bricaud has been clear they'll work for Sarreau to make his mark on the stages that end in a sprint.
Sarreau is one of several lower echelon sprinters - Ivan Garcia Cortina (Bahrain-Merida), Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb), Simone Consonni (UAE Team Emirates), Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and Tom Van Asbroeck (EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale) - that fill out the sparse field so his chances of a good result are not bad at all.
Sepp Kuss (LottoNL-Jumbo)
 |
| Kuss takes his first professional wins in Utah Photo credit: cyclingnews.com |
The Colorado native dominated three of the six road stages (he placed 25th in the 5km prologue time trial), winning the race by over two minutes to Ben Hermans (Israel Cycling Academy).
The story goes the Dutch riders in the squad were keen to take a pair of cowboy boots home - awarded to the winner of the race and his teammates - so Kuss took it upon himself to fulfill his comrades wishes.
How true the story is doesn't really matter, but it may by accident have accelerated the team's faith in him to perform at Grand Tour level.
Before Utah, Kuss was quite an unknown quantity within his own team and was the second lowest ranking points scorer in his team; lower even than compatriot Neilson Powless and Tolhoek.
Prediction:
LottoNL-Jumbo boast a very strong GC focused team for La Vuelta, with Steven Kruijswijk and George Bennett their main protagonists for the red jersey, so it's unlikely we'll see Kuss given much leeway to ride the way he wants. He could be deployed like Tolhoek was at Le Tour: sent into breakaways on days when the team wanted support later in the mountains.
Whether his goal is just to finish the race or aim to be part of a successful breakaway along the way, it'll be a baptism of fire as he makes his Grand Tour debut in a race two of his teammates are heavily favoured to do well in.
Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb)
 |
| Walscheid takes first place ahead of Cort Nielsen in Scarborough Photo credit: cyclingweekly.com |
To this point in the year the 25-year-old has been very impressive, both against modest opposition and the best in the world.
He won a stage of the Tour de Yorkshire in May into the coastal town of Scarborough (beating Magnus Cort Nielsen into second) and a week later battled Sagan, Ewan, Gaviria, Kristoff and Kittel in California: picking up eighth on stage one and second place on the final stage.
Walscheid showed at the Tour de Yorkshire he's a sprinter who can get over rough, undulating terrain - although he hasn't yet shown he can get over mountains - and in the pure sprints he's regularly placed better than several of his more experienced contemporaries; Binck Bank Tour stage one (beat Groenewegen), German Nationals (beat Greipel), Tour of California stage seven (beat Sagan, Ewan, Kittel and Kristoff).
Prediction:
This Is Walscheid's first chance to perform at a high level as the team's number one sprinter - more often than not this season he's been working for Michael Matthews or compatriot Phil Bauhaus.
Sunweb have openly said the sprints are their priority until Kelderman's form is clearer once the race develops.
Luckily for Walscheid most of the flat stages come early in the race, so he should get plenty of chances for a few good results.
While he's not going to claim the points jersey (unusually won by a climber in the Vuelta), it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he could surprise Viviani and Sagan with his raw power.
Comments
Post a Comment