Lifting the Curtain on the 2014 WorldTour

The long offseason break is finally coming to an end. The WorldTour peloton is getting clipped back in at the 2014 Santos Tour Down Under this Tuesday in Nuriootpa (and a sizeable group is also gearing up for the Tour de San Luis in Argentina instead). While the cyclocross season draws to its conclusion in the frigid Northern Hemisphere, the WorldTour kicks off under the hot Australian sun. Since we last watched the biggest names in the sport hunting for success on the road, the cycling world has seen a few changes, as it does every year. Some big names have moved to new teams. A few new faces will make appearances at the highest level, where others have hung up the proverbial cleats. Vacansoleil and Euskaltel will be conspicuously absent from the roads Down Under, their long tenures in the pro ranks now complete. Meanwhile, Europcar has been elevated to the top level, guaranteeing that we’ll be seeing a lot more of the French squad. After so many dull days waiting for the next event, the ever popular Tour Down Under will finally offer the year’s first in-competition look at the 2014 WorldTour peloton.

The six-stage race has gotten hillier and hillier over the past few years; there was a time when star sprinter Andre Greipel could win the General Classification (he did, twice), but that time is probably past. While there are no real mountains along the road to the finish line in Adelaide, there are several steep climbs that will force selection before the week is done.

All-rounder Roundup

With almost two months until the next race on the WorldTour calendar, the Tour Down Under is always a race full of uncertainty–it’s hard to tell who is on form this early in the season. Only a handful of competitions have been held thus far in the year, leaving little data worth utilizing for prediction. Fortunately, a number of the race’s biggest stars just engaged in a clash of Aussie Titans at the Australian National Championship title last week. The collection of high profile names didn’t disappoint: unsurprisingly, at the end of the day it was Simon Gerrans, Cadel Evans, and Richie Porte vying for the finish line. Gerrans, whose burst has nabbed him so many wins over his career, was easily the fastest man to the line, leaving elder statesman Cadel Evans to settle for runner-up and Porte in third. Fresh off their perfomances in Nationals, the trio of Aussie riders are all numbered among the favorites for this week’s Tour Down Under, with new champion Gerrans at the head of the line.

Even had he not just shown his current condition, Gerrans would have the make up to be considered a major contender in this race. Not only has he won it twice already, in 2006 and 2012, but the race suits him more and more these days as short, steep climbs are injected to add excitement to the contest. The former Milan-San Remo winner has explosiveness in spades, and we’re sure to see it on Corkscrew Hill in stage 3 and Old Willunga Hill in stage 5. Having demonstrated his form, Gerrans is the man to beat in his home tour, and it doesn’t hurt that he’ll have some of Oz’s finest pros backing him. He can rely on the likes of Daryl Impey and Simon Clarke as stellar support (or second choices if need be) when the going gets tough.

Cadel Evans, for one, won’t be going down without a fight. He still feels he has a lot left in the tank and he’ll want to use this opportunity to prove it. He may not have the punch of Gerrans, but he’s no slouch for quick speed, he’s clearly in form, and he’ll have a nice supporting cast with last year’s 5th place finisher in this event, Ben Hermans, at his side. Richie Porte, meanwhile, heads into 2014 with the loftiest ambitions of his career, setting his sights on a Grand Tour victory and hoping to claim a spot among the sport’s top stage racers. Grand Tour season is a long way off, but Porte looked good at Nationals. He doesn’t have the explosiveness or finishing move of his aforementioned compatriots, but he’s a determined contender, and he’s also quite a bit younger. Sky also has Geraint Thomas, 3rd in last year’s edition, as a second card to play, though the bumps in the road may not quite suit his skillset; still he’s a multi-talented, aggressive rider who has shown a knack for success here,and his fast finish could be vital in a race for bonus seconds. Bernie Eisel and Ian Stannard are along for support as well.

Rohan Dennis might have been another high finisher in last weeks Australian Nationals, but he caught a bit of misfortune in the run-up to the race, crashing while time trialing. The incident did not leave him seriously injured, but it did cause him a fair bit of pain from which he is still recovering. The young all-rounder from Garmin-Sharp pulled out of the champs race but has had more time to recover since then, and he showed a very versatile array of skills in 2013. Depending on how well he has healed up, Dennis could pose a major challenge to his more established countrymen in the GC competition–he was 5th in the 2012 edition when he was just 21 years old, and he’s shown serious improvement on all levels of his game since then.

However, a second round of Australian Nationals this race is not; it’s a WorldTour competition, and it draws serious world-class, international talent. There will be plenty of challengers, familiar and not-so-familiar, hungry to pick up the first big race of the year far from home. Last year’s winner Tom-Jelte Slagter will be absent from the startline, so a repeat victory is not in the cards for him. His former team Belkin sends one of its top talents to pick up the slack in Robert Gesink. An up-and-down 2013 ended on a rather high note when Gesink redeemed his lackluster Giro d’Italia with a surprise win in Quebec, a top 10 in Lombardy and another top 10 in the Tour of Beijing. He showed a greatly improved finishing kick in his late season success, and with Jack Bobridge (the 5th place finisher in last week’s Nationals) and two other Aussies as well as workhorse Stef Clement for backup, Gesink could be a force to be reckoned with.

Few teams are coming to this race as stacked as Movistar, which is probably a sentence that can apply to most of their races these days. The Tour Down Under squad, however, does not include the team’s two biggest names, Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde. Instead, the group is composed of a bevy of versatile riders hungry for a chance at glory while their more well-known teammates are elsewhere. For the rest of the year, Javier Moreno will likely ride in support of said teammates, but January in Australia is the time and place for Javier Moreno to make his mark on the WorldTour. He was runner-up and King of the Mountains in the 2013 edition and 8th the year before that, and he’ll have a powerful team backing him. I’m not sure I see him standing atop the podium, but another top 10 finish seems attainable. JJ Rojas may focus more on nabbing single stages, but it’s possible that he might aim for GC as well. Giovanni Visconti could have been another strong option in this race, but he unfortunately suffered a broken leg this weekend and will be sidelined for weeks while he recovers.

I see Jan Bakelants, riding at the head of new team Omega Pharma-Quick Step, as one of the most dangerous challengers in this race. 6th here in 2012, Bakelants really came into his own in 2013, with a stage win in the Tour de France, top 10s in the Eneco Tour and the Tour of Beijing, and a one day victory at the Grand Prix de Wallonie. In all of these events, he earned his success with strong climbing ability and a fast finish, which, as has already been mentioned, will be necessary to challenge for GC here. Also boasting top-shelf climbing punch and a fast finish, and also coming off a career year, Lampre’s Diego Ulissi is the other non-Aussie I consider among the most likely contenders in this race. Ulissi does have a habit of disappearing in big races (late last year he was a non-factor through most of the Vuelta, in the World Championship Road Race, and in Il Lombardia, while claiming a string of fantastic victories in one-day Italian races during the very same time period), but he’s shown elite talent. Having proven himself as a force to be reckoned with last year, he’ll be the guy for Lampre in this and many other races this year, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the spotlight.

Astana is another team full of talented riders who will have a rare chance to be more than domestiques. Enrico Gasparotto, Andriy Grivko, Francesco Gavazzi, and Lieuwe Westra are all capable contenders. Gasparotto in particular has quietly established himself as a rider to watch on the punchy climbs, and Grivko finished last year with high placings in the World Championship Race and the Eneco Tour thanks to a similar skillset. Only Orica-GreenEdge can rival Astana in terms of the number of viable GC contenders at the Tour Down Under.

To name a few others: Saxo-Tinkoff’s Rory Sutherland, Lotto Belisol’s Jurgen Roelandts, Giant-Shimano’s Simon Geschke, AG2R’s Maxime Bouet, Cannondale’s up-and-comer from New Zealand George Bennett, FDJ’s Jussi Veikkanen and Kenny Elissonde, and, of course, Trek’s Frank Schleck, back to racing after his doping suspension–there’s no telling what sort of form he’s on, but the podium finisher in the 2011 Tour de France is obviously a strong candidate for GC if he has his legs. That’s the story behind most of these predictions really; fortunately, the wait to find out what state our contenders are in is almost over.

Stagehunters

The opportunities for sprinters may be lessened in recent editions of this race, but that hasn’t stopped two of the world’s big three pure sprinters from making the trip. Andre Greipel has had a great deal of success in his many trips Down Under, and his always-effective leadout train is with him, but they’ll have their hands full against Marcel Kittel and his own supporting cast. Stages 4 and 6, with flat run-ins to the finish, are the most likely to see their battle royale.

Other fast men hoping to pick up stage wins include Elia Viviani of Cannondale, the JJs Rojas and Lobato of Movistar, the Van Poppel brothers on their new team, Trek Factory Racing, Michael Matthews and Matthew Goss of Orica-GreenEdge, Andrew Fenn and Mark Renshaw of OPQS, Garmin-Sharp’s Steele von Hoff, Lampre’s Roberto Ferrari, and Caleb Ewan of UniSA-Australia, to name a few. Given the importance of explosiveness in the Tour Down Under GC battle, many of those mentioned as ochre jersey hopefuls could just as easily vie for stage victories.

Uncertainty is the name of the game in the Santos Tour Down Under, guaranteeing surprises every year (Tom-Jelte Slagter was certainly a surprise winner in 2013). As the curtain opens on the 2014 season, we can expect the unexpected in Australia–while the many big names in attendance are sure to deliver fireworks, this race tends to bring new names to the fore as well, and what better way to start a new year than with new faces looking to make their mark at the sport’s highest level.

VeloHuman Predictions

General Classification Winner

Simon Gerrans

GC Podium

Richie Porte, Jan Bakelants

GC Top 10



Diego Ulissi, Cadel Evans, Javier Moreno, Robert Gesink, Enrico Gasparotto, Rohan Dennis, Geraint Thomas

-Dane Cash

Photos by Daniel Lang and Anthony Cramp.