2015 World Tour Rider Age and Nationality

There are 474 riders from 41 nations registered with the 17 UCI World Tour teams for 2015.

The average age of a rider is 28 years and 3 months. The oldest rider is the 40 year-old Matteo Tosatto (Tinkoff-Saxo) who is pictured above and just seven years younger than his boss Oleg Tinkov. Lampre-Merida’s Colombian neo-pro Eduardo Estrada is the youngest pro, aged 19.

Here’s a look at the 2015 World Tour peloton in numbers. There’s a look at rider age, the “oldest team” and also analysis of how many pros come from each country and more.

Let’s start with the total number of riders. 474 is down from 502 at this team last year, largely because of the Europcar team’s ejection from the World Tour. The French team still don’t have a Pro Continental licence either but hopefully this is fixed with the resumption of business after the Christmas holidays. But pro teams have got a tiny bit smaller, the mean average has fallen from above 28 to just below, and this in spite of Europcar leaving the selection as they had a relatively small squad.

Now onto age. As mentioned the mean average rider age for 2015 at the start of the season is 28.25 but there’s a wide difference.

Cannondale was the second youngest team last year and their youth has merged into the Cannondale-Garmin team who’s average drops further thanks to retirement of David Millar and the departure of riders like Fabian Wegman and Johan Vansummeren. Tinkoff-Saxo retain the title of pro cycling’s gerontocracy but have just one of the peloton’s top-10 old croans in Matteo Tossato although the oldest pro on the road. Trek Factory Racing are relatively rejuvenated by the departure of Jens Voigt and Danilo Hondo. Here are the oldest riders in the 2015 peloton:

Rider Team Date of Birth Age Today Matteo Tosatto

Tinkoff-Saxo

14/05/1974 40 Pablo Lastras

Movistar 20/01/1976 38 Greg Henderson

Lotto-Soudal

10/09/1976 38 Luca Paolini

Katusha 17/01/1977 37 Cadel Evans

BMC Racing

14/02/1977 37 Xabier Zandio Team Sky

17/03/1977 37 Haimar Zubeldia

Trek Factory Racing

1/04/1977 37 Angel Vicioso

Katusha

13/04/1977 37 Svein Tuft

Orica-Greenedge

9/05/1977 37 Jean-Christophe Péraud

Ag2r La Mondiale

22/05/1977 37

“If a 39 year old can win the Vuelta…“

In recent years the likes of Jens Voigt and Chris Horner seemed to give hope to masters-category riders around the world. Now there are fewer celebrated names among the top-10 elder statesmen especially as Cadel Evans is going to quit in the coming weeks. Tosatto and Lastras are two riders worth cheering for and Lastras is a cult rider for some, enduring and known for his generosity. But note the presence of Tuft, pink jersey wearer in the Giro and of course Péraud although at 37 he’s spritely compared to the now retired Voigt.

Last year a cluster of older riders affected the age distribution, the presence of Voigt, Horner and others meant the mean average was higher by six months than the median. For 2015 this gap is much closer. Here are the top-10 youngest riders in the World Tour:

Rider Team Date of Birth Age Today Eduardo Estrada

Lampre-Merida 25/1/1995 19 Matej Mohorič

Garmin-Cannondale 19/10/1994 20 Lorrenzo Manzin

FDJ

24/7/1994 20 Caleb Ewan

Orica-Greenedge 11/7/1994 20 Frederik Ludvigsson

Giant-Alpecin 28/04/1994 20 Quentin Jauregui Ag2r La Mondiale

22/04/1994 20 Tiesj Benoot

Lotto-Soudal 11/03/1994 20 Miguel Lopez

Astana

04/02/1994 20 Sondre Enger Holst

IAM Cycling

17/12/1993 21 Rick Zabel

BMC Racing 07/12/1993 21

Matej Mohorič was the youngest last year and now is still the second youngest pro, pipped by Eduardo Estrada who is just short of his 20th birthday and the only rider born in 1995 in the peloton.

Rider nationality

Now let’s look at where the riders come from. Here’s the breakdown by nationality for the 474 riders;

Outside of the top-25 we have Belarus with three, Ukraine, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estona, Croatia and China with two while there’s one rider from Taiwan, South Africa, Japan, Finland, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Brazil and Argentina.

Despite the ejection of Europcar from the World Tour France remains the top nation for pros in the World Tour, just ahead of Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. Domination for cycling’s traditional nations? Yes but look at the 28 riders from Australia. However if you think the Aussies are closing the gap, think twice as two years ago there were 35 Aussie pros in the World Tour.