Making an attempt to determine who the highest sprinter goes into the 2021 season is a tough ask, with the hole between the quickest riders on the earth slim and the largest victories shared nearly utterly evenly between them.
Sat on the prime of the pyramid although is undoubtedly final 12 months’s Tour de France inexperienced jersey winner Sam Bennett, four-times Giro d’Italia stage winner Arnaud Demare and Caleb Ewan, the Australian who received two Tour de France phases final 12 months.
Ewan’s haul of two stage wins ultimately 12 months’s Tour, on phases 3 and 11, have been amongst seven race victories he took in 2020, and what was most spectacular concerning the wins in France was the style during which he took them – navigating himself out of impossible-looking eventualities within the finale.
Talking to Procycling journal’s editor Edward Pickering for our January 2021 subject of Procycling, Ewan defined why he nonetheless thinks he would possibly but have hit his peak.
“I’m probably the greatest sprinters on the earth,” he stated. “I’m solely 26. I believe I’m nonetheless coming into my prime. Some guys peak at 25 and others when they’re 30. I hope I haven’t acquired to my peak but. I imagine I’m up there with the perfect and on my day I really feel like I can beat anybody.”
One other rider who loved success at a grand tour final 12 months was Briton Alex Dowsett, the time trial specialist who received stage 8 of the Giro, solo, after being within the day’s breakaway, his first street race victory since his neo-pro 12 months in 2011. Sophie Hurcom spoke to him about new alternatives the win has introduced, combating for a brand new contract throughout a pandemic and why he’s daring to tackle the Hour Document once more.
“It’ll be one thing that might be fairly enjoyable to capitalise on subsequent 12 months, to scope out extra alternatives like that.” he stated. “I take plenty of inspiration from Steve Cummings from that facet of issues, he turned it [from] not a fortunate, plucky, win from a break, however he might constantly ship from breakaways with absolute, nearly inventive deliveries of excellent techniques.”
The 2020 season additionally marked the primary time that the lads’s peloton noticed a Danish rider carrying the rainbow jersey in Mads Pedersen, who adopted compatriot Amalie Dideriksen’s achievement from 2016 in successful the world street title. Pedersen’s success comes at a time when the variety of Danish skilled cyclists is at an all-time excessive.
Within the first of a brand new collection of options, Procycling examines the state of the nation in Denmark, as author Victor Boy Lindholm finds out why Danish cyclists have all of a sudden stepped onto the world stage.
For the primary time ever in 2020, all three grand excursions have been determined by lower than a minute within the normal classification. Edward Pickering seems again on the historical past of the Giro, Tour and Vuelta a España and tells the story of among the closest grand excursions in biking’s historical past.
Amongst these riders who stood on the rostrum of a grand tour final 12 months was Jai Hindley, the 25-year-old Australian whose breakout efficiency on the Giro noticed him win a stage and end second total in Milan. Adam Becket spoke to Hindley about his emergence as a grand tour contender: “It’s my dream to be a giant GC rider, so I’m positively going to try to make it my profession, to be up there.”
One other rider who had a stellar 2020 season was Lauren Stephens, the American former highschool trainer who has a extra uncommon pathway into the game than most. Procycling spoke to her about her journey to skilled biking and pushing on final 12 months.
Elsewhere within the journal, Cyclingnews’ ladies’s editor, Kirsten Frattini, finds out what biking is doing to make the game safer, after a 12 months that noticed a number of circumstances of abuse, sexism and discrimination introduced by ladies riders.
Procycling seems into the shortage of lengthy standing rivalries in biking and why they could have gone lacking; Slovenian Janez Brajkovič opens as much as Procycling about dwelling with bulimia and obsession over his weight. Whereas this month’s Retro function seems again on the profession of Steve Bauer and why he was a pioneer for Canada.
Plus, meet up with Dan Martin and skim the ideas of columnist Laurens Ten Dam.
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