Pro cycling winners and losers in April

Cyclist
Pro cycling winners and losers in April

April brought with it hotter temperatures, stories for the history books and the culmination of the spring Classics. There was plenty to digest, including some giant-killings, some domination, some hope and – unfortunately – some idiocy.

Here’s our breakdown of our winners and losers from the past month of pro racing.

Winners

Neilson Powless

Reminiscent of Team Sky’s Ian Stannard at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2015, Neilson Powless found himself vying for Dwars door Vlaanderen victory against three Visma-Lease a Bike titans in Wout van Aert, Matteo Jorgenson and Tiesj Benoot. The odds were certainly not in his favour, especially with Van Aert ready for a sprint, but there was a slither of hope that he could do the unthinkable.

Approaching the finish, Visma decided to put their eggs in Van Aert’s basket, looking to limit Powless to a second place finish at best. It was the wrong decision, as Powless overpowered the Belgian in the sprint. All the three behind could do was hang their heads.

Puck Pieterse

Puck Pieterse has been knocking on the door of a Classics victory since she started testing her skills on the road a couple of years ago. This year the 22-year-old impressed early on with fourth place at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, where she was the only one capable of following Demi Vollering on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, and continued to place highly throughout March and April, including taking another fourth place, this time at the Tour of Flanders. It was surely only a matter of time before her maiden Classics win came.

Taking her form into Ardennes Week at the end of April, Pieterse first made the podium at Amstel Gold Race and then, after putting her podium pint away in record time, went full speed ahead into La Flèche Wallonne. It was here, on the brutal Mur de Huy where Pieterse made her mark. She followed Vollering on the early slopes, bided her time and made her move, exploding to an emphatic victory. She then finished off her excellent Ardennes campaign that weekend with second place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Based on her current trajectory, she’ll go into next spring as a main favourite for most races she enters.

The underdogs

Powless wasn’t the only underdog to win big. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises came at the Amstel Gold Race, when both races saw an unlikely victor grabbing the biggest wins of their careers.

In the women’s race, SD Worx-Protime’s Mischa Bredewold broke away from the front group – which itself was far up the road from the main favourites – on the last climb of the Cauberg yet couldn’t quite get fully clear, her gap never growing beyond a handful of seconds. It looked like she could be caught at any moment. But she held on.

Meanwhile, after the increasing rarity of a failed attack in the men’s race, Tadej Pogačar found himself in a three-man sprint against Remco Evenepoel and Mattias Skjelmose. Olympic champion on the left, World Champion in the middle… yet it was Skjelmose on the right who came out on top. The young Dane dedicated the win to his late grandfather.

Tadej Pogačar

In truth, that Amstel Gold loss barely left a mark on Pogačar’s palmarès given his own performances this month. At the Tour of Flanders, he dropped his rivals on the Oude Kwaremont to solo to victory, then had a near-perfect run on his Paris-Roubaix debut, with only a small mistake costing him the chance of victory. All things considered, a convincing second on his first attempt at Roubaix is something he’ll be proud of.

Following his Amstel hiccup he regrouped to claim his second La Flèche Wallonne by the race’s biggest winning margin for a couple of decades while barely breaking a sweat, and then similarly breezed to his third Liège-Bastogne-Liège after gliding away on the Côte de La Redoute.

That Tour de France defence is looking good…

Comebacks

Evenepoel’s first race back for Soudal-QuickStep this year was Brabantse Pijl. He had spent months on the sidelines after a crash with a postal van resulted in multiple fractured bones. After dropping Joe Blackmore with 16km to go, he would end up locked in a battle with Van Aert for victory. In the end, Van Aert had nothing left to give, allowing Evenepoel to sprint for the win. Despite a second crushing sprint defeat of the Classics season for Van Aert, the pair embraced after the line in a great show of respect.

This season also marks Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s return to the road after a few years away dominating off-road racing. After building up a few solid top five finishes, she brushed off illness and a brief tumble on the cobbles at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, kicking away on one of the only uphill sections in the race to catch and drop Emma Norsgaard and enter the velodrome alone for glory.

Wildcard winners

Men’s Grand Tours have been given an extra wildcard team from this year. This worked out best for Tom Pidcock’s Q36.5, who were soon confirmed as the final entry for both the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España while Julian Alaphilippe’s Tudor team got the Tour de France call-up.

UK domestic racing

Rapha’s Super-League is a new rejuvenated and cohesive points competition for the UK’s domestic scene. Encompassing 16 existing road races and criteriums for the men and women including the Lincoln Grand Prix, Tour of the Reservoir and Curlew Cup & Beaumont Trophy, the schedule runs from May to August and points will be awarded to add up for an overall season total.

Rapha says the points system is ‘weighted according to the importance and style of the race. The more prestigious the race, the more points.’ And hopefully this is only the beginning.

Alex Aranburu

In the closing kilometres of Stage 3 of Itzulia Basque Country, Alex Aranburu broke away from a splintering lead group, took the faster route around the roundabout and claimed a comfortable win in his home race. However his route choice went against a waving course marshal meaning he actually left the course and took a shortcut. He was disqualified as a result and the victory instead given to second place Romain Grégoire.

However, Aranburu appealed, saying he’d actually followed the route outlined in the official roadbook, and so a few hours later, he was re-awarded the victory.

Other winners:

• Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ)
• Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)
• João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates XRG)
• Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck)
• Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling)
• Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal)
• Sam Watson (Ineos Grenadiers) 

Losers

Certain spectators

I’ll avoid dubbing them ‘fans’ as real fans wouldn’t do anything to endanger riders, but April was a bad month for spectator interference. After being spat at during the E3 Saxo Classic, Mathieu van der Poel again found himself on the receiving end of disgusting behaviour as a spectator threw a bottle in his face at Paris-Roubaix. He described it as like being hit ‘by a stone’. The fan turned themself in to Belgian police.

Meanwhile in the women’s race Cat Ferguson’s much anticipated debut for Movistar was hampered by someone stepping out onto the course, causing her to crash hard on sector 15. Despite an attempt to ride through the pain and continue, she was forced to abandon.

Then, at the women’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a man dressed in UAE team kit rode onto the course and alongside race leaders Pauliena Rooijakkers and Antonia Niedermaier. Thankfully Rooijakkers saw the funny side, joking that she thought it was Tadej Pogačar.

Visma-Lease a Bike

This was a Classics season to forget for Visma-Lease a Bike, who swapped their typically winning ways with a number of near misses and not a single victory. The closest they came was a pair of second places for Van Aert against Neilson Powless at Dwars door Vlaanderen and against Remco Evenepoel at Brabantse Pijl. He would also finish just off the podium at the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and the Amstel Gold Race, always just missing that extra level needed.

Thankfully, outside of the Classics Matthew Brennan continues to rack up wins for the team in his stellar debut season. Van Aert will be hoping to find form for the Giro.

Yellow cards

21 yellow cards were dished out in April, 14 down on March and all of them came on the men’s side of the peloton. Of that total, ten were given to riders – including Aranburu and Victor Campenaerts – for ‘obstruction’.

Movistar’s Davide Cimolai was the most recent recipient, receiving a yellow at the Tour de Romandie this week for using a path not on the race route.

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