Cyclist
5 key storylines for the 2024 men’s pro cycling season
Slates are clean, riders are rested, teams are refreshed and preparations are well underway for the 2024 road racing season. With new team line-ups, new ambitions and another set of races to be won, it’s time to look ahead at what’s in store in the WorldTour this year.
We’ve selected what we think are the five biggest storylines set to dominate men’s road cycling over the next 12 months amid team roster shake-ups, retirements, non-retirements and plans announced.
1. Grand Tour contenders
Jumbo-Visma had a stranglehold over the Grand Tours in 2023, winning all three through different riders and claiming all spots on the podium at the Vuelta a España in September.
But personnel and sponsorship changes may shake up their dominance next year as the team becomes the altogether less catchy Visma-Lease a Bike.
Longtime sponsor Jumbo is backing out of title sponsorship after nine years and the proposed merger with Soudal-QuickStep fell through, but more significantly, serial Grand Tour winner Primož Roglič departed the team after eight seasons, moving to Bora-Hansgrohe.
Roglič had to put his own ambitions on hold to support Sepp Kuss’s bid to win the maillot rojo at the Vuelta, so his move to a different team should create the possibility of another team winning one of the sport’s biggest prizes in 2024 and maybe even allow Kuss to hunt for more personal glory.
At 33 years old and his biggest rivals 26, 25 and 23, Roglič is up against Father Time in his search for that elusive Tour de France win, so Bora will be throwing all their resources behind him while he’s still at his peak.
With Remco Evenepoel confirming he’ll be skipping the Giro d’Italia to ride his first Tour de France in 2024, it looks like we’ll have a four-way battle for yellow.
That might be complicated by Tadej Pogačar’s decision to ride both the Giro and Tour in the hopes of becoming the first man in 26 years (since Marco Pantani in 1998) to win the elusive double. João Almeida, Adam Yates and Juan Ayuso will all ride in his support team at the Tour, but depending on the Slovenian’s legs by that point, could also compete for their own chances.
And that’s before factoring in 2023 challengers Carlos Rodríguez and Simon Yates.
With all of that talent setting their sights on the Tour, it opens up the Giro and the Vuelta for other contenders including Geraint Thomas, targeting the maglia rosa again after narrowly being denied it by Roglič last year, and Movistar’s Enric Mas and Nairo Quintana, granted a leadership role by his old team after eighteen months out from the pro peloton.
Visma-Lease a Bike have confirmed Vingegaard and Kuss will once again head to the Vuelta post-Tour to defend Kuss’s crown, and Wout van Aert’s superhuman abilities will finally be rewarded with GC freedom at the Giro alongside new teammate Cian Uijtdebroeks. Speaking of Uijtdebroeks…
2. Team drama
With the wealth of talent across the men’s GC contenders, we might also see more inter-team drama than we did this year (although that Vuelta may be hard to top).
Netflix documentary Tour de France: Unchained revealed potential friction on the Jumbo-Visma bus at the 2022 Tour when Van Aert was told off for putting his own stage ambitions above his team leader’s.
Racing across 2023 saw more of the same, with the Dutch superteam in particular witnessing occasional moments of egos or goals clashing. Kuss’s breakthrough as a real Grand Tour contender and Van Aert’s lack of individual success could mean that more unrest is due on the Visma-Lease a Bike team bus – although Roglič’s departure and the rest of the key players looking likely to get their own opportunities should soothe those ruffled feathers.
And that’s without factoring in the Uijtdebroeks drama. The young supertalent made waves with rumours of a reported move from Bora-Hansgrohe to Visma-Lease a Bike in December, despite still being officially on the German team’s books for 2024. The issue rumbled on for a while – he trained in neutral kit at Visma’s pre-season training camp and appeared officially at their team presentation while Bora were still insisting he was their man.
Thankfully, the confusion was eventually cleared up with confirmation from both teams and the UCI that he now rides for Visma-Lease a Bike. Let’s hope this saga, including allegations of bullying at Bora-Hansgrohe, which have been denied, doesn’t cloud his season.
Roglič’s move in the opposite direction to Bora-Hansgrohe might also complicate things. Will Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley and perennial top tenner Aleksandr Vlasov be forced to turn to domestiques?
Vlasov was visibly frustrated with 20-year-old Uijtdebroeks’s emergence at the Vuelta, attacking on the final hilly stage just to leapfrog his teammate to seventh overall, so drama on the bike for a second year running seems a distinct possibility.
Elsewhere, Movistar’s return to a multi-leader strategy is almost certain to cause a stir, DSM-Firmenich are due to fall out with a few riders (U23 Time-Trial World Champion Lorenzo Milesi just left the team mid-contract), and Ineos may have one too many stars expecting a Tour de France tilt…
3. Ineos issues
What are Ineos Grenadiers going to do? They’ve won 12 Grand Tours but despite their colossal budget – reportedly the biggest of all the WorldTour teams – they’re winless on the big stage since the 2021 Giro and the dominance of the Team Sky days feels a long time ago. They may have tasted Classics success, but this team and that budget demands more.
With Spanish up-and-comer (if you can still call him that) Carlos Rodríguez re-signing until 2027, they’ll be hoping that might change.
After he claimed a Tour stage this year ahead of both Pogačar and Vingegaard, riding clear on the descent into Morzine on Stage 14, the British outfit will be eager to see what more he can do with another season under his belt.
At the other end of his career is old-timer Geraint Thomas, who came so close to another Grand Tour at this year’s Giro before Roglič’s superior time-trial snatched the title right at the very end.
It’s not just those two either, Tom Pidcock will be going all-in on the Tour de France GC this season after a strong first week in 2023, so it’s almost certain the team will head to the start in Italy with a multi-leader strategy.
Beyond its GC contenders, the team in its current form appears at a crossroads. Transfer business seems like it has taken a backseat, with last minute contract renewals and signing teenagers pretty much their only moves. While the potential Jumbo and QuickStep merger had them primed to finally get their hands on Remco Evenepoel, when that failed to materialise there weren’t many out of contract riders left to sweep up.
The big signing, following rom-com-style will-they-won’t-they rumours, is former Time-Trial World Champion Tobias Foss from Jumbo-Visma, who joins the squad with fabulously named Dane Theodor Storm and American Andrew August – who will both turn pro with Ineos – as well as ex-Movistar domestique Óscar Rodríguez. As well as Thomas, veteran British duo Luke Rowe and Ben Swift and Belgian Laurens de Plus are among those agreeing extensions.
Meanwhile they lost one of their only riders capable of Grand Tour success in Tao Geoghegan Hart, who has gone to Lidl-Trek, as well as three key mountain domestiques in Dani Martínez, Pavel Sivakov and Luke Plapp to Bora-Hansgrohe, UAE Team Emirates and Jayco-AlUla respectively, and young British talent Ben Tulett to Visma-Lease a Bike.
Whether the team can challenge for podiums without a significant refresh of its squad remains to be seen, they’ll be hoping one of their young stars can produce a Tadej Pogačar-style breakthrough.
Beyond the racing itself (which also includes several senior staffing changes) owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s confirmed deal with Manchester United might also have knock-on effects on the team. Britain’s second richest man has already spent £1bn on a 25% stake in the club and control of football operations, along with a promised £237m in further investment. It’s likely that funding and oversight – including the attention and expertise of longtime boss Sir Dave Brailsford – will be diverted away from cycling to this shiny new project.
4. The fast men
Away from the big GC names, sprinting GOAT Mark Cavendish returns for Astana having postponed retirement for one more crack at a record 35th Tour de France stage win.
It would be a sporting fairytale for the ages if he claims it, but will Jasper Phillipsen, who claimed four stages in the 2023 edition, get in the way? And who else is likely to challenge among the sprinters?
Jumbo-Visma’s Olav Kooij impressed at the Tour of Britain, also having the rather unfair advantage of Van Aert as his lead-out man. His haul, plus Van Aert’s Giro focus, will push him up the team’s pecking order in terms of sprinters, though the continued focus on winning yellow means there still won’t be much sprint support.
Five-time Tour stage winner Caleb Ewan might also be dangerous, especially as he’s back at old team Jayco-AlUla in a bid to inspire a return to form. Lidl-Trek have also bolstered their squad, with 2023 Giro points jersey winner Jonathan Milan joining Mads Pedersen in the team’s quest for sprint success.
And after a difficult 2023, Intermarché’s Biniam Girmay will be back looking for Tour de France stage glory.
It doesn’t help that sprint opportunities in Grand Tours are dwindling either, and with no Champs-Élysées in 2024, Cavendish will have to get the job done early.
5. New names
Some big names have hung up their cleats but other exciting prospects are rising up the ranks.
22-year-old Lidl-Trek rider Mattias Skjelmose broke through in 2023, finishing runner-up behind Tadej Pogačar at La Flèche Wallonne and winning the Tour de Suisse.
His success caps off a remarkable few years for Scandinavian cycling and sets him up as a potential successor to fellow Dane Vingegaard – although his presence at the top is unlikely to change anytime soon. There is a raft of Danish talent still emerging too, including Ineos’s new signing Storm and Junior World Champion Albert Withen Philipsen committing to Lidl-Trek from 2025.
British cycling in particular is in good shape, with the likes of Ineos’s time-trial phenomenon Josh Tarling looking increasingly impressive throughout his first pro season in 2023.
With Pogačar no longer eligible for best young rider having turned 25 (positively ancient), he’s kindly given everyone else a chance at the Tour’s white jersey. Looking to take his mantle is Remco Evenepoel, Carlos Rodríguez, Juan Ayuso and Tom Pidcock.
Looking even younger, 2024’s WorldTour debutant class has a plethora of talent including Brits Lukas Nerurkar, Jack Rootkin-Gray (both EF Education-EasyPost) and Finlay Pickering (Bahrain Victorious), Irish pair Darren Rafferty and Archie Ryan (both EF Education-EasyPost), Joseba Beloki’s son Markel (EF Education-EasyPost), former Junior World Champions Per Strand Hagenes and Emil Herzog (Visma-Lease a Bike and Bora-Hansgrohe), American sprinter and winner of the 2023 Rutland-Melton Luke Lamperti (Soudal-QuickStep), Norwegian phenomenon Johannes Staune-Mittet (Visma-Lease a Bike) and UAE Team Emirates’ latest hot shots António Morgado and Isaac del Toro.
But while the peloton is getting younger and younger, Thomas’s Giro exploits, Cavendish’s near miss and victories by Ion Izagirre (34), Michael Woods (37), and Wout Poels (36) at this year’s Tour proved there’s life in the old dogs yet.
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