Cyclist
Pro Log: Evenepoel and Faulkner make history, Van Aert to the Vuelta, and 2024/25 transfers
Welcome back to another edition of Pro Log. There has been plenty of Olympic action so far, with the road race events culminating in victories for Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) and Kristen Faulkner (United States), and the track cycling still to come.
Elsewhere, Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) won the Czech Tour ahead of teammate Diego Ulissi, and the Arctic Race of Norway is ongoing, with Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) leading the race after his opening day sprint victory. The Vuelta a Burgos also began today. Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich PostNL) won Stage 1 ahead of Giacomo Nizzolo (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team).
Double gold for Remco Evenepoel
It has been a remarkable few weeks for Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel. After a stage win, white jersey and podium finish at the Tour de France, he steered a course to the capital for immediate action in the Olympics time-trial, which he won on the wet Parisian streets.
This past weekend he added road race gold to his glittering palmarès. After bridging to the front group in the final 40km, Evenepoel began to drop his rivals, with only Frenchman Valentin Madouas able to hold his wheel in the last 15km. It was on the penultimate climb that Evenepoel managed to shrug him off and went solo.
The 24-year-old avoided a late scare in the closing kilometres – a puncture necessitating a bike change left him screaming for the team car – and he was understandably stressed, asking the camera motorbike for the timings with no race radios to relay the information. He soon got the news that the second rider on the road, Madouas, was a full minute behind, giving him enough time for it sink in.
In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, Evenepoel climbed off his bike at the finish line and mimed slamming the phone down to celebrate. With this win he became the first male rider in history to win a gold medal in both the time-trial and road race in the same year.
Kristen Faulkner flies to road race victory
The eagle has landed. The United States’ Kristen Faulkner soloed to a sensational victory in the women’s road race at the Olympics. 31-year-old Faulkner, who only started cycling in 2017, distanced big hitters Marianne Vos (Netherlands), Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Blanka Vas (Hungary) in the last 3km of the 158km race. Vos went on to win silver with Kopecky taking home bronze in a close sprint for the remaining medals.
Faulkner is the first American woman to win the event since Connie Carpenter-Phinney, who rode to victory 40 years ago when the race made its Olympic debut. What’s more remarkable is that Faulkner wasn’t even meant to be on start line. A spot opened up when fellow American Taylor Knibb, who came 19th in the time-trial, withdrew from the road race to focus on the triathlon.
Wout van Aert for Vuelta debut
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) will make his Vuelta a España debut this year, he revealed on the Paris By Night Olympics TV programme. The Belgian was forced to miss the first Grand Tour of the year in the Giro d’Italia after his season-derailing crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen. He was able to recover in time for the Tour de France, where he helped team leader Jonas Vingegaard to second place overall.
The Vuelta a España begins in Lisbon, Portugal, on 17th August 2024 and will finish in Madrid. Van Aert’s teammate Sepp Kuss looks set to try to defend his title.
Transfer window opens
It’s gone 1st August and that means cycling’s transfer window has officially opened. There’s been a flurry of moves already, with Ben O’Connor joining Jayco-AlUla from Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale. This is to fill the spot left vacant by Simon Yates, who is moving to Visma-Lease a Bike. With one twin at the killer bees and the other on Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates squad, that will be one interesting Tour de France in 2025 for the Yates family.
At Ineos Grenadiers, Jhonatan Narváez is off to UAE Team Emirates and Bob Jungels is in from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, while Ethan Hayter is rumoured to be off to Soudal-QuickStep and performance engineer and Olympian Dan Bigham is leaving the setup too. Also on the move is 20-year-old Giulio Pellizzari, who will join Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe after a stellar season for VF Group-Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè.
For more on cycling transfers, read our story on all the big moves and rumours.
See you next week.
The post Pro Log: Evenepoel and Faulkner make history, Van Aert to the Vuelta, and 2024/25 transfers appeared first on Cyclist.