The third week was characterized by large breakaways and we tried to take as much advantage of it as we could. Jesús Herrada went into one on the first day of the week and although he couldn't keep up with his companions, it put him in position to finish higher on the mountain top finish than he otherwise could have. He jumped into 10th overall then and kept improving with strong performances in the final two mountain stages to finish seventh, a very satisfying result for him.

Luis Angel Maté and José Herrada had nice showings in the breakaway as well on stages 17 and 18. José looked like he had a shot when he got away with Michael Valgren towards the end of stage 18, but their companions brought them back on the final ascent.

But the real star for us in these past days has been Elia Viviani. He actually went into a breakaway as well on stage 19 and for a while, it looked like this would be the one break of the week that wouldn't make it. But with a lot of effort, the group stayed ahead in the final kilometers, and then it was an easy one for our Italian. And to top it off, he actually won a classic mass sprint on the final day of the race as well, bringing his (and our) win total up to three.

With all that, we leave Spain very happy. A Top 10 overall and three stage wins - we couldn't have asked for more.

The GC was a duel all the way between Urán and Mas, with the former taking the jersey back on stage 20. Close call, like we've seen in the Giro and the Tour this year. It's noteworthy that almost none of the big names that rode the Tour were able to perform to their standards here, like Dumoulin, Nibali or Bardet.

Very noteworthy as well: Team Ineos's results:
11. Sosa
22. Thomas
38. Carapaz
DNF Bernal
DNF Froome

If it wasn't for Carapaz's narrow Giro win, this would have been a desastrous GT year for the British équipe.

What a great week for us. Both stages 2 and 4 were complete dominations, with difficult hills towards the finish where we just paced too hard for anyone to follow. Our strong, well-organized sprint train really payed off. Another third place and good performances in both time trials were enough for Christophe Laporte to take the overall win. Consonni keeps impressing as well - very nice all around.

Having discussed the bulk of our transactions in previous posts, this is the juicy part: the riders that will be able to lead us in big races. Let's go in ascending order of both salary and expectations:

Age	26
Contract until	2023
Rider Type	Stage Racer

Pierre gives us a good option for stage races, especially those with a decent amount of time trialing. He's not elite in any aspect, but he's well rounded enough that he should be able to compete for good results. He also has room to develop at just 26 years, and he comes at a modest price, both of which made it easier for me to give him a three-year deal.

He may, however, also find himself in a domestique role in a couple of races, supporting some of the upcoming riders.

Age	31
Contract until	2022
Rider Type	Northern Classics

Jens Keukeleire will be our new leader for all things cobblestone. At age 31, he's a bit north of what I'd usually target, but he acts as kind of a stop gap as some of the more enticing names hit the market at the end of next season. Until then, though, he's a massive improvement over what we had this year - especially in combination with Adrien Petit - and we expect some solid performances in the classics.

I was hoping to get him on a one-year contract originally, but he wasn't open for that. His salary is tenable though even if he deteriorates in the second year of his deal, and he'll still be a valuable addition to the team anyway.

Age	23
Contract until	2023
Rider Type	Climber/Puncheur

We're getting into elite territory now. David Gaudu was my number one target of this transfer season. He's the most promising young French climber and we strive to develop him to his fullest potential. Gaudu can excell in the Ardennes just as he can in the Pyrenees, and he will probably target both next year. Having just finished fourth at the Vuelta, he might not be ready to challenge for the Tour de France overall win yet, but I hope he'll get there and I'm very happy to have him!

Age	26
Contract until	2023
Rider Type	Stage Racer

Marc Soler vaults us into instant GT contention. The Spaniard finished fifth in this year's Giro, but his ceiling is much higher. Any Grand Tour he starts for us from now on, he has podium ambitions. He should also be able to score lots of points in the stage races in the spring, having the strong time trialing capabilities Gaudu lacks.

Obviously, both of them get three year contracts, consolidating them as part of our core for the next few years.

So there you have it. Despite suffering the losses of Guillaume Martin and Jesús Herrada, we come out of this transfer period a stronger team. With these riders, we should be competitive in most races we enter, at least in the Top 5-10 range, and we now have actual Grand Tour GC options. And let's not forget Laporte and Viviani, who'll also still be there for 2021.

It should also be noted that we've been very diligent in catering to our sponsor's wishes: I've previously mentioned that Adrien Petit is from Nord-Pas-de-Calais, but we didn't stop there. We've also increased the percentage of French riders while improving on our most prominent riders in the key regions of Belgium (with Keukeleire) and Spain (with Soler).

We're now looking forward to the autumn classics, concluding with Worlds and Il Lombardia, to finish the season.

Fernando takes on a leading role here and he does well.

That was a flop! We were unattentive on one of the final hills, got caught behind and Herrada had to spend way too much energy to achieve anything. That’s really not the send-off we wanted him to have.

Dominant win by Campenaerts. No Cofidis or France rider of note.

Similarly dominant was the win by Fenando Gaviria. I originally hoped to do something with Laporte - I'm France's manager -, but he had a terrible day so Démare was our leader. Super unfortunate that Elia Viviani came just short, that would have been really cool.

Viviani held his good form of the final Vuelta week to take another win, Consonni collected a podium place. The win in the TTT classic of the Duo Normand came as a complete surprise but it's a nice bonus.

Croatia14 wrote:
Very very strong signings. Latour is the perfect super-domestique with his energy style, and I'm quite confident that you can win a GT once with both Soler and Gaudu! Tour should be the ultimate goal.

All riders leaving are kinda okay, so that's some great signings. I think you could go for the WT title next year!

Kiserlovski01 wrote:
Really like the signings, although I think Soler to be a slightly strange signing. Then again, Movistar's fault to let go of a rider supposed to be part of their (new?) backbone. I really like both Gaudu and Latour irl, so I'm very curious to witness their further development at Cofidis.

Alaphilippe and Pogacar were too strong, they attacked over the final climb never to be caught again. We had two men in the quartet behind them though, and Guillaume was only beaten by Michael Matthews, which is to be expected. Fantastic work from Anthony Perez, who's been a strong domestique all year and gets by far his best result here.

Viviani's season had originally been scheduled to end earlier and he wasn't in great shape anymore, but he volunteered to assist Laporte. In an otherwise pretty subpar field, this had the expected effect. Laporte dominated, and in one instance when he had to leave a small gap in the sprint preps, Viviani just stayed ahead and Laporte recovered to make it a 1-2. Bit unfair? Maybe. Fun? Very!

The one uphill finish wasn't selective enough to be decisive for the GC, but Guillaume, in his final outing in our jersey, took what he could get and finished third.

Our sprinters competed in a few of the one day races without any spectacular success, but added a podium place each to their 2019 palmares.

With this, we conclude the 2020 road cycling season. It was an eventful one for us, that’s for sure, and we’ll have a few review posts to wrap it all up before we start the new year. Thanks for the support so far!