It has exceeded all my expectations, that's for sure. Looking back, I wrote in the team presentation:
For the necessary points to remain in the top tier, they're probably going to rely on the smaller World Tour races as well as consistency in the Top 5 to Top 10 range.
And I mean, yes, most wins came in the minor WT races and we were very consistently in the Top 10 in the other ones. Still, the points didn't go towards fighting relegation - they went towards winning the whole damn rankings
At the same time, there are still so many goals to achieve and so many more prestigeous races to win that I don't think we'll run out of those any time soon
VoetsT wrote:
Would have been nice to see Viviani in WC jersey for Cofidis.
Great ending of the year in China! Totally dominate that race
Having the WC jersey next would have been the cherry on top! But it would also have been very random And yes, quite the way to end the year. Again, pretty cheesy with by far the two best sprinters in the race, but it was fun!
Three-part season review starting tomorrow and then we're jumping right into 2021!
That's an awesome recap! And certainly the team was very strong this year. With the titles all taken it's time to aim for the big races now, maybe even switching to Insane too as that's how your season looked like
Croatia14 wrote:
That's an awesome recap! And certainly the team was very strong this year. With the titles all taken it's time to aim for the big races now, maybe even switching to Insane too as that's how your season looked like
While the season was pretty wild, I think the difficulty for the big races is still fine. I think if you don't restrict yourself artificially, you'll always score more points than any one AI team because of consistency and sending good riders to smaller races, so the rankings aren't the best measuring stick. As long as we don't have a single rider in the Top 3 of either a GT or a Monument, I'm not worried about difficulty yet
Glad you like the recap! It was fun to go through the results again!
Spaniard Luis Angel Maté was the Cofidis rider with the most race days in 2020 - 92 in total. Not only did he ride both the Giro and the Vuelta, but his road to the Giro started in Australia, took him to the UAE Tour, Paris-Nice, Catalunya, the Basque Country and the Ardennes!
And not only did he ride along, he was very active in breakaways, which resulted in three Top 10 stage finishes in the Giro and one in the Vuelta. He was in the lead role once all year, which netted him a nice 10th overall in the Volta a Portugal. Phenomal endurance by one of our oldest riders. We're happy to have him for another year!
Individual Achievement
The most impressive single performance, or string of performances to be exact, was Guillaume Martin's Tour de France. He finished in the Top 10 of ten (10 !!) different stages, being very aggressive both from breakaways and with a late attack here and there.
Most importantly, though, he didn't stop at Top 10s. In the final week, he won two stages, fulfilling the most important of our sponsor's season goals, and secured the polkadots jersey along the way. Just a stellar showing all three weeks long - a bittersweet memory now, knowing that he will not don our jersey next year.
Breakout Rider of the Year
Simone Consonni was planned to oscillate between leadout duties for Elia Viviani and the occasional lead sprint role, hoping for a podium result here and there. He exceeded all expectations by miles!
He ends the year with six stage wins in World Tour races, including one at the Giro d'Italia and two at the Tour Down Under, where he also wore the ochre jersey for two days. Add to that a win at the Royal Bernard Drome Classic in the spring and you have easily the most surprising of a number of outstanding individual seasons in this Cofidis team.
Rider of the Year
Indeed, several riders performed incredibly well for us this year. Honorable mentions, in addition to those above, go to Jesús Herrada and Elia Viviani, who both won their fair share of races, even on the World Tour level. But looking at both the quality and especially the sheer quantity of results, our rider of the year is Christophe Laporte.
He won two WT stage races - the BinckBank Tour and the Tour of Guangxi -, two WT one day races - Driedaagse de Panne and Classic Ouest-France - and if that's not enough prestige for you, he won the green jersey at Le Tour and the French national championships, adding to a total of 16 victories, that also included stages at Paris-Nice and the Critérium du Dauphiné. Oh, and while we're at it, why not mention the fifth place at Milano - San Remo, among many other good classics results.
It's no mistake that Christophe finished second only to Julian Alaphilippe in the Superprestige Rankings. Some of his wins may not have been the most eye-catching, but the consistency with which he collected them was unrivaled, at least on our team. And that makes him a worthy Cofidis Rider of the Year!
World Awards
Best Rider 35 years or older
This was almost a tossup with Vincenzo Nibali, but it came down to the signature win, and no other rider in this category had a better one than Alejandro Valverde. The Spaniard won his fifth Liège-Bastogne-Liège, tying Eddy Merckx's all time record. It was his only win of the season, but he added podium places at the Tour Down Under, the Strade Bianche and the Flèche Wallonne as well as Top 10 results at the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Amstel Gold Race and the Klasikoa San Sebastian. Just a strong year all around.
Best Rider 25 years or younger
Imagine riding your first monument ever, and winning it. And then imagine riding your second one, and winning that as well! That's what Mathieu Van der Poel did this year at Milano-San Remo and De Ronde. He added another win at Dwars Door Vlaanderen and two stage wins in Poland to round out a spectacular debut season. We can only imagine what he's going to do in the future.
Individual Achievement
This is again more of a string of great performances, but I felt like 31 victories in a single season should not go unnoticed. That is what Youcef Reguigui did in his second year for Malaysian Terengganu Cycling Team. He just dominated the Asian Tour, but also had some wins in Europe and Australia, and he's almost singlehandidly responsible for his team being promoted to the ProSeries. It should be interesting to see if he can keep this level of productivity there.
Vélo d'Or
The Nominees
Spoiler
Romain Bardet
Ag2r La Mondiale
Richard Carapaz
Team Ineos
Christophe Laporte
Cofidis, Solutions Crédits
Guillaume Martin
Cofidis, Solutions Crédits
Primoz Roglic
Team Jumbo - Visma
Geraint Thomas
Team Ineos
Rigoberto Urán
EF Pro Cycling
3.
Julian Alaphilippe
Deceuninck-Quick Step
2.
Fernando Gaviria
UAE Team Emirates
More often than not, especially in a semi-public voting, the rider of the year is synonymous with the winner of the Tour de France. In 2020, that was Tom Dumoulin. Other riders have been more consistent throughout the year but winning the Itzulia Basque Country and finishing in the Top 5 of another three World Tour races including La Vuelta was enough to support his bid for the Vélo d'Or.
Runner-ups were World Champ and three time Tour de France stage winner Fernando Gaviria and my personal rider of the year, Julian Alaphilippe, who finished third in Paris only 13 seconds behind Dumoulin but also won Il Lombardia, the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne, the GP Montréal and the Tour Down Under. The Ardennes triple crown was in reach, had he not crashed at LBL. He'll certainly try again next year.
Note that we also had two Cofidis riders among the nominees. We'll certainly strive to have one further up the rankings in the future.
A quick look at the main climbers changing teams this year, and we see Team Ineos at the center of many a transaction. They lose two of their most productive riders in Geraint Thomas and Giro winner Richard Carapaz and replace them with 33 year old Vuelta winner Rigoberto Úran 35 year old Vincenzo Nibali. Not necessarily moves with the future in mind, but on the other hand they clear the way for Egan Bernal to be their undisputed leader.
Carapaz goes to FDJ, who in turn lose their biggest names in Pinot and Gaudu, who comes to us, as does Marc Soler. Movistar finds a replacement in Steven Kruijswijk, though.
Classics Specialists
From
To
Peter Sagan
BORA - hansgrohe
Deceuninck-Quick Step
Nils Politt
Israel Start-Up Nation
BORA - hansgrohe
Yves Lampaert
Deceuninck-Quick Step
EF Pro Cycling
Mike Teunissen
Team Jumbo-Visma
EF Pro Cycling
Alberto Bettiol
EF Pro Cycling
Trek - Segafredo
Mads Pedersen
Trek - Segafredo
Tarteletto - Isorex
Alexander Kristoff
UAE Team Emirates
Groupama - FDJ
Niki Terpstra
Total Direct Energie
Team Jumbo-Visma
Easily the biggest transfer of the entire offseason was Peter Sagan's move to classics powerhouse Deceuninck after a rather disappointing season at BORA. The German team did the best they could to find a replacement and signed a new leader in Nils Politt.
EF revamps their cobblestone department, bringing in Lampaert and Teunissen to replace Alberto Bettiol. FDJ invests in this area as well, Kristoff is their second big name signing next to Carapaz, while Niki Terpstra joins Jumbo-Visma and former World Champion Mads Pedersen signs with newly-promoted Tarteletto - Isorex in the ProSeries.
There have been no major sponsor changes at the World Tour or ProSeries level, which I would have otherwise discussed here. I let that slide this year; if we don't have any next year though, I'll probably do a bit of editing. Too much sponsor stability is unfortunately just a bit unrealistic, after all. Same with transfers if they are too unrealistic, although this year they turned out decently well for the most part, I think.
@rogvi:I'm excited as well and we'll get back to racing soon, but first I want to give you all a brief overview of the competition we'll be facing in 2021:
I really enjoy that nice little transfer overview format. Some interesting changes made by EF Education First, INEOS and Bora too. Overall a very stable transfer market though imo.
purepasd wrote:
Nice recap, however I think you accidentally mixed Bahrain up with ag2r
Good spot I used Ag2r as a template for the other teams and must have missed that one. It's fixed now, thanks!
Croatia14 wrote:
I really enjoy that nice little transfer overview format. Some interesting changes made by EF Education First, INEOS and Bora too. Overall a very stable transfer market though imo.
Glad you liked it. EF really went heavy on the classics, letting Uran go. Maybe they want to challenge Deceuninck as the premier classics team. Will be tough with Sagan over there, though
Shonak wrote:
Great season recap, guess it's the right time to start following. No Bouhanni though ;(
Happy to have you here! Nacer's contract with Arkea is up at the end of the upcoming season, we'll see if a return is in the cards He's had a good number of wins in French CT races last year though, so maybe Arkea is too keen on keeping him.
Croatia14 wrote:
Jasper Asgreen must have a crazy crazy skillset.
Also Movistar has to fear not to look like a PCT team soon, they basically only got Mas for the future left.
For starters, he now has his correct first name and nationality But he's also a top 5 time trialist and not a single stat is below 72! As for Movistar, it's true, they're one of the prime candidats for relegation if they don't strike big in the next transfer window.
VoetsT wrote:
Nice recap of your season and transfer
Thank you, I'm glad you like it! Here's the penultimate team preview (top PCT teams afterwards) and then we're off to start the new season!
Sorry to say I haven't followed this story as I'd hoped but will certainly re-read ahead of the newseason. It seems this has not in fact been using PCM and instead adapted large segments of trekbmc's dream journal? Congrats on the truly insane season, and really looking forward to seeing Gaudu join Martin
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Tour de France
Tom Dumoulin
Giro d'Italia
Richard Carapaz
Primoz Roglic
Caleb Ewan
Joey Rosskopf
Vuelta a Espana
Rigoberto Urán
Pascal Ackermann
Wout Van Aert
Patrick Konrad
Michael Woods
Alexander Kristoff
Maciej Bodnar
Tour Down Under
Geraint Thomas
UAE Team Emirates
Youcef Reguigui
Terengganu Inc
Israel Start-Up Nation
Peter Sagan
Mads Pedersen
Matthias Frank
Astana Pro Team
Louis Meintjes
Eduardo Sepúlveda
Bahrain - McLaren
Ilnur Zakarin
Petr Vakoc
Tanel Kangert
José Goncalves
Vasil Kiryienka
