As the calendar flips into December, thoughts turn more firmly to the 2024 season. The new signings have (almost) all been confirmed and teams are beginning to assemble for their training camps. Remco Evenepoel is already at his home near Calpe in Spain, while Ineos Grenadiers have gathered in Mallorca for their first training camp.
Miles are banked in sleepy coastal towns in southern Europe. Racing schedules are distributed, plans are made, and hierarchies are sketched out. The Tour Down Under, the year’s first event, is a little over a month away.
As the new campaign nears, Cyclingnews takes a close look at the 18 men’s UCI WorldTour teams for 2024.
Alpecin-Deceuninck
- Best signing: Axel Laurance
- Rider to watch: Kaden Groves
- Notable addition: Lars Boven
In their second season as a WorldTour team, Alpecin-Deceuninck have become more than just a vehicle for Mathieu van der Poel. The Dutchman remains the marquee rider and will bring even more attention and prestige to the team as world champion in 2024, but Tour de France green jersey winner Jasper Philipsen has added another layer of import to the Belgian team - even more so as Van der Poel is expected to leave the Tour early to target the Olympics.
The two above riders claimed 25 of the team's 35 victories in 2023, and another seven went to Australian sprinter Kaden Groves, winner of three stages in the Vuelta a España and one in the Giro d'Italia.
Groves gives the team cover in the sprints when Philipsen is absent, and Philipsen - second to Van der Poel in Paris-Roubaix - will give the team more options in the Classics as he will add this focus in the spring.
An intriguing addition is Axel Laurance, who impressed in 2022 with podiums in stages of the Tour de Wallonie, CRO Race and at the Bretagne Classic-Ouest France in Plouay while racing with B&B Hotels. He opted to join the team's developmental wing for this season and graduates to the WorldTour as a rider to watch.
Lars Boven, 22, joins from Jumbo-Visma's devo team and has shown promise in one-day races and sprints - finishing fourth in the elite small lead group behind Van der Poel at the Super 8 Classic.
Arkéa - B&B Hotels
- Key rider: Arnaud Démare
- Best signing: Florian Sénéchal
- Rider to watch: Kévin Vauquelin
After parting company with Nairo Quintana in the wake of his positive test for Tramadol on the 2022 Tour, Arkéa-Samsic looked rudderless for much of last season, dropping sharply in the UCI rankings as a result. It was clear that the team was in dire need of a revamp, and the opportunity arrived early when Arnaud Démare was deemed surplus to requirements at Groupama-FDJ.
Rather than wait until the winter, Arkéa managed to get their man in a mid-season transfer, reasoning that it would at least allow Démare to hit the ground running in 2024. As it was, he hinted at what he could do in October, winning Paris-Bourges and the Tour de Vendée.
Démare will have a dual mandate as Arkéa’s leader. As well as being charged with winning the first Tour stage in the team’s history, he will also be required to rack up victories – and UCI points – across the season as they look to ensure they retain WorldTour status in 2026.
At 32, Démare still has plenty to offer, though it will be interesting to see if Arkéa offer him more latitude to race on the cobbles than FDJ did in recent years. Miles Scotson and Clement Venturini have been signed to form part of Démare’s lead-out train and it’s clear that the success of Arkéa’s season will hinge largely on what the Beauvais man can achieve.
The team also picked up Florian Sénéchal from Soudal-QuickStep, and the Frenchman will target the cobbled Classics while also featuring in Démare’s lead-out. Elsewhere, the multi-talented Kévin Vauquelin's progress will be worth tracking.
Astana Qazaqstan
- Best signing: Michael Mørkøv
- Rider to watch: Mark Cavendish
- Notable addition: Davide Ballerini
Astana Qazaqstan have a lot to do to secure an extension to their run in the WorldTour, ending the season dead last among the current teams and behind Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto Dstny, who were relegated after 2022.
The Kazakh team banked a lot on Cavendish in 2023 only to have him crash out of the Tour de France before he could try to break the Eddy Merckx stage win record.
The Manxman showed he still has the fire to win, taking a stage of the Giro d'Italia – with the help of friend Geraint Thomas in Rome – and the new additions will raise his prospects at the 2024 Tour as well as lift the whole squad's potential.
His lacking lead-out train got a very important boost in the team's signing of one of the best lead-out men in history, Michael Mørkøv along with other sprint powerhouses Max Kanter, Rüdiger Selig and Ide Schelling.
With a third place behind Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel on the opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya this season, Schelling might rival Mørkøv for best signing as a versatile puncheur.
Davide Ballerini, winner of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2021, gives the team more options to pull themselves out of the WorldTour team rankings basement.
Bahrain - Victorious
- Best signing: Torstein Træen
- Rider to watch: Finlay Pickering
- Notable addition: Antonio Tiberi
Bahrain Victorious have added just three riders to their roster but have lost a number of big-name riders and so appear to be consolidating for 2024 after several years of investment and success.
Jonathan Milan has been snapped up by Lidl-Trek and Mikel Landa has swapped a Grand Tour leadership role to work for Remco Evenepoel at Soudal-QuickStep, leaving two big holes in the Bahrain Victorious line-up.
Team manager Milan Erzen has admitted he failed to land an extra sponsor and so the team will be built around gravel world champion and Classics contender Matej Mohorič, Britain’s ever-aggressive Fred Wright, the multi-talented Pello Bilbao, veteran Italian Damiano Caruso, Wout Poels, Santiago Buitrago and Australia’s Jack Haig. Bilbao won the Tour Down Under and Bahrain Victorious won three stages at the 2023 Tour de France, but it was arguably a lean season for the riders in red, orange and black.
It will be fascinating to see if Torstein Træen can make a breakthrough after leaving Uno-X, while 20-year-old British climber Finlay Pickering is a bet for the future after he won the Tour Alsace in 2022.
Antonio Tiberi joined Bahrain Victorious in June 2023 after parting ways with Lidl-Trek after he shot a cat with an air rifle. The Italian rider is trying to rebuild his career and Bahrain Victorious have ignored public anger to give him a second chance in the hope he can confirm his stage racing potential.
Sonny Colbrelli was forced to retire in the spring of 2022 but will have a more formal directeur sportif and Classics consultant role next season. His Paris-Roubaix winning experience could help Mohorič, Wright and the whole team in 2024.
Bora-Hansgrohe
- Best signing: Primož Roglič
- Rider to watch: Cian Uijtdebroeks
- Notable addition: Sam Welsford
The most talked about transfer of the season was Primož Roglič's surprise-not-so-surprising move to Bora-Hansgrohe after six seasons and four Grand Tour victories with Jumbo-Visma.
No longer kept on a leash or relegated to chasing titles outside the Tour de France after the rise of Jonas Vingegaard, Roglič will have free reign to challenge his former teammate along with two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogačar in 2024.
Manager Ralph Denk called the acquisition "the next milestone" for the team after the departure of Peter Sagan. The question remains to be seen which riders will support Roglič at the expense of their ambitions. Daní Martínez, who arrives from Ineos, is one key addition for that goal. 2022 Giro d'Italia winner Jai Hindley remains in place and he would surely have finished higher than 7th at his debut Tour if he hadn't crashed heavily in week two.
Cian Uijtdebroeks, displeased with the dynamics between him and Aleksandr Vlasov in the Vuelta, is due to target the Giro d'Italia and try to live up to Belgium's Grand Tour expectations set with his Tour de l'Avenir win in 2022.
Sprints aren't high on the priority list for Bora but rising talent Sam Welsford is a fine replacement for outgoing Sam Bennett.
Cofidis
- Key rider: Guillaume Martin
- Best signing: Kenny Elissonde
- Rider to watch: Ion Izagirre
Cofidis had their best Tour de France in fifteen years, which meant 2023 was the team’s best season in a long time. WorldTour points are all well and good, but only as a means of securing a guaranteed invitation to the Big Show in July, which has been the team’s raison d’être since its foundation in 1997.
Victor Lafay’s canny win on stage 2 ended a drought that stretched back to Sylvain Chavanel in 2008, while Ion Izagirre added a second in Belleville-en-Beaujolais and the ever-reliable Guillaume Martin reached Paris in 10th overall.
It remains to be seen if Cofidis can repeat the feat next July, mind, and losing Lafay to the revamped Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale certainly won’t help. Still, Martin justified his status every season since arriving as a leader in 2020, and the Norman will again be to the fore across the entire calendar this season.
The 30-year-old is forever hampered by a relatively sluggish turn of speed, and he has just nine wins to his name, but he is due a big victory and his courageous riding style might just see him pull it off.
Ion Izagirre helped to carry some of Martin’s burden over the past two seasons. His Tour stage win was simply the highpoint of a fine campaign that included third overall at Itzulia Basque Country and victory at the GP Miguel Indurain. His brother Gorka joins the team this year.
Bryan Coquard will once again carry Cofidis’ hopes in the sprints, even if he needs a perfect sequence of events to beat the fastest finishers. Kenny Elissonde is the most notable new signing, along with 2022 Giro stage winner Stefano Oldani.
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
- Best signing: Sam Bennett
- Rider to watch: Ben O’Connor
- Notable addition: Victor Lafay
The arrival of global sporting goods retailer Decathlon has sparked a new kit design and the end of the iconic brown shorts for the long-standing French team.
More importantly it means a boost to the French team’s budget, new bikes and equipment for Decathlon’s in house brand Van Rysel, and the signing of Irish sprinter Sam Bennett, Frenchman Victor Lafay and strategic signings like Bruno Armirail from Grupama-FDJ and Belgian Dries De Bondt from Alpecin-Deceuninck.
Greg Van Avermaet has retired but Australia’s Ben O’Connor, 2023 Tour de France revelation and stage winner Felix Gall, Benoît Cosnefroy and Classics veteran Oliver Naesen remain.
The arrival of Sam Bennett is an opportunity for the Irish sprinter to get his career black on track after two problematic seasons at Bora-Hansgrohe following his bitter but silent divorce from Deceuninck-Quick Step.
Bennet is now 33 but he proved his speed in 2020, when he won two stages and the green jersey at the Tour de France. If Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale can drop him off on the right wheel in the sprints, he can surely land the results the team needs to secure vital WorldTour ranking points.
O’Connor and Gall will also score precious points in stage races and can perhaps again win big Tour de France mountain stages and fight for a top five overall. O’Connor deserves some success after two seasons of setbacks. Cosnefroy was under 23 world champion in 2017 and still has the talent to win Classics on his day.
Lafay is arguably the biggest French transfer for 2024 with a salary reportedly close to €1.5 million.
He won stage 2 of the Tour in San Sebastian, holding off the biggest names in the race. He could have stayed at Cofidis but opted to join Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale and take on more leadership and expectation. He will be fascinating to watch on his best days in the saddle.
EF Education-EasyPost
- Best signing: Archie Ryan
- Rider to watch: Neilson Powless
- Notable addition: Rui Costa
EF Education-EasyPost lost Magnus Cort to Uno-X and let a number of veteran riders go, preferring to invest in a swath of young talent for 2024.
Markel Beloki is just 18 but has a family pedigree, Lukas Nerurkar’s father was a Olympic marathon and 10,000-metre runner, Ireland’s Darren Rafferty won the prestigious Giro della Valle d'Aosta while riding for Hagens Berman Axeon and compatriot Archie Ryan backed up his 2022 season to confirm his huge stage race and climbing talents.
Australia's Harry Sweeny seems like a veteran at 25, with Jack Rootkin-Gray also signed after his sixth place overall at the Tour of Britain with Saint Piran. Michael Valgren returns to WorldTour level after a year in the Continental team after his serious crash injuries and 21-year-old Japanese rider Yuhi Todome joins him after the demise of EF Education-Nippo.
Perhaps to lift the average age and provide a mentor, former world champion Rui Costa is also a new signing for 2024.
The American team’s core riders remain in Rapha pink, with Richard Carapaz surely due a year of good health and success and suffering so much in 2023, while Rigoberto Uran deserves a successful swansong. Neilson Powless impressed in the Classics and as he hunted for Tour de France stages in 2023. He managed to get into a breakaway six times last July and will surely pull off a big win soon.
EF Education-EasyPost also have Alberto Bettiol, fellow Italian talent Andrea Piccolo, Swiss time trialist Stefan Bissegger and Britain’s enigmatic climber Hugh Carthy.
Ben Healy was one of the revelations of 2023 and he will surely have a bigger leadership role and so more success in 2024. The 23-year-old Irishman epitomises EF Education-EasyPost. He is an underdog and outsider but also has the talent and hunger to succeed. He is the natural leader of the rejuvenated class of 2024.
Groupama-FDJ
- Best signing: Matthew Walls
- Rider to watch: David Gaudu
- Notable addition: Sven Erik Bystrøm
Thibaut Pinot’s emotional farewell at the Tour de France and then Il Lombardia marked the end of an era for Groupama-FDJ. The decision to allow Arnaud Démare to leave for rivals Arkéa Samsic is another major change, with team manager Marc Madiot left to hope that David Gaudu, Stefan Küng and the many young riders from the Groupama-FDJ development programme can come good.
Britain’s Mark Stewart has left for Israel-Premier Tech, Australia’s Michael Storer has gone to Tudor Pro Cycling and Miles Scotson has joined Demare at Arkéa Samsic.
Madiot is banking on his 2022 draft of seven young riders. Lenny Martinez showed his ability with two days in the leader’s red jersey at the Vuelta a Espana, while Paul Penhoët, Lorenzo Germani, Lewis Askey and Sam Watson are all equally as precious and talented. Walls has been injured and out of form but could strengthen the next gen group.
Gaudu had a tough 2023 summer after impressing early on. He immediately struggled at the Tour de France but bravely fought on to finish ninth overall as Pinot enjoyed his farewell. He will have no shield to protect him from criticism in 2024.
Ineos Grenadiers
- Key rider: Tom Pidcock
- Best signing: Tobias Foss
- Rider to watch: Josh Tarling
Ineos’ period of flux continues, as testified by Rod Ellingworth’s resignation from his post last month. Then again, maybe the general disarray at the team was already encapsulated by the job title Ellingworth had held for the previous two years.
Although Ellingworth was ostensibly the de facto team manager ever since Dave Brailsford was promoted to a role across Ineos’ sporting interests at the end of 2021, his authority was instantly undermined when he was assigned the rather Dwight Shrute-esque position of ‘deputy team principal.’
It was never entirely clear who was in charge and the team’s curiously inert transfer policy now looks like a symptom of that underlying issue. There have been constant murmurs of attempts to sign Remco Evenepoel these past two years, but as things stand, Tobias Foss is their biggest signing.
In other words, Ineos are once more without a realistic challenger to Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France, the race that was their private fiefdom in the Team Sky era. Once the standard bearers, Ineos are now lagging far behind Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates.
The picture might, of course, be very different had Egan Bernal not suffered a life-threatening crash at the start of 2022, but there has also been a glaring lack of succession planning to go along with that ill fortune. It’s telling that Ineos’ best performer in Grand Tours in recent years has been Geraint Thomas, a veteran who management had seemed eager to relegate to an almost pastoral role in 2021.
It's not all doom and gloom, mind. Ineos notched up 36 wins last year, and there are still riders of immense quality on the roster, including Thomas, and Carlos Rodríguez, who finally opted to stay put despite firm overtures from Movistar, while Filippo Ganna has broadened his repertoire to develop into a bona fide Classics contender. Bernal’s 2023 comeback should serve as a foundation for better things this season.
Tom Pidcock’s sparkling Strade Bianche victory was one of the highlights of 2023, though his Olympic ambitions may mean any attempts to transform him into a Tour contender will have to wait another year.
There is hope for the future, too, in the shape of Josh Tarling, who won the European time trial title and placed third in the Worlds at the age of 19. But it’s also striking that Ineos have lost Tao Geoghegan Hart to Lidl-Trek and the promising Ben Tulett to Visma-Lease A Bike.
For a team that prided itself on its forward planning, there is worryingly little sign of a clear project. They will pick up some big wins across the season and secure a Grand Tour podium or two – but Visma and UAE remain on another level.
Intermarché-Wanty
- Best signing: Francesco Busatto
- Rider to watch: Biniam Girmay
- Notable addition: Kevin Colleoni
Team manager Jean-François Bourlart was unable to retain Rui Costa for 2024, with his limited budget tied up in Biniam Girmay, Lilian Calmejane and Mike Teunissen.
Girmay was unable to repeat his success of 2022, especially in the Classics, but he remains a unique talent and is only 23. Teunissen could also come good in 2024 if he can harness his experience from Jumbo-Visma and avoid injury, while Taco van der Hoorn continues his fight back from the serious concussion he suffered back in April.
Australia’s Kevin Colleoni is the only real new signing for 2024, with three riders coming across from the Circus-ReUz-Technord development team. Italy’s Francesco Busatto is the neo-pro rider to watch. He won the Under 23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the under 23 Italian national title before proving he can take on the professionals as an end of season stagiaire.
Intermarché-Wanty have lost Valerio Piva as lead directeur sportif due to his move to Jayco AlUla and veteran Hilaire Van der Schueren has retired after 50 years in a team car. However, Performance manager Aike Visbeek remains. He will hope to restore the magic of 2022, when Intermarché-Wanty won 24 races, including Gent-Wevelgem, Scheldeprijs and stages at the Giro d’Italia.
Lidl-Trek
- Best signing: Tao Geoghegan Hart
- Rider to watch: Jonathan Milan
- Notable addition: Tim Declercq
With the possible exception of Bora-Hansgrohe, the American squad Lidl-Trek won the transfer market in 2023, snatching up 2020 Giro d'Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart along with Tim 'El Tractor' Declercq, Giro d'Italia points classification winner Jonathan Milan, and Classics promise Andrea Bagioli, among others.
Geoghegan Hart has had a rough road coming back from a femur fracture sustained at the Giro d'Italia, but before that he took third in Tirreno-Adriatico and won the Tour of the Alps, appearing to be back at his best.
He will have Juan Pedro López and Giulio Ciccone as fellow Grand Tour contenders, and a battalion of climbers for support.
Meanwhile, Milan showed excellent consistency at the Giro and could be ready for a crack at the Tour de France green jersey.
Declercq will be a key helper in the Classics and Grand Tours for Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven, while Simone Consonni and Ryan Gibbons add lead-out support. Climbers Sam Oomen and Carlos Verona are strong additions for Grand Tour domestique duties.
Movistar Team
- Best signing: Davide Formolo
- Rider to watch: Nairo Quintana
- Notable addition: Rémi Cavagna
Usually a rider like Nairo Quintana - winner of the Giro and Vuelta and twice on the podium of the Tour de France - would be the best signing for any team. However, Quintana's year off after his disqualification from the 2022 Tour de France over a Tramadol positive leaves a big question mark on his form.
Quintana is also 33 and, while he showed flashes of brilliance in his time with Arkéa-Samsic, he had no results near his previous best. He'll have something to prove but we're not taking bets yet.
His addition could put him at possible odds with Enric Mas, who had finally shrugged off the role of understudy to the likes of Alejandro Valverde and Miguel Angel Lopez. Given Mas' luck at the Tour de France, the team could use a back-up plan and, after Gorka Izagirre's exit for Cofidis, they're in need of a strong climbing presence.
Davide Formolo, having been a loyal domestique for Pogačar and João Almeida at UAE Team Emirates, had a solid 2023 season, coming second in the Saudi Tour and winning the Coppa Agostoni and Veneto Classic. Second to Jakob Fuglsang in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Italian champion in 2019, Formolo's renaissance makes him a great addition to Movistar's Classics team as well as an important Grand Tour helper.
Rémi Cavagna is another underrated rider and a great addition. Known for his time-trialling prowess and attacking style, the Frenchman finished fourth in De Brabantse Pijl this year - perhaps a Classics focus is in his future. He'd make a great pairing with Spanish champion Oier Lazkano, who is of a similar style and most certainly a rider to watch in 2024.
Soudal-QuickStep
- Best signing: Luke Lamperti
- Rider to watch: Remco Evenepoel
- Notable addition: Mikel Landa
Soudal-QuickStep were almost devoured by Jumbo-Visma in the final months of the 2023 season but the hostile takeover eventually fell apart when the Grand Tour winner team secured enough funding to race on alone as Visma-Lease A Bike.
The chaotic events sparked a rider revolt at Soudal-QuickStep, with Remco Evenepeol eventually ending reports he could leave for Ineos Grenadiers and promising loyalty to team manager Patrick Lefevere. The dust has now settled but the impact of the failed takeover remains to be seen. Lefevere has a new CEO and perhaps long-term heir, as Soudal-QuickStep fight on in 2024, with Evenepoel as their figurehead.
The 23-year-old Belgian is one of the most talented riders in the sport and will take on the Tour de France for the first time in 2024. He has the ability to win it but could also crack and struggle just as he did at the 2023 Vuelta a España. Whatever happens, it will be fascinating to follow.
Soudal-Quick Step have lost Andrea Bagioli, Davide Ballerini, Rémi Cavagna, Tim Declercq, Fabio Jakobsen, Michael Mørkøv, Mauro Schmid, Florian Sénéchal and Ethan Vernon.
They are of course pivoting towards Grand Tours more with Evenepoel but only managed to sign Landa and Gianni Moscon – far less than Evenepoel and his outspoken father-agent expected and hoped for.
The Belgian team can still attract young talent and have Specialized as bike sponsor. It will interesting to see how quickly Lamperti emerges in the sprints and Classics. He is fast and talented and surely in the right team but is it the right time with Evenepoel and the team focused on the Tour de France? The same can be said for 19-year-old Paul Magnier from France.
Julian Alaphilippe, Kasper Asgreen and Yves Lampaert lead the Classics unit and are under pressure to perform in 2024. Evenepoel cannot carry the whole team for another year.
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL
- Key rider: Fabio Jakobsen
- Best signing: Warren Barguil
- Rider to watch: Max Poole
For once, the headline transfer is an arrival rather than a departure. After years of watching the team’s best talents leave in search of greater freedom elsewhere, Iwan Spekenbrink is able to welcome a marquee signing in Fabio Jakobsen.
It was an obvious match. Remco Evenepoel’s rise meant that the position of lead sprinter at QuickStep no longer carried the guaranteed opportunities of old, while DSM were desperately in need of a proven winner to help them move up the WorldTour rankings.
At 27 years of age, Jakobsen is now entering the prime of his career, and even though 2023 was hardly a banner year, he showed enough in his seven wins to suggest that he would benefit from a fresh start behind a dedicated lead-out train.
Now in his fourth season at the team, Romain Bardet will continue to lead the line in stage races, though it seems clear that his best chance of Grand Tour victory passed him by when he fell ill on the 2022 Giro. Even so, his consistency and doggedness will see him pick up solid results across the campaign.
Although DSM have lost the promising Andreas Leknessund to Uno-X, there is still some interesting young talent on the roster, most notably the British pairing of Oscar Onley and Max Poole, who have been quietly collecting some notable results in week-long stage races at a very young age. They will both expect to make further strides forward in 2024. American Kevin Vermaerke also forms part of an interesting cohort of young riders.
Although DSM have lost the aforementioned Leknessund and fast man Sam Welsford in the off-season, they have welcomed a prodigal son back to the fold. After winning two stages and the king of the mountains title at the 2017 Tour, Warren Barguil negotiated a release from his contract to sign for Arkéa in his native Brittany.
Although Barguil clocked up a top 10 at the Tour and a French title, he never scaled quite the same heights during his six years at Arkéa. It will be fascinating to see if a return to the precise organisation of Spekenbrink’s outfit can help to reignite his career.
Team Jayco-AlUla
- Best signing: Caleb Ewan
- Rider to watch: Luke Plapp
- Notable addition: Mauro Schmid
After bad luck and a drubbing from Lotto-Dstny manager Stéphane Heulot, Caleb Ewan has returned to his comfort zone by heading to Jayco-AlUla, the organisation where he started his pro career.
Sure, he'll be second to Dylan Groenewegen and take on the Giro d'Italia rather than the Tour de France, but a little less pressure and a more positive atmosphere should help the Australian get back to his best.
The pair free Michael Matthews to further shrug off his reputation as a bunch sprinter to target the Classics like Milan-San Remo and have a freer rein in the Grand Tours.
The arrival of Luke Plapp – second to Evenepoel at the UAE Tour – from Ineos bolsters the team's GC ambitions which have been largely centred on Simon Yates. Keep an eye on his performance in the week-long stage races as an indicator of future Grand Tour promise.
Mauro Schmid – winner of the Baloise Belgium Tour, a stage of the Giro d'Italia, and the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali – should get more opportunities with the team compared to Soudal-Quickstep and have a chance to shine.
Team Visma Lease A Bike
- Key rider: Jonas Vingegaard
- Best signing: Matteo Jorgenson
- Rider to watch: Milan Vader
The king is gone, long live the king. Manager Richard Plugge deployed a regal metaphor when asked about Primoz Roglič’s future during the Vuelta a España, claiming unconvincingly that his reign at the head of Jumbo-Visma had not yet ended.
In reality, because of Roglič’s very reticence to relinquish his crown, his time at the team was already up, and he departed for Bora-Hansgrohe at season’s end. After the dual monarchy of the past two years, the throne now belongs to Jonas Vingegaard alone.
Any doubts about Vingegaard’s ability to lead in the long-term melted during 2023, where he showed he could win the Tour as a favourite and without Roglič by his side. After dominating the Dauphiné in June, he proceeded to outlast Pogačar at the Tour, turning the race into a procession in the final week.
Vingegaard will, of course, make the Tour the centrepiece of his 2024 season and, for all his apparent reticence to support Sepp Kuss during his victorious Vuelta, the hierarchy in July is clear. As the favourite, Vingegaard will be Visma-Lease A Bike’s sole leader, and Kuss will set out in his familiar role as a deluxe domestique.
Kuss surely did enough to warrant leadership in another Grand Tour, mind, though much will depend on whether Vingegaard fancies a return to the Vuelta.
The team swept all three Grand Tours in 2023, but Roglič’s departure surely means the feat is beyond even their seemingly bottomless reservoirs this season. Wout van Aert is instead poised to lead the line at the Giro, but the Belgian has insisted that the GC will not be a target given his goals in the Classics the previous month.
Van Aert has eyes on the Olympics and the Worlds, but the first two Sundays in April will be the most important days of his year. Jumbo-Visma swept the first five cobbled Classics in 2023 but failed to translate that dominance to the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
And Van Aert doesn’t need to be reminded that he still has ‘only’ one Monument to his name so far, nor that he lags behind Pogačar (five) and Van der Poel (four). Changing that narrative is his biggest goal of the year. Backed by Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot and Dylan van Baarle, he can’t say he hasn’t got the team to do so.
Elsewhere, Olav Kooij surprised many by committing his future to Visma given their GC focus, but the talented sprinter is slated to make a Grand Tour debut this year and he will expect to shine.
The loss of Roglič’s finishing punch might bring their overall win count down across the season, but Visma-Lease A Bike have enough talent in all areas to shine across the calendar. New arrival Matteo Jorgenson buttresses their team in the Classics and the Tour, while Milan Vader’s progress will be worth following now that he has shelved his mountain bike dreams to focus on the road.
UAE Team Emirates
- Key rider: Tadej Pogačar
- Best signing: Pavel Sivakov
- Rider to watch: João Almeida
True, Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour and Mathieu van der Poel won the Worlds, but Tadej Pogačar remains the best cyclist on the planet for his routine brilliance across all terrains. Much like with Lionel Messi in his pomp, it’s become too easy to take Pogačar’s gifts for granted, so it’s never any harm to remind oneself of his dexterity: his 2023 haul of wins included the Tour of Flanders, Il Lombardia, Amstel Gold Race, Paris-Nice, Flèche Wallonne and the Ruta del Sol.
Pogačar’s precise 2024 programme, however, will depend on how he and UAE Team Emirates respond to the main setback of last season, namely his second successive defeat at Vingegaard’s hands at the Tour. The Slovenian wasn’t helped, of course, by the lay-off that followed his broken wrist at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but there is a school of thought that wonders if he also spread himself too thinly with his Spring exploits.
UAE Team Emirates will surely try to persuade Pogačar to follow a lighter early season schedule this time around, and it will be fascinating to see, too, what team they send with him to France. After dispatching João Almeida to the Giro (third overall) and Juan Ayuso to the Vuelta (fourth overall) in 2023, they might well be tempted to bring all their best stage racing riders together to take on Visma-Lease A Bike’s collective might in July.
That said, UAE Team Emirates also have the ambition of topping the WorldTour team standings, and so we can still expect a solid squad at both the Giro and Vuelta.
Adam Yates had a career year in his first season at the team, placing third at the Tour while riding for Pogačar, and he seems happy to be deployed in a similar way in 2024, while UAE have added depth to Pogačar’s climbing guard by picking up Pavel Sivakov from Ineos.
Elsewhere, riders like Jay Vine and Brandon McNulty still have margin for improvement, Juan Molano is quietly winning bunch sprints, and Tim Wellens, injury stoppage notwithstanding, looked a man rejuvenated by his arrival at the team last season.
Whatever happens in July, Pogačar will inevitably win early and often across the season – and so will the rest of his team.
