In the space of three months, from the beginning of August to the first days of November with the epilogue of the Vuelta, most of the season has passed between Grand Tours and classics.
A concentrate of highlights.
Back to the highlights of an unprecedented season due to the health crisis.
The image
The tracking shot accompanying Julian Alaphilippe in the last kilometers of the world championship.
Propelled by a solid and united team, the leader of the France team rushes through the Enzo and Dino Ferrari autodrome in Imola, to succeed Laurent Brochard, the last Habs winner of the World Cup (in 1997).
The dream of a career.
After a stage victory and three days in yellow on the Tour, the puncher of the Deceuninck-Quick Step team had perfectly prepared his case with the help of Thomas Voeckler, the coach of the national team.
In the process, he won a jersey with the rainbow jersey (La Flèche Brabançonne, ahead of Van der Poel and Cosnefroy), before ending with a spectacular fall during the Tour of Flanders.
We think the cameraman deserves a rainbow jersey too .. # Imola2020pic.twitter.com / oqNi0eUM2d
- UCI (@UCI_cycling) September 28, 2020
The race:
the Tour of Flanders
Despite the absence of spectators, there was everything about the Ronde van Vlaanderen: the casting, the twists and turns, the suspense.
34 km from the finish, a royal breakaway is emerging with the three main favorites of the 104th edition of the Ronde ready to do battle: Wout van Aert, Mathieu Van der Poel and Julian Alaphilippe.
On a flat portion crossed by the wind, placed in third position, a little out of step with the leading duo Julian Alaphilippe, probably in the process of talking with his sporting director, cannot avoid a motorcycle that he collides with full force before to be violently thrown to the ground.
Brutal end of the season for the Frenchman, who quickly underwent two fractured fingers on his right hand.
At the end of the suspense, the Tour of Flanders was won in a sprint by Mathieu Van der Poel by half a wheel ahead of Wout Van Aert.
The tricolor puncher enjoyed the course, the history of the race and, not resentful, promised to come back to taste it.
#RVVmen An exciting race and an even better finish!
Way to ride @mathieuvdpoel!
# RVV20pic.twitter.com / IQzXNLnJeR
- Ronde Van Vlaanderen (@RondeVlaanderen) October 18, 2020
The phenomenon:
Tadej Pogacar
The Tour de France seemed complete.
Dominated by Jumbo-Visma, Slovenian Primoz Roglic could see Paris, could imagine parading on the Champs-Elysées.
The day before the last stage, his compatriot Tadej Pogacar flew over the time trial whose finish was planted at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles.
Starting 57 '' behind, the leader of the UAE Team Emirates, winner of the stopwatch with 1'21 '' ahead of Tom Dumoulin and 1'56 '' on the yellow jersey, 5th on the stage) rode the last stage in yellow, winning the first grand tour of his career (59 '' ahead of the unfortunate Roglic) after a reversal which, by its scenario, recalled the epilogue of the 1989 Tour and the 8 seconds eternity dug between Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon.
The day before his 22nd birthday, the Slovenian was registered as the youngest winner since 1904. A phenomenon.
The revelation:
Marc Hirschi
Before the start of the season, the Swiss from the Sunweb team (22), world champion hopefuls in 2018, only had 3rd place in the professional ranks at the 2019 San Sebastian Classic. In 2020, he broke, distinguished himself on the Tour (2nd in Nice, taken back in extremis in Laruns after a 90 km breakaway, winner in Sarran, his 1st pro victory).
Before being a World Cup bronze medalist, winning over La Flèche Wallonne, then finishing 2nd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège after being hampered by Julian Alaphilippe during the sprint.
The protégé of Fabian Cancellara has shown that he has potential and continuity in his ideas.
The sentence:
"Some will say that I was lucky"
Signed Tao Geoghegan Hart (25; Ineos), the unexpected winner of the Giro.
The Briton left his team mate after the fall and abandonment of Geraint Thomas.
The result, a crazy Italian adventure marked by two stage victories (in Piacavello and Sestriere), a pink jersey never worn but slipped on the evening of the last stopwatch in Milan on October 25, a final victory (with a 39 '' lead on the Australian Jai Hindley, of the Sunweb team) which propelled him into another dimension.
"I'm sure some will say I was lucky," he told The
Guardian
, before assuring: "I'm ambitious and of course I don't want this to be the only time I cross the line first, but in this sport things change and opportunities come and go. "
Resilience:
Primoz Roglic Struck down
by Tadej Pogacar the day before the parade on the Champs-Elysées at the end of a fateful stopwatch that martyred his body and his mind after 12 days in yellow, Primoz Roglic quickly bounced back.
The Slovenian won at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, played the leading roles at the World Cup (6th), before winning (as in 2019) the Vuelta.
Not without having trembled and feared to experience, as on the Tour, a nightmarish end of the race.
But this time, Richard Carapaz could not overthrow him, remaining stuck at 24 ''.
4 stage victories on the Tour of Spain recalled the strength of character of a rider, a former ski jumper, who has always had to show tenacity to assert himself.
The number:
14
The victories of Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) this season which make the sprinter the top scorer in the peloton.
The French sprinter is ahead in this category Primoz Roglic (12), Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel (9), Pascal Ackermann (8) and Sam Bennett (7)… Among her notable successes, the 4 stage victories on the Giro (accompanied of the cyclamen jersey of the points classification), the title of champion of France, Milan-Turin or the general classification of the Tour de Wallonie and the Tour de Poitou-Charentes.
A full box with a reduced number of races.
Arnaud Démare, four victories and the cyclamen jersey ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/QvLkAE79ts
- Groupama-FDJ Cycling Team (@GroupamaFDJ) October 25, 2020
The blue fears:
Jakobsen and Evenepoel
The resumption of the season was struck with the seal of fear.
That felt during the sprint of the 1st stage of the Tour of Poland when the Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen, the sprinter of the Deceuninck-Quick Step team was thrown towards the advertising boards during the 1st stage of the Tour of Poland before being relieved in critical condition and plunged into an artificial coma.
At the end of August, to be declared out of danger, he had 130 stitches removed.
Remco Evenepeol, the great Belgian hope, suffered a vertiginous fall on the Tour of Lombardy.
After a badly negotiated turn on a descent, the rider of the Deceuninck-Quick Step formation struck a parapet before taking a dizzying fall into the void.
At the end of September, he got back on his bike for a smooth recovery.
French hopefuls
David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ, 8th in Vuelta and double stage winner), Guillaume Martin (11th in Tour de France; 14th in Vuelta and winner of the mountain classification), Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale, stage winner at Loudenvielle on the Tour), Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R, 2nd in the Flèche Wallonne and Paris-Tours; 3rd in La Flèche Brabançonne), like Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), several times at the attack on the Tour, have displayed qualities and ambition during a year which has allowed them to grow.
Like the B&B Hôtels-Vital Concept team, which discovered the Tour de France and which has shown itself to its advantage in the wake of Pierre Rolland and Bryan Coquard.
Good night,
sweet
dreams
Baixauli Studio pic.twitter.com/ePpVm7FQI2
- Groupama-FDJ Cycling Team (@GroupamaFDJ) October 31, 2020
The annus horribilis
The one crossed by Thibaut Pinot.
The leader of the Groupama-FDJ team had bet everything on a Tour de France which had left the heat of July to take refuge at the gates of autumn and which ended in his garden, at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles.
A fall 3 km from the finish of the… 1st stage, in Nice, suddenly brought down the house of cards, turning the dream into a nightmare.
The rest was an ordeal.
The back pain accompanied him throughout the Tour (finished in 29th place at 1h5954 '' from Pogacar) and did not subside then forcing him to retire quickly on the Tour of Spain (before the start of step 3).
A year to forget ...
The favorite:
Christopher Froome
The Briton, the essential of the stage races of the 2010s (winner of 4 Tours de France, 2 Vuelta and 1 Giro) did not appear in the Tour team articulated around Egan Bernal.
His story with Ineos ended on the roads of the Vuelta.
Far, very far from the first: 98th at 3h32'14 '' from Primoz Roglic, the winner.
Far, very far from its heyday.
Out of respect for his jersey and his commitments.
Hang on even far from the light, with no hope of shining.
By duty.
Because he had to ride.
The after-effects of a frightening fall during the Dauphiné 2019 are not yet cleared.
The hope of a better tomorrow always carries him.
Asked whether Christopher Froome could win the Tour next year, Bradley Wiggins, on Eurosport, came to the aid of his former teammate at Sky: "He will become the rider he was again."
A position that touched the quadruple winner of the Great Loop who on Twitter posted: “If I had had to stop every time things got tough during my career, I would not have accomplished anything.
Believe me, I am far from over. ”
Next year, the Briton will play for the Israel Start Up nation team.
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