Review of the Year 2021

Procycling

Inside the world's toughest sport

Procycling2 min read
Gallery
The colourful international peloton rides along in the early stages of the men’s road race at this year’s World Championships in Flanders. This was the calm before the storm, though it wouldn’t last long. The action would soon kick off, with crucial
Procycling2 min read
Preface
There wasn’t a race I enjoyed more in 2021 than the women’s Olympic road race. There are two things I love to see in road cycling: clever tactics and underdogs winning. I’ll never forget Anna Kiesenhofer’s win for those two reasons, but it was more t
Procycling4 min readCrime & Violence
Cycling’s Questionable Funding Model
There was opprobrium when the takeover of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, was completed in October. This was despite Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record, which includes the assassination
Procycling2 min read
The Giro Kind Of Goes To Dubai
It is very strange being right in the middle of a marketing stunt. Everything looks real but at the same time kind of isn’t. This was my experience of the Giro d’Italia Criterium in Dubai. It was held at the World Expo in Dubai, which is a kind of Di
Procycling2 min read
Joss Lowden
Where’s home? It’s a big question. At the moment it’s Staffordshire. I live there with Dan [Bigham] - we moved in just as lockdown came in. We thought we’d be there a few weeks but it has turned into a year and a half. We are moving to Andorra in Jan
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Communiqué
World Champion Julian Alaphilippe will focus on the Ardennes classics, particularly Liege-Bastogne-Liege, next year. The Frenchman will do this rather than splitting his goals between the Tour of Flanders and Liege, as he said it is hard to be at 100
Procycling1 min read
Coach’s Corner
We’re trying to get riders to be the best they can be, which means working together with them on all kind of aspects to try and get them to make the next step in cycling. Sometimes we have to have difficult talks, but in the end if you see how Leo’s
Procycling2 min read
Leo Hayter
Another Hayter? You’ve got it. The younger brother of Ethan, Leo currently rides for Team DSM’s development squad. Just like his sibling, he is proving to be a bit of an all-rounder so far, winning races across different disciplines. The 20-year old
Procycling4 min read
Michael Matthews
I had a good time off. It was good to totally shut off and not think about the bike at all, and try some other sports. I was just enjoying being at home too, because I think this year I was home for maybe only two months in total. It was nice to spen
Procycling3 min read
A Women’s Tour De Force
The biggest aim for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is, whether it’s with me as the race organiser or somebody else, for the race to still exist in 100 years’ time. The aim is to create a reference point for stage racing in women’s cycling that
Procycling2 min read
Dan Martin
It was a return to a semblance of normality with the usual calendar structure in 2021, but we approached the year after the shortest off season ever. In hindsight I would have started my season later, not due to missing fitness but being mentally tir
Procycling1 min read
A Life In Cycling
My second year with UAE Team Emirates started out routinely at Mallorca and I then got a solid fourth on GC at Valencia, which sums up the whole season: consistent without big highs. I was second on GC at País Vasco, which was a big result for me - a
Procycling2 min read
Kévin Réza
Five months after deciding this year would be my last, I have no regrets. But I do want to take my hat off to those who have made this 25-year journey of mine so beautiful and rich. At CSM Puteaux, my first club, I was supported by an educator who ta
Procycling1 min read
Jérôme Pineau
Kévin had a great four years with us. He rode this year as he had in other years, and physically he can still do everything. However, mentally, he wanted to stop. For me, he’s retired too early. He could have continued, but his career was a little a
Procycling1 min read
Stephen Delcourt
Brodie is a really special rider for many reasons. She is really strong, she can win any race, but at the same time she can lose any race as well. She attacks when she feels it, she also stops when she feels it. A team can only have one Brodie in it;
Procycling2 min read
Brodie Chapman
You know it’s time to kit up again when you are already looking forward to the 2022 season. As my coach pointed out, when you want to start training again, wait another week, and then get going. For a while there I had little to no interest in wearin
Procycling1 min read
Yaroslav Popovych
Charlie had a difficult beginning of the season, when he had some crashes and some injuries. So it was not the best year for him at the beginning. Then he had another health problem. At the end of the year he was really, really good but the problem i
Procycling2 min read
Charlie Quarterman
Apart from a small stop on the way back from a race, it was my first real back trip in the UK when I combined the national championships with the start of my off season. It’s been a bit of a strange time, I’d say. In the last 12 or so months, the cha
Procycling10 min read
Review Of The Year 2021
1 The single race that cut through to the mainstream more than any other this year was the women’s Olympic road race. Of course, the fact that the winner Anna Kiesenhofer is not a fulltime pro and holds down a job as a postdoctoral fellow in mathemat
Procycling2 min read
Edward Pickering
Pogačar. He was lucky not to be unlucky in the Tour, unlike most of his rivals, but you can’t argue with two summit stages, a TT and a three-minute beating of everybody at Le Grand-Bornand. Liege and Lombardy made it a season for the ages. Anna van d
Procycling2 min read
Patrick Fletcher
With the Tour and two monuments, Tadej Pogačar had one of the best campaigns of all time, never mind this year. Annemiek van Vleuten counted the Tour of Flanders, Olympic time trial, and La Vuelta Challenge among her 12 high-quality victories. She la
Procycling2 min read
Putting The Power Down
Rarely does a photograph say so much about a cyclist or about a bike race in general. in the foreground: Mathieu van der Poel, powering up Siena’s Via Santa Caterina. The blurs in the background are Julian Alaphilippe and Egan Bernal. Though the last
Procycling2 min read
Adam Becket
It was Tadej Pogačar. I could make a convoluted argument to try and justify a more leftfield pick, like Wout van Aert, but it just was Pog. His Tour performance was one thing, but to win Liege and Lombardia in the same season is just remarkable. It w
Procycling7 min read
BEST & WORST OF TIMES
This year, Ineos Grenadiers won seven stage races, including a grand tour, with seven different riders. It sounds exceptional until you realise that in 2018 they also won seven stage races, including two grand tours, with six different riders. Not so
Procycling1 min read
Ineos Grenadiers 2021 Gc Results
ÉTOILE DE BESSÈGES 2nd, MICHA? KWIATKOWSKI TOUR DE LA PROVENCE 1st, IVÁN SOSA TOUR DES ALPES MARITIMES ET DU VAR 10th, TAO GEOGHEGAN HART UAE TOUR 2nd, ADAM YATES PARIS-NICE 13TH, DYLAN VAN BAARLE TIRRENO-ADRIATICO 4TH, EGAN BERNAL SETTIMANA COPPI E
Procycling5 min read
The Range Of Wout Van Aert
Until stage 20 of the Tour de France, it had been a decent race for Wout van Aert. He might have been expecting to help his team leader Primož Roglic try to win the race, but the Slovenian had started the race battered and bruised from a crash in the
Procycling1 min read
Cycling All-rounders
Tour de France winner, 2011 Mountain bike World Cup winner 1998-9 Tour de France winner, 1947 World cyclo-cross champion 1950 Vuelta a España winner, 1965 World cyclo-cross champion 1960-1, 63 Paris-Roubaix winner, 1972, 74-5, 77 World cross champion
Procycling2 min read
The Bernal And Ganna Show On Gravel
Stage 11 of the 2021 Giro d’Italia, the race’s homage to the springtime Strade Bianche race, was all about Egan Bernal and Filippo Ganna. Physically, the Ineos Grenadiers pair could not be more different: one is a lightweight climber, the other a cru
Procycling2 min read
Mark Cavendish Year By Year In The Last Decade
In the last year of HTC-Highroad Cavendish wins five stages and the points jersey at the Tour de France. Follows this up with the World Champs road race title in Copenhagen. In his sole year with Team Sky, he wins three stages at the Giro d’Italia an
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Procycling9 min read
The Fire Within
Most, if not all cycling fans must have watched the steady cooling of Mark Cavendish’s sprinting career over the last four or five seasons and concluded that the days of Tour stage wins were long gone. Cavendish has famously never been a ‘numbers’ gu
Procycling2 min read
Annemiek Van Vleuten
Out of the 38 days she raced this season, plus four stage race general classifications, Annemiek van Vleuten finished outside the top 20 just seven times. Three of those occasions were on stages of races where she won overall, a fourth was when she c
Procycling2 min read
Demi Vollering
The coronation of Demi Vollering as Dutch cycling’s next queen happened on the run-in to Liège in this year’s Doyenne. As the lead group of five - Longo Borghini, Vollering, Van Vleuten, Van der Breggen and Niewiadoma - came to the finish, SD Worx wa
Procycling2 min read
Marianne Vos
The world turns, the seasons pass, and Marianne Vos keeps on winning races. The rider from North Brabant has now won 292 times, which includes seven from 2021. However, there was something new this year. For the first time, she changed teams, swappin
Procycling2 min read
Anna Van Der Breggen
Anna van der Breggen is the second-youngest of the four Dutchwomen profiled here, but the only one who has stepped off her bike and into retirement, though she’ll work as a DS for SD Worx, the team she has been with since 2017, for 2022. Van der Breg
Procycling2 min read
A Man Among Boys
The first job of winning a stage race is not losing the stage race. It is often said of a stage that the Tour will not be won on its roads, but that it can easily be lost there. So it was with the first seven stages of the 2021 Tour. Tadej Pogacar sp
Procycling1 min read
Jan Polanc
I’ve been in the same team with Tadej ever since he turned professional. I know it’s what people always say about the big champions, but in that time he really hasn’t changed. Like Philippe Gilbert said about him recently when he saw him in a bike sh
Procycling2 min read
Luke Maguire
I first met Tadej in a hotel lobby in Benidorm at the Vuelta in 2019, where we had a big conference with Fabio Aru. Tadej had just one interview, with a small Colombian radio station. But he was punctual, polite and just a very pleasant guy. Aru was
Procycling2 min read
Joseba Elguezabal
Tadej is very calm and very sure of himself. None of this success has gone to his head. Sure, he’s matured a bit in the last few months, but he’s still a 23-year-old who likes to do what all 23-year-olds do. However, he doesn’t go out there looking f
Procycling2 min read
Iñigo San Millan
Tadej reminds me of Miguel Indurain, who I met when he came out to train in Colorado, where I teach at university, before the 1995 Worlds. Like Indurain, he comes across as very normal, aware that not everything in this life begins and ends with cycl
Procycling1 min read
David Cmelj
Tadej used to be very shy as an interviewee, but that’s normal in a 21-year-old racer who wins the Tour. These days, he’s getting much more self-confident. He won’t give you a two-minute answer to a question, but he’ll always tell you something about
Procycling1 min read
Jasper Philipsen
I first met Tadej at a UAE training camp, even before we did our first race together at the 2019 Tour Down Under. He was ambitious, but you have to be as a top pro, otherwise you’re not in the right business. He’s also a guy who just enjoys riding hi
Procycling8 min read
The Crazy Gang
When Bahrain-McLaren changed their name this year to Bahrain Victorious, the jokes wrote themselves. For the Bahraini-owned but largely Slovenian-operated team 2020 was, in a word, lacklustre. They only secured nine wins, joint 13th out of the WorldT
Procycling1 min read
2021 Wins: Bahrain Victorious
Stage, Tour de la Provence Stage, Tour de Hongrie (2) Stage, Tour of Slovenia (2) Stage, Tour de Pologne Stage, Cro Race Stage, Tour of the Alps Stage, Tour de Romandie Stage, Critérium du Dauphiné Italian road race champs Stage, Benelux Tour Benelux
Procycling2 min read
The Long Shot
The kitsune are mythical spirits in Japanese folklore who take on the form of a fox and delight in playing pranks on overbearing samurai or greedy merchants. They are independent and clever, and rely on their intelligence to outwit more powerful but
Procycling9 min read
Elisa Balsamo A World Apart
And so, this gin-clear autumnal morning, to the shores of Lake Iseo. Here, where the ancient provinces of Bergamo and Brescia connect, Procycling is with the all-new world champion. Since you’re asking, it’s true that Elisa Balsamo is to piano playin
Procycling8 min read
The Unstoppable Force
Primož Roglic’s hold on the peloton was beautifully illustrated at Milano-Torino in October. The Slovenian cajoled and tempted Adam Yates to sprint up the finishing climb of Superga. The Brit had few options. He resembled a puppet, before Roglic cut
Procycling2 min read
The Great Escape Of The Grand Tour Winners
Left to his own devices, Primož Roglic would probably have left it to the final climb to Lagos de Covadonga on stage 17 of the 2021 Vuelta. The Slovenian has historically favoured a safety-first strategy in stage races. His gains come in the TTs, in
Procycling1 min read
Women’s Results
Strade Bianche CHANTAL V.D. BROEK-BLAAK 2 Elisa Longo Borghini Trofeo Alfredo Binda ELISA LONGO BORGHINI 2 Marianne Vos Brugge-De Panne GRACE BROWN 2 Emma Norsgaard Gent-Wevelgem MARIANNE VOS 2 Lotte Kopecky Tour of Flanders ANNEMIEK VAN VLEUTEN 2 Li
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Men’s Results
13 PRIMOŽ ROGLIČ JUMBO-VISMA AGR Ag2r-Citroën, ALP Alpecin-Fenix AST Astana, BAH Bahrain Victorious, BEX BikeExchange, BOR Bora-Hansgrohe, COF Cofidis, DQS Deceuninck-Quick Step, DSM DSM EFN EF-Nippo, EOL Eolo-Kometa FDJ Groupama-FDJ, ING Ineos Grena
Procycling10 min read
The Businessman And The Fake Sheikh
It was quite the ending, even by cycling’s standards. In late 1992, after a successful Tour de France, the riders and personnel of the RMO team were received at an elegant chateau near the Belgian town of Mons by a ‘sheikh’ who was – so they understo
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Procycling
Editor Edward Pickering edward.pickering@futurenet.com Senior Designer Mariëlle Scholten Staff Writer Adam Becket Simon Barnes, Brodie Chapman, Patrick Fletcher, Alasdair Fotheringham, William Fotheringham, Dan Martin, Richard Moore, Charlie Quarterm
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Laurens Ten Dam
The moment Mathieu van der Poel attacked on the climb to Mûr-de-Bretagne I said, “That guy for sure does not have the legs today.” I admit, this was a thought from an indoctrinated old fart. I have been riding in the bunch for 16 years, but maybe I s
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Wishlist
This team issue Ridley Noah Fast is the bike that Caleb Ewan has won so many races on. The Belgian company says that it is a “pure racing machine, designed specifically to get you maximum speed with minimal effort”. It is made for perfect power trans

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