On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 11/1/2023
2023 Racing Wrap-up
It’s time to look back over the racing season of 2023: who did what and who ended up on top?
I started compiling Top Ten lists of the best riders back in 2013…11 years ago. I’ve just been browsing my archive and revisiting all of them: such ancient history! So many almost forgotten riders…even though they were good enough in a given year to make a Top Ten list.
Trying to come up with my list this year has been giving me almost more trouble than any previous year. After pushing and pulling at all the UCI rankings—total UCI points, stage race rankings, one-day race rankings—and just my own subjective take on the season past, I’ve decided I can’t manage a list of the ten best for 2023. I’m limiting it to just a half-dozen. Why? Because these half-dozen riders so thoroughly dominated the season that everyone else is simply off the back, not worthy of anything close to top ten stature. (Sorry to all the others, but you just got whupped, bumped off the ten-step podium.)
Five out of my six are stage racers…all-’rounders. Presumably I consider them the best five stage racers in the pro ranks, at least for this year. Looking back over my previous ten “Top Tens”—some of which ran to over a dozen or had Honorable Mentions tacked on—I can see that I waffled a good deal as to whether to include pure sprinters or one-day specialists…classics riders. In recent years, I’ve leaned more toward the stage racers. As the term “all-’rounder” suggests, these super stars of the cycling firmament should be brilliant climbers, among the best time-trialers, and, when needed, above average sprinters. Also: superb bike handlers…great descenders and always nimble in the tight spots. And finally, the intangibles: heart, smarts, grinta, panache. That’s the theory anyway. But ultimately, the results are what count, no matter which skill sets are employed to get there.
Let’s get to it, beginning with our one classics rider…
• Mathieu van der Poel, Alpecin-Deceuninck, 28, Netherlands • 6’0”, 165 lbs
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• Sepp Kuss, Jumbo-Visma, 29, Durango, Colorado • 6’0”, 134 lbs
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• Remco Evenepoel, Soudal-Quick Step, 23, Belgium • 5’7”, 134 lbs
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• Primoz Roglič, Jumbo-Visma, 33, Slovenia • 5’9”, 143 lbs
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• Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates, 25, Slovenia • 5’9”, 145 lbs
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• Jonas Vingegaard, Jumbo-Visma, 26, Denmark • 5’9”, 132 lbs
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Only one rider finished ahead of Mathieu van der Poel in the season-long, one-day race rankings: Tadej Pogačar (and I will get to him presently). Among the traditional classics riders, van der Poel gets my vote this year because of an impressive trifecta of victories: Milano-Sanremo on March 18; Paris-Roubaix on April 9; and the World Championship Road Race on August 6. He was second at the Tour of Flanders (behind Pogačar). He won the 5-stage Tour of Belgium in June and had a few other top three finishes. He’s also the current cyclocross World Champion (for the fifth time). In looking up his palmarés for this year, I was interested to discover that he comes by his talent naturally: his father is Adrie van der Poel (winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege (’88), Tour of Flanders (’86), Amstel Gold (’90), Paris-Tours (’87), and Classica San Sebastian (’85). His grandfather is Raymond Poulidor, winner of the Vuelta a España (’64), Paris-Nice (’72, ’73), the Dauphiné (’66, ’69), Milano-Sanremo (’61), Fleche-Wallone (’63), and three times 2nd at the Tour de France (’64, ’65, ’74). Not a bad pedigree!
If this list were based only on the UCI World Ranking, Kuss wouldn’t be here: he was 16th. He was 6th in the stage race rankings. But he had an unusual season, culminating in his amazing win at the Vuelta a España in September. No way can we keep the winner of one of the three Grand Tours off the list! Aside from that, we have to take into account the fact that he rode all season—and for all of his career, pretty much—as a domestique for his team leaders, Primoz Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard. In that role, he completed all three Grand Tours this year, something neither of his team captains did. (He was 14th at the Giro and 12th at the Tour, very good placings for a support rider.) He had more race days than anyone else on this list: 77…in fact ten more than his nearest rivals, which speaks to his ironman fitness. We really don’t know how good Kuss can be. We know he’s a very good climber but perhaps only an adequate time trialer and sprinter. But who knows? Now that he has a Grand Tour in his resumé, he may find opportunities to grow into a larger, leading role next year.
So much was expected of Evenepoel this year after he burst onto the racing scene last year. He did have a good season this year, but it was a bit less impressive than what it might have been. He won the UAE Tour in February. He was 2nd at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya in March. He won la Doyenne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege on April 23 (for the second year in a row). He was leading the Giro d’Italia after nine stages—including winning the time trials on Stages 1 and 9—when he had to withdraw because of a COVID positive. He finished a rather lackluster 3rd at the Tour de Suisse in June. He won the Belgian road race national championship on June 25. He won the Classica San Sebastian on July 29 (for the second year in a row). And he capped off his season by winning the World Time Trial Championship on August 11. He also won the Mountains classification at the Vuelta, but after having entered the event as the defending champion, that was a rather sorry consolation prize. His assorted wins and other top finishes added up to 3rd place in the UCI World Ranking.
I want to make it clear: all three of my final riders on this list are so close that I really cannot rank them…except you can infer whatever you want from the order in which I present them here. Roglič had a wonderful season, his best in some time. He won the 7-stage Tirreno-Adriatico in early March, winning three stages and taking home not only the GC jersey but the Mountains jersey and the Points jersey…a clean sweep. In late March, he won the 7-stage Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, winning two stages, leading from start to finish, and also winning the Points classification and finishing 2nd in the Mountains classification. In May he won the Giro d’Italia, highlighted by his stunning time trial win on the penultimate stage. He won the 5-stage Vuelta a Burgos in August, winning three stages, the Points classification and finishing 2nd in the Mountains classification. He finished 3rd at the Vuelta, all tangled up in that extraordinary Jumbo-Visma soap opera (read last month’s column for the whole story). Finally, he won the Giro dell’Emilia on September 30, finishing with a powerful sprint at the end of the last, brutally steep climb. And a 3rd at Il Lombardia on October 7. All those wins and good placings added up to 4th in the 2023 UCI World Ranking.
The only reason Tadej Pogačar is not the final rider on this list is because he didn’t win a Grand Tour (for the second year in a row). A lot of informed cycling fans still think he’s the top rider in the world and, in fact, he finished 1st in the UCI World Ranking and it wasn’t even close: Tadej Pogačar…7686 points; Jonas Vingegaard…6304 points. How did he do that, without winning a Grand Tour? He won the 5-stage Ruta del Sol in February, winning three stages and leading wire to wire, while also winning the Points classification. In early March he won the 8-stage Paris-Nice, winning three stages and the Points classification. He finished 4th at Milano-Sanremo on March 18, 3rd at E3 Saxo Classic on March 24, 1st at the Tour of Flanders on April 2, 1st at Amstel Gold on April 16, 1st at Fleche Wallone on April 19, 1st at both the Slovenian road race and time trial championships in June, 2nd at the Tour de France in July, and finally 1st at Il Lombardia on October 7 (for the third year in a row). His incredible run of success was interrupted by his crash at Liege-Bastogne-Liege on April 23, where he broke his left wrist. Without the injury and long rehab, who knows what he might have done at the Tour de France?
Vingegaard had a season every bit as successful as either Tadej Pogačar or Primoz Roglič, with the added flourish of winning the big one: the Tour de France (for the second year in a row). He kicked off his season by winning O Gran Camiño in February, winning all three stages and the Mountains classification. He finished 3rd at Paris-Nice (behind Pogačar) in March. He won the 6-stage Itzulia Basque Country in April, winning three stages and the Points classification. In June he won the 8-stage Critérium du Dauphiné, winning two stages and the Points classification. And of course he won le Tour in July, handily beating Pogačar. At the Vuelta, he finished 2nd, :17 behind his teammate Sepp Kuss and ahead of his other teammate Primoz Roglič. (Any one of the three could have won but it made the best sense for Kuss to win the final Grand Tour after his two team leaders had won the Giro and Tour…a feat that may never be duplicated.) As noted above, all of that landed him in 2nd place in the UCI World Ranking.At the end of my write-up about that crazy Vuelta, I wrote this: “The subplot after all this is what will these three riders be doing next year? If Vingegaard is going to be the team leader at the Tour de France again, you have to wonder if Roglič might want to find another team where he can be the leader at le Tour. But where do you find another team as strong as Jumbo-Visma? He’ll turn 34 this month…not a kid anymore. He can hear the clock ticking. Go for it now or forget about it. Will Kuss return to his role as the humble, helpful domestique or will he want some leading roles himself? We’ll have to wait a few months for that to play out.”
We did not have to wait a few months for that to play out. Immediately after winning the Giro dell’Emilia in October, Roglič announced he was leaving Jumbo-Visma and signing for two years with BORA-hansgrohe. It probably is not as strong a team as Jumbo-Visma (Jumbo-Lease a Bike in 2024), but they should field a good team to support him at the Tour. And Jumbo won’t be as strong with Roglič gone, so that might even things out a bit. Another interesting transfer: Mikel Landa is leaving Bahrain-Victorious and joining Soudall-Quick Step, where he will presumably add some strong support for Remco Evenepoel in the mountains of the big tours. It’s a long way from now until July, but at the moment, it looks as if we could have a four-way battle royale at the Tour de France: Jonas Vingegaard vs Tadej Pogačar vs Primoz Roglič vs Remco Evenepoel. The talking heads are already hyperventilating about that prospect. But before we spend too much time looking forward to that possibility, let’s enjoy looking backward at the epic season just concluded. It has to rank as one of the most amazing seasons in years.
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net