Please note that this is an automated translation and it will not be perfect. All articles have been written in English and if anything appears to not make sense, please double check in English.
Comments
Also, final round of the UCI Track Champions League overshadowed by a horrifying crash.
Welcome to Daily News, your roundup of news items from across the world of cycling. We keep this post updated throughout the week so that you can stay informed on all things bike racing, tech, industry, culture, advocacy, and more.
Here is what is making the headlines this week …
After last weekend’s Dublin round, the Cyclocross World Cup was due to continue this weekend in the Italian location of Cabras, Sardinia. Located right on the exposed west coast of the island, wind was presumably always expected to play a role in how the racing unfolded, however, as storms sweep across Europe, the organisers (Flanders Classics) were forced to cancel Sunday’s events due to the extreme weather.
It was already looking touch and go on Saturday, but the riders were able to preview the flat, sandy course. Alas, the wind picked up overnight with reported gusts of up to 100 km/h, wreaking havoc on the venue and surrounding area. There was even a lightning strike to part of the hospitality infrastructure which subsequently burned down, as was the neighbouring press room.
Riders were on their way or already on site when what seemed like an inevitable cancellation was confirmed to ensure the safety of all parties, adding that postponement to later in the day was not an option. The World Cup will return to the heartlands of CX next weekend (15th December) in Namur, Belgium.
Saturday night was meant to be the ‘Grand Final’ of season four of the UCI Track Champions League in London, however, the event was brought to a juddering halt when Katy Marchant and Alessa-Catriona Pröpster went catapulting over the safety barrier and into the stands during the Keirin heats.
Racing was very quickly suspended as the riders and four spectators were attended to, and the remainder of the evening was cancelled half an hour later. While waiting for news in the interim, and as Marchant was treated where she fell, there was real concern for all involved. The Brit was later reported to have suffered a fractured radius and ulna in her right forearm as well as two dislocated fingers, while Pröpster and the spectators walked away relatively unscathed.
The evening had already seen wins for Katie Archibald and Lindsay de Vylder in the scratch races, Emma Finucane and Harrie Lavreysen in the sprint, and Yareli Acevedo in the women’s elimination. Marchant and Pröpster were racing in the second Keirin heat when the incident occurred in a fashion almost identical to the horror crash involving Matt Walls at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in the same velodrome.
Since that incident, which left Walls with concussion, the Lee Valley Velodrome has increased the height of their perspex safety barriers, but – as recently reported by Escape Collective’s Ronan Mc Laughlin – the UCI has been slow in any attempt to mandate track barrier safety despite repeated crashes.
Popular young Australian rider Sarah Gigante was looking forward to January’s national championships and attempting to defend her Tour Down Under title, but she now faces months of rehab following surgery to treat iliac artery endfibrosis.
The condition, that limits blood flow to the leg due to narrowing of the artery, is considered rare but is not at all uncommon among cyclists – Amanda Spratt, Annemiek van Vleuten, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos all underwent multiple surgeries for the issue before later re-finding their form, and Bob Jungels had it in both legs in 2021.
Gigante had been experiencing aching symptoms in her leg for “a long time”, even at rest, which progressed to numbness and pain on and off the bike. After it failed to improve and made even light intensity impossible, the 24-year-old underwent investigations once back home in Australia, and she received the diagnosis on Monday. She now faces several weeks without training, and while she could be back racing in the spring, may not be expected to race for results before early next summer. [Instagram]
After the transfer carrousel comes new kit reveals, and after the first announcements last week from Lidl-Trek and Cofidis, FDJ-Suez is the next to unveil their 2025 livery. Not much has changed in the French team’s kit, still demonstrating a smart red and blue design.
It’s unusual to see incoming riders in their new kit before 1st January, but former Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering was among those showing off the team’s updated look at their launch event in Poitier, France, a few days after the big reveal of the team’s bike from new partner Specialized.
The glitzy Velo d’Or ceremony took place on Friday night with a star-studded guest list. The finalists for the various categories were announced in mid-October, but perhaps more than ever, the eventual winners surprised no one. Tadej Pogačar and Lotte Kopecky took the headline prizes and the respective men’s and women’s Eddy Merckx trophies for best Classics riders.
Other winners include Romain Bardet and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, with Harrie Lavreysen and Alexandre Léauté taking Olympic and Paralympic categories, and finally, Luis Ángel Maté became the first recipient of the Gino Mäder Award, created this year to recognise an athlete who has dedicated themselves to a cause in cycling and beyond.
“I’m going to tell you a story about Gino Mäder,” began the 40-year-old’s speech, after receiving the award from Mäder’s parents. “It was the 2021 Vuelta, which finished in Santiago de Compostela. He was a young rider who had a great Vuelta, wearing the white jersey of the best young rider … He had set up a wonderful initiative to raise money for environmental associations. I was really touched by that and after the Vuelta, I decided to return home, more than 1000 km away, by bike.
“Before finishing the race, I went to speak to Gino Mäder to tell him that it was a real inspiration for me to make this journey, so thank you, Gino … it’s a huge honour to be surrounded by all of you for such a special moment. My greatest respect, admiration and gratitude go to Gino Mäder’s parents. His legacy, his values and his commitment inspire us all to become better people.”
The internet’s favourite story this off-season Saturday is that Van Aert has taken victory, only it’s not the one that first comes to mind. No, rather than the cobble-and-cross specialist, Grand Tour stage hoarder, father of two, Blur fan and spandex-clad squirrel that is Wout van Aert, the cyclist in question is an Indonesian called Bernard.
If the name Bernard Van Aert rings a bell, then you’re probably a track and/or Olympic Games fan. This summer, Van Aert became the first Indonesian track cyclist to qualify for the Olympics in two decades after winning Omnium silver at the UCI Nations Cup in Cali, Colombia, two years earlier.
The MULA Cycling Team rider is currently racing the three-day Tour de Siak (UCI ranking 2.2). Stage 2 victory marks BVA’s first ever in a season that has seen the 27-year-old take something of a step up. Also racing, and currently leading the Indonesian stage race, is New Zealand youngster Jack Drage (formerly of Hagens Berman Axeon) after the 22-year-old won the opening stage. With only a sprint to come, the young Kiwi looks set to seal the overall on Sunday.
Once – perhaps still – a great French hope for Grand Tour success, David Gaudu has long operated under the heavy burden of domestic expectation suffered by any promising young rider from France, a nation still looking for their next Tour de France winner almost 40 years after Bernard Hinault’s last title in 1985.
Gaudu’s best result at the Tour came in 2022 when he finished just off the podium, but this summer, he endured a wearing three weeks that left him wallowing in 65th overall. However, he then headed to the Vuelta where he better weathered the competition to land sixth, only losing out on the top five in the final day’s ITT.
In Spain he was a rider rejuvenated, and in more than one way. He made waves at the team presentation with a striking new hairstyle, his silky brown hair pulled back into a topknot: “You could almost say: a new look for a new career,” Gaudu said in an interview posted on his team’s website, which also indicated a debut appearance at the Giro d’Italia in 2025. [Groupama-FDJ]
Sweden has never ranked very highly among the big cycling nations, but as the sport continues to grow in Scandinavia, new outfit Lucky Sport Cycling Team seeks to elevate Swedish riders to the sport’s highest level, with the goal of one day appearing at the Tour de France.
11 names were announced with the introduction of the team, including EF Education-EasyPost stagiaire Edvin Lovidius, DSM-firmenich Development rider Axel Källberg from Finland, and Olympian Amir Ansari who competed for the refugee team in Paris.
After his apparently cordial divorce with Lotto Dstny last month, Maxim van Gils has reportedly signed a three-year contract, but he won’t announce with whom until Monday. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe were leading the race for the Belgian’s signature, but after Tom Pidcock’s long-awaited departure from Ineos Grenadiers, the British team has entered the picture, while Astana-Qazaqstan – which freed up some room by demoting two of its riders to their own development pathway, filling one of those spots with 23-year-old Italian Davide Toneatti – has reportedly made a new and financially more enticing proposition in the eleventh hour.
Confirming weeks of rumors – and logical speculation given the arrival of Demi Vollering – FDJ-Suez and Specialized have made it official. They will be joining forces next year, thereby keeping 2023 Tour de France winner Vollering aboard the American brand even as she rides for a new team.
In switching to Specialized, FDJ-Duez will be leaving behind French brand Lapierre. The move coincides with the team’s 25th year of existence and the arrival of Vollering as well other new talents to the roster.
The collaboration will also see Specialized add a third team to its WorldTour lineup; the company is already the bike sponsor of SD Worx-ProTime, the squad that Vollering is leaving, as well as AG Insurance-Soudal.
Two days after the Ineos Grenadiers announced his departure, Tom Pidcock is officially joining a new team: Q36.5. The announcement will come as no surprise to those who have followed the months of rumors that Pidcock’s transfer to the Swiss second-division team was imminent.
The versatile 25-year-old Brit has signed a three-year deal with the squad. You can read more about the news here at Escape Collective.
Trek Bicycle has partnered with Liberty Tire Recycling to introduce the first nationwide bike tire recycling program in the US. Cyclists can drop off used tires at participating Trek stores, where they will be collected free of charge. The tires will then be repurposed by Liberty into materials such as landscaping rubber, asphalt, and tire-derived fuel.
The initiative currently focuses solely on tires and excludes inner tubes. Trek’s website has more details and a list of the participating stores. [Trek]
Visma-Lease a Bike has announced that Wout van Aert will take part in six cyclocross races this campaign as he focuses mostly on recovering from a knee injury sustained at the Vuelta a España and preparing for his upcoming road season. He will race the SuperPrestige rounds in Mol (Dec 23), Loenhout (Dec 27), and Gullegem (Jan 4), plus World Cup rounds in Dendermonde (Jan 5), Benidorm (Jan 19), and Maasmechelen (Jan 25), but he will not race the World Championships.
“This winter, we’ve opted for a compact schedule of six races that fit well into my training plan. It will be a cyclocross season I approach purely out of love for the sport, but with modest ambitions,” he said in a statement. “After my crash in the Vuelta and my knee injury, it’s essential to make the best use of the time I have to prepare for the road season. A few cyclocross races fit nicely into that plan, but the schedule is deliberately more limited than in previous years.”
The Life Time Grand Prix U23 Development Program will accept applications from riders aged 18 to 22 for next season in a program that will give young riders the chance to race events in the series and compete in an under-23 ranking.
The highest-ranked racers at the end of the season will earn automatic slots in the 2026 Grand Prix series.
Cycling Weekly reports that female riders on an unnamed now-defunct British team have alleged that the team’s owner sexually harassed them. British Cycling had apparently investigated the owner previously, blocking him from working with young riders, but the governing body had not blocked him from working with the women’s squad of the team in question.
The owner, also unnamed for legal reasons, “was frequently present at races and involved in day-to-day running, also playing a pivotal hand in a high-profile men’s team,” according to the Cycling Weekly report. He is alleged to have made inappropriate comments and unwanted physical contact at races. [Cycling Weekly]
Cofidis is getting itself more airtime in the news cycle than usual lately, making headlines earlier this week as the team bringing Campagnolo back to the WorldTour and now as the first to unveil a new kit for 2025. Lidl-Trek quickly followed suit on Thursday with a kit reveal of their own.
After years of white and red, Cofidis is adding a yellow splash next season to its jerseys, which are produced by Basque brand Etxeondo.
As for Lidl-Trek, the American-registered team is keeping its red-blue-yellow color scheme more or less the same but with different placements and patterns for those colors, with Santini supplying the kit.
Two days after sustaining multiple fractures when he was doored on a training ride, Remco Evenepoel is out of the hospital, as reported by Het Laatste Nieuws and VTM.
“I have much more trouble than after my crash in the Tour of the Basque Country,” Evenepoel said. “There are also more injuries. They had to do some serious ‘hammering’ on that dislocated collarbone in particular, which destroyed all the surrounding joints. I will need more recovery time than I did then.” [HLN]
Giro d’Italia organizers RCS will unveil the route of next year’s race on January 13 after a substantial delay. The route presentation was originally scheduled for November 12, but it was postponed, with reports suggesting that organizers were working through issues with a planned start in Albania.
The Grande Partenza is still expected to take place in Albania; organizers will reveal more next month in Rome.
Amid rising concerns around the use of carbon monoxide in the pro peloton, Groupama-FDJ boss Marc Madiot has said definitively that his team does not and will not use the substance. At least a few other teams are already utilizing a tool that relies on carbon monoxide inhalation to provide training insights, and there is further concern over the potential for abuse of carbon monoxide as a performance enhancer, although the technique is not explicitly banned by WADA code.
“I’m telling you, in front of the audience, in my team, no one will use this equipment,” Madiot told French sports talk show Les Grandes Gueles du Sport. “I promise, even if the 19 other teams do it, and I invite my team colleagues to have the same attitude.” [Les Grandes Gueles du Sport on X]
After its one-season-long absence from the WorldTour, Campagnolo has announced that it is back in the top division for 2025. French outfit Cofidis will team up with the iconic Italian brand next season.
Escape Collective originally reported on the impending deal back in November.
Both Cofidis men’s and women’s teams have signed a four-year deal to run the brand’s flagship Super Record Wireless groupsets and Bora Ultra WTO wheels on their Look bikes. As it stands, Campagnolo is the most successful groupset manufacturer at the Tour de France with 43 overall titles stretching back to 1946 with the most recent title coming from Tadej Pogačar in 2021.
Campagnolo left the WorldTour at the end of 2023 when Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale made the switch to Shimano for the 2024 season.
The Ineos Grenadiers announced on Wednesday that Tom Pidcock is leaving the team at the end of 2024, confirming months of rumors suggesting that the 25-year-old Brit would not return for 2025. Pidcock has been linked to second-division squad Q36.5, but as of publication time, no transfer there or anywhere else has been announced.
“Tom has some big multi-disciplinary goals and we believe this decision enables both of us to pursue our future ambitions with clarity, purpose and determination,” said Ineos team CEO John Allert in a statement.
You can read more about the Pidcock news here.
Remco Evenepoel said on X that he had surgery to treat the injuries he sustained in a crash on Tuesday. The Olympic champ was doored by a postal worker while out on a training ride.
“With a fracture to my rib, shoulder blade, hand, contusions to my lungs and a dislocation of my right clavicle which has caused all surrounding ligaments to be torn, it’s going to be a long journey but I’m fully focused on my recovery and I’m determined to come back stronger, step by step,” Evenepoel said. [X]
EF Education-EasyPost’s Ben Healy has told Cyclingnews that his Tour de France campaign in 2024 left him wondering whether he might hunt for general classification results in 2025.
“When the Grand Tour courses come out and I think there’s an opportunity there, then I think that’s something I definitely need to consider,” he said. [Cyclingnews]
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) broke a rib, shoulder blade, and hand after crashing into the recently opened door of a postal van while he was out on a training ride.
He was immediately taken to the hospital in Anderlecht, Belgium, but he has since been transferred to the hospital in Herentals.
“His bike broke in two in that incident,” said Soudal team boss Patrick Lefevere. “But it is better to have his bike in two than his arm.”
You can read more on what is known about the crash here.
As Daniel Benson reported on X, Primož Roglič is considering riding both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in 2025. The 35-year-old Slovenian, who abandoned this year’s Tour de France but went on to win the Vuelta a España, won the Italian Grand Tour in his most recent appearance in 2023.
Multi-disciplinary star Cat Ferguson will make her first appearances in under-23/elite cyclocross races this winter starting at the X20 Trofee race in Herentals on December 14, and continuing through a total of eight World Cup events.
Her under-23/elite debut will also mark the first bona fide cyclocross campaign for Spanish WorldTour squad Movistar.
Astana Qazaqstan has sent Santiago Umba and Daniil Marukhin back down from its WorldTour team to its development squad – thereby reducing the WorldTour roster down under the UCI’s maximum of 28 riders.
Media reports have suggested that Astana is interested in signing Maxim Van Gils, who recently left Lotto Dstny, and the team could now sign him while staying within the rules.
Jayco-AlUla has announced that Steve Cummings will join the team as a sports director in 2025. The former pro left his role as Director of Racing at the Ineos Grenadiers last month.
“Steve has such a wide skillset and is a very experienced sport director having of course experienced first-hand what it means to be a rider himself, having won at the highest level during his time as a pro rider,” said Jayco-AlUla general manager Brent Copeland. Cummings won two Tour de France stages, among a host of other results, during his own pro career.
He spent the past season and a half with Ineos, where he quickly became a key member of the racing staff, but his time with the British WorldTour outfit did not last through the end of this year. As Escape Collective reported in November, the relationship between Cummings and star rider Tom Pidcock became frayed, and the squad did not take Cummings to the Tour de France. He was rarely seen at races in the ensuing months, and then he announced that he was leaving the team. Now, he will look to start fresh at Jayco.
Vuelta a España organizers announced on Monday that next year’s race will roll out from Turin, Italy, with three stages fully within the Piedmont region and a fourth starting in the town of Susa. Each of the first three stages features at least some climbing, with a summit finish to close out stage 2.
The visit to Italy, the sixth in the Vuelta’s history, will mark the 80th edition of the race and 90 years since it was first run in 1935.
Wielerflits reports that Jack Burke, the Canadian amateur who recently set Strava KOMs on famous European climbs like the Passo del Mortirolo, Passo dello Stelvio, and Alpe d’Huez, is talking to four WorldTour teams – although it still seems like a longshot for him to sign a deal for next year.
“It is all quite informal, via social media, but there is definitely interest,” he said. “The problem is that it is so late in the season that it is difficult to get a spot. If I had to estimate now, I think there is a 30% chance that I will ride in the WorldTour next year.” [Wielerflits]
As La Gazzetta dello Sport reports, the combined total of all budgets in the men’s WorldTour will eclipse €500 million for the first time in 2025, hitting €570.
That amount represents a substantial increase from 2024, when the total was reportedly €499 million – and it comes after news of Tadej Pogačar’s record-breaking contract with UAE Team Emirates that will pay him €8 million every year through 2030. [La Gazzetta dello Sport]
CHPT3, the clothing brand founded by former pro David Millar, has entered liquidation. The company’s homepage has been updated to display a simple notice announcing the news.
“The Directors of CHPT3 Limited have instructed Wilson Field Limited to assist in the formalities of a Creditors Voluntary Liquidation,” reads the notice. “The Company has now ceased to trade.” [CHPT3]
CampagnoloRemco EvenepoelSpecializedSteve CummingsTom Pidcock
©2024 Escape Collective
Design by T.C
©2024 Escape Collective
Design by T.C
