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The analysis of Mikel Landa was lucid after one of the exhibitions of Remco Evenepoel in the Vuelta a Burgos. “We have to take advantage before they gain experience because in the next few years it will be impossible to win something.” Landa, 30, has spent ten seasons in the professional elite and fifteen wins. The phenomenon Evenepoel, 20, is the cyclist with the most victories in 2020 (9) and it already has thirteen in total since it debuted in 2019 without going through the school of the sub 23 category, such as Kobe Bryant who jumped from high school to the NBA without passing through college. The Belgian Evenepoel, who in the Giro de Lombardia experienced the bitter side of cycling with a very hard fall that already places him for next season due to a broken pelvis, is the vertex of a generation of young, charismatic and amazing cyclists who thrill with his style (Mathieu Van der Poel, Egan Bernal, Tadej Pogaçar y Wout Van Aert) and are changing the face of cycling.
Egan Bernal won the 2019 Tour of the avalanches and the honorable defense of Alaphilippe’s yellow jersey. At 22 years old, the youngest winner after World War II, his calm and harmonious demeanor, his undeniable quality and his lack of fieryness have not caused as much impact as Evenepoel or, last year, Van der Poel.
At the 2019 San Sebastián Classic, a pack of veterans (Olympic champion Van Avermaet, world champion Alejandro Valverde) unsuccessfully chased Evenepoel down zigzagging roads. More than a victory of insolence was the proclamation of a change of order. Cycling is at the feet of this generation of talent and ambition. “Evenepoel is capable of doing anything” predicted Alberto Contador. “He has the conditions to win a great lap.”
Win and put on a show
Evenepoel has won four of the five races in which he has competed this year, San Juan, Algarve, Burgos and Poland. Always on the verge of exaggeration, journalism compared it to Eddy Merckx for its large displacement engine, his power and greed. Beyond that, the Belgian represents a regeneration of cycling, anesthetized for years by the boring and infallible machinery of the Sky. Not only does he win, but he gives a recital every evening.
That ability to move has it Van der Poel, pure genetics, son of a huge cyclist (Adrie van der Poel) and grandson of a legend, Raymond Poulidor. Emerged from mud, from cyclocross (world champion), and from mountain biking (aspires to gold in Tokyo), the Dutchman is versatile and deadly. Last year he won four of the seven one-day races between March and April.
We are not facing an explosion by spontaneous generation. The peloton is getting younger and younger. The Spanish Josean Matxín, who was a talent recruiter for the Deceuninck affiliate and is now Emirates’ subject manager, says: “Before, young people had to prove their courage to win a contract. Now we look to them to allow them to grow.
This has to do with the cycling salary slimming. The response of this generation has left their aspirations small. They don’t win second-row stages, but the main pieces.
He Slovenian Pogaçar, 21 years old, already announced a year ago the talent he treasured in the Algarve and the Tour of California. It was the sensation of the Vuelta a España that won Roglic. He took three mountain stages and the jersey to the best young man. Pogaçar is cut by the same profile as Evenepoel, Bernal or Van der Poel. Its boldness shortens the times of slow cooking. Young people don’t want to wait their turn. “Although they lack experience, they have extraordinary talent,” says Contador. They are schooled puppies at the forefront of technology, nutrition and training science superior to that of their forebears. None seem tainted with the poison of EPO and chemistry, the bizarre times of cycling.
In that orbit the Belgian rotates Wout van Aert, 25 years old, stellar debutant last year in the Tour, classic hand, winner, who this year has been awarded the White roads, the Milan-San Remo and a stage of the Dauphiné. An aspiring green of Tour regularity.
The Froome’s hegemony in the Tour won adherents in Britain out of patriotismBut it left the rest of the world cold. Contador’s withdrawal caused a great void in cycling. Only Peter Sagan, a three-time world champion, seven green jerseys from the Tour, is the only genuine star of the former peloton. Now approaching, like a herd of bison, a generation that has the magnetism to attract young fans to a wonderful sport that has so often disappointed.
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