As the cycling world gets ready to turn the page over to start a new decade, we are looking at who could shape the 2020 cycling season.
The 2019 road cycling season was full of new talent exploding onto the scene and showing the fans what they can do.
Chief among them was of course South America’s first Tour de France winner, Egan Bernal, who at only 22 years of age was the youngest winner of Le Grand Boucle since 1904.
Other riders who bossed the year with breakout seasons were the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, Lorena Wiebes and Chloé Dygert.
But who will be the new stars of 2020? We’ve taken the liberty to suggest a few.
Iván Sosa, 2020 team: Team INEOS
291 days Bernal’s junior, it’s easy to see why people regard Sosa in the same light. The Colombian also graduated to the WorldTour from the successful Androni Giocatolli talent pool.
In 2019 Sosa proved that he is a master of one-week stage races with a dominant display at the Vuelta a Burgos where he won three of the four leader’s jerseys and two stages.
The 22-year-old also rode his first Grand Tour – the Giro d’Italia – in a support role, a key learning curve for any would-be champion.
The most impressive display of his talents came in the late-season race Gran Piemonte, where he and Bernal stormed away from the likes of Emanuel Buchmann and Dan Martin on the uphill finale. Bernal even admitted afterwards that, “Sosa was almost stronger than me.”
2020 may well be Sosa’s year to boss a Grand Tour but he will have to jostle for leadership within Team INEOS, who have no less than four different Grand Tour champions in their roster.
Tadej Pogačar, 2020 team: UAE-Team Emirates
There is something magical happening in Slovenian cycling and Pogačar stands at the head of a generation of cyclists ready to make the country a cycling superpower. They have in Primož Roglič one of the world’s best stage racers, but in Tadej Pogačar they also have one of the most exciting talents yet to truly prove what he can do.
Pogačar is a rider who, we’ll admit, won’t exactly be a breakout star due to his fantastic 2019, but we expect the Slovenian will go one step better a la Egan Bernal in 2020.
Three-stage wins and third overall at the 2019 Vuelta a España showed that the 21-year-old, like Sosa, is certainly one to watch at the 2020 Grand Tours. His explosive climbing was fantastic to see at the Vuelta and we hope he will have even more to show in 2020.
When he stood on the podium in Madrid, he was only 20 years old, this is a rider who we will be hearing a lot about for a decade to come.
Mikkel Bjerg, 2020 team: UAE-Team Emirates
UAE-Team Emirates have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to young cycling talent in their 2020 roster. The likes of Brandon McNulty and Jasper Philipsen could have easily made it on to this list but it may have been a bit overkill.
Joining Pogačar in 2020, though, is the triple world under 23 TT champion Mikkel Bjerg.
The 21-year-old Dane graduates to the WorldTour from the ever-successful Hagens Berman Axeon development team.
A formidable engine, Bjerg has been chasing the hour record since 2015 and only finished a second off Bradley Wiggins’s mark in October 2018.
Sergio Higuita, 2020 team: EF Education First
Higuita, like Pogačar and so many before them, introduced himself to cycling fans at the Vuelta a España.
Stage 18 of the 2019 Vuelta from Colmenar Viejo to Becerril de la Sierra was arguably the hardest parcours of the route and it was Higuita who attacked and displayed great climbing and descending prowess to take the stage.
Again, at only 22 years of age, sandwiched between countrymen Bernal and Sosa, the Colombian is the third prong of the triumvirate of Colombian climbers who could dominate in the mountains next year.
Alexsandr Vlasov, 2020 team: Astana Pro Team
Alexsandr Vlasov looks very much like the next Ilnur Zakarin, and the 23-year-old will hope to follow in his countryman’s footsteps with his move from Gazprom-Rus Velo to the WorldTour in 2020 with Astana Pro Team.
The Russian is an impressive climber and not too shabby a time-trialist so has the potential to be a Grand Tour specialist.
Vlasov won the Baby Giro in 2018 and at Astana, he may have the opportunity to scale up to the three-week race next May.
We are yet to find out if he can rap though, which is of course a must for all Astana riders.
There are plenty of riders to watch in the Women’s WorldTour in 2020.
Juliette Labous, 2020 team: Team Sunweb
Labous is a very exciting prospect for French cycling fans, owing to her climbing and time trial abilities, she may well one day be able to match Annemiek van Vleuten.
The 21-year-old topped the youth standings at the Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile and impressed on the uphill time trial. She matched this result by topping the youth standings at both the Amgen Tour of California and Tour de Bretagne Féminini, showing her range as a rider.
Labous is part of a strong, talented and young Team Sunweb next year and if the Frenchwoman is given the chance, could be a name to remember for 2020.
Franziska Koch, 2020 team: Team Sunweb
Adding to the youthful look of Team Sunweb in 2020 is the 19-year-old German Franziska Koch. The teenager took her first professional win at the Boels Ladies Tour, outsprinting Christine Majerus after a long day in the saddle.
A wet day full of attacks and counterattacks, Koch showed a racing maturity beyond her years when she outfoxed the experienced Majerus in a two-up sprint.
Koch is both a strong rider in one-day events and a very capable sprinter. Her successful results this year show an astute tactical nous for seeing when and where the big moves are going.
She could ride for herself in the classics next year or prove to be a super teammate for Coryn Rivera.
Jess Roberts, 2020 team: Mitchelton-Scott
Many British Cycling fans have known about and followed the progress of multi-talented Jess Roberts for a while now.
Roberts, of course, burst on to the scene in 2018 when she won the British national road championships beating Danielle Rowe and Eleanor Dickinson from a reduced field.
Roberts has been rewarded for two impressive stage victories – one from a group and one solo – in the Tour de Bretagne Féminin with a place on Mitchelton-Scott for 2020.
Now is the right time for the twenty-year-old to advance to the Women’s WorldTour and in a team like Mitchelton-Scott, she will have the time and space to go from strength to strength.
Lonneke Uneken, 2020 team: Boels – Dolmans Cycling Team
Boels Dolmans may believe they have the next dominant force in women’s cycling in the form of Lonneke Uneken. The Dutchwoman is only nineteen, but like Koch is beginning to make a name for herself as a powerful one-day rider.
2019 proved to be a steep learning curve for Uneken, she went from placing last in her first race of the year to a host of top ten finishes at the back end of the season.
She also managed to secure a bronze medal at the World Championships in Yorkshire, so the teenager is very much knocking on the door for her first professional win. 2020 may well be the year for it.
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Évita Muzic, 2020 team: FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope
Another French rider to look out for in the Womens WorldTour in 2020 is under 23 French national champions, Évita Muzic.
Like her countrywoman Labous, Muzic is an impressive climber and showed her abilities off well at both the WWT Emakumeen XXXII. Bira and Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche, where she finished top of the youth standings.
The brilliant Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig will be riding for FDJ in 2020 so could form quite a decent climbing double act with the young Frenchwoman.
There’s our list of riders to look out for in the 2020 WorldTour and Women’s WorldTour, but who have we left out? And who will boss the 2020 season?