The Future Grand Tour Winners Draft
Introducing Sensible Chucky and Crazy Arvid
Back when I was writing and podcasting about Formula 1 semi-regularly, there was a gimmick I wanted to use but never got around to it: With one or more partners, draft drivers based on whether you think they’d win another F1 championship race before the end of their careers.
I liked this exercise, because it wasn’t just a ranked list of the best drivers. You’d have to balance drivers’ ability versus their age versus their team situation versus their ability to pull off something special under fluky conditions. I thought it’d be a lot of fun…and then I never got around to doing it.
So I’m stealing my own idea here. Let’s draft riders based on one criterion only: I think this rider will win a grand tour in the future. Old or young, male or female, the only thing that matters is whether this rider will win a grand tour.
The major problem with this construct: There’s only one of me, and a draft requires at least two participants. I could invite a friend to participate, but if I had any of those, I probably wouldn’t have started a cycling newsletter. So I’m inviting my imaginary sensible alter ego, Chucky, to participate. And also Arvid, who’s also my imaginary alter ego, except he’s crazy and Belgian and will make his selections accordingly.
I’m making this up as I go along, and if it ends up being really cringy I’ll just move the paywall up the post so only 70-odd of you can read the truly sad bits. Please like, subscribe, comment, etc. Wheelysports is a reader-supported publication, etc.
Round 1, Pick 1 (Mike Prime): Tadej Pogačar
I hope I don’t have to explain this too much. What I will say is this: Several years ago, I came across an intriguing hypothetical. Let’s say that, at the beginning of March Madness, you had to pick a no. 1 seed to win its first-round game.1 You choose the team, so if Duke or whoever loses its star player before the tournament, or there’s a particularly feisty MEAC team that shoots 50 threes a game, you can pick a different game. Everything is in your favor.
If you win, you get $1 million. If you lose the bet, you die.
With those stakes, I would probably bet that Pogačar would win at least one more grand tour before he’s done.
Chucky is on the clock.
Round 1, Pick 2 (Chucky): Demi Vollering
Not as dominant a rider as Pogačar, but the best-positioned to win the week-plus women’s grand tours. She’s the undisputed leader of her new team, which has beefed up in free agency. She’s also still only 28, which makes her two years younger than Kasia Niewiadoma, four years younger than Elisa Longo Borghini and six years younger than Anna van der Breggen, who just spent three seasons riding the SD Worx team car instead of racing. What’s the significance of that list? They’re the only other active riders to have won a women’s grand tour. How long will she be at the top of the ladder? I don’t know. But she definitely is now.
Arvid, you’re on the turn, so you get two picks in a row.
Round 1, Pick 3 (Arvid): Neve Bradbury
Round 2, Pick 1 (Arvid): Juan Ayuso
The future is now, motherfuckaaaaas.
Here are a pair of 22-year-olds who are currently stapled to reigning Tour de France winners,2 which will reduce their odds of winning the big yellow one. Fortunately, there are more grand tours per year than any one leader can contest, and these two are going to get a shot eventually. Ayuso podiumed the Vuelta on his first attempt basically as he was turning 20; Bradbury podiumed four different stage races last year, including the Giro. And she in particular has a decade on most of the other riders in that class. I’m playing the long game.
Round 2, Pick 2 (Chucky): Jonas Vingegaard
Wow, Arvid is absolutely crazy. I guess that leaves me to pick the guy who’s already won the Tour de France twice, who would probably have won the Vuelta in 2023 if not for intra-team dynamics, and is the only rider who’s ever flat-out beat a full-strength Pogačar in a grand tour.
Round 2, Pick 3 (Mike Prime): Remco Evenepoel
Round 3, Pick 1 (Mike Prime): Elisa Longo Borghini
So while I think Vingegaard will probably win at least one more grand tour, I do think I’m a little more down on him than the consensus. He’s only 27, but the current crop of big-time GC guys right now skews so young he’s actually on the older end of that group. And while Remco and Pog are on the bike all the time, Vingegaard basically follows the same Tour de France-or-Bust program that3 worked out so well for Lance Armstrong and Chris Froome.
Which is great if you win the Tour de France. But if you don’t, you’ve skipped the Giro and you’re on the back foot for the Vuelta.
Longo Borghini isn’t my favorite rider in the world, but unless Bradbury or Niewiadoma levels up real fast, or Lotte Kopecky’s climbing chops get yet another step stronger, or van der Breggen is exactly as good as she was when she retired the first time, for my money she’s the best GC rider in the peloton after Vollering.
Round 3, Pick 2 (Chucky): Primož Roglič
He can’t really fall any further than this, right? I know he’s 35, but he got a late start, so maybe there’s some tread left on the proverbial tire. Plus he just won the Vuelta and he won the Giro (and could’ve won the Vuelta too if not for intra-team dymanics) in 2023. There’s just a huge dropoff in current quality among the male GC riders after this.
It’s just…where are you going to go after this? You gonna wait for Adam Yates to get liberated from UAE? Hope João Almeida or Ben O’Connor or Enric Mas gets The Juice in a way they never had before? Or how Ineos Grenadiers can un-fuck itself in time to avoid ruining Carlos Rodríguez?
Round 3, Pick 3 (Arvid): Carlos Rodríguez
Round 4, Pick 1 (Arvid): Richard Carapaz
Yup, that’s exactly what I’m going to do: Hope that Ineos doesn’t fuck up Rodríguez. Ayuso is the class of the current men’s GC prospects,4 and eventually he’s going to run into a situation where all the big guys are absent.
Carapaz’s best days might be behind him, and his time trialing is a liability. Plus it seems like his current role with EF is as more of a stage hunter/KOM chaser than a pure grand tour contender. But that could put him in the same position O’Connor got into at the Vuelta. Or Sepp Kuss at the 2023 Vuelta, for that matter. And given a lead, I have way more faith in Carapaz’s ability to defend it against anyone except Pogačar.