Celebrating the Joyful, Captivating and Controversial End to the Cycling Season
Fists pumping, eyes wide open with shocked delight and a mouth gaping close to its jaw-breaking limit. Jelle Wallays' victory at Paris-Tours a couple of Sundays ago gave the cycling season one of its images of 2014 right at one of the last possible moments.
The Topsport Vlaanderen–Baloise rider's ecstatic response to winning the classic was wholly warranted. It was the biggest win of the 25-year-old's fledgling professional career, one that added his name to a list of victors which includes greats such as Lucien Petit-Breton, Rik Van Looy and Sean Kelly.
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Wallays and Thomas Voeckler were the last survivors of the breakaway that would deny fast-men Arnaud Demare and John Degenkolb a bunch finish in the Sprinters' Classic. At the death, the Belgian's younger legs and good timing saw him comfortably out-sprint Europcar's French fan-favourite.
Seeing one of the sport's up-and-comers record such a momentous career milestone with such enjoyment would have been great at any point in the season. Here in mid-October, it was a firm reminder/reiteration why the cycling season must be savoured right up until the last.
As usual, the World Championships in late September marked the point in which the staggered goodbyes for the year began to really take place.
Michal Kwiatkowski's win in the men's road race (and to a certain extent Pauline Ferrand-Prevot's in the women's equivalent) was apt in the respect that it continued one of 2014's prevalent themes—the emergence of new names and possibilities in the sport. The 24-year-old Pole was one of several young stars to take notable victories in the past nine months.
Yet, while some people's work was done at the Worlds, others still had a mark to make, both on and off the bike.
Firmly about the former was Garmin-Sharp's Dan Martin.
The 2013 Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner rounded the final corner of this year's race in the lead only to crash. His misfortune persisted at the Giro d'Italia in May when he crashed on the opening-stage team time trial excursion in Belfast. The broken collarbone he suffered robbed the Irishman of his chance to represent on home roads.
Martin's missed general classification ambitions for the Giro were rectified at the Vuelta a Espana with his seventh-place finish—a career best in Grand Tours. Before, during and after the race, Martin was still being plagued by crashes, though, one of which at the Worlds prompted this understandable exclamation.
Martin's victory at a beautiful Giro di Lombardia one week later was far from lucky. At the back of a lead pack including Alejandro Valverde and Philippe Gilbert heading into the last kilometer, the Garmin burst round the right and in front. As those behind initially continued to dither despite this surprise attack, Martin upped his effort and powered away for a joyous win.
Speaking to CyclingNews' Daniel Benson post-race, the 28-year-old was delighted to win the Race of the Falling Leaves, his second Monument:
"I love this race, it’s one of my favourite races. To get second and crash in the last corner last year, it’s incredible to win it after all the bad luck this year. Last week I felt good and I crashed again. I believed, and the team believed, in me all the way, that the luck would change and we would get the big victory.
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A few days after Il Lombardia, Omega Pharma-QuickStep's Zdenek Stybar gained a little of his own post-injury restitution—the Czech had suffered a nasty fall at the Eneco Tour in August—at Binche-Chimay-Binche, a.k.a Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke. Team-mate Niki Terpstra set him up with just over one kilmetre to go, and Stybar took full advantage to speed off and blast the field away (unfortunately, he has since been injured again at a cyclo-cross event).
The season's final race-making headlines took place at what had in late-September been announced as the final Tour of Beijing.
One of the World Tour's most far-flung events, it went out in considerable style. Gilbert pipped Martin into second place after both had won a stage each in a competitive five days. Many of the sport's best sprinters were absent, but that did not stop some ferocious racing for the flatter stages, either—Luka Mezgec, Tyler Farrar and Sacha Modolo coming out on top in them.
The autumn's most premature, and one of its most unwanted farewells, came from Trek Factory Racing's 2010 Tour de France winner Andy Schleck. The Luxembourger announced his retirement at just 29 after he was unable to satisfactorily recover from a knee injury.
"I will not be a cyclist in 2015," Schleck confirmed, as reported by CyclingWeekly's Nigel Wynn. "It hurts. I’m obviously disappointed to end my career like this. I would have liked to keep on fighting but my knee just doesn’t allow it."
Schleck had struggled to recapture the form behind what will now be regarded as the career-defining battles with Alberto Contador for Tour de France supremacy at the turn of the decade. As they engaged in some captivating duels in the Alps and Pyrenees, the idea Schleck would not be among cycling's top names entering 2015 would not have been anticipated by most.
His absence hit home in the last month or so's other big off-bike story—Tinkoff-Saxo owner Oleg Tinkov's sport-shaking €1 million offer.
"If [Nairo] Quintana, [Chris] Froome, [Vincenzo] Nibali and Contador all agree to ride all three Grand Tours, I'll get Tinkoff Bank to put up €1 million," the Russian told CyclingNews' Stephen Farrand. "They can have €250,000 each as an extra incentive. I think it's a good idea."
With his idea much debated in the following fortnight, Tinkov has since told Sky Sports' Orla Chennaoui that a Giro d'Italia/Tour double may be more likely, especially as Contador has already confirmed his intention to do both. The other involved teams of Movistar, Astana and Sky have kept their counsel for now (save for a few non-committing comments). Potential changes by governing body UCI to the sport's calendar have ensured any long-term discussions are loaded with consequence.
(As reported by BBC Sport, among others, 2014 Tour winner Nibali's Astana team "will have its WorldTour elite status reviewed after a third rider failed a doping test in 2014." This is one to watch, but at this stage, how serious a situation it will be for the Italian—who is not directly being questioned—or others remains to be seen).
Whatever happens, it has given fans and those involved in cycling plenty to talk about as we begin to look ahead to 2015. If you have been looking in the right places, though, the racing of the last few weeks will have done that too.
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