Second up in the series of season preview posts is the Ulsterman Philip Deignan. He truly announced himself to the cycling world by winning Stage 18 of the Vuelta a Espana last September. It was Ireland’s first Grand Tour stage win since 1992 and first Vuelta stage win since 1988 when Seán Kelly won two stages on the way to winning the overall title. On top of this, Deignan also finished a fantastic 9th overall in the Spanish tour. This was the highest of any rider on his own team and higher than seasoned Grand Tour perfomers such as Juan José Cobo and Haimar Zubeldia. Last year he also rode the Giro d’Italia and acted as a domestique for team leader Carlos Sastre who won two stages and finished 3rd overall. His other notable performances last year were finishing 7th in the Vuelta Castilla y Leon, 10th in the Vuelta a Burgos and 12th in the Tour of Ireland. So how can Deignan improve on these results over the coming year?

Well he’s still riding for the same team as last year, the Cervélo Test Team who, according to Cycling Quotient are by far the most successful team outside the ProTour. As they are in fact only a Professional Continental team, they will have to rely on gaining wild card entries to the major races next year. But the fact that they have the current Tour Green jersey champion and a former Tour de France winner in their midst means they should be granted entry to almost any race they choose.

In 2009, Deignan ranked 6th amongst his team mates in terms of results.  Finishing ahead of him were the British Roger Hammond and four multiple Grand Tour stage winners, Carlos Sastre, Thor Hushovd, Heinrich Haussler and Simon Gerrans, all of whom except Gerrans will remain at the team for 2010. One of Deignan’s main goals for the coming year will be to participate in his first Tour de France.

Philip Deignan celebrating after easily outsprinting Roman Kreuziger to win Stage 18 of the 2009 Vuelta a Espana.

Having ridden in and finished two Grand Tours in 2009, he would seem a likely candidate, however nothing should be taken for granted. Of the nine riders who were at the Grand Départ in Cervélo kit last year, seven remain. Leaving the squad in the winter were Jose Angel Gomez Marchante who moved to Andalucia-CajaSur and the kiwi Hayden Roulston who is now at HTC-Columbia. Remarkably, Inigo Cuesta will again be vying for a Tour spot at the splendidly ripe age of 41.

Cervélo have added five riders to their roster this year, the most likely rider to gain a Tour spot being Xavier Tondo. It’s worth noting that the Spaniard finished ahead of Deignan at the Vuelta Castilla y Leon and the Vuelta a Burgos last year and may be considered as a better option to act as a mountain domestique to Carlos Sastre. The two riders who didn’t make the Tour team last year and who are Deignan’s biggest challengers for a berth this year are Xavier Florenico and Ignatas Konovalovas. The former has ridden the Tour twice before during his years at Bouyges Telecom and is a veteran of eight Grand Tours, while the latter is a young chrono specialist who has never ridden the Tour but he did win the final time trial of the Giro last year. If Deignan makes the Tour squad it could be his only three week outing this year and with Sastre, Hushovd and Haussler certain to be on board, another Grand Tour stage win is unlikely. Instead, he should concentrate fully on shepherding former Tour champion Carlos Sastre toward stage winning opportunities or even a podium place.

Deignan has said that one of his other main objectives for 2010 is a solid performance in Ardennes week. Cervélo’s leader for these races from last year was Simon Gerrans who finished in the top ten in all three, but he has since been snapped up by Team Sky. The only other Cervélo rider to show himself during Ardennes week last year was Sastre. With the classics duo of Hushovd and Haussler more focused on the cobbled variety, Cervélo find themselves without an out and out hilly classics rider and as such, Deignan could be given a free role for these races. A top ten placing in any of Liége-Bastogne-Liége, Fléche Wallone or Amstel Gold should be seen as a great success for Deignan. He rode all three races for the first time last year with his best placing coming in Liége-Bastogne-Liége where he finished 44th. He may also be targetting the Irish Road Race Championships. Having never won the race, he currently finds himself the odd one out amongst his peers, with Roche and Martin having won the last two editions between them.

He starts his season on March 3rd at the Tour of Murcia, a race which saw Miguel Indurain take his first major victory back in 1986. He then moves on to race in the Volta a Catalunya, the Ardennes classics, the Tour of California and then the Dauphiné Libéré before hopefully taking to the start line of the Tour de France in July. Perhaps contrary to the general consensus of who has got more talent on the bike, of the three Irish riders at the top of the sport, so far Deignan is the only one to have won a Pro Tour race. With the lofty goals of cousins Roche and Martin, he will have his work cut out if he wants to remain ahead of them in terms of race victories.

In the first of a series of season preview posts, today I’m taking a look at what 2010 may have in store for Nicolas Roche. Previously I suggested that 2010 is a very important year for Roche in terms of which direction his career will take. He has proven himself to be capable when sprinting and when pacing a team leader up mountains. Stephen Roche went as far as to suggest that Roche Jnr. could end up in the top five at the Tour in the next few years. But despite a strong year in 2009, he failed to notch up any victories, so will 2010 be any different?

Last year, according to Cycling Quotient, Roche’s results ranked him 4th amongst his AG2R-La Mondiale team mates. The three riders who registered better results on the team were Rinaldo Nocentini, who spent eight days in yellow at the Tour, Martin Elmiger, who’s best results were 4th in the Tour Down Under and 9th in the Tour of Flanders and finally Tadej Valjevic who took 7th overall at the Tour de Suisse along with 9th at the Giro d’Italia. Being ranked 4th below these three riders is an admirable achievement for a 25-year old in his first year with a new team. The most notable additions to the AG2R rider roster for 2010 are David Le Lay and Dimitri Champion. Le Lay’s best result last year was coming 2nd at the Four Days of Dundirk. Champion’s best achievement last year was appropriately enough, becoming the French road race champion. Neither rider however seem to have the ability to upset the pecking order at AG2R for the coming year. Accordingly, Roche should be afforded plenty of opportunities to assume the role of team leader in 2010.

Last year Roche started his season at the Tour Down Under. His race calendar this year will take a different route with his first race of the season coming next week at the Étoile de Bességes. He revealed in an interview with Shane Stokes before Christmas that he plans on being competitive at Paris-Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Tour de Romandie, before taking on the Dauphiné Libéré in preparation for what will be his second Tour de France. Interestingly, he also stated his intention to ride the Vuelta in September, this would be the first time he’s attempted two Grand Tours in the one season.

Nicolas Roche wearing the jersey of Irish National Road Race Champion

After his performance at the Tour de France last year where he had several top 10 finishes and sacrificed his own chances of a stage win to defend Nocentini’s yellow jersey, he should be very confident of making the Tour team again this year. Of the team’s new signings, only Champion, with his tricolore jersey is likely to force his way into the Tour squad. He’ll likely take the place of the retiring Stéphane Goubert with the rest of the team remaining the same as last year. AG2R-La Mondiale will have the luxury of knowing they have secured a Pro Tour license and therefore automatic invitations to all the major races. Two of the other French teams will have no such luxury, as the Pro Tour licenses of Bbox Bouyges Telecom and Roche’s former team Cofidis were not renewed for the coming season. Roche’s team have also been guaranteed a Tour place this year, which means they won’t have to involve themselves in the inevitable scrap for wild card places. Designing a training plan and mapping out season goals is a lot easier when you’re certain which races you’ll be racing in.

Rinaldo Nocentini found himself in the yellow jersey at last year’s Tour by accident rather than design. In all likelihood, the team will not find itself with the leader of the race in their midst this year. Roche should be afforded a free role within the team, encouraged to chase stage victories. I said previously that Roche needs to decide on what type of rider he plans on becoming. He has said that he has controlled his weight a lot more this winter than he ever had previously in an attempt to improve his climbing ability. However, a push for a decent G.C. place at the Tour is still probably a couple of years beyond reach. For the moment Roche seems to be very much in the mould of riders such as Simon Gerrans or Perrick Fédrigo.

Apart from the Irish road race championship, Roche hasn’t won a race since he won the first stage of the Tour du Limousin in August 2008. Looking ahead, a successful season for Roche would be a podium finish and a stage victory at a stage race such as Paris-Nice or the Tour de Romandie along with a stage win at the Tour de France. If he can win a Tour stage he would be the first Irish rider to do so since his Dad won the 16th stage of the 1992 Tour through the fog at La Bourboule 18 years ago. Here’s hoping.

The season is under way and it’s the time of year when riders start revealing their goals for the season. Contador, Schleck and Armstrong will all want to take the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, Cancellara will want to finally win the Tour of Flanders, sprinters such as Greipel, Petacchi and Farrar will want to rack up as many stage wins as possible, while some riders will simply be hoping to make it to their first Grand Tour. One of the most interesting battles throughout last season was the one which took place between Hushovd and Cavendish for the Green Jersey at the Tour de France. Sure enough, both riders have announced that the Green jersey will be top priority again for 2010. But will Cavendish be up to the task of doing what he couldn’t do last year?

Cavendish lost out on the Green jersey last year due to a disqualification on Stage 14 in an incident with Thor Hushovd himself (video: about 5 minutes in). This time, the Manxman will be out to set the record straight. They seemed to put their differences behind them when they were seen playfully sprinting to the top of Mont Ventoux towards the end of the Tour. But recently, Hushovd has teased Cavendish by saying that “he was the fastest but the jersey is not for the fastest sprinter, it’s for the best sprinter, that’s why I won it”. Hushovd is certainly not wrong, as over the years winning stages hasn’t proved to be a prerequisite for ending the Tour in Green. Indeed, in ‘98, ‘99 and ‘05 the winner didn’t win a single stage. The following is a table of the Green jersey winners over the last 20 years and the amount of Tour stages they won when they took the jersey:

List of points classification winners at the Tour de France for the last 20 years and the number of stage wins earned by the winning rider each year.

No points classification winner in the past 20 years has come close to Cavendish’s six stage wins last year. Hushovd, who’s won the Green jersey twice, in 2005 and 2009, only won one stage altogether in those two years. Erik Zabel, winner of a record six Green jerseys managed nine stage wins during those six years, one less than Cavendish has managed over the last two Tours. Going back even further, the great Sean Kelly only managed a measly one stage throughout the four years when he took Green. It clearly isn’t about stage wins but about dogged consistency, although stage wins certainly help.

Cavendish has won a classic and not the Green jersey, Hushovd vice versa. They have both stated a desire to win both this coming year. Cavendish will be aiming to win Milan San Remo for the second year running, while Hushovd has said he’ll also target La Primavera along with the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. The Green jersey and a classic? Lofty goals. Throughout history ten cyclists have managed this feat: Stan Ockers, Jan Janssen (twice), Eddy Merckx (three times), Freddy Maertens (twice), Bernard Hinault, Sean Kelly (three times), Eddy Planckaert, Laurent Jalabert, Erik Zabel and Oscar Freire. Should either of the two sprinters achieve this feat they will be joining quite the elite group.

As if this wasn’t enough, the pair have also said that they’d be targetting the World Championships Road Race in Australia this September. The parcours is much flatter than last year but it’s not without its difficulties. To achieve all three of their goals the riders will have to first peak in the Spring, then again in July and finally in September. Getting to peak fitness three times in one season is a huge task, especially amongst the current peloton where there will be plenty of riders who have only one goal in the season and will be basing their entire year around the same races that Cavendish and Hushovd will be targetting. Winning a classic, the Green jersey and the Rainbow jersey is something that has only been achieved by three men. In 1955, Green jersey winner Stan Ockers also won Fléche Wallone and Liége-Bastogne-Liége along with the World Championships. In 1971, Eddy Merckx completed his hat-trick in emphatic fashion by winning three of the five monument classics along with Green and Rainbow jerseys. Finally, the last man to complete this amazing feat was Freddy Maertens, who in 1976 won both jerseys along with the Amstel Gold and Gent-Wevelgem.

It’s been 32 years since a cyclist did what Cavendish and Hushovd are attempting to do this coming season. It will be a fascinating battle between them and it begins on March 20th at the Milan San Remo.