Future GT Winner (Edition 2016)

[Pantani_lives]

It's becoming a tradition to conduct a poll every year in September on the question, "Who will win a Grand Tour in the Future?" 2016 didn't give us a new GT winner; all three were won by one of the Big Four. Who can break their dominance? These are the winners of the previous editions:

2012 Christopher Froome (won Tour 2013)
2013 Nairo Quintana (won Giro 2014)
2014 Fabio Aru (won Vuelta 2015)
2015 Mikel Landa
2016 ?

You have more than one vote. Vote for anyone you expect to win a GT at some point in his career. If you have riders in mind who aren't in the poll you can mention them in the forum.

These are the threads of the past four years:
2012
2013
2014
2015

 

[BigMac]

I'd vote for Richie but he's genuinely and frightfully unlucky.

Therefore Chaves.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Going with Chaves here, but the Giro is WIDE open this year. So many great riders are set to ride (Chaves, Aru, Nibali, Bardet, Kruijswijk, Landa, Pinot, Valverde) which makes it virtually impossible to predict, altho Nibali probably should be the slight favourite. I could also see Landa or Lopez winning La Vuelta, but...

 

[Amnes2015]

Landa will win either Giro or Vuelta

 

[lenric]

I doubt Pinot will ever win a GT. He's too weak mentally.
Chaves seems to be the most obvious choice.
But apart from him, I would love to see Landa winning next year's Giro.

I can't see Porte winning any GT too. He has got a very high ceiling, but he'll be 32 years-old next year and I doubt he'll win the Tour, which is the only GT he really wants to ride. Otherwise, if he wanted to ride the Giro, he could very well be a contender.


About Bardet... he's got a high potential and his TT ability is as crappy as Landa's. The difference between them resides on the mountains and I believe Landa still is slightly better. But Bardet's gonna win a GT somewhere in the next 2 years.

 

[DFA123]

I went with the obvious ones as well. Landa, Kruijswijk, Chaves, Bardet and Lopez. Doubt any of them will win the Tour, apart from possibly Lopez depending on development, but they should all have plenty of opportunities at Vuelta and Giro.

The others just are missing that extra something to win GTs, either mentally or physically (or both - Pinot).

 

[Red Rick]

Adam Yates. Yes, he's progressing nicely and I think he'll reach the point where he'll be able to attack and go for the win rather than hang on for dear life
Esteban Chaves. No, his TT is a handicap, and I don't think he'll ever dominate the climbs in a GT.
Miguel Angel Lopez. Yes, he road great in Suisse and I think he's too young to be very close to his ceiling
Mikel Landa. Probably. His peak is certainly high enough. His problem is he seems very vulnerable, and Wout Poels also wants to lead a GT next year. Might make things more complicated for Landa, because if he doesn't deliver next season, I doubt he'll lead a GT at Sky in 2018 should he stay there
Rafal Majka. No. Simply not good enough. Unless he improves it's not gonna happen. Top 5 material in Giro and Vuelta and top 8 material in a Tour, but nothing more. Should probably be riding one GT for GC and one for stages every year.
Richie Porte. No. It seems he rather podium'd the Tour than win a Giro or Vuelta. On his best days he has the level to win a Giro or Vuelta, but he's too inconsistent, vulnerable and Tour-centric to pull it off
Romain Bardet. Maybe. Made a nice step this year. Very good descender though still bad tt'er. Right now I'd say he could maybe win a Giro in a perfect storm, if he improves a bit more that perfect storm won't be as necessary. I never see him reach the level to win the Tour though
Steven Kruijswijk. This hurts. Has shown he can win. Unless he improves even further, the Giro is the only option
Thibaut Pinot. Hasn't improved one bit where it matters since 2014. Can't climb with the elites, so won't win.
Tom Dumoulin. In the Giro stage to Roccaraso he showed that the Vuelta wasn't a one-off. It still was a perfect storm to win. He can limit his losses well, and take minutes in a good TT. Still, he benefited from flying under the radar. He can't win if the top climbers in a GT just fly away from him every mountain stage. The more aggressive the race, the better he would basically need to be. 2015 Vuelta Dumoulin could win when a miracle happens. However, I believe he's got room to improve his climbing yet. If that happens, it makes all the scenario's more beneficial for him. However, I am in dubio about which GT he should win. Right now, miracle Vuelta seems the only option, but if he improves his climbing I think a Giro is possible as well. For the Tour he'd basically have to become of the best climbers in the world whilst maintaining his TT edge. Losing weight and improving TT's, I think I've heard similar stories

 

[AlexNYC]

Chaves can win a GT or two, but not if he focuses on the Tour. I voted Lopez, but now that I think about it a bit more, he is still too much of an unknown. It's great that he won a one week race already, but he had too many mediocre placings last year.

Of the ones remaining, I think Yates has the most potential. The others are all very good, but have too many weaknesses.

 

[Kokoso]

König among others.

 

[KyoGrey]

I think it is between Landa, Pinot and the colombians.

The Spaniard and the Frenchman have the purest climbing talent of the list, but they also seem to be the most inmature psychologically.

I guess Chaves would be the obvious bet, but I voted Landa because the Basque is going to focus on the Giro, whilst Chavito will probably go for Tour in the future.

 

[yaco]

Porte and Bardet for me - Lopez is the long term option - Doubt whether Chavez or A.Yates TT well enough to win a GT.

 

[DanielSong39]

I think Landa wins the 2017 Giro and I will be rooting for him to win a Grand Tour next season. If he doesn't win the Giro, would rather see him try the Vuelta than serve as Froome's lieutenant - he is likely to be less effective in the Tour with the Giro in his legs.

 

[Billie]

Kruijswijk and Chaves both had their best chance in Giro this year and missed it. Not sure they'll get another opportunity like it. Kruijswijk I don't think so, Chaves more likely

 

[Pantani_lives]

Kruijswijk might be the new Igor Anton: someone who comes close to winning once, crashes out, and then never reaches that level again. On the other hand he did look really strong and he said he's targeting the Giro again next year.

 

[Gigs_98]

I voted Chaves, Dumoulin and Lopez, however I doubt all of them will actually win gt's. Looking at the threads from the last years only the absolutely most obvious picks really became gt winners, such as Froome 2012, Quintana 2013 and Aru 2014. This year there isn't such an obvious rider since IMO they have either shown more than the riders in this years poll or were younger.

Lopez is probably the most logical one. He is what Quintana was in 2012, an extremely young rider who already showed his potential in WT stage races but hasn't had his break through as a gt gc contender yet. Well possible that Lopez will have that next year just like Quintana in 2013 (btw Quintana is almost exactly 4 years older than Lopez so their careers are really very similar up to this point). However the thing is that although Lopez has already shown his potential not every rider makes this last step to become one of the best gc riders. Pinot got a gc top ten and a stage win in the tour at the same age as Lopez is now, and has hardly improved since that.

Chaves is comparable to Aru in 2014. Back then Aru podium the giro and got 5th in the vuelta (maybe worth mentioning that in a normal year in which Contador and Froome wouldn't have crashed out of the tour, Aru probably would have gotten the podium there too) + one giro stage and two vuelta stages and all that with only 23/24 years. Again very impressive for this age. Chaves's results this year are comparable with a 2nd place in the giro gc + the queen stage and a 3rd place in the vuelta. However Chaves is already clearly older than Aru was back then so it's hard to say if he will still improve as much. I chose him because he became clearly better this year compared to 2015 and if he keeps improving for at least one more year he will definitely have the level to win a gt. And actually he could do that anyway, since he was already very close to winning the giro this year.

Then there is Dumoulin. He is a strange case, since he never really was a climber, and his only really good gt so far is already one year ago. And yeah, if his climbing doesn't improve drastically he probably has 0 chance to ever win a gt, but I think it will improve drastically. Let's not forget this guy never trained to win a gt. The reason he won a mtf in front of froome in the vuelta 2015 was 100% his talent and I think if he starts to concentrate on gc's he will be a tdf contender in a few years. I also don't think he will ever climb on the level of Quintana but in a tour with lots of ITT kilometers I think he will have a chance.

 

[Simurgh]

Pinot: Obviously, he has one of the best TT skills of the GC men, and even though we haven't seen it in the Tour the last couple of years ( ), he has shown, that he is close to the best in the spring. Tier 2 rider (below the Big 4).

Chaves: He climbs very well, but his TT is mediocre at best. Probably not Tour winner material (more top 5/podium?), but can win a GT with few TT kilometers.

Dumoulin: If he targets a Grand Tour with a decent amount of time trial kilometers, he is certainly one of the favourites. We saw how he was one mountain stage from a Vuelta victory.

Considered voting for Kruijswijk, but I am not sure that he can reach his Giro level again, but I hope he can prove me wrong.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Enric Mas, Matvey Mamykin, Sam Oomen

 

[Pantani_lives]

Re:

Enric Mas, Matvey Mamykin, Sam Oomen

I'll keep my eye on those.

 

[Lexman]

Apart from Alberto Contador I voted for Landa, MAL & Bardet

All the more since Bardet wants to try the Giro next year if his team permits it, he want to win one GT other than the TdF before trying the TdF again...

edit : Isn't Ilnur Zakarin missing in the poll?

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

König among others.

König is a very good rider and I think he can definitely podium a GT, but winning seems a stretch, or at least he isn't as likely as Chaves, Kruijswijk, Bardet or Lopez to win.

Gaudu, though, is a real one to watch for the future.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Re:

Isn't Ilnur Zakarin missing in the poll?

I've considered him, but he still hasn't made a top 20. Without his crash in the Giro he probably would have, but apart from Lopez I picked people who already finished high in one or more GTs. Wout Poels is missing for the same reason.

 

[Red Rick]

I think it would be nice to make a list of all active riders holding a GT title, and to list all active GC riders by year with say, a top 5 in a GT. That might show us how much we should expect from the 23-24 year old crowd to make it. I may get the idea that we're consistently overexpecting from that crowd.

 

[Lexman]

Re: Re:

Isn't Ilnur Zakarin missing in the poll?

I've considered him, but he still hasn't made a top 20. Without his crash in the Giro he probably would have, but apart from Lopez I picked people who already finished high in one or more GTs. Wout Poels is missing for the same reason.

ah ok that explains the absence, thank you...

 

[Pantani_lives]

Re:

I think it would be nice to make a list of all active riders holding a GT title, and to list all active GC riders by year with say, a top 5 in a GT. That might show us how much we should expect from the 23-24 year old crowd to make it. I may get the idea that we're consistently overexpecting from that crowd.

That's possible. Someone with one good performance soon gets high expectations and a lot of pressure on his shoulders, especially if he's from a country that has been waiting for many years, like France or the Netherlands. On the other hand someone unexpected can appear out of the blue and break through fast.

 

[DNP-Old]

Chaves - He peaked in the Giro, but was unable to maintain his top form in the last weekend. However, in the Vuelta he wasn't on his best level, but he showed consistency and even managed to gain a spot in the last meaningful stage. He's a year older, he's a year stronger, despite being one year behind in his development due to a horrific injury. Giro or Vuelta is his for grabs, either next year or the year after.

Lopez - He'll be the best climber on the planet one day. Food for thought: Talansky finished top 5 in this Vuelta. Just imagine what Lopez would have done in his first ever Grand Tour.

Dumoulin* - Only is the GT is timetrial heavy. Otherwise he'll have some problems I'm afraid. He'll never be the best climber in the field. A Wigginsesque Giro remains a possibility however.

Pinot/Bardet - Only if their respective sponsors allow them to target something else than the Tour. They will never, ever be close to winning in July.