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Lesser known races 2024 edition

Page 130 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Cort has such a strange relationship with one-day races. He now has a grand total of four podiums (of those, two wins) in his career. Two in 2017, two in 2024.

So will he continue until 2031 or will this be his last ever one-day victory?

Axelgaard kept writing it was Cort's 5th win this autumn (after the Tour). But it seems it was only his 3rd. His won a couple of jerseys, too, but they normally don't count as "wins".

I'll call it his 4th post Tour win (the points jersey in the Arctic Race is of course also an achievement, but probably not one he treasures that much).
 
200 UCI points for Cort and Uno-X. Not bad.

The chances they get even remotely close to 18th place next season are really really slim given they will start their season with 26 and don't have a devo team anymore. They aren't good enough to get big points in the WT and don't have the dept now to ride a lot of races. That will hurt them.

I mean they are 2700 points behind Cofidis right now, and they have done some decent and good transfers. They also ride more races. It will be borderline impossible to catch them I fear.

That being said, Cort did deliver this season.
 
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Yeah, Cofidis will have to crash hard. Lost less than 1000 points of their lead this season.

True, a WorldTour spot looks difficult but if Arkéa continue to suck next year (and currently it looks like they position themselves to suck even harder than this year), Uno-X will get automatic invites to all WT races in 2026 (unless Tudor really get going), which is probably just as desirable.
 
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(unless Tudor really get going),

I mean, this is about to happen... They finished like 3000 points behind a UNO X that had a pretty good season, went for points and with 30 riders and a devo team (and thus the ability to ride a lot that they won't have in 2025). All that while Tudor didn't really focus on points, had Dainese and De Kleijn out for a pretty long time and are adding Alaphilippe and Hirschi who will definitely score more than 3000 points together imo (they scoren more than 5000 points combined this year). I fear that UNO X will keep being very dependent on ASO for a Tour wild card and they either will have to hope Arkea folds or that ASO only wants to invite one french team. In any case, they don't have the guarantee to ride the Tour which will probably mean growing will be hard.
 
Chapeau Cort for holding on to win. FDJ & UAE messed up the chase or did n't have the legs.

So that's it folks for this year. The Big Top will roll up the canvas and sweep up the sawdust. Was 2024 a good year? I think the lesser races had just as much excitement as the GTs even though Hirschi & UAE dominated.
This Veneto race is interesting enough and different enough to make it a nice finale for the season, at least for us distant fans.
 
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Former future world-beater Andres Camilo Ardila has just won his first UCI race since the 2019 Baby Giro, grabbing a stage from the breakaway in the Tour of Guatemala! That's a name I haven't seen in a while.

Talking about "It's been a while since that guy did anything" results:

 
Talking about "It's been a while since that guy did anything" results:

Henao has done really well since leaving Europe three years ago though, winning a fair share of races and being of big help for the nearly unbeatable Rodrigo Contreras.