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Teams & Riders Transfers and Rumours 2019 > 2020

Page 28 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
He isn't exactly worse than Laporte, while Coquard & Bouhanni haven't gotten their act together as well for some time and thus on paper are equal.

I would say that Coquard has gotten his act together now. Finally, his response to not getting a Tour wildcard was to win races and put them in contention for next year's wildcard selection process instead of throwing a tantrum and doing nothing for the remainder of the year, thus allowing ASO to see that they were right in not selecting them.
 
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I would say that Coquard has gotten his act together now. Finally, his response to not getting a Tour wildcard was to win races and put them in contention for next year's wildcard selection process instead of throwing a tantrum and doing nothing for the remainder of the year, thus allowing ASO to see that they were right in not selecting them.
Yeah, you're right. I was more referring to last year and this spring, because I would think Van Poppel might have a similar reaction in his legs!
 
Van Poppel won't be number 1 anymore on any WT team.
Every single year he has had some results that would put him as number 1 sprinter at some of the current WT teams. He is fairly consistent, decent in surviving hills as for sprinter, decent on cobbles. I see no reason why he wouldn't be a worthy signing for teams like AG2R, EF or Bahrain. None of those teams seems to have a rider who does better than Van Poppel at his niche and I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to give him a decent calendar either (they're not stuffed with potential high-profile leaders for every biggish race out there like Ineos or Jumbo).
 
Every single year he has had some results that would put him as number 1 sprinter at some of the current WT teams. He is fairly consistent, decent in surviving hills as for sprinter, decent on cobbles. I see no reason why he wouldn't be a worthy signing for teams like AG2R, EF or Bahrain. None of those teams seems to have a rider who does better than Van Poppel at his niche and I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to give him a decent calendar either (they're not stuffed with potential high-profile leaders for every biggish race out there like Ineos or Jumbo).
AG2R has other star riders (Bardet & Naesen) to support & prepare and a restricted budget to do so.

Wanty fully supports Van Poppel for these races , because he's their no. 1 guy from next year on.
 
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Every single year he has had some results that would put him as number 1 sprinter at some of the current WT teams. He is fairly consistent, decent in surviving hills as for sprinter, decent on cobbles. I see no reason why he wouldn't be a worthy signing for teams like AG2R, EF or Bahrain. None of those teams seems to have a rider who does better than Van Poppel at his niche and I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to give him a decent calendar either (they're not stuffed with potential high-profile leaders for every biggish race out there like Ineos or Jumbo).

Bahrain have Bauhaus (who albeit a bit inconsistent so far, I think he has a higher ceiling than van Poppel in terms of raw speed) and Colbrelli (who I think is better than the dutch on the hills and he is also pretty decent on the Flanders bergs).
 
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I would say that Coquard has gotten his act together now. Finally, his response to not getting a Tour wildcard was to win races and put them in contention for next year's wildcard selection process instead of throwing a tantrum and doing nothing for the remainder of the year, thus allowing ASO to see that they were right in not selecting them.
Coquard will never get his act together. He just doesn't seem to have the ambition. He'll probably be sitting at home during the Tour once again.
 
He's had multiple chances to move up to a WT team over the years and always decides to stay at a French lower division squad and then complains about missing the Tour.
Hmm staying at Europcar instead of going to Lampre in hindsight wasn't a big mistake IMHO. Lampre, except for the 2015 season maybe, always was a mess as a team. Especially for young talents. That Coquard didn't sign for Quick Step for 2018 was his fatal career error though. At that point of his career he arguably was labeled a more talented sprinter than Viviani, after nearly beating Kittel head-to-head at the 2016 Tour de France. He could've won various sprints in the Giro d'Italia in 2017 & 2018. This year, he even would have been their sprinter for the Tour de France. Instead he sat at home and probably regrets turning down his golden chance to join Quick Step, win the maglia ciclamino and join the group elite sprinters!

Maybe that plays part psychologically with his underachievments.
 
A 3-year contract, that's pretty crazy. And the prize of manager of the year goes toooo...

But aside from that, imo he's exactly what Lotto needs at the moment. A great, charismatic leader with endless experience, who can teach the younger guys.
 
Hmm staying at Europcar instead of going to Lampre in hindsight wasn't a big mistake IMHO. Lampre, except for the 2015 season maybe, always was a mess as a team. Especially for young talents. That Coquard didn't sign for Quick Step for 2018 was his fatal career error though. At that point of his career he arguably was labeled a more talented sprinter than Viviani, after nearly beating Kittel head-to-head at the 2016 Tour de France. He could've won various sprints in the Giro d'Italia in 2017 & 2018. This year, he even would have been their sprinter for the Tour de France. Instead he sat at home and probably regrets turning down his golden chance to join Quick Step, win the maglia ciclamino and join the group elite sprinters!

Maybe that plays part psychologically with his underachievments.
in comparison, Demare has played his cards pretty well. He switched to Giro when there was GC focus at TDF or difficult to win at TDF and came out with multiple GT stage wins and a monument. He's stayed in the same worldtour team so does not have to worry about wildcards.
 
You can’t meadure whether Coquard has his act together by counting his wins in small races with weak to non existent sprint fields. Sometimes he wins three of those, sometimes he wins ten. Of course he is probably going better when he wins ten, but “better” doesn’t mean that much when he still fails to be competitive against the large top tier of sprinters and fails to win any of the WT races he competes in. He was supposed to be a world class sprinter, not a guy who bullies non sprinters in coupe de France races for a living.
 
You can’t meadure whether Coquard has his act together by counting his wins in small races with weak to non existent sprint fields. Sometimes he wins three of those, sometimes he wins ten. Of course he is probably going better when he wins ten, but “better” doesn’t mean that much when he still fails to be competitive against the large top tier of sprinters and fails to win any of the WT races he competes in. He was supposed to be a world class sprinter, not a guy who bullies non sprinters in coupe de France races for a living.

Coquard's eight wins this year have come against the following second and third-placed opponents, in order:

-Sacha Modolo and Pierre Barbier
-Marc Sarreau and Justin Jules
-Clément Venturini and Mike Teunissen
-Nacer Bouhanni and Alfdan de Decker
-Kévin Le Cunff and Jon Aberasturi
-Pierre Barbier and Emīls Liepiņš
-Benjamin Declercq and Jakub Mareczko
-Mathieu van der Poel and Christophe Laporte
 
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He's a good pro conti sprinter, but he hasn't come higher than fifth in a World Tour sprint since 2017, and has never won one.

Looking at the list above, and considering that this year he's contested finishes won by Nizzolo, Teunissen, Sarreau, Cimolai, Dupont, I'm not sure Coquard would currently make much impact at the top level.
 
Masnada to CCC confirmed. Another nice addition for them.

 
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