The main absentees from the Tour de France 2024 - Sepp Kuss, Chris Froome and more

The 2024 Tour de France will be a special edition, with the Grand Depart in Florence and Emilia-Romagna in Italy and, for the first time in many years, a finish far from Paris, with the cyclists heading to Nice for the end of the race. The race will take place from June 29 to July 21 and will see the biggest names in cycling go head-to-head. However, there are also several important absences from the big names in international cycling.

Here we take a look at some of the main absences, including only riders that at some point during the season were scheduled of rumoured to race the Tour, but ultimately will not take to the start; an analyzed by CiclismoAtual's Ivan Silva.

Chris Froome

The first highlight goes to Chris Froome. One of the most highly-regarded cyclists of the last 10 years, the Briton is the active rider with the most yellow jerseys in his trophy cabinet. The winner of the 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions, he also won the Vuelta a España in 2011 and 2017, as well as the Giro d'Italia in 2018, and marked a generation of domination by Team Sky (now INEOS Grenadiers), in which the team dominated races at will and controlled the peloton like nothing else we see today, a train working at Froome's service suffocated the peloton to such an extent that it discouraged any attempted attacks by his opponents and Froome often only had to make the final push to secure the Yellow Jersey. If that didn't work, he had a second weapon at his service, which was the fact that as well as being an excellent climber, he was also an excellent time trialist.

Froome, now 39, began his decline with a crash in the reconnaissance of a stage of the 2019 Criterium du Dauphine which he said "could have ended a lot of people's careers" and caused him to miss the rest of the season. Meanwhile, in 2020 he entered his final year of contract with INEOS Grenadiers but never managed to reach the same competitive level as before and the British team ended up not renewing his contract at a time when they were betting on new leaders like Egan Bernal or Geraint Thomas.

In 2021 Froome decided to take on a new project and donned the colors of Israel - Premier Tech, but once again he failed to achieve any results worthy of mention. I'd say the highlight of his year, in 2022, was a 3rd place in a stage of the Tour de France to Alpe D'Huez, which you'll probably remember more for Tom Pidcock's victory, where he showed the cycling world that he was an excellent climber, but even more than that, a descender at a level far above the rest of the peloton (even today we often see images of Tom Pidcock's iconic descent on the Col du Galibier on television).

In 2023, Froome was left out of Israel's line-up for the Tour de France by choice and his hope was that in 2024 things would be different as recently reported. There was even talk that there would be an internal conflict between Froome and Michael Woods and that for this reason the Briton was not selected for the Grand Boucle in 2023, something he immediately denied. At 39, this could well be Froome's last chance to say goodbye to the Tour, even though he still has another year left on his contract with the Israeli team.

Tao Geoghegan Hart

Another British rider on the list of major absentees, and another rider who has been haunted by injuries.

Even if he's not one of the most renowned climbers in the international peloton, it's a fact that we're looking at the last British winner of a Grand Tour after he took the pink jersey in the 2020 Giro.

After a few less successful seasons, the Briton showed very strong signs in the 2023 Giro d'Italia, where he shared the co-lead with Geraint Thomas, who finished just 14 seconds behind winner Primoz Roglic. Geoghegan Hart looked stronger than Thomas on the climbs during the time he competed and also rode a superb 35km time trial where he lost just two seconds to the day's winner Remco Evenepoel. If he had kept up his good form, he would have been a serious contender for the final victory, but unfortunately for him, the race ended prematurely on stage 11 due to a bad fall in which he fractured his hip when he was 3rd overall, just 5 seconds behind his teammate Geraint Thomas.

In 2024, the 29-year-old British climber found it difficult to be competitive on the road again and just when he thought he was showing signs of improvement, he fell victim to the recent collective crash at the Criterium du Dauphine which forced the stage to be neutralized and he also tested positive for Covid-19 afterwards, which completely demolished all the planning that had been done for his season.

Nairo Quintana

Another historic name in cycling. If you remember Chris Froome, you'll certainly also remember Nairo Quintana and the rivalry they had for years in the Tour de France. Perhaps because they both came to prominence at similar times. Chris Froome won his first Tour in 2013, the same year that Quintana made his Tour debut, with a second place overall and wins in the mountain and youth classifications.

The Colombian climber, now 34, quickly made the leap to the top of the cycling world and in 2014 won his first Grand Tour in a controversial Giro where there was a controversial neutralization on the descent of the Passo dello Stelvio. Why controversial? Because apparently not all the cyclists were properly informed and Nairo Quintana ended up benefiting by 3 minutes because he didn't descend the Stelvio behind the organization's cars and ended up taking the lead from his compatriot Rigoberto Uran.

In the Tour de France, Quintana tried several times to beat Chris Froome, but against a Froome who was always solid in the mountains, supported by a super-team and also had the advantage in the time trial, it never worked out and the Colombian finished on the final podium twice more (2015 and 2016). Quintana eventually got his rematch but on Spanish soil with victory over Chris Froome in the overall of the 2016 Vuelta, this was probably the biggest milestone of his career at a time when Froome was trying to do the Tour-Vuelta double (something he would achieve the following year).

Quintana's best years are behind him. In between, he spent three years away from his Movistar Team when he joined the French team Arkea Samsic between 2020 and 2022. In 2022, Quintana managed to take the colors of the modest French team into the top 10 of the Tour, finishing the race in 6th place but then being disqualified for having violated the UCI rules on the consumption of Tramadol. Quintana was eventually suspended and the Colombian press said it would be the end of his career, but Nairo wanted more and after a full year without racing he returned to the road in 2024 with the aim of cleaning up his image.

Quintana had planned the Giro d'Italia as his main goal for the year, but poor preparation for health reasons in the spring saw the Colombian arrive at the Giro with almost two months off from racing and his form was not ideal from the start. His focus quickly turned to trying for a stage win in the final week of the race and he came very close to achieving this on the final stage to Livigno, but a brilliant Tadej Pogacar decided to attack the race and deal a heavy blow to all the competition in the general classification on a day when he took almost 3 minutes off all his main direct opponents.

After the end of the Giro, the possibility of the Tour was even considered, but it won't happen because Quintana suffered a fractured hand while competing in the Tour de Suisse so close to the Grand Boucle that there simply wasn't enough time for a full physical recovery.

Sepp Kuss

A rider of fundamental importance within Team Visma | Lease a Bike. Sepp Kuss was a key rider in Jonas Vingegaard's two victories in the 2022 and 2023 Tour de France, as well as his then teammate Primoz Roglic's four victories, three in the Vuelta a España (2019, 2020 and 2021) and one in theGiro d'Italia (2023). Sepp Kuss also made history himself when he won the 2023 Vuelta in an edition in which the Visma team managed to take all three places on the final podium and thus secured the victory in all of the 2023 Grand Tours, a feat never before achieved by a team in a single year.

Still in the midst of all the doubts surrounding Jonas Vingegaard's form at the start of the Tour de France, Sepp Kuss (as well as his compatriot Matteo Jorgenson) was seen as Team Visma | Lease a Bike's plan B for the general classification, but such a plan will have to wait because, like Tao Geoghegan Hart, the American has also fallen victim to a Covid-19 infection. It's a tough blow for Visma, who have really had a year to forget in terms of the physical condition of their athletes, with several riders missing out on their main goals of the season.

Julian Alaphilippe

The super-combative t of this year's Giro. The former two-time world champion is in the final year of his contract with Soudal - Quick-step but it looks like Julian is back to his best. There were many doubts about the Frenchman's ability to still be that explosive rider who beat all the competition in the more rugged stages and one-day classics, but all doubts were dispelled in this Giro where he was undoubtedly one of the main protagonists and even led team boss Patrick Lefevere to swallow his own words when he publicly criticized Alaphilippe's stance.

Alaphilippe's record is undeniable and as he is one of the main references in French cycling, there was reportedly interest from Remco Evenepoel himself to team up with the Frenchman after an incredible Giro.

According to Lefevere, the team's choice not to select Julian Alaphilippe is because his focus is on the upcoming Olympic Games in early August. Whether this is true or not we'll never know, but what we do know is that the relationship between Lefevere and Alaphilippe has never been a peaceful one, with the team manager going public several times to criticize Alaphilippe's lifestyle and claiming that since the Frenchman renewed his contract in 2022 he has never justified his high salary. Among other controversial cases, there have also been accusations against Alaphilippe's wife for allegedly leading him astray and his cousin Franck Alaphilippe who left the team at the end of 2023 after not having his contract renewed.

In addition to these well-known cyclists, we'll also be missing other stars such as last year's stage winners Jordi Meeus, Kasper Asgreen and Michael Woods as well as the protagonist of the most caricatured moment of the 2023 Tour Benoît Cosnefroy when he stopped in the middle of a stage to celebrate with a group of fans who surrounded him and ended up sharing a beer with them. Also the former pink jersey in the 2023 Giro Andreas Leknessund or two cyclists who won sprint stages in this year's Giro but had hopes of being called up to the Tour, such as Tim Merlier and Olav Kooij.

Among the injured we have a Dylan van Baarle, a Steven Kruisjwijk or a Lennard Kämna who would all be useful to their team leaders but the Visma men were victims of a brutal collective crash at the Criterium du Dauphine and the Red Bull - BORA man has been injured since April after a training accident.