"We have taken a step forward compared to previous seasons" - Lidl-Trek DS on 2024, Mads Pedersen, Jonathan Milan and Tao Geoghegan Hart
Cycling
Lidl-Trek have had a boost in budget and also had a boost in performance this season. Luca Guercilena, team DS, has evaluated this past season and looks into some of it's leaders, who will also be heading the team in 2025.
"It was an important year, which we closed close to the podium [of the UCI rankings]. We have taken a step forward compared to previous seasons and now the goal is to continue to grow," Guercilena told RadioSport. This came along with the entrance of Lidl as a title sponsor, which allowed the team to make some important signings whilst retaining all it's leaders. Now they will have another season with a lot of promise, coming specially from it's sprinters and classics riders.
The evolution of young riders such as Thibau Nys and Mathias Vacek; the consistency of Toms Skujins in the big races have added to the big leaders of the team. The team has signed Jonathan Milan who has shown his colours and had a brilliant leadout backing him up.
“He is a confirmed talent. But we think he still has room for improvement and can pursue important goals," Guercilena said of the Italina. "Sprints remain his main talent, but we want to make him a Classics athlete and make him competitive in races that have global relevance. We believe he has the characteristics to certainly be a protagonist in races like Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders“.
Mads Pedersen led the classics with more strong performances, as well as fighting for sprints in other races of the season. The two also collaborated very well when racing together, such as the Gent-Wevelgem triumph over Mathieu van der Poel. “Unfortunately he had a serious fall at the Tour de France, which then limited him in the pursuit of the Green Jersey goal he had. But his was a very positive season overall”, Guercilena commented on the Dane’s 2024.
But despite this talent in the one-day races, the team also has ambitions for the Grand Tours with three different riders, who will allow for more ambitions into the coming season. "We had to deal with some injuries, first of all that of Tao Geoghegan Hart, who came to us after the problems he had in 2023 and who had to absorb another couple of episodes that limited his performance," he continued.
"Giulio Ciccone then had problems before the Giro d'Italia, which was initially his big goal of the season. Fortunately Mattias Skjelmose, who we were counting on for the Vuelta a España, did well, finishing fifth and taking home the White Jersey for best young rider. There are good prospects for him, even if we are aware of the fact that he has top-level athletes ahead of him”.
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Cappuccinos to go this morning! ☕️ pic.twitter.com/i75LgsMng4
— Lidl-Trek (@LidlTrek) December 9, 2024
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- love ganna, always has a big smile on his face. would love to see him notch some big wins. MSR and Roubaix really are both kinda freak shows, never really know who’s going to take them. the strongest rider basically always wins a race like Flanders, but MSR is often about timing and Roubaix can have a lot to do with just luck. i don’t think ganna would ever be the per se “strongest” at either, not with pog, mathieu, wout and maybe mads around, but things could break right for a big engine like him in either or both.OCexile13-01-2025
- He probably won't be able to fight for GC podium in a grand tour anyway. I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise. His performance wasn't consistent enough for 3 weeks of race.
KerisVroom13-01-2025 - AmenMistermaumau13-01-2025
- Thank you Thijs for bringing some rationality back into this pointless rant. I know of no sport that doesn’t see continuous improvement, either steadily or in erratic steps, all I see is that the average amateur now beats champions of 2-3 generations ago, this says it ALL, humans progress, all the time when they apply the collected knowledge and methods. Coming from another sport I was always surprised at how backward cycling training was in comparison, all they’ve done is catch up. There have always been individuals who lead the way in progress whilst the lower levels take more time to catch up, but catch up they always do. The 4 minute mile or 10s sprint was once seen as unattainable, I’m pretty sure Van Gelder has never looked at a list of how many have now run faster. Next is the 2h marathon. Yes, there are dopers trying to skip the line but that doesn’t mean you can just blindly accused a winner or the best. Pog is no better than Vin in certain situations, no better than MVDP in others and isn’t unbeatable, are ALL of them doping then, with the same miracle product/technique? And why is it just them, you’d imagine if it was so effective and untraceable, they’d ALL be buyers.Mistermaumau13-01-2025
- There is for and against, the discussion is definitely worth having in order to find acceptable compromise. I don’t really know why numbers are important, you can also just play with balancing, 3 or 4 promoted / demoted instead of 2? Reducing teams to 7 to accommodate 23 or 24? Also, before jumping the gun, they need to look at (possible) consequences, all of them which are often overlooked. There are huge implications financially, we should think carefully to see how things can’t be exploited by “investors” buying their way into GTs too easily, especially now that things like contract breaking has become nothing more than a financial burden.Mistermaumau13-01-2025
- Exactly, most people who watch cycling have no idea or easily forget the skill and danger and mostly, the experience needed to ride safely in a peleton which is often akin to a flock of birds or school of fish with certain differences. Firstly, they still have individual goals, secondly they are far more limited in space by size and direction of their path, thirdly they have far more unforeseen obstacles, spectators, signs, road damage, holes, etc, fourthly, they have a machine attached which they have to control perfectly and also, speed and trajectory changes can be more sudden, especially during an incident/crash leading to a cascading of unpredictable events. Regarding the speeds at which the peleton advances (generally 35-70km/h), it is comparable to cars in traffic. Can you imagine cars moving in such unison with so little space between each other (my wife gets nervous if I’m 2 bike lengths behind a car and can’t fathom my explanation that from cycling I have an in-built reaction mechanism to be fully focused for all eventualities from the many hours spent at mere cm from the preceding rider who could brake hard at any moment for any reason I may not have noticed before him. Someone might now point out car racing takes place at far higher speeds, yes but there are huge differences, firstly, they usually only have one or two competitors at the time to focus on (and in rallye driving, none at all), secondly the roads are far wider, more perfect and without obstacles, thirdly, they are still very protected in a box and in case of an incident, trajectories and impacts are far easier and safer to predict due to momentum so all in all they can drive in a way that looks far riskier when it actually isn’t and they can focus far more on themselves than everyone else. As you’ve said, you are not going to change safety by any of the simplistic suggestions being thrown around, the reasons lie deep and are unlikely to disappear. It may be better to try to look at ways to promote less peleton. I have some interesting, nasty, revolutionary ideas, they could even make cycling a more enjoyable, exciting sport to watch, but it’s unlikely any will be acceptable, change is slow and incremental, even mobile phones took a generation to overcome resistance.Mistermaumau13-01-2025
- Must be cool to be coach to an autonomous athlete ;-)Mistermaumau13-01-2025
- Okay, so I completely agree that cycling history has shown that gains like these have ALWAYS been fueled by doping. However, personally in this case, I really don't care. Why, because this kid is so damn nice and fun and has been a positive force in cycling. Unlike Lance, who didn't care about anyone but Lance. Am I positive he is doing? No, and I'm happy to give him the benefit of doubt because he is such a fun kid.dabman13-01-2025
- no kidding. i remember when the pro peloton had the really edgy, nasty tone to it. many will want to blame armstrong for that but it went back WAAAYYYY before him. hinault presided over a culture like that, too, and others before him. it really sucked because amateur racers would emulate the pros and when i got into the sport i remember thinking “wow, bicycle racers are the biggest a**holes on the planet.” i’m not sure what caused the pro culture to change, but that change has been cemented by the greats of the sport — pogacar, van der poel, van aert, on and on — being great SPORTSMEN who are much more inclined to congratulate than hate each other. some may miss the old “get your hate on” days. i do not.OCexile12-01-2025
- Honestly, it's not just ProTeams that are arguing this: so are fans like me. I'd love to see more feisty teams struggling for points going at it against each other. I'd love to see a Cancellara team and a Contador team (what happened to them?!) up against the biggies. I'd love to see more wins like Castrillo in the Vuelta (his first was fun, his second was great!). But I also recognize that the two tier system requires that some teams fear a loss of benefit, and others seek a gain of benefit. If everyone has the benefit, is it as important to compete for it? Cycling is weird, that's my conclusion.RidesHills12-01-2025