Future stars

DeadCalm

I've never really followed the junior scene before but have been keeping an eye out this season mainly due to Tao Geoghegan Hart's excellent blog (http://taogeogheganhart.blogspot.fr/).

Tao has been doing really well, particularly bearing in mind that he has been used as a lead out for the GB Olympic development squad's sprinters. But, the year has been totally dominated by 17 year old Mads Pedersen who has basically won everything he's entered including junior Paris Roubaix, Course de la Paix Juniors and Trofeo Karlsberg. He also had a pretty spectacular first year as a sixteen year old junior.

Apart from his results I know nothing about him. Anyone care to enlighten me? Is he a genuine prospect?

What other youngsters are out there who we think might be the stars of the future?

TMR

There's a 3 or 4 page article about him in the latest Cyclist magazine.

HTH.

*Edit* Having now looked at his blog, he links to it himself. It's a good read.

DeadCalm

Deleted.

thomthom

Don't think Denmark has had a brighter future than now. Has pretty much wiped everyone off the roads in the last couple of years.. just..

Lasse Norman, 21: Won olympic gold medal in omnium as 20. WC-silver in omnium. Fourth in the U-23 TT WC. Will be the one to fight against Alex Rasmussen in the national tt-race this year. Signed Neo-contract with Garmin for next season.

Mads Würtz Schmidt, 19: My bet as the most talented of these guys along with Mads Pedersen. Winner of junior Paris-Roubaix 2012. Junior WC-gold 2011. 7th in UCI-race Ster Zwolle this year.

Mathias Kriegbaum, 18: Was few seconds from a world medal (ended fifth) and beat Mads Würtz in the national championship race

Mads Pedersen, 17: As you said, won the junior Paris-Roubaix and was unoffically number one in the world rankings in his age. Constantly winning stages. http://www.cykelsiderne.net/coureurfich ... urid=77835

Michael Valgren, 21: Has won U-23 Liege Bastogne Liege both in 2012 and 2013. On his way to Saxo next year, apparently.

Magnus Cort and Kristian Haugaard are interesting as well.

But knowing danish talents, they will probably turn into mediocre cyclists...

Hopefully not.

DeadCalm

ThomThom wrote:

Lots of great stuff

Awesome. Thanks for the inside info. I'll keep an eye out for them. Hopefully there is another Chris Anker Sørensen amongst them who is in my top 10 favourite current riders.

Turfle

A fair few of the GB u23s and juniors are having very good years.

Tao Geoghegan Hart is a proper little star. Seems like a nice fella on twitter, and seems to really love cycling. Been there or thereabouts in almost every race he's been in this year. Has the makings of a really good hilly classics rider. Would love to see how he goes in the high mountains too.

Chris Lawless, new junior champ, sounds like a very promising young sprinter. Haven't seen him ride yet though.

DeadCalm

Turfle wrote:

A fair few of the GB u23s and juniors are having very good years.

Tao Geoghegan Hart is a proper little star. Seems like a nice fella on twitter, and seems to really love cycling. Been there or thereabouts in almost every race he's been in this year. Has the makings of a really good hilly classics rider. Would love to see how he goes in the high mountains too.

Chris Lawless, new junior champ, sounds like a very promising young sprinter. Haven't seen him ride yet though.

Yep, I follow Tao on Twitter and he does indeed come across as a genuine star. Check out his blog if you haven't already. It gives a great feel for what it is like to be a young rider. I particularly like his account of the Peace Race and the 'rival' who helped out. Really insightful stuff.

DeadCalm

The Mad Rapper wrote:

There's a 3 or 4 page article about him in the latest Cyclist magazine.

HTH.

*Edit* Having now looked at his blog, he links to it himself. It's a good read.

It is indeed. Thanks.

wombly_knees

Quite rate Fabian Schnaidt as a sprinter. Beaten Guardini in sprint stages and top10 in the pro race Berlin, but still needs to improve by a long way.

Rate Choi Ki Ho too after he quit his track programme, but will wait and see how he develops. Seems a handy climber.

Amir Kolahdozhagh, with luck he can get into the WT after his performances aged 20. Didn't know much about him before this year, but he's been flying. Looks a promising climber, could be a worthwhile career if picked up early.

Louis Meintjes. Seems the most promising Saffer talent along with Reinardt JVR. Good climber.

Brad Linfield from Australia, gun rider who can do everything.
http://www.ridemedia.com.au/?p=8216

Jordan Kerby's a prologue monster and Australian U23 RR champion. He's at Christina Watches after Eclipse cycling collapsed and he was left without a team late in the year.

The of course the obvious ones, Damien Howson and Caleb Ewan.

DeadCalm

Wow Wombly, you know your junior racing.

I hadn't realised that the Choi Ki Ho who won the Tour of Thailand was that Choi Ki Ho. There aren't too many hills between Suphan Buri and Phuket so he's obviously decent on the flat too.

wombly_knees

DeadCalm wrote:

Wow Wombly, you know your junior racing.

Nah, got to be honest, I just follow the Asian and Australian racing scene. Know very little about the top European talents.

I hadn't realised that the Choi Ki Ho who won the Tour of Thailand was that Choi Ki Ho. There aren't too many hills between Suphan Buri and Phuket so he's obviously decent on the flat too.

Yep, that was a flat race and it was a fluke that win with the Terengganu rider (Shafiul Anwar Aziz, I think) who was leading on the last stage getting the trots and finishing 12 minutes down.

Climbing ability he showed in the Tour de Ijen. He beaet Oscar Pujol by either 8" or 1 minute, different times depending on the site and the pair were some 7 minutes ahead of third.

Would also hope Darren Mathews from Barbados comes good. Dominated the Tour of Tobago and the Tobago cycling classic. Zoidl won that two years ago and he's having a brilliant season this year. Hoping Mathews is similar.

Richmond Racer

Wombly, what do you think about the claims that Lee Rodgers makes about the state of the Asia Tour - or rather, some teams - doping-wise? He's very scathing about the amount thats going on

wombly_knees

Yeah, called him an attention whore on another forum. He's a bit like following the NOTW for news, lots of salt with all his stuff. Dislike him as a writer and don't pay too much attention to it usually.

He has a point though, and that article was helped by a Genesys rider, and an effort like what Differendage Losch did in Singkarak was rather suspicious given that they're a shite team and shat all over the field. Nippo's defo got some dodgy personnel. I like Tabriz, and though there's gossip among some that they're dirty (no insider stuff, tis around the net), I think it could be that they're just better.

Given that many races can't cough up the $3000 or whatever for testing, there is very little. So yeah, I'd guess the worst dopers would be there and the cleanest riders too. The Caribbean scene is far worse testing wise, I know that the Carib championships had barely any testing at all because the Antigua Barbuda cycling assn couldn't afford it.

Turfle

He said all tests are urine tests. Can that be true?

wombly_knees

Can be very true depending on the race. Bigger race may have blood tests. Not necessarily in 2.2 stage races. A non winning rider rarely faces any tests at all.