Special Issue: Who Ruled the Peloton in 2023?

At the end of every pro cycling season, we can count on a lively debate about who was the best rider of the year, who had the most consistent season, who took the biggest victories and so on. We’ve already seen one team formally declare itself the best, despite its primary rival having one of the best seasons in history. Yesterday, the Velo d’Or award – designating the top rider of the year – was won by Jonas Vingegaard, even though his primary rival Tadej Pogačar blew away the rest of the peloton in terms of total points, and while Mathieu van Der Poel single-handedly won three of the sport’s biggest events in one year. Everyone has their own opinion about the best cyclists, and this “Monday morning quarterbacking” is one of cycling’s allures. There is never a single right answer, and there is always plenty of room for differing opinion, perspectives and hot takes. Below is ours. – Steve Maxwell

We start our 2023 analysis with the top 20 ranked riders in terms of total points generated over the season. Though certainly not perfect, the metric of total points is surely the most comprehensive means available to compare and contrast overall rider performance. We utilized the ProCyclingStats points (*see footnotes) here rather than the UCI points, because we believe the PCS system measures performance more accurately, and because the UCI system continues to change – rendering it impossible to make historical comparisons.

This “top 20” methodology is ideal for this exercise, because: (1) we need to keep the analysis manageable, and (2) there is a fairly distinct differential between about the top 20 riders, and the rest of the peloton. As shown in the Chart below, performance differentials are distinct at the high end, but start to level out – i.e., individual performance starts to be more uniform – when one goes beyond the top 20 riders, or below about 1,000 points.

We then selected a number of key metrics to compare and contrast the performance of these top 20 riders. These different attributes are shown across the top row in the Table below, in which the riders are ranked in terms of total points. For each metric, the top five performers in the category are highlighted in yellow. A quick glance at the yellow areas in the Table concisely demonstrates just how dominant the handful of top riders in this sport are, but we’ll delve into the details below.

Both the Chart and Table demonstrate the striking difference between the top five or so riders, and rest of this top 20 group. Pogačar stands head and shoulders above his competitors here, generating almost 500 more points than Remco Evenepoel in second place. Vingegaard, Primož Roglič and Jasper Philipsen round out the top five (shown in yellow) in the points category; the distinction between individual riders start to decrease as we go farther down the list. This rapid drop-off from the dots in the upper left-hand corner and the rest of the Chart illustrates why salaries for those top riders – even though already very high – are still a good value. On the flip side, the rapid flattening of the curve shows that outside of this upper echelon, riders start to become somewhat commoditized.

The second column in the Table shows the number of racing days per rider. Using this figure to calculate rider “efficiency” or “productivity” in Column 4 – points generated per day of racing – Pogačar’s performance is even more remarkable; he generated far more points than anyone else with fewer days of racing than most of his compatriots. As shown in the yellow, joining the top four racers in terms of efficiency is Mathieu van der Poel, who was one of only two riders here to race fewer days than Pogačar. 

Moving to column 4, we rank these top 20 racers in terms of victories during the year, and once again, the top five point-getters also garnered the most victories. Jasper Philipsen produced the highest number of victories on the season, with Pogačar in a close second place. Column 5 calculates the win percentage per day of racing, and again highlights Pogačar – who earned a win on one of every three days that he started a race.

A win is a win, but it’s also true that not all wins are equal; in fact, in cycling, there can be a very big difference – not just in terms of status or glory, but also in terms of the competitive strength of the field. Therefore, to more accurately analyze this “quality of win” issue, we defined two further categories:

1)      Superlative or “top wins” – including the five monuments, the World Championships, and the general classification winners of the three grand tours; (this number is shown in column 6)

2)      “High-quality wins” – including stage wins at a grand tour, plus victories at cycling’s other key WorldTour one-day events and stage race GC wins – **see footnotes. (shown in column 7)

Looking at the “quality” of wins from this perspective allows a few important nuances to emerge. Philipsen ranks highly in terms of total points and victories, but columns 6 and 7 show that most of his victories (save four Tour de France stages) came in far less significant races; for example, he mopped up another four wins at the late-season and poorly attended Tour of Turkey. However, the most significant change created by this deeper dive revolves around Van der Poel; although he sits down at Number Ten in terms of wins, and although he only posted six victories on the year, three of them were “top wins” – the monuments of Milano-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix as well as the World Championships. Viewed in terms of this metric, Van der Poel ranks at the top – even above Pogačar in terms of superlative victories.

Finally, while the winner naturally gets all the glory and attention, it’s important to remember that many of these races are extremely close – frequently determined by the width of tire, or even less. One way to account for this is to look at podium (or top three) finishes, as we do in the final column 8. However, once again, we find our yellow area focused on the top few riders. (The lone exception here is Olav Kooij, who gathered a lot of points and victories this year, but almost all of them from lower-tier races.)

So, what are the primary conclusions to draw from this analysis?

1)      As we have been reiterating all year, cycling is clearly dominated by a Big Six – Pogačar, Roglič, Vingegaard, Evenepoel, Van der Poel and Van Aert. The first four appear in the top five in every single one of these metrics; (the only exception is Roglič in terms of total podiums, but again this is due to Kooij’s largely lower-tier race schedule.) Some might consider Van der Poel and Van Aert to be a notch below the other four in terms of their numbers, but Van der Poel’s three major victories suggest that he has to be included in this top six group. Van Aert had a substandard season (his low wins/podiums ratio underlines just how many times he came in a frustrating second this year) but his historic dominance across a wide spectrum of disciplines confirms that he belongs here. (It’s also worth noting that he “gifted” a victory to his teammate Christoph Laporte early in the year.) This Big Six group also won every race in the “top” category, save the Vuelta – which famously saw both Roglič and Vingegaard drop their individual ambitions to ensure Sepp Kuss’s victory. Members of this group of six have consumed the first, second and third in the annual Velo d’Or voting for each of the last three years – Pogačar, Roglič and Evenepoel have each won once, while Van Aert has been in the top three each year. Thus, we would continue to assert the clear existence of a dominant big six.

2)      Well below the big six is a group of strong and accomplished, mostly younger riders who are making their presence felt in the sport. We divide these remaining 14 riders into three groups – groups which apply to this top twenty list specifically, but which also apply more generally to riders in the rest of the peloton:

a.       First are the pure sprinters – Philipsen and De Lie, who generate both points and wins, but are clearly in a different category of racer from the rest of the names on the list.

b.       Second are what might be called “workhorses” – top riders like Mikel Landa and Matej Mohorij who earn a lot of points for their teams, but who accomplish that at least partly by putting in a large number of race days.

c.       Third would be what we might call the “Next Ten” – a group of accomplished elite riders who are increasingly knocking on the door of the Big Six. Mads Pedersen, Adam Yates and Joao Almeida clearly belong in any discussion of top athletes in the sport. Some in this group are relatively newer faces or riders who are still trying to prove that they belong among the elite – for example, Mattias Skjelmose, Filippo Ganna and Marc Hirschi. Others are simply sturdy and consistent performers – like Simon Yates, Pello Bilbao and Christoph Laporte. These latter riders appear in the top 20 this year, but next year they could be edged out by others who are close behind but didn’t quite make the list this year – riders like Kuss, Pinot, Powless or Pidcock.

In addition to being interesting and providing fodder for debate, detailed analyses like this can allow fans to be smarter observers of the sport, and teams to be more meticulous and thorough when building their rosters. For example, while Pedersen might not be considered on the same level as riders like the top six, he still produces at major races at nearly their level. Meanwhile, riders like Almeida, Bilbao, Adam Yates, Laporte, Mohorič, and even Landa, may not be thought of as on par with the sport’s superstars, but they are very valuable points-scorers who generate results at a near-elite rate. Indeed, many of the riders categorized here more as “mid-level” performers simply have the misfortune of racing against historically prolific winners.

At the end of the day, this type of exercise is inherently somewhat subjective. By choosing a different number of riders to evaluate, by changing which metrics are the analytical focus, or by ranking the significance of races differently, one might be able to squeeze slightly different results out of the process. But at the sport’s top tier in 2023, these are major and inarguable conclusions. Just as in other global sports, generational talents tend to rise to the top by any measure of performance.

* Using the UCI points ranking system instead of PCS would yield very similar results. In terms of the top 20 riders, there are only a few minor ordering differences, with 19 out of the 20 being identical; only Sepp Kuss knocks Olav Kooij out of the top twenty in the UCI rankings.

** “Quality win” races included here are Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, E3, Gent-Wevelgem, Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallone, and GC winners of Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, Romandie, Dauphine and Tour de Suisse.