If the 2023 season was defined most by the success of one team, Jumbo-Visma, and their unprecedented achievements that year, 2024 was all about the exploits of one individual: Tadej Pogačar.
Pogačar’s success left few of the very biggest races for other teams to win, denying many of their primary hopes and goals. Yet in a long season full of ups and downs and racing all around the world, the other seventeen teams in the WorldTour beyond his UAE Team Emirates still found ways to please the sponsors and earn themselves positive headlines.
With the season’s traditional finale Il Lombardia having taken place last weekend, Rouleur looks at each WorldTour member, and considers how content each will be with how their 2024 played out.
ALPECIN-DECEUNINCK - 9/10
Though their total of 26 was a little short of the hauls from the last two seasons, the quality of those wins was what counted. Between them Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen won Alpecin-Deceuninck three of the five Monuments, a feat no other team has managed since 2006, and that formidable pair continued to dominate in the Classics and sprints respectively.
Jasper Philipsen winning the 2024 edition of Milan-Sanremo
ARKÉA-B&B HOTELS - 3/10
Only nine wins keeps Arkéa-B&B Hotels very much towards the bottom of the WorldTour hierarchy, but no season can be wholly disappointing that featured (courtesy of Kévin Vauquelin) a stage win at the Tour de France — the first in the team’s history. Luca Mozzato’s unlikely second-place finish at the Tour of Flanders was the other highlight.
ASTANA QAZAQSTAN - 3/10
Astana’s 2024 season will be remembered for one moment alone — that when Mark Cavendish won the sprint in Saint-Vulbas to break Eddy Merckx’s all-time record for most Tour de France stage wins. Doing so had been the team’s defining mission, but the lack of any notable successes elsewhere (Cavendish’s was their only win at WorldTour level) demonstrates how they’ll need to expand next year now Cav’s done with the Tour.
Mark Cavendish winning his record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage
BAHRAIN-VICTORIOUS - 2/10
There was a distinct regression this year at Bahrain-Victorious, whose total of twelve wins is their fewest since 2020. Normally so competitive at Grand Tours, Antonio Tiberi’s fifth at the Giro d'Italia and Santiago Buitrago’s tenth at the Giro were the best they could manage, while Pello Bilbao summed up their season by being there or thereabouts in many stage races and Classics, without ever managing to win one.
COFIDIS - 2/10
The steady stream of wins Cofidis had managed in previous years to secure their place in the WorldTour dried up this year, with a mere five making this their leanest season in their 17-year history (with the exception of the Covid-affected 2020). On the bright side, one of those few wins did at least come at the grand stage of the Giro d’Italia, where Benjamin Thomas the surprise victor from a breakaway.
Benjamin Thomas celebrating his Giro stage win
DECATHLON AG2R LA MONDIALE - 9/10
Rarely has new sponsorship and a rebrand produced such instant results as Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale enjoyed this year, comfortably the most improved team of 2024. Ben O’Connor epitomised their success, leading the Vuelta a España for thirteen resilient days before going to finish second place, in addition to the fourth place he managed at the Giro and silver medal at the World Championships road race; but success came from all quarters, with Benoît Cosnefroy and Paul Lapeira contributing greatly to a win total that exceeded 30 for the first time since 1999.
TEAM DSM-FIRMENICH POSTNL - 5/10
The 2024 season will be best remembered by the opening day of the Tour de France, when Roman Bardet and Frank van den Broek pulled off a remarkable breakaway 1-2 to earn the team a stunning stage win and day in the yellow jersey. That was their only WorldTour win aside from a Vuelta stage win from Pavel Bittner, though strong showings in smaller races from young riders like Max Poole and Casper van Uden put their overall win total to above 20.
Pavel Bittner sprinting to victory against Wout van Aert
EF EDUCATION-EASYPOST - 6/10
Throughout the season, EF Education-EasyPost took it upon themselves to animate races with aggressive, proactive tactics, and reaped the rewards by amassing 23 wins in total. Better yet, Richard Carapaz rediscovered his best form, finishing fourth overall at the Vuelta a España having already lit up the Tour de France with a stage win and the King of the Mountains title.
GROUPAMA-FDJ - 3/10
The departed Thibaut Pinot and Arnaud Démare were sorely missed, as Groupama-FDJ’s registered their lowest win total (15) since 2001. Their young contingent of Lenny Martinez, Romain Grégoire and Laurence Pithie impressed early in the season but faded as it went on, though sixth overall for David Gaudu and a stage win for Stefan Küng at the Vuelta a España partly made up for a disappointing Tour de France.
Laurence Pithie during Ronde Van Vlaanderen
TEAM JAYCO-ALULA - 6/10
25 wins makes this the most fruitful season Jayco-Alula have enjoyed since 2019. Though they were lacking in the Grand Tour GC battles, failing to make the top ten in any of them for only the second time since 2014, stage wins at the Tour (Dylan Groenewegen) and Vuelta (Eddie Dunbar) typified their steady accumulation of wins.
INEOS GRENADIERS - 3/10
In what many are describing as the worst season in the history of the once-peerless Ineos Grenadiers, the numbers speak for themselves. Fifteen is their lowest victory total ever, and only six of those came at WorldTour level (including rare highlights of Tom Pidcock’s Amstel Gold success, Carlos Rodríguez at the Tour de Romandie and two Giro stages from Filippo Ganna and Jhonatan Narváez; and this was the first time since their debut season in 2010 that they failed to make the top two of any of the Grand Tours, Geraint Thomas‘ third-place at the Giro the best they could manage.
Geraint Thomas placed third in the 2024 Giro d'Italia
INTERMARCHÉ-WANTY - 4/10
Biniam Girmay hit the big time with an exceptional three stage wins and green jersey title at the Tour de France, but it took until October for Intermarché-Wanty to add their next, and only fourteenth, win of the season. The team neither poses a GC threat in stage races anymore, making them very reliant on Girmay to deliver the goods – which he struggled to do during an injury-ravaged spring.
LIDL-TREK - 8/10
Only UAE Team Emirates bettered Lidl-Trek’s total of 42 wins this season, a huge haul that announces the team as one of the peloton’s elite in their first year under their new big-money sponsors. A large proportion of those wins came in sprints, with Jonathan Milan starring at the Giro and Mads Pedersen prolific as ever, but Mattias Skjelmose ensured they were a force in stage races too with podiums at the Tour de Suisse and Itzulia Basque Country and fifth at the Vuelta a España.
Jonathan Milan was a big winner for Lidl-Trek
MOVISTAR - 3/10
There’s still a lack of new talent coming through at Movistar to fill the void left by Alejandro Valverde, reflected by their lowly total of just eight wins this year, only one of which was at WorldTour level (Pelayo Sánchez’s Giro stage win). The shining light was the reliable-as-ever Enric Mas, who was third overall at their home Vuelta a España and a regular in WorldTour stage race top tens.
RED BULL-BORA HANSGROHE - 8/10
While the team’s band of strong stage racers like Aleksandr Vlasov (second at Tour de Romandie), Jai Hindley (third at Tirreno-Adriatico) and Dani Martínez (second at the Giro d’Italia) were as consistent as ever, the Red Bull-funded investment in Primož Roglič paid off. That had seemed doubtful when he crashed out of his main goal, the Tour de France, but in typical fashion, he bounced back at the Vuelta a España to win the team it’s second Grand Tour in history, while another overall victory and stages at Critérium du Dauphiné helped make the Slovenian the main contributor to the team’s 24-win total.
Primož Roglič won the team their second Grand Tour victory at the Vuelta
SOUDAL–QUICK-STEP - 7/10
As hoped, Remco Evenepoel conquered new frontiers for the team by delivering them their first ever podium finish at the Tour de France, while also scoring major titles for himself with double Olympic gold and the World Championships time trial. And though not quite as bountiful as previous seasons, the wins kept coming from the squad to total 33, almost half from Tim Merlier, who rekindled the team’s sprinting tradition as being the most prolific in the world this year.
VISMA-LEASE A BIKE - 5/10
From the heady heights of their unparalleled 2023 season, this year was a harsh crash back down to earth. Initially, they had picked up where they left off, with victories in both the Opening Weekend Classics and WorldTour stage race openers Paris-Nice (Matteo Jorgenson, the team’s breakthrough star) and Tirreno-Adriatico (Jonas Vingegaard), but a series of crashes to star riders that left us wondering whether the team had been cursed derailed their later plans. Vingegaard did nevertheless recover to finish second at the Tour de France, and the team won stages in all three Grand Tours — it’s just not as impressive as last year’s historic feat of winning GC at all three.
Jonas Vingegaard placed second at this year's Tour
UAE TEAM EMIRATES - 10/10
While much has been made of the stunning achievements of one Tadej Pogačar, who delivered the team no less than two Grand Tours, two Monuments and the World Championships, the success of UAE Team Emirates as a whole has gone under the radar. Even if you remove his 25 wins, the team still managed in excess of 50 — more than any other in the world. From Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso and João Almeida in the stage races, to Marc Hirschi in the Classics, contributions came from all across the team to ensure they usurped Visma-Lease a Bike as the best team in the world.
