While the 2024 season in men’s cycling will surely be remembered for the achievements of one individual in particular, there were still several others who also wowed us with their performances.
From the usual suspects excelling as we’ve come to expect them to, to more surprising names enjoying the best year of their lives, 2024 wasn’t short of fine rides to celebrate, even while most of the sport’s major prizes were hoarded by one man.
Honourable mentions to Biniam Girmay (Intermarché - Wanty) for his historic achievements at the Tour de France; Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) for his purple patch during August and September; UAE Team Emirates riders João Almeida, Adam Yates and Juan Ayuso when given the chance to ride for themselves; Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Max Van Gils for their consistency in the Classics; Wout Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) for his flashes of brilliance in between injuries; and the likes of Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek), Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Dstny) and Derek Gee (Israel Premier Tech) for their breakthrough seasons. But these are the 10 riders we think were the best riders of 2024.
10. Jonathan Milan
Jonathan Milan followed up his breakthrough 2023 with a campaign that saw him further improve to become one of the world’s very best sprinters. The high point was the Giro d’Italia, where he overcame a very strong field to win three stages as well as the points classification, but he enjoyed success throughout the year, winning eight more races in addition to that Giro haul, four of which were at WorldTour level. And his eye-catching performances in the Classics, including an aggressive ride that helped set Lidl-Trek teammate Mads Pedersen up for victory at Gent-Wevelgem, suggested that he is developing to become much more than just a pure sprinter.
(Photo by Zac Williams/SWPix)
9. Jonas Vingegaard
Before the dreadful crash in April that forced him to revise his season plans, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) had started 2024 in the same vein as his glorious 2023, winning both Tirreno Adriatico and O Gran Camiño in imperious fashion. Though unable to defend his Tour de France title again, the severity of that fall at Itzulia Basque Country (from which he broke his collarbone and multiple ribs as well as puncturing his lung) renders his second-place finish a miraculous achievement — especially when you consider that his defeat to Tadej Pogačar was less a case of his own shortcomings than it was the Slovenian’s astonishing form.
8. Matteo Jorgenson
In a year blighted by injuries to all of their top stars, one man stepped up to help redeem Visma-Lease a Bike’s ill-fated follow-up season to 2023’s annus mirabilis — Matteo Jorgenson, the team’s highest-ranked rider in this year’s list. His impressively diverse range of skills saw him fill the void left in both stage races and Classics, winning Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen in March, and coming just eight seconds short of adding overall victory at Critérium du Dauphiné. Eighth place overall at the Tour de France, where he also helped teammate Jonas Vingegaard seal second place, also saw him emerge as a Grand Tour GC contender for the first time.
(Photo by Zac Williams/SWPix)
7. Tim Merlier
Only Tadej Pogačar bettered Tim Merlier’s total of 16 wins in 2024, a haul that might have received more acclaim were it not for the history-making antics of the Slovenian. Among them were some major titles, too, including the European Championships road race and Scheldeprijs classic, as well as three stages at the Giro d’Italia during his belated yet successful return to Grand Tour racing. The wins came regularly throughout the season, with only one month (July) passing between February and September without one, earning him the status as quickest sprinter in the world.
6. Primož Roglič
He might have made a slow start to life at new team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, further interrupted by his involvement in the Itzulia Basque Country crash, but 2024 ended up being a typically successful season for Primož Roglič. He was his usual domineering self at Critérium du Dauphiné, where he won the overall classification and two stages; and though he again had to abandon the Tour de France, in classic Roglič style he bounced back weeks later to win the Vuelta a España for a record-equalling fourth time, also claiming three stage wins to bring his season tally up to an impressive eight.
5. Jasper Philipsen
Picking up where he left off from last year, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) again combined a lethal sprint finish and quality riding in the Classics to be one of the stars of the season. In the spring came a career-first Monument at Milan-Sanremo, and later repeated last year’s feat of finishing second at Paris-Roubaix behind teammate Mathieu van der Poel, while the summer saw him add another three stage wins to his Tour de France tally, the only downside being his narrow failure to defend his green jersey title from Biniam Girmay. A total of nine wins might have been down from last year’s haul, but they came in the big races, with all but two of them coming at WorldTour level.
4. Ben O’Connor
Perhaps the most surprising and heart-warming success story of 2024 was Ben O’Connor (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale), who exorcised the demons of many past frustrations in a year where everything seemed to click into place for him. His resilient 13-day stint in the red jersey at the Vuelta a España, which ultimately ended in a second-place finish overall, was the highlight, but a similarly impressive fourth-place at the Giro d’Italia earlier in the year makes him arguably the best performer in Grand Tours after Tadej Pogačar. An even more surprising silver medal at the Worlds road race in Zurich was the cherry on the cake.
3. Mathieu van der Poel
Another spectacular spring campaign confirmed Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) as king of the Classics, as well as one of the greatest practitioners of the cobblestones we’ve ever seen. His treble of E3 Saxo Bank Classic / Tour of Flanders / Paris Roubaix might have been achieved before by both Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, but never with this level of dominance — he won each solo with attacks increasingly further from the finish and by increasingly large winning margins, culminating in a 60km attack and three-minute win in Roubaix. If that wasn’t enough, he even branched outside of his comfort zone to earn podiums at Liège–Bastogne–Liège and a hilly World Championships, as well as a gravel world title.
2. Remco Evenepoel
Given that they come by only once every four years, Olympic gold medals are one of the hardest prizes for a rider to get their hands on; so to win two in the same year, as Remco Evenepoel did in the road race and time trial, is some achievement. Victory in the latter was one of five victories Evenepoel managed against the clock, including the world title in Zurich, confirming him as the outstanding time trialist in world cycling, while he continued to astound in the Classics and stage races with his irrepressible aggressive racing and love of long-range attacks. Perhaps his more impressive ride was not one of his nine wins, but the third-place overall finish he managed at the Tour de France on debut, a performance that suggested, contrary to what some pundits have believed, that he will be able to compete with Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard for the yellow jersey in the years to come.
1. Tadej Pogačar
What more is left to say about Tadej Pogačar’s 2024 season? He spent the year making the extraordinary seem ordinary and the abnormal seem normal, to the extent that even the biggest races with the strongest fields were virtually void of suspense amid the inevitability of his success. To recap: he completed the Giro / Tour double, including six stage wins in each, and counted the World Championships road race, Il Lombardia, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche among his 25 wins, a total only one other rider came within half of. He could have achieved a mere fraction of that, and still have been the rider of the year.
