It’s inevitable that in any given season of any elite sport that you care to name, a handful of the key names will be missing for some or all of the competitive part of the year due to physical complications, with injuries forcing athletes to the metaphorical if not physical sidelines as they recover.
Cycling is no stranger to this and is arguably one of the most high-impact sports when it comes to the effect on the body, with crashes forcing riders out for sustained periods, and in recent seasons we’ve sadly seen an uptick in the number of big crashes, resulting in year upon year where it’s not been possible to see everyone that we would hope to see, riding at their best – if we even see them at all. Even if riders are able to complete part of the season, they may not be fully recovered by the time their main goals come around, and as fans we are deprived of the epic match-ups and head-to-heads that we dream of in our hypothetical scenarios, at the beginning of each new season.
I posed the question on social media – who are you looking forward to seeing BACK in 2025, who may have been missing or below par last season (or perhaps even for longer, in some cases). I capitalise the word ‘BACK’ because I don’t just mean ‘back in the peloton’ but really BACK – back to their best, back to their top form, back to whenever they were the rider who inspired us to back them in the first place (OK, too many backs, I’ll back off). (Sorry). (Even sorrier to anyone who has been missing because of back trouble).
So who exactly WAS missing last season, and from what? Which races were lacking, because of the absence of key players? Some of the answers are obvious – and many of them stem from the spate of big, nasty crashes that occurred in relatively quick succession in the spring, for example, Wout van Aert missing the cobbled Monuments that he so dearly wants to win, following his horrific crash at Dwars Door Vlaanderen, or Jonas Vingegaard’s somewhat subpar condition at the Tour de France, depriving us of a full gas battle with his rival Tadej Pogačar.
There are also a host of less obvious examples, and everyone will have riders they are looking forward to seeing performing at their top level once again in 2025. With that, here is a short and non-exhaustive list of the riders I’m most looking forward to being BACK, in 2025.
The women are BACK
Marta Cavalli
It’s been a torrid few years for the promising Italian Cavalli, stemming back to the nasty crash she suffered at the 2022 Tour de France Femmes. A bad concussion and a long road to recovery led to further setbacks and complications with a fall in training early last year, followed by a hospitalisation after she was hit by a motorist in the summer.
Her star had been rising prior to these challenges, with a strong spring campaign in 2022 where she finished 2nd overall at the Giro d’Italia, and won the Amstel Gold Race. With her tenure at FDJ SUEZ coming to an end, a new start at Team Picnic PostNL will hopefully spell a new start for the 26-year-old, and I can’t wait to see her finally get back to her best, ready to challenge at the highest level in 2025 and beyond.
Marlen Reusser
The Swiss time-trial specialist has had a difficult couple of seasons, struggling with mental fatigue, and long-covid, issues which have forced her out of racing and to miss major goals. A huge presence at Team SD Worx-ProTime, Reusser’s importance both in terms of picking up individual victories, and supporting teammates, cannot be underestimated, and the Dutch team will continue to feel her absence as she moves on to a new chapter at Movistar.
It’s been fantastic to see her joyful posts over the past couple of weeks as she settles into her new team environment and I am hoping that with less pressure on her shoulders, Marlen will hopefully return to doing what she does best in 2025 – smashing time trials, and terrorising the peloton with her immense power as she goes on solo jaunts in search of victory.
Liane Lippert
The sight of the former German champion charging up punchy climbs and animating races was a constant for a few seasons, which made her absence during the Classics season of 2024 all the more noticeable.
Though the German returned for all three Grand Tours, and was even able to claim at stage at the Giro, a stress fracture sustained early in the season meant she was missing from the intense battles at the Classics that suit her capabilities so well, and this coming season I am really excited to see her challenging the top Classics riders for victory.
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig
Like Lippert, the former Danish champion’s attacking style and vivacious character were big misses in the spring of 2024 as she was unable to take part in the Classics season due to a crash at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad which saw her depart the peloton for a long spell with a fractured sacrum.
Uttrup Ludwig also rode a relatively full summer in 2024, completing both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France Femmes along with riding at the Olympic Games, but she was clearly far from her best level, and following a move to Canyon//SRAM for 2025, it’s fair to say the cycling fandom are united in their desire to see the 29-year-old back in action at the highest level.
The men are BACK
Wout Van Aert
Fans of the stoic Belgian have suffered his trials and tribulations alongside him over the years, and while he’s had plenty of glory along the way – wearing the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, winning four stages at last year’s Vuelta a España and more – the victories he and his fans desire more than anything are those of Paris-Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen, and his absence from those races in 2024 following the mass crash at Dwars Door Vlaanderen was heart-breaking.
Van Aert belongs at the cobbled Classics and though he took victory at Milano-Sanremo in 2020, the absence of any other Monument from his palmares feels like an aberration. Of course his competition is auspicious, and daunting. But simply to see him able to take on these races in his best possible form, and ride them free of illness, injury or mechanical misfortune, is all we really want to see. (OK, a win would be nice but let’s not get too carried away).
Neilson Powless
The affable American was one of the revelations of 2023 when he took on the cobbled classics for the first time, and proved that he was equal to the challenge. Regularly an aggressor and often in the lead group, finishing in the top ten of three spring Classics including a podium spot at Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Powless surprised many with his gutsy performances.
Sadly, a knee injury prevented him from participating in the classics in 2024, and we were deprived the opportunity of seeing him continue to discover his cobbled specialist talents.
Powless was back in the peloton for the Tour de France but his return to form came too late for him to pick up any major victories. He stood on the top step of the podium at Gran Piemonte in October, and at the Japan Cup ten days later, giving hope to his supporters that we could see the native of Sacramento back to his resilient best in 2025 with his EF Education-EasyPost team.
Taco van der Hoorn
There’s no sight quite like a Taco van der Hoorn solo breakaway. When he won stage 3 of the 2021 Giro d’Italia, many cycling fans took the Rotterdam native to their hearts, and he continued to play his card as a baroudeur extraordinaire in the seasons that followed. Van der Hoorn doesn’t win often, but when he does it’s brilliant, so when he was sidelined with a concussion after crashing at the Tour of Flanders in 2023, fans were understandably disappointed.
Sadly his recovery took far longer than hoped, such is the nature of concussions – van der Hoorn’s turned out to be very complicated, keeping him away from racing for almost a year and a half.
Thankfully, Intermarche-Wanty renewed his contract and he began racing once again in August of 2024. Two months later he won again – from a breakaway, of course – at the Elfstedenronde, and it was pure joy to see him victorious once again. Here’s hoping 2025 sees the Dutch rider hit new heights as he returns to a full season of racing.
Lennert van Eetvelt
The 23-year-old Belgian was slated by those in the know as THE rider to watch coming into 2024, with all kinds of expectations being placed upon his shoulders as a result of the impressive data being drawn from his Strava account. Early in the season, van Eetvelt went about proving his backers right, taking victories in Mallorca and the UAE Tour and giving his rivals plenty to think about.
A knee injury sustained during Strade Bianche put paid to his hopes, however, and after a period of recovery, he was struck by a further setback when he was hit by a car in training, narrowly avoiding further serious injury.
Van Eetvelt bounced back at La Vuelta where he was up and challenging for several stage wins, and if his form continues along the expected trajectory, we should be in for an exciting season in 2025.
Jonas Vingegaard
Of course, it’s hard to post a piece like this without a comment on the Danish Dynamite himself, former Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard. On the one hand, you could argue that he was most definitely BACK at the Tour de France in 2024 – he won a stage against his greatest rival and the best cyclist of the current generation, after all, and finished second overall. Not too shabby.
While it’s difficult to adequately evaluate whether or not he was in the kind of shape he would have wanted to be in, physically, there was no denying the psychological toll that his crash at Itzulia had on him, which certainly seemed to affect his confidence, on difficult descents and in the individual time trials. To be truly ‘BACK’ for Vingegaard, to me, means a season free of crashes, and one in which he is able to focus fully on his main goal – to once again defeat Pogačar at Le Tour. Or if not to win, then at the very least, to be able to put out the very best performance that he is capable of.
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