2020 Vision - Tour de France Green Jersey winner

Introduction
As Peter Sagan has proven, you don't need to be a prolific stage winner to win the green jersey. Surprisingly, he crossed the finish line as a winner 7 times last year and yet he won 4 points jerseys (Tirreno, Tour of California, Tour de Suisse and Tour de France). Recently, Giacomo Nizzolo proved that you can win a points jersey by just bagging some top 5's and showing an interest in the intermediate sprints. But who will be winning these jerseys in 5 years?

Sam Bennett
Age in 2020: 29
Current Team: Bora Argon 18
Best GT Performance: Not Raced

Bennett is a proven winner

Sam is yet to win a points jersey but he's already proven to be a prolific sprinter and he will get stronger with more high quality races. He first came to cycling's attention in 2012, with top 10's in the AN Post Ras and Tour of Britain stages. He's best result of the year however, was 10th on the hilly U23 World Championships course, which shows that he isn't just a pure sprinter. Since that year he seems to have just got better and better; in 2013 he won 2 stages of the AN Post Ras and the very hilly Caerphilly stage of the Tour of Britain and was best of the rest behind Cavendish in the final stage. in 2014 he made the step up to pro continental level with Netapp-Endura. He took 3 wins, including the final stage of the Bayern Rundfahrt and numerous high quality top 5's.
So far this year Bennett has already won 3 races and it looks likely that he will be lining up in Utrecht in a month's time. Bora are lacking an overall contender so expect them to get behind Bennett in the early stages. If he can steal a couple of podium places in the sprint stages then it will considered a successful Tour for him.

Moreno Hofland
Age in 2020: 28
Current Team: LottoNL-Jumbo
Best GT Performance: 136th 2015 Giro d'Italia

The winner of all LottoNL's wins

It's not often that a sprinter accounts for 100% of his team's wins but that's the case with Hofland this season. He's been the thin sliver of success in a desert of misery for the Dutch team this year.
Hofland's successes started in 2011 when he won 3 stages, including a stage of the Tour de l'Avenir. He also came second behind current teammate Barry Markus in the Dutch junior semi-classic Dorpenomloop Rucphen. 2012 was more of the same really with 3 wins including a stage of l'Avenir and he also took the U23 Netherlands champion win. Moreno made the step up to the World Tour in 2013 but overall it was a disappointing season for the Dutch rider. He didn't win a race until October when the Belkin team went over to China for the Tour of Hainan and won all 9 stages as well as the points and overall with Hofland. 2014 was Hofland's best season to date, he won 6 races in total including; a stage of Paris Nice, the Volta Limburg and a stage of the Ruta del Sol. He also came 2nd in the Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne and got 2 top 10's in the 9 stages of the Vuelta in which he raced.
2015 has been disappointing for LottoNL-Jumbo and Hofland but he's shown consistency in the sprints, 6 top 10's at World Tour level. He's also notched up a Grand Tour at the Giro and that will give him some added confidence. Hopefully LottoNL will send him to the Tour, at least for the first 10 days because he is a potential winner, something the Dutch team are severely lacking.

Fernando Gaviria
Age in 2020: 25
Current Team: Etixx Quickstep (as of 01/08)
Best GT Performance: Not Raced

The Columbian sprint sensation has already beaten the best

The difficulty with picking young riders for future success is the very limited amount of data that is available. This is especially difficult in the case of Gaviria, he has less than 2 seasons of road results to look at.
Although Gaviria came to international attention this season at the Tour de San Luis his performances really began in 2012, on the track where he took the Omnium and Madison titles in the Junior World Championship. His road career started in 2014, although the early part of the season was quite disappointing he did manage a win in the U23 Pan American Road Race. From that moment his season continued to improve, he went to the Tour de l'Avenir and although he failed to win a stage he did 3 top 10's and a 2nd in the points jersey. As I mentioned though, his biggest performance was this year in the Tour de San Luis. He won two stages, beating Cavendish in both and came 2nd in a third stage. What was even more impressive was that his second stage win came the day after a mountain stage which suggest he does have the ability to win a points jersey in a major tour.
Fernando is moving to Etixx at the end of this year and they will be hoping that he continues his winning ways. It's hard to imagine him not doing this, especially with a better lead out train and more professional training. Whether he turns into a green jersey or just a flat out sprinter will be interesting to see, one thing is for sure - he has a massive future in the sport.

Caleb Ewan
Age in 2020: 25
Current Team: Orica GreenEDGE
Best GT Performance: Not Raced

Can Ewan keep up his winning ways?

Caleb is another rider who is difficult to judge because of his youth and lack of experience. What is true though is that he's prolific, 5 pro wins in a season prove this. What is also true though is that he can win even on difficult stages and it's this which proves that he can be a green jersey winner.
Ewan's career really started in 2013 but in 2012 he came 2nd in the Junior World Championships behind current Cannondale-Garmin rider Mohoric. In 2013 though he took 7 wins, the best of these were 2 stage wins in both the International Thuringen-Rundfahrt and Tour de l'Avenir - he also came 3rd in the points jersey in the latter. He also won the hilly junior nation's cup event, La Cote Picarde. 2014 was a harder year for Ewan, he took just 2 wins; the U23 national championships and a stage of the Tour de l'Avenir. He did turn pro towards the end of the season though, coming 2nd in the U23 World Championships and 2nd in the opening stage of his first World Tour race, Tour of Beijing. 2015 has been another step up for the young Australian, he came 2nd in the Australian Champs at the start of the season and then took 4 wins and then took 9 top 5's in the next 13 racing days. Since then he's won another race at the Vuelta la Rioja. Orica seem to be building him up slowly so don't expect to see him at the Tour but they might decide to send him to the Vuelta for a couple of weeks, either in support of Michael Matthews or as the team's main sprint option. In 5 years, Ewan will still only be 25 but I would expect to see him winning Grand Tour stages and maybe Ghent-Wevelgem or Milan San-Remo by then.

Tour de France 2018 - Stages 12 - 14

Introduction
After a tough few days for the sprinters it's finally time for more bunch sprints as the Tour heads towards the south coast. Before that though there's one final day in the Alps. As much as they might want to, the overall favourites can't ignore this stage, the final climb of the Col du Vence is seriously hard and it could unhitch many of the GC guys. After that it's two stages that look deceptively easy on paper but in reality will be very difficult if the conditions are just right.

Stage 12 - Briancon - Grenoble - 144.1km
It's ranked as a medium mountain stage but there's still 2,800m of vertical ascent in less than 100 miles of riding. The first 28km are all uphill as the peloton climb the Col du Lautaret. The Lautaret is not one of the most beautiful climbs in the Alps, it's a main road up a valley which is straight for almost its entire length. It trends downwards at the top though for the best part of 70km so there is a benefit to the initial climb. The peloton will enter Grenoble with 30km to go and oh how they will wish that they can just nip one street over to the finish line. Unfortunately they have to leave Grenoble to climb the Col du Vence. The road is narrow and the climb is incredibly steep so don't expect any more than 10 riders to fight it out in the final sprint.

Stage 13 - Valence - Nimes - 145.3km
It's not totally flat today but there's only two categorised climbs on the whole route so it should be a large bunch sprint. We're following the Rhone river today all the way into Nimes. The whole day is custom built for sprinters, it's towards the coast so expect a headwind to push the breakaway group back towards the sprint teams. The finish is also built for a sprint. The last 2km are made up of two 1km straights with a 90 degree bend between them. The next few days are great for the sprinters and it will be a race for the green jersey until the Basque country where the overall contenders will come back to the front.

Stage 14 - Montpellier - Perpignan - 189.5km

It looks like the easier stage of the entire race, there's barely 700m of climbing in the whole day. It will be the easiest day as well, unless the wind blows. There's a tiny amount of the route which doesn't hug the coastline so if there is a wind expect the race to be blown to pieces. If there's no wind though, this will be another opportunity for the sprinters to get a stage win. The one minor obstacle actually comes in the last kilometer. Although the stage has been pan flat up until this point, there's a 15m rise after the red kite. This shouldn't prevent the sprinters from winning but it will mean that they have to time their efforts much better. If you go for a long one then expect your legs to die far before you hit the line.

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