Best cyclists in the world 2023
Our round-up of the best road cyclists in the world right now in 2023.
The Tour de France is the world’s premier cycle race and many of the world’s best riders will be lining up for the start.
They’ll be looking to make their mark with stage wins and in the points and king of the mountain competitions over the three weeks of the race, or just to show their team’s colours in a breakaway.
A select few will be aiming to wear the race leader’s yellow jersey and maybe win the race overall when it arrives in Paris.
Ranking the top road cyclists in the world is a tough task given the variety of events and style differences between some of the best around.
Not all will ride the Tour de France. Some are specialists in the early-season one-day races, while others like Primož Roglič, who won the Giro d’Italia in May, will skip the Tour so that they’re in peak form for later-season races such as the Vuelta a España, which starts in August. A three week grand tour takes a lot out of the riders.
RadioTimes.com brings you our ranking of the 10 best cyclists in the world right now.
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1. Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) Jumbo-Visma
Winner of the Tour de France in 2022, Vingegaard is a superb climber and also won the King of the Mountains classification and two individual mountain stages during the race.
Concentrating on stage races, he’s been low-key so far in 2023, but has won all the races he’s started with the exception of Paris-Nice in March, including domination of the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June - a traditional test for riders ahead of the Tour de France.
2. Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) UAE Team Emirates
Pogačar had won two Tours de France before age 23, also taking the King of the Mountains and Best Young Rider prizes on both occasions. He’ll be looking for revenge at this year’s Tour, having been bested by Vingegaard last year.
He’s a fearsome competitor, taking a string of one-day race wins in early 2023, before crashing and breaking his wrist in the Liège–Bastogne–Liège classic in April. Since then, he’s largely been out of competition and will be an unknown quantity at this year’s Tour.
3. Primož Roglič (Slovenia) Jumbo-Visma
Roglič started his career as a ski jumper before switching to cycling. He’s won the overall general classification in the 2023 Giro d’Italia, and three times at the Vuelta a España. He also has a string of wins in shorter stage races and one-day races to his name.
He’s been unlucky at the Tour over the years, losing the race lead to Pogačar in the final stage time trial in 2020 and abandoning the race in 2021 and 2022. He’s skipping this year’s Tour, but is likely to take to the start of the Vuelta in August, aiming to add a fourth victory.
4. Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) Soudal-QuickStep
Evenepoel may only be at the start of his pro cycling career, but he’s already made his mark, winning the Vuelta a España and the World Championships in 2022 and the first and ninth stage time trials at the 2023 Giro d’Italia.
He’s also won both the Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Clásica San Sebastián one-day races twice, as well as a string of shorter stage races. He looks to be getting back into form after retiring from the Giro with Covid, but will not ride the Tour.
5. Wout van Aert (Belgium) Jumbo-Visma
A third talent in the Jumbo-Visma team, van Aert has won sprint stages, mountain stages and time trials at the Tour de France. He won two stages on his debut Tour de France in 2020. In 2022, he held the yellow jersey for four stages and was the overall winner of the green jersey competition by a wide margin.
He’s won a range of one-day races, including Milan-San Remo and Strade Bianche in 2020. Van Aert also races cyclocross and was three-time world champion in that discipline before turning to road racing.
6. Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) Alpecin-Deceuninck
A contemporary and rival to van Aert, van der Poel also first raced cyclocross before turning to road racing and is a five-time winner of the cyclocross world championship. He also competes in cross-country mountain biking.
Van der Poel comes from a cycling family, with his father Adri and grandfather Raymond Poulidor both top racers, while his brother also races professionally.
He’s won a string of prestigious one-day races including the Tour of Flanders twice and Milan-San Remo in 2023. He wore the Tour de France yellow jersey for six stages in 2021, although he’s yet to finish the race.
7. Julian Alaphilippe (France) Soudal-QuickStep
World Champion in 2020 and 2021, Alaphilippe has a string of one-day road races to his name, as well as the Tour of California and the Tour of Britain. He wore the Tour de France yellow jersey for 14 stages in 2019, before losing it to the eventual winner overall, Egan Bernal.
He’s a powerful rider, who excels at punchy climbs and short uphill finishes. A series of crashes and injuries have meant that Alaphilippe hasn’t been at his best in 2023, but he’ll want to prove himself at the Tour.
8. Tom Pidcock (UK) Ineos Grenadiers
A superb young talent, Pidcock has put in some impressive performances for his team, including winning the Tour de France queen stage to the iconic Alpe d’Huez in 2022. He’s a demon descender as well as a powerful climber. He’s won the prestigious Strade Bianche and has had top-five finishes in two other one-day races in 2023.
Like van der Poel, he’s another rider who competes across disciplines, winning the gold medal in cross-country mountain biking at the Tokyo Olympic Games and the cyclocross world championships in 2022.
9. Mark Cavendish (UK) Astana-Qazakhstan
Mark Cavendish has won 34 stages of the Tour de France over his career, equalling the record set in the 1970s by Eddy Merckx. In this, his final year before retirement, he will be hoping to add at least one more win to his tally.
Cavendish is the master of the sprint finish, with his teams building powerful lead-out trains to deliver him to the finishing straight on flatter stages. Cavendish has then been outstandingly successful at putting in the final burst to reach the line first.
As well as his Tour stage record, Cavendish has won a string of other races, including Milan-San Remo in 2009, the world championships in 2011 and the points classification at all three grand tours.
10. Filippo Ganna (Italy) Ineos Grenadiers
Another specialist who’ll likely never win a Tour de France, Filippo Ganna excels at individual time trials against the clock. He’s also the current world hour record holder, having covered 56.792km in an hour in a Swiss velodrome in October 2022. That bested the previous record by over a kilometre - an incredible feat when previous records had often been broken by tens of metres.
He’s also won two time trial world championships and track world championship and Olympic gold medals. He has worn the leader’s jersey at the Giro d’Italia on two occasions after winning the first stage time trials. He’s not just a time trial specialist, either, with the stamina to finish three week grand tours.
Honourable mention: Egan Bernal (Colombia) Ineos Grenadiers
Bernal won the Tour de France in 2019 and the Giro d’Italia in 2021. In early 2022, he suffered a life-threatening crash while training in his native Colombia, which put him out of competition for the whole of that year. In 2023, he’s sustained a knee injury and another crash, which have marred his early-season racing.
A return to peak form could see him challenging for the overall or at least a high placing at this year’s Tour.
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