News Round-up: Elia Viviani takes first win in a year at CRO Race

The shockwaves of the reported merger between Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step continued to rumble into Tuesday. There may have been no further information forthcoming from any of the parties involved, but it's far and away the biggest talking point in the sport. With its potential impact, everyone's getting involved, even successful podcasters Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe. Elsewhere, we have more transfer news and contract extensions, some futuristic tech suggestions from Apple's CEO and some racing from the opening day of the CRO Race.

CRO Race stage 1: Viviani's first win in a year

Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers) claimed his first win in almost a year on the opening day of the CRO Race. It was at this race last year, at the start of last October, that the decorated Italian last tasted victory on the road, and he made sure the dry spell didn’t quite extend to a full 12 months, with a timely victory 359 days on.

The opening stage of the six-day race in Croatia took riders on a 181km journey from Primosten to Sinj, where a bunch sprint was always on the cards. Viviani’s teammates dominated the closing kilometres and, although they seemed to get swamped when Uno-X, Q36.5, and Eolo-Kometa came to the fore late on, Connor Swift came through in the final kilometre to provide the perfect lead-out.

Viviani opened his sprint with 200 metres to go on the right-hand side of the road, and manage to sustain enough power to hold off the advancing Tobias Lund Andresen (dsm-firmenich). The final podium spot went to Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X).

© Sprint Cycling Agency

Viviani goes full aero to hold his advantage

Viviani pulls on the first leader’s jersey of the race, with bonus seconds giving him a four-second lead over Lund. Most of the general classification riders finished safely in the peloton although the major news was that 2022 CRO Race champion Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) lost 48 seconds after being caught up in a late crash.

The Slovenian chased hard on his own before getting help from a teammate, but could never bridge the gap as the sprint lead-out wound up, and now sees his hopes of defending his title as good as gone, given this is often a close race that he won by a single second last year.

Latest on the Visma-Soudal rumours

After news of a potential merger between Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step broke on Sunday night, the topic has continued to be the main talking point in pro cycling through Tuesday.

The key developments are that Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere has acknowledged the situation - albeit vaguely - in a message sent to his riders and obtained by GCN on Monday night. The Belgian acknowledged there were “ongoing discussions with various parties” but insisted there were “no concrete projects or plans”.

With little other confirmation or comment coming from any of the parties directly involved, the topic has seen numerous figures from the sport wade in with their opinions, and they’ve largely been of the negative variety. GCN who, in addition to explaining that a so-called ‘merger’ is almost always really a takeover, feels it would be damaging to the sport as a whole for two of the leading teams to combine. “It’s imbalanced enough as it is,” he said of the current state of the WorldTour.

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Could Remco Evenepoel find himself riding with Jumbo-Visma rivals?

Former pro Philippe Gilbert, meanwhile, said it would be “catastrophic” for the economics of professional cycling, which was a common theme and one picked up on by Ineos Grenadiers’ Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe.

“That’s a sad state of affairs for cycling if that team [Jumbo-Visma] can’t get a new headline sponsor,” said Rowe, referring to supermarket chain Jumbo’s plans to pull its sponsorship at the end of 2024.

Jumbo-Visma may be looking to secure their future but Soudal Quick-Step have key sponsors and star rider Remco Evenepoel in place through 2026, although former director Brian Holm added credibility to the rumours as he told Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that Lefevere had been looking to step back from front-line management: “I think he wants it to happen.”

Plus, other teams are already circling around the WorldTour licence that would go begging if one team was folded into another, with Uno-X reiterating their desire to become a top-level outfit in the not-too-distant future.

Meanwhile, the most entertaining input came from Thomas, who noted that: “Remco hates Jumbo and Jumbo hates Remco”, adding, "you should hear what [Primož] Roglič says about Remco…”

We’ll get the popcorn.

Read more:

• 'Remco hates Jumbo and Jumbo hates Remco' - Geraint Thomas reacts to Visma-Soudal merger talks
• Report: Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step looking to merge teams

Jumbo-Visma host Apple CEO

On a perhaps not-so-unrelated note, Jumbo-Visma welcomed Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, to Eindhoven on Monday. The news, amid the current swirl of rumours, sparked a frisson excitement over the prospect of one of the world’s largest tech giants as a pro cycling sponsor, but given the way even the world’s best team are struggling for backers, it would seem somewhat farfetched.

Instead, Cook met team boss Richard Plugge and a number of riders, including Riejanne Markus, to discuss their use of an app-based nutrition platform. The Foodcoach app has been specially developed by the Dutch team in order to tailor feeding plans down to the gram, according to the rider and the type of riding they’ve been doing that day.

There was also talk of future tech, specifically the possible use of Vision Pro – Apple’s latest smart mixed-reality headset – in pro cycling. “It is still impossible to predict exactly how all this will work for cyclists - developers have only just received their glasses to create software for them - but cyclists will soon be able to use it to view their own performance, for example,” Cook said, before adding that the technology could also be used by fans.

“You can then watch the race yourself from the perspective of a cyclist. That will be a very emotional experience, where we will notice how different it is to view something in 3D than on a flat 2D screen. It's going to be amazing.”

Kool, Georgi, Koch extend with dsm-firmenich

Team dsm-firmenich have taken steps to secure their future, extending the contracts of sprinting star Charlotte Kool, lead-out woman and Classics competitor Pfeiffer Georgi, and key support rider Franziska Koch.

Kool, who has shone since stepping out of Lorena Wiebes’ shadow this year, already had a contract that ran through 2024. However, with 13 victories already this year, the team have jumped to tie her down to a longer deal, and she’ll now race for the team through 2026.

The same is true of Georgi, who’s getting a one-year extension to a contract that was originally set to run through 2025. The 22-year-old has long been considered a talent but has taken another step forward this year, forming a key partnership with Kool in setting up the sprints, while also emerging as a big winner in her own right, taking out the Classic Brugge De Panne, Dwars door de Westhoek, and the British road race title.

Koch, meanwhile, was coming to the end of her current contract but has extended for another two years. The former mountain biker, 23, is nicknamed the ‘Franzerwagen’ for her strong engine that’s put to use on the flat days and in the Classics, where she was a top-10 finisher in the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Charlotte Kool (left) and Pfeiffer Georgi have stood out for DSM this year

“In my opinion and feeling, there’s no better team at this moment that fits me more than Team dsm-firmenich,” Kool said. “My teammates, the coaches, my trainer, the experts – actually, the whole team – feels like the perfect fit for me, and I still get excited to work with them every day. I’m looking forward to building together towards the next goals in my career and I just want to continue winning races together.”

With the future settled for the sprints and Classics - where US talent Megan Jastrab is among the squad - the stage racing focus at DSM revolves around Juliette Labous, who has another year to run on her contract.

Transfer latest

The transfer market, influenced by all this talk of mergers, has been a strange one this year, but it’s still ticking over, and we’ve got some more WorldTour trades to report, including Matt Walls to Groupama-FDJ and Harry Sweeny to EF Education-EasyPost.

We’ll start, though, with some shocking news broken exclusively here on GCN. Luke Plapp is looking to break his Ineos Grenadiers contract to force a move to Jayco AlUla. The Australian is considered one of the sport’s brightest talents and although he has shone in patches since turning pro last year, he hasn’t perhaps reached his full potential and believes he needs to move on in order to do so. Plapp signed a three-year contract with Ineos, so that needs to be terminated by mutual consent, but the path appears already well paved for a move to the Australian WorldTour team.

Meanwhile, Groupama-FDJ have signed the British sprinter and Olympic champion Matt Walls from Bora-Hansgrohe. With Arnaud Démare leaving mid-season, FDJ had a hole in their sprinting arsenal, and Walls also replaces a fellow British fast finisher, Jake Stewart, who is off to Israel-Premier Tech. 25-year-old Walls won the Omnium title at the 2021 Olympics but hasn’t won on the road since Gran Piemonte that year.

“Unfortunately, in the past two years I’ve had some big crashes that have put the brakes on my progression. For me, Groupama-FDJ is the ideal team to allow me to find my old level.”

Over at EF Education-EasyPost, the US team have announced the signing of Harry Sweeny from Lotto Dstny. The 25-year-old Australian all-rounder turned pro in 2021 after winning the U23 Il Lombardia, and said he was attracted by the “open-mindedness” of the team.

“Harry is going to be like a middle linebacker for us,” said team boss Jonathan Vaughters. “He is a strong guy who can climb and help riders like Marijn van den Berg in reduced bunch sprints. Harry also has a good nose for a breakaway, so I’m counting on him to continue our tradition of winning stages in Grand Tours out of breaks.”