Now is your chance to make your voice heard in our second annual VeloVoices Awards. We’re asking you to select your personal favourites of 2013 across a variety of serious and not-so-serious categories.
On Thursday we ran our poll for the Kit of the Year. Today it’s our final category: Most Aggressive Rider of the Year.
Jack: The new world champion Rui Costa has had a stellar season, picking up a couple of stages in the Tour de France and a sprinkling of other victories to boot. However, it’s the aggressive manner in which he’s picked up his wins that has made him stand out. Never afraid to attack his rivals or escape into a long breakaway, he’s reaped the rewards of the ‘who dares wins’ philosophy. Bravo.
Costa’s sustained aggression throughout the season finally earned him the rainbow stripes (Image: Toscana 2013)
Kathi: At some point in almost every race he was in, you’d see someone fly off the front and it would be Juan Antonio Flecha. After three seasons of toeing the Sky line, he was set free to ride his own races by Vacansoleil this year and he animated a good many of them.
Panache: Some would say Peter Sagan was too aggressive. No other rider grabbed a podium girl’s bottom all year long. That and he won 22 times this year because of attacks that overwhelmed sprinters and puncheurs alike. No one is more aggressive than the Incredible Hulk.
You lookin’ at me? (Image: ASO)
Sheree: Amets Txurruka was adjudged the Most Aggressive rider way back in the Tour de France in 2007. Since then he’s been almost ever-present in breakaways. Let go by Euskaltel at the end of last year, he seems to have refound his mojo at Caja Rural where he’s enjoyed his best season ever with three victories. He was adjudged most aggressive rider at the Tour of the Basque Country this year and he and his teammates animated pretty much every stage at this year’s Vuelta.
Tim: No, this isn’t Kathi in disguise: I’m going for Fabian Cancellara. When it comes to the classics, here is a man so aggressive the entire peloton plan their tactics around how to neutralise him. And yet he still won E3, Flanders and Roubaix and finished on the podium at Milan-San Remo. But most impressive of all was the way he laid down the hurt on the bunch day after day to support Chris Horner at the Vuelta. Fabian rides just as aggressively in the service of others as he does for himself.
Tim was so shocked that Kathi didn’t nominate the Sacred Haunches that he did it for her … (Image: Vuelta website)
Ant: While another German machine may have made the earliest attack this season (Tony Martin at the Vuelta), Jens Voigt managed to silence his legs sufficiently to put in an impressive string of attacks throughout the season, not least an aggressive ride on Alpe d’Huez at the Tour. Jens may retire at the end of next season, but on the strength of 2013 he won’t be going quietly!
Both this and all our other 2013 polls (excluding Race of the Year) will remain open until Friday night. Results will be announced on the next podcast a week on Monday, and on the blog shortly thereafter.
VeloVoices Awards 2013
Breakthrough Rider of the Year
I have to agree with Sagan… Not only is the man aggressive on the course, he sure knows how to get a bike on a top mounted car rack.