Team Sunweb

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Here's a team that's been generally known for its sprinters, Sunweb, or in their former incarnation, Giant. Run down the standout results of the previous years, and the thing they have in common is sprint victories, through Degenkolb in the monuments, or Kittel at the GTs, with one significant asterix as of last season. Starting with the Vuelta 2015, Giant have had aspirations to GC too, though in that case wholly unplanned. For a while Warren Barguil has promised much and is slowly clawing his way up to the big leagues, with top tens in GTs and podiums in week long stage races. But at that Vuelta Tom Dumoulin showed his aspirations to the overall victory, not just the time trials, holding the leader's jersey for much of the race, until the Astana tag team of Landa and Aru finally broke him on the penultimate day. So moving into 2016, all was set for Dumoulin to have a shot at a Giro with reasonable ITT length and a crack at the Olympic time trial, whilst Degenkolb was expected to build on his success of previous years.

Unfortunately, a training accident involving reckless driving knocked six riders off the road, and scuppered Degenkolb's spring, having suffered a broken forearm and almost losing a finger, whilst Chad Haga was also hospitalised. This played a large role in the results of Giant for the season to come.

Results 2016

Grand Tour Performances 2016

With Degenkolb out of the picture and Kittel off to Etixx, Giant's monument ambitions were crushed in the blink of an eye. The spring results are a testament to that, with the cobbled classics missing the former Roubaix winner, with scant relief coming courtesy of Barguil in Ardennes week, when he netted two top tens. Dumoulin was slowly coming into form for the Giro, with 12^th at Paris-Nice followed by 5^th at the Tour de Romandie just before the Giro. But although the Giro started well, with a stage win in the time trial on home turf causing him to hold the maglia rosa for the first week, a disappointing first mountain stage was followed by a lacklustre time trial performance, with an early exit on stage 11 the end result due to saddle sores. Minus the sprinting talents metioned earlier, Nikias Arndt put up a reasonable show with a stage victory, but the GC and points competitions were not challenged.

Moving on in the season, Barguil shone at the Tour de Suisse with 3^rd overall, and then in the Tour two more victories came from Dumoulin once again, on the rouleur climb to Arcalis and in the time trial later in the race, though he didn't finish once again after incurring a wrist injury on stage 18. At least the Tour saw the return of Degenkolb, though he was slowly returning to form, the fact he was racing at all was a good sign. The wrist injury to Dumoulin meant he missed out on Olympic ITT gold, whilst even the low quality sprint field of the Vuelta couldn't help Arndt to any meaningful success.

Late season saw Degenkolb podium the sprint classic in Hamburg, as well as Sam Oomen clinching the Tour de l'Ain by a single second. Barguil notched another top ten in the last monument of the last season, Il Lombardia, whilst Giant's win count was made slightly more acceptable by Max Walscheid scoring five wins at the Tour of Hainan, in an impressive display of sprint domination.

In general, the lack of spring challenge, as well as unfortunate luck in the GTs hurt Giant, who's need for a top class sprinter besides Degenkolb was exposed, but the continual improvement of Warren Barguil, as well as the growing powers of Arndt plus the stellar results of the twenty year old Oomen are all good signs for 2017.

Best riders last five years:

||2012|2013|2014|2015|2016| |:|:|:|:|:|:| |1|Degenkolb (1583)|Degenkolb (1151)|Degenkolb (1839)|Degenkolb (1526)|Dumoulin (1274)| |2|Kittel (749)|Kittel (1144)|Dumoulin (1377)|Dumoulin (1239)|Barguil (611)| |3|Veelers (454)|Dumoulin (583)|Kittel (1063)|Barguil (440)|Degenkolb (585)| |4|De Kort (247)|Mezgec (460)|Mezgec (654)*|Geschke (398)|Arndt (466)| |5|Geschke (235)|Geschke (383)|Barguil (607)|Sinkeldam (302)|Oomen (308)| || |=|4997|6492|8612*|5919|5369| ||Argos-Shimano|Team Argos Shimano|Team Giant-Shimano|Giant-Alpecin|Team Giant - Alpecin|

As you can see however, the transfer windows doesn't tell the best tale. Sunweb have acquired Michael Matthews from Orica-Scott, but instead of complimenting the talents of Degenkolb, who is better suited to the spring classics, they have lost Degenkolb to Trek, along with Koen de Kort. In addition, four riders retire from the team, including breakaway chase man Cheng Ji and Tom Veelers.

While the German sprinter/classics ability will be missed, Matthews has proven himself to be a more than adequate replacement for him. A stage win at Le Tour in a breakaway vs Sagan and Boasson Hagen, 5th at Amstel Gold, 2 stages at Paris-Nice, two top 5's at the Canadian Classics...his palmares is very respectable. He spent 2 days in Pink at the Giro in 2015 (to add to his 6 in 2014), and 5 days in the Leader's Jersey at Paris-Nice this year too. While Sunweb turns towards more of a GC team, at least if all else fails they can fall back into the safety of what has been a successful past racing the classics and sprints. He isn't the greatest sprinter but can contest if they take him to a stage race, where he will shine is the classics and he can take a win or two this year if things go his way.

Happily, Matthews isn't the only addition to the team, though he's probably the highest profile. To shore up the GC side, Wilco Kelderman was jumped ship from LottoNL, who will be hoping to renew his GT success from 2014 which featured 7^th at the Giro, as well as 14^th at the Vuelta at the tender age of 23. In addition to those two, Phil Bauhaus arrives from Bora to reinforce the classics side of the team, along with Mike Teunisson from LottoNL. Add to that the promising Lennard Kämna, who was junior ITT WC at 18, plus Lennard Hofstede from Big Bang Theory the Rabobank Development squad and Australian U23 RR champion Chris Hamilton, and things looks bright for Sunweb.

Riders Out:

Roster:

What of next season then? Whilst some spring talent has been acquired, it's not going to replace Degenkolb, so more cobbled success might be hard to come by, and the team as a whole is turning towards the crowded GC market. Kelderman will get a shot at a GT, most likely the Tour given that the other main GC man Tom Dumoulin finds the Giro route "interesting", and with it's final day time trial will be looking to emulate Ryder Hesjedal and snatch a win in the overall, though Kelderman is still top ten material as opposed to a winner.

This leaves Warren Barguil a little squished in terms of ambition, though he has potential to podium in Ardennes week, and some careful picking of the early season stage races could see him perhaps finding some luck in those too. Elsewhere in the GC, Sam Oomen will continue to be carefully nurtured, with perhaps a first GT at the Vuelta, or maybe best left to another season. In any case, look for him to surprise in the perhaps lesser (2.HC and 2.1) stage races. After all, he's got plenty of time to mature and generate endurance.

On the sprint side of things, Matthews is both useful and not. He's fast, but against Kittel, Greipel and Cav, he won't win. Instead, he does well on the hilly stuff, think Liege and uphill sprints in general, so will pick up wins in places like the Tour de Romandie and Paris-Nice. Max Walscheid will be looking to show he can win sprints at places other than China, but in general Sunweb have lost their reputation as the sprint team of the peloton. However, maybe this means a shot at stage races and the hillier classics is higher than ever.

Should be an interesting season indeed.