BATTLES ROYAL

The waiting is nearly over and cycling’s great rivalries will soon resume but how will the big guns fire when the heat is on?

JUMBO V INEOS

The stage is set for an epic showdown between these two super-teams at the Tour de France. Ineos might have the longer track record but Jumbo-Visma manager Richard Plugge has been building a formidable squad over the last couple of years and has thrown it all at the Tour for 2020.

New signing Tom Dumoulin will form a three-pronged attack with Steven Kruijswik and Primoz Roglic, and has welcomed the easing of the pressure of being sole leader. Ineos, meanwhile, has spent much of the Covid-19 lockdown period trying to quell fires as its own triumvirate of Chris Froome (halfway out the door), Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal vie for position. Who wins may well come down to who manages these galacticos the best.

ANNEMIEK VAN VLEUTEN V ANNA VAN DER BREGGEN

Which round of this match are we on now? Three? Five? Ten? The Dutch pairing continue to duke it out and right now van Vleuten is probably up on points. Last year she dispatched van der Breggen to win the Giro Rosa in commanding style before winning the Worlds with an eye-popping display of strength. She’ll be hoping for more of the same in 2020, with a hilly Worlds course that suits them both.

Van der Breggen is now set to retire from racing after the 2021 Olympics; will that looming date in her diary strengthen or weaken her resolve for more victories? Conventional wisdom maintains that once a rider decides to retire, some of the fire goes out of them, but convention has never meant too much to a woman who can win hilly one-day races, stage races, time trials and solo to victory on the nailed-on sprint finish of the Champs-Elysées.

PHILIPPE GILBERT V TIME