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Speculations over Tadej Pogačar potentially attempting the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France double in one season were answered with the UAE Team Emirates superstar pushing the feat back at least to 2023 but the question remains can he be the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to achieve it?

Astana had a dramatic 2021 with plenty of uncertain events off the bike with sponsors, staff structure and the possibility of the team folding.

However their GC star Vlasov managed to ride a solid Giro d'Italia to finish 4th overall and the Kazak superstar Alexey Lutsenko made his grandtour debut as a GC leader and managed to finish inside the Top 10.

The new season could be an interesting one with the return of Vincenzo Nibali and Miguel Angel Lopez plus the team's woeful results in the Monuments could be a thing of the past with the signing of the controversial rider Gianni Moscon who almost took the win in Paris Roubaix in 2021.

Luke Lamperti is just 18-years old and has already made a name for himself winning the National Pro Crit title in 2021 and also doing well in the Tour of Britain in 2021 as well racing for the exciting Trinity Racing, so a lot of potential for the young champion and star in the making.

Luke's social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lukelamperti/?hl=en

The 2021 season has produced some incredible moments and turned some riders from stars into superstars and other have not quite hit the mark so we go through the biggest names in cycling and rank them according to their results in 2021.

DSM had a mixed year, bringing in French superstar Romain Bardet who managed to perform well in the Giro d'Italia and winning a stage in the Vuelta.

But unfortunately for DSM the team will be losing Michael Storer to FDJ and Jai Hindley to Bora-Hansgrohe but they have managed to bring in the talented Frederik Rodenberg and former Sunweb rider John Degenklob for what could be an interesting 2022 for the team

Vasilis Anastopoulos was the first Pro Greek rider and has gone on to become a coach at both SEG Racing Academy and in 2019 joined Quickstep where he has been a coach ever since.

Vasilis Anastopoulos has been the coach of Mark Cavendish in 2021 and also part of the effort to bring back the Tour of Hellas to the pro cycling calendar in 2022.

Trek Segafredo had a decent 2021 with multiple wins across the board in different races, and the best result was Jasper Stuyven's maiden monument win at Milan San Remo plus Bauke Mollema won a stage at the Tour de France.

Giulio Ciccone was unlucky to not finish inside the top 10 of either the Giro d'Italia or Vuelta a Espana. 

Vincenzo Nibali also bids farewell to the team as the Italian legend returns to Astana.

Deceuninck–Quick-Step had an incredible 2021 which had the narrative of three comeback stories - Mark Cavendish, Remco Evenepoel and Fabio Jakobsen.

Mark Cavendish managed to take 4 historic stage wins at the Tour de France to equal the all time stage winning record of 34 stage wins that only Eddy Merckx could match.

Remco Evenepoel started his season at the Giro d'Italia after his Il Lombardia crash in 2020. Despite a bad start to the season he did manage to win the Belgium Tour, Tour of Denmark and Paris Bourges to name a few. Fabio Jakobsen managed to take the Vuelta a Espana points classification as well as winning 3 Vuelta stages.

João Almeida managed to salvage a 6th place overall at the Giro d'italia after a bad start and he also recorded his first stage race victories winning the Tour of Poland overall and the Tour of Luxembourg.

Unfortunately they are losing key riders such as João Almeida (UAE), Sam Bennett (Bora) and Álvaro José Hodeg (UAE).

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Israel Start-Up Nation bolstered their squad for their second year on the World Tour and they managed to take a total of 17 wins.

In the Giro d'Italia the team impressed with a stage win from Dan Martin plus a 10th place overall and David Cimolai managed to finish 2nd on two occasions and Alessandro De Marchi had two days in the Maglia Rosa. In the Monuments Mike Woods did well and Sepp van Marcke recorded a 5th place in the Tour of Flanders.

Tadej Pogačar had an incredible year winning the UAE Tour, Tirreno Adriactico and the Tour de France plus two monuments in the form of Liege Bastogne Liege and Il Lombardia. Notable is also the transfers they brought in so it could be a very interesting 2022 for the team.

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