Active Pass roundtable: Which WorldTour teams could go away for 2021?

You have questions about the 2020 Tour de France, and we have answers and educated opinions. Our veteran reporters, Andrew Hood and James Startt, are fielding your biggest inquiries each day in this Active Pass roundtable column. Today, one reader wants to know whether any WorldTour teams will not return in 2021, while another reader has a question about Wout van Aert.

OK, let’s get to your questions!

I am assuming CCC Team (or iteration) will not be around in 2021. Will the same happen to Bahrain-McLaren since McLaren is out? I’ve heard rumors that other teams are also in trouble. What teams will not make it to 2021, and who might step up to WorldTour?

Andrew Hood @eurohoody: Save a final-hour miracle, CCC Team looks to be done. A few other teams are on rocks, though it’s hard to say definitively how it will shake out. What is happening is that there are some teams with solid backing, and others on ice, further exacerbating the breach between rich and poor. COVID-19 will continue to play out through 2021 season. This isn’t over yet.

James Startt: I believe that CCC is the only team that likely will not be in the World Tour next year. NTT and EF, according to what I know, are stable and will be in the top tier of the peloton again. If CCC is going to be replaced in the World Tour there, a team like Arkéa-Samsic would be a good candidate. They have been moving up the ranks consistently, hiring better and better riders. Their Tour should have been much different with Nairo Quintana, but he is badly injured and not riding like the Nairo we know. But they still have a great future ahead of the them and they still have room to grow.

Is there anything Wout Van Aert can’t do? What do you see as his future in race tour? Obviously he could win the green jersey if he wanted to/on a team with that objective, but, despite what he’s said, could he ever contend for yellow?

Andy: Van Aert can’t climb high mountains with the GC contenders. He might if he loses 10kg, then he’d never win a TT, a sprint of Paris-Roubaix. Van Aert is one of these uber-talented riders who can shape a generation, the new Sagan. Let’s hope he sticks with what the cycling gods bestowed him .

James: Well, I think the high, high mountains will present a problem. It is one thing to blast over an early mountain pass or half-way up the final climb of a stage when you know you can sit up. It is quite another thing to have to stay at the front until the end and look for a moment to attack. But anything else–classics, sprints, week-long stage races—are more than fair game. Just an immense talent and one of the most exciting up-and-coming riders of his generation.

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