Here’s How Every Team Can “Win” the 2024 Tour de France
On Thursday evening, the 22 teams competing in the 2024 Tour de France were presented to fans and press in Florence, Italy.
One of the things we love about the Tour is that it offers something for everyone: some teams come hoping to win the yellow jersey, while others are just hoping to win a stage. And with 21 stages spread over 23 days, there’s a chance for every team to “win” the Tour–in its own way.
So here’s a look at every team starting the 2024 Tour de France, along with a “Best Case Scenario” in terms of how each team can “win” the Tour.
Alpecin-Deceuninck
Alpecin-Deceuninck has enjoyed a successful three-year run at the Tour, winning at least two stages a year since its first Tour de France in 2021. But the highlight was easily last year’s Tour when Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen won four stages and the green jersey as the Tour’s Points Classification winner.
Last year's tally is this year's floor for a program that has proven to know how to succeed at the Tour. Philipsen–who just signed a contract extension that will keep him with the team through 2028–wants to prove that he’s the best sprinter in the world, and he’ll need at least four stage wins–and maybe one or two more–to do that. That should be enough to win another green jersey, as well.
Along the way, the team would like to see the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel–the reigning World Champion–or Denmark’s Søren Kragh Andersen–who won two stages with Team Sunweb in 2020–also win a stage. France’s grand tour rookie Axel Laurance is also worth watching.
Best Case Scenario: 5-6 stage wins and the green jersey
Arkéa-B&B Hotels
This will be the twelfth Tour de France for Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and they’ve never won a stage–so that’s the team’s one and only goal for this year’s race. Unfortunately, they aren’t bringing a roster that inspires much confidence in their chances to get off the schneid. French sprinter Arnaud Démare is probably the team’s “marquee” rider, but the two-time stage winner hasn’t raced the Tour since 2021 and hasn’t won a race since last October.
By the time it’s all said and done, the team’s best rider might prove to be Frenchman Kévin Vauquelin, who finished second at Flèche Wallonne this spring and could be a threat to take a breakaway stage win on one of the Tour’s punchier stages.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win
Astana Qazaqstan
Great Britain’s Mark Cavendish sits one win away from breaking the record for the most stage wins in Tour de France history. (If you’re just tuning in, he enters the Tour tied with Belgian legend Eddy Merckx at 34 victories.) He hoped to break the record last year–and then retire–but after crashing out of last year’s race, he postponed his retirement to get the one win he needed to make history. Astana Qazaqstan will be immortalized as the team Cav was riding for when he broke the record if he gets it. Kazakhstan's Alexey Lutsenko is always a threat to win a stage and perhaps sneak his way into a top-10 overall finish, but this team is all-in on Cavendish. Anything else will be a disappointment.
Best Case Scenario: Cavendish wins a stage
Bahrain-Victorious
Bahrain-Victorious had a fantastic Tour de France last year, coming away with three stage wins courtesy of Spain’s Pello Bilbao (who also finished sixth overall), the Netherlands’ Wout Poels, and Slovenia’s Matej Mohorič. The team’s performance was the perfect tribute to Switzerland’s Gino Mäder, who was killed in a crash at the Tour de Suisse a few weeks before the Tour.
This year, the team hopes for similar results and heads to Florence with a multi-faceted roster that could win another few stages and put someone in the top 10 overall. Bilbao, Poels, and Mohorič will again be leading the way. Still, we’re also eager to see what Colombia’s Santiago Buitrago–a 24-year-old who’s already a two-time stage winner at the Giro d’Italia–can do in the mountains. We’re also expecting big things from Great Britain's Fred Wright, who’s been knocking on the door of a grand tour stage win for years now and looks due to grab one at some point soon.
Best Case Scenario: 2-3 stage wins and a top-10 GC finish
Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe
Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe is going all-in on this year’s Tour de France–and the German team should be after signing Slovenia’s Primož Roglič away from Visma-Lease a Bike during the off-season. Roglič is a four-time grand tour winner, and the team is bringing a talented roster to support the 34-year-old in trying to win the only grand tour still missing from his resume.
And they’ll certainly have their hands full. The field is stacked this year, and Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar–who snatched the yellow jersey from Roglič on the penultimate stage in 2020–will be hard to defeat. Given how strong Pogačar looks heading into this year’s race, we have to wonder if the team will secretly be content with a second-place finish. If Pogačar continues to race like he’s from another planet–and if Roglič proves himself to be a level or two above everyone else in finishing second–that might be the case. It might be the best they can hope for.
Best Case Scenario: Roglič wins the Tour
Cofidis
After a dream Tour in 2023 in which the team won two stages–its first stage victories since 2008–there might still be a bit of an afterglow chez Cofidis heading into this year’s Tour. The French team is once again bringing an eclectic roster to the Tour, hoping that opportunists like France’s Guillaume Martin, Spain’s Ion Izagirre (one of last year’s stage winners), or Germany’s Simon Geschke can win a stage.
And keep an eye on France’s Axel Zingle, who wasn’t expecting to make the team after being widely reported to be headed to Visma-Lease a Bike next season. The 25-year-old has scored only one win so far this season–but his thirteen top-5 finishes seem to explain why the Dutch super-team is so eager to sign the Frenchman.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale is enjoying one of its finest seasons in recent memory. The French team has won 26 races so far this season–17 more than it scored all of last year. Now, they hope to continue winning at the Tour de France.
Austria’s Felix Gall, who won a mountain stage and finished eighth overall last year, will be the team’s GC rider–although he’ll probably have a hard time improving on last year’s GC finish given this year’s competition. He might be better off going for another stage win and the polka dot jersey as the Tour’s King of the Mountains–he finished second in the competition last year.
Ireland’s Sam Bennett is the team’s sprinter. Bennett hasn’t raced the Tour since winning two stages and the green jersey with Quick-Step in 2020, and he’s eager to show everyone that he’s still got what it takes to win Tour de France field sprints.
We’re also eager to learn more about Paul Lapeira, a French Tour rookie who took the biggest win of his career (so far) when he won Sunday’s French national road race championship. To be honest, we’d never heard of the guy before Sunday, but we always love seeing the tricolore of the French national champion on the attack at the Tour.
Best Case Scenario: 1-2 stage wins, a top-10 GC finish, and/or the polka dot jersey
EF Education-EasyPost
When EF Education-EasyPost signed Equador’s Richard Carapaz in 2022–a former Giro d’Italia champion who’s scored podium finishes in all three grand tours–it was hoping to have found a GC rider it could depend on in the next few Tours de France.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case: Carapaz abandoned last year’s Tour after a crash on Stage 1 and was almost ruled out of this year’s Tour after crashing out of the Tour de Suisse. So, while he’s starting the race, the team seems to be lowering the bar in terms of his GC goals. Instead, Carapaz and the rest of the team are shooting for stage wins. (But if Carapaz makes it through the first few stages without losing any time, he could target the GC after all.)
Otherwise, look for Carapaz to join Italy’s Alberto Bettiol (who just won the Italian championship), Portugal’s Rui Costa (who just won the Portuguese championship), Ireland’s Ben Healy, and American Neilson Powless in hunting for the team's first stage win since 2022. This is a talented group of stage hunters, and if the team gets it right, they could go home with more than one.
Best Case Scenario: 2-3 stage wins and a surprise top-5 finish for Carapaz
Groupama-FDJ
With the retirement of charismatic Frenchman Thibaut Pinot after last year’s Tour, Groupama-FDJ comes to this year’s Tour de France for a new talisman. This rider truly embodies the French fighting spirit espoused by the team’s general manager, Marc Madiot.
On paper, at least, France’s David Gaudu will be the team’s GC captain–he finished fourth overall in 2022 and clawed his way to ninth last year. But the 27-year-old tested positive for COVID-19 last week, and even before that, he did little to make us think he could at least equal his top-5 finish from two years ago.
The team will be better off hunting for stage wins, an important goal for any French team–especially one that hasn’t won a stage at the Tour de France since Pinot won Stage 14 atop the Col du Tourmalet in 2019.
To that end, expect Frenchmen like Romain Grégoire, Quentin Pacher, and Valentin Madouas to get into as many breakaways as possible. We’re also excited to see how 20-year-old Lenny Martínez–riding his first Tour de France–does in the mountains. He’s the kind of pure climber that French fans tend to love, and assuming he loses time during the first week, he could have a chance to win a mountain stage from a breakaway later in the Tour.
Best Case Scenario: 1-2 stage wins and a top-10 GC finish for Gaudu
INEOS Grenadiers
INEOS is bringing one of the deepest rosters in team history to this year’s Tour de France, led by Spain’s Carlos Rodríguez, who finished fifth overall and won a stage last year, and Colombia’s Egan Bernal, who won the Tour in 2019. The team’s shooting for a podium finish from one of these two, and that’s a realistic goal for the British squad.
While they’re entering the race as col-leaders, we give Rodríguez a slight edge over Bernal. The 24-year-old won a stage and finished fourth at the Critérium du Dauphiné against some tough competition in early June. And while Bernal finished third overall a week later at the Tour de Suisse, he was well off the pace.
Both riders will have all the support they could ask for, with Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas, a former Tour de France champion who finished third at the Giro earlier this year, Belgium’s Laurens de Plus, a strong mountain domestique who took fifth at the Dauphiné–despite riding for Rodríguez; and Poland’s Michał Kwiatkowski, a grand tour veteran who took a thrilling stage win last year. Add a wildcard like Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock–who could prove to be a third GC option but might be better off hunting for stage wins–and INEOS has all the riders it needs to have a successful Tour.
Best Case Scenario: a top-3 GC finish and 2-3 stage wins
Intermarché-Wanty
Like Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Intermarché-Wanty is another team that can’t get away with saying it’s “just happy to be at the Tour” any longer. They’ve raced the Tour six times since 2017, and the Belgian team still hasn’t won a stage. It’s time.
Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay will lead the way. This will be the 24-year-old’s second Tour de France, and there are several stages that look like good chances for the Classics rider/small group sprinter. And if he wins one, he’ll also make history as the first Black man to do so.
South Africa’s Louis Meintjes is the team’s other “protected” rider. He’s like several riders in this year’s race in that he’s capable of a top-10 GC finish but might be better off hunting for stage wins instead. After all, the team will reap far more rewards–from a publicity standpoint at least–from a stage win than it ever will from finishing ninth overall.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win and a top-10 GC finish
Lidl-Trek
Lidl-Trek lost its GC rider–Great Britain’s Tao Geoghegan Hart–to COVID-19 before the Tour even started, so it shifted its approach (a bit) and will now be hunting exclusively for stage wins. Luckily, the team has several riders capable of winning multiple stages, and now they won’t have to focus on protecting someone’s GC position.
To start, Denmark’s Mads Pedersen has won stages in back-to-back Tours and should have no trouble making it a hat trick. Italy’s Giulio Ciccone, who won last year’s polka dot jersey as the Tour’s King of the Mountains, had a rough spring–and got sick himself after finishing third at the Critérium du Dauphiné–but he should be fine for the Tour, hoping to take his first mountain stage win while perhaps trying to win another polka dot jersey.
Last but not least, Latvia’s Toms Skujiņš is the perfect card for the team to play on transitional stages (stages that are too hard for the sprinters but too easy to be GC days) and should be in the mix for a breakaway stage win or two.
Best Case Scenario: 2-3 stage wins and the polka dot jersey
Movistar
Movistar used to be one of the best grand tour teams in the world. But it’s a team that likes the majority of its roster to be filled with Spanish riders, and its inability to attract and/or retain the best of them–at least grand tour-wise–is starting to show.
The team is also hurt by the fact that it went all-in on Enric Mas, who once upon a time looked to be Spain’s next grand tour champion–he has three second-place finishes at the Vuelta a España and two top-6 finishes at the Tour on his resume–but has failed to live up to the hype, especially compared to younger riders like Rodríguez and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates). After back-to-back DNFs, Mas will again be the team’s GC captain–and perhaps he will ride his way to another top-10 finish. But that’s a big “if.”
In the end–like most teams–the success of Movistar’s 2024 Tour de France will likely come down to the team’s ability to win stages–something that the team hasn’t done since 2019. But we like their chances this year, with Spaniards Alex Aranburu and Oier Lazkano ready to break the team’s 5-year winless streak.
Best Case Scenario: 1-2 stage wins and a top-10 GC finish
Soudal Quick-Step
A Belgian hasn’t won the Tour de France since 1976. But in Remco Evenepoel, the cycling-mad nation hopes it finally has a rider capable of ending its Tour de France drought. The excitement is justified: after switching from soccer to cycling as a teenager, Evenepoel dominated the junior ranks before going right to the pros. Then, in 2022, he won the Vuelta a España, becoming the first Belgian to win any grand tour since 1978, something that immediately made him–in the eyes of the press and the fans, at least–a future Tour de France champion.
But Evenepoel has found that living up to the hype of being “the next Eddy Merckx” is harder than he expected. He was forced to abandon last year’s Giro d’Italia after testing positive for COVID-19 while he was leading the race overall, and he failed to defend his title at the Tour of Spain.
He’s wisely doing his best to temper expectations heading into the Tour–which will be his first–perhaps trying to get ahead of the pressure before the race starts. In the end, a stage win–perhaps in Stage 7’s individual time trial–and a podium finish would be a fantastic result for the 24-year-old, but we won’t be surprised if he has a bad day in the mountains and falls out of podium contention.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win and a top-3 GC finish for Evenepoel
dsm-firmenich PostNL
Like several teams, dsm-firmenich PostNL realizes that–given the team’s roster–stage wins are the best way to “win” the Tour de France. As such, they’re bringing a variety of riders to the race, several of whom already have Tour stage wins–and other accolades–on their resumes.
Frenchman Romain Bardet will lead the way for the Dutch squad. Bardet–riding his last Tour de France–twice finished on the podium in Paris, won three stages in three different Tours, and was the Tour’s King of the Mountains in 2019. He’ll likely be shooting for one last stage win, which is probably a good idea given that he barely finished inside the top 10 at the recent Giro d’Italia (against much lesser competition). A stage victory for Bardet–often overshadowed by the flashier Pinot–would make French fans’ heads explode.
Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen came to the team from Soudal-Quick Step during the off-season. With Germany’s John Degenkolb leading him out, the team hopes the Dutchman can find the form that won him a stage at the Tour in 2022.
Best Case Scenario: 1-2 stage wins, preferably by Jakobsen and Bardet
Jayco AlUla
Jayco AlUla comes to the Tour hoping to dance the delicate dance of trying to win field sprints while supporting a GC podium contender. At a time when teams can only bring eight riders to the Tour (they used to bring nine), that’s a tough balancing act.
In the sprints, the team will be riding for Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen, a five-time Tour stage-winner who last won a stage in 2022 but recently sprinted to victory in the Dutch national road race championship. He’ll benefit from being lead out by Australia’s Michael Matthews, a former green jersey winner who’s won four stages of his own at the Tour de France. Matthews has become more of a Classics specialist at this stage in his career, and he’s always a threat for a breakaway stage win on hillier days–so keep an eye on him during the opening weekend.
While Groenewegen and Matthews will do their best to win stages, Great Britain’s Simon Yates–who almost won Stage 1 and finished fourth overall in last year’s Tour–will be shooting for another high GC finish. Rumored to be transferring to Visma-Lease a Bike during the off-season–where he’s eager to take on more of a supporting role as he enters the latter phase of his career–this is likely the last chance for the former Vuelta a España champion to ride for himself at a grand tour. He’ll be doing his best to make the most of it.
Best Case Scenario: 2-3 stage wins and a top-5 GC finish
Visma-Lease a Bike
It’s been a nightmare of a season for Visma-Lease a Bike, which last year won all three grand tours but is barely able to field a full squad of healthy riders this year.
Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard will again be leading the team, but it remains to be seen how competitive he’ll be after crashing heavily at the Tour of the Basque Country in early April and breaking his collarbone, cracking a few ribs, and puncturing a lung. (He hasn’t raced since, and his training was kept rather secret.) If he somehow manages to win a third consecutive Tour de France, his victory will go down as the greatest comeback in cycling history (and raise lots of eyebrows as well).
A more reasonable–yet still incredible–outcome would see Vingegaard earn a spot on the final podium. While certainly not what the team had hoped for heading into the season, such a result would at least assure the team that the 27-year-old is fully healed and ready to challenge for future grand tour victories.
Belgium’s Wout van Aert–who also had his spring disrupted by a terrible crash–is riding the Tour after planning to skip the race in favor of the Giro d’Italia. He’ll be riding to win a stage (or two) while building form for the Olympic Games, where he hopes to win a gold medal.
While Vingegaard and van Aert were healing, American Matteo Jorgenson did his best to lead the team in their absence. The American almost won the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June and now heads to the Tour–for the first time–as a GC rider. He’s certainly riding on behalf of Vingegaard, but it will be interesting to see how he fares. If things go well, we could witness the birth of a new American Tour contender.
Best Case Scenario: 1-2 stage wins for van Aert and a podium finish for Vingegaard
UAE Team Emirates
We’re running out of ways to say that we’re running out of superlatives to describe Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar, who won back-to-back Tours in 2020 and 2021 and finished second to Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023–while winning what seems like just about every other race on the calendar along the way. Simply put, he’s probably the closest thing modern fans will ever come to seeing a rider like Eddy Merckx.
But we were dubious at best when Pogačar came into the season saying that his goal was to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. No one’s won both races in a season since 1998, and with Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike looking even stronger than it did coming into 2022 and 2023, we didn’t give him much of a chance. But then Vingegaard crashed, and Pogačar crushed the Giro, winning six stages and the maglia rosa–and everything changed.
Despite revealing to reporters that he had COVID-19 ten days before coming to the Tour, it will still be an incredible upset if Pogačar doesn’t win the Tour, an achievement that looks all the more possible thanks to the roster his team has assembled, with three riders in Great Britain’s Adam Yates, Portugal’s João Almeida, and Spain’s Juan Ayuso who would be podium contenders if they rode for any other team in the race (and given the fact that Pogačar and Yates finished second and third in last year’s Tour, still could be).
Best Case Scenario: Pogačar wins the Tour, and one of the team’s other riders joins him on the final podium
Isral-Premier Tech
Isral-Premier Tech is a great example of a team that knows how to build a Tour roster that gets the most out of its riders. They’re one of the Tour’s youngest teams–this will be their fifth participation–but in winning three stages over the past two editions, they’ve been more successful than half the teams in this year’s race.
They’re taking a similar approach this year, with a roster filled with versatile riders who will challenge for stage wins throughout the three-week race. Canada’s Derek Gee–who won a stage and finished third overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné–and Great Britain’s Stephen Williams–who won the Tour Down Under in January and Flèche Wallonne in April–should be the first two riders called upon to keep the team’s two-year stage-winning streak alive.
At worst, Isral-Premier Tech wins a single stage–at best, they win two or three. And don’t be surprised if Gee spends a day or two in the yellow jersey; the Tour’s opening two stages look like perfect chances for the Canadian to start off his first Tour de France with a bang.
Best Case Scenario: 2-3 stage wins and a day or two in the yellow jersey
Lotto Dstny
Lotto has raced all but two editions of the Tour de France since 1985, making it one of the oldest programs in the race. However, the team hasn’t won a stage since 2020, and the Belgian squad hopes to change that this year.
The team will be led by two young Belgians: sprinter Arnaud de Lie, who outsprinted three Tour stage winners (including Jasper Philipsen and Wout van Aert) to win the Belgian national road race championship on Sunday, and climber Maxim Van Gils, who looks to be on the verge of a major victory after finishing third in Strade Bianche, third in Flèche Wallonne, and fourth in Liège-Bastogne-Liège earlier this spring. Both riders will do their best to show that there’s more to Belgian cycling than Remco Evenepoel.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win
Uno-X Mobility
Uno-X Mobility is a Norwegian wildcard team that’s competing in only its second Tour de France. But they’re not just happy to be there–they’re racing to win.
So, to avoid the plight of winless teams like Arkéa and Intermarché, the Norwegian squad went out and signed Denmark’s Magnus Cort from EF Education-EasyPost during the off-season. A 9-time grand tour stage winner with two Tour de France stage wins on his resume, Cort is just the guy to get Uno-X its first Tour de France stage victory.
And don’t be shocked if he starts winning early; the first two stages are hard enough to weed out the Tour’s sprinters, but not hard enough to eliminate the Dane. Cort can certainly handle himself in a small group sprint and could be a surprise winner of Stage 1 or 2, a dream scenario for his new sponsors.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies has raced every Tour de France since 2000, but hasn’t won a stage since 2017. The team had hoped that signing Peter Sagan to a lucrative contract heading into 2022 would have guaranteed the French squad at least a stage win or two, but the Slovakian–who raced his final Tour de France last year before “retiring” at the end of last season–proved to be a big bust. Now, the squad enters a new era, albeit without a proven grand tour stage winner to pin its hopes. As much as we hate to say it, this may be the weakest roster in the Tour.
Frenchman Mathieu Burgaudeau is perhaps the team’s best chance for a much-needed stage win. The 25-year-old raced aggressively last year and scored two top-3 stage finishes for his efforts. Look for the mustachioed Frenchman to feature in several breakaways this year, hoping to get a career-defining victory–and, in doing so, wash away the bad taste left in the team’s mouth after Sagan’s disappointing two seasons with the squad.
Best Case Scenario: a stage win
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