Every year brings its highs and lows. Whether it’s because of crashes, illness or just plain underperformance, there are plenty of riders wanting a change in fortunes in 2025 and happy to go into the new season with a clean slate.
Individual riders aside, there are also plenty of teams in slumps who will be looking to get their act together this year to save face, keep sponsors happy and, this year especially, to avoid relegation.
Here are ten of those hoping for a turnaround this season.
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Dylan van Baarle (Visma-Lease a Bike)
Dylan van Baarle has notched up at least one Classics win per season since 2021… until last year. He started his 2024 helping teammate Jan Tratnik win Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – a race he himself won in 2023 – and had to pull out of Paris-Roubaix, which he won in 2022, due to sickness.
It would be a similar story for the rest of the year. He crashed out of the Critérium du Dauphiné, didn’t start the Tour de France and only raced the opening time-trial at the Vuelta a España before fracturing his hip and pulling out on Stage 2.
- Goal for 2025: Stay healthy
Bahrain Victorious
Bahrain Victorious weren’t the lowest-ranking WorldTour team in 2024 – Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Cofidis and Astana all sat below them – but they certainly didn’t perform to the standard they might expect considering their roster.
It wasn’t all bad. Antonio Tiberi placed fifth overall at the Giro d’Italia and won the young rider classification. The team didn’t win any Grand Tour stages, however, and only picked up one apiece at Tirreno-Adriatico, Paris-Nice and the Tour de Suisse. Notably missing any WorldTour victories was Matej Mohorič. That will have to (and probably will) turn that around in ’25.
- Goal for 2025: Hoover up points
Marta Cavalli (Picnic-PostNL)
Italian rider Marta Cavalli has had more than her fair share of bad luck in recent years. A prosperous 2022 saw her win the Amstel Gold Race and Flèche Wallonne and finish second at the Giro d’Italia, but a big crash at the Tour de France Femmes and a lengthy recovery kept her off the bike.
Her race days picked up slowly in 2023 and she won both the Tour Féminin International des Pyrénées and Tour Feminin l’Ardeche but injuries surfaced once more in 2024. She crashed at an early-season training camp and was then hit by a driver in the summer, limiting her to just five days of racing.
- Goal for 2025: Turn over a new leaf with a new team
Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost)
A Grand Tour podium finisher at the Vuelta a España in 2020, Hugh Carthy’s recent seasons have seen him fail to reach the same heights as when he tamed the Alto de l’Angliru.
Carthy didn’t race any Grand Tours in 2024, participating only in stage races such as the Volta a Catalunya, Tour of the Alps, Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Langkawi. Of those, only Catalunya is WorldTour level.
His best placing on a general classification came at O Gran Camiño in February, where he finished sixth overall. As for finishing positions in stages, his best result was again at O Gran Camiño when he finished third by 45 seconds on a hilly stage.
- Goal for 2025: Re-find those climbing legs
Chris Froome (Israel-Premier Tech)
This is likely to be Chris Froome’s final year as a professional. Once a dominator of Grand Tours, his career was derailed by the training crash that left him with fractures to his right femur, elbow and ribs in 2019.
A whisper of his former form came back to life on the slopes of Alpe d’Huez in 2022, where he finished third behind Tom Pidcock. His last Grand Tour to date was the Vuelta a España that same year, his highest placing being 16th in the team time-trial.
It would be a fitting finale for Froome to end his lengthy career at the Vuelta, a race where he became Britain’s first Grand Tour winner in 2011 following the retroactive ban of Juan José Cobo. It doesn’t have to be a stage win, but it would be good for him to at least show his face at the front of the peloton.
- Goal for 2025: End on a high note
Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek)
2020 Giro d’Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart is another on this list to have been plagued by illness and injury, whether it was crashing out of the 2023 Giro with a broken hip or missing the 2024 Tour de France due to Covid-19.
He was able to ride the Vuelta a España last year after abandoning the Vuelta a Burgos but managed only 62nd overall and ended his 2024 winless.
- Goal for 2025: Start a Grand Tour in good shape
Ineos Grenadiers
2024 was the worst season to date for Ineos Grenadiers. Over the whole season they managed only 16 wins, less than half of their 2023 total. It didn’t help that questions kept swirling around regarding the future of Tom Pidcock and the whereabouts of DS Steve Cummings.
Of those 16 wins, one of the most prominent came from Pidcock in the Amstel Gold Race. He has since moved to Q36.5 Pro Cycling, while Ineos have signed riders such as Axel Laurance and Bob Jungels. Will that translate to a better 2025? Only time will tell.
One reason for optimism is that they still have Carlos Rodríguez on their roster. The 23-year-old has shone in stage races, and in 2024 won the Tour de Romandie, finished second at Itzulia Basque Country and fourth at the Dauphiné in 2024, while he finished fifth and seventh in the Tour de France in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
- Goal for 2025: Get it together
Fabio Jakobsen (Picnic-PostNL)
It’s safe to say 2024 was not Fabio Jakobsen’s year. He netted just a single victory, which came at the Tour of Türkiye, while in terms of Grand Tours he abandoned the Giro d’Italia after a crash and was eclipsed by other sprinters at the Tour de France before dropping out due to illness on Stage 12. His best placing by that point was fifth behind Mark Cavendish on Stage 5.
Since moving from Soudal-QuickStep to DSM in 2023, Jakobsen has been a shadow of his former self. It hasn’t helped his cause that the move came on the back of probably his best season to date in 2022 with 13 wins, but these days he just looks lost.
He seems to know as much too. In an interview with IDLProcycling, his sprint coach Roy Curvers said Jakobsen had ‘a bumpy winter [in 2023], during which he wasn’t always in good health’.
Jakobsen added, ‘We all need to keep up with the times, and last year I fell behind in that regard. Now I’m trying to take at least one step forward, if not more. That’s why I’m ahead of my usual schedule – I don’t want to spend another year playing catch up.’
- Goal for 2025: Catch up
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Canyon-SRAM)
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig only won once last season, on Stage 2 of the Tour Down Under in January. A crash at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad the following month resulted in a fractured sacrum that put paid to her Classics campaign and on her return to the peloton she was dogged by illness. Of the two Grand Tours she raced, her best result was eighth overall at the Giro d’Italia Women.
That’s an underwhelming return when compared to 2022, her best season to date, when she won the Danish road race title, a stage at the Tour de France Femmes and the overall at the Tour of Scandinavia. She has now switched from FDJ-Suez to Canyon-SRAM, and riding alongside teammates such as Kasia Niewiadoma will hopefully reignite a fire in her as she looks to give the squad a strong extra card to play in Classics and stage races with her punchy riding.
- Goal for 2025: Aggressive racing for the win
XDS-Astana
Astana’s saving grace in 2024 was the positive press surrounding Mark Cavendish. His record-breaking 35th stage victory at the Tour de France was the team’s main goal of the year. Now that Cavendish has retired, the team have to adapt.
With one year remaining in the current relegation and promotion cycle, Astana are currently the worst-placed WorldTour team in 21st place behind three ProTeams: Uno-X Mobility, Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto. With only the top 18 squads getting a WorldTour licence, their fate looks all but sealed.
- Goal for 2025: Make peace with becoming a ProTeam
