Paris (AFP)

Youth danger: the thirties of the peloton are placed with their backs to the wall by the emergence of a new generation, symbolized by the last two winners of the Tour de France, Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogacar, while waiting for other talents.

"I have never seen such a good generation", believes the legendary Bernard Hinault.

And the last French winner of the Tour de France (in 1985) began to list: "Evenepoel, van der Poel, Bernal, Pogacar ... there is a lot!"

The Breton could have added the men in view of the last Giro, his British winner Tao Geoghegan Hart, the Australian Jay Hindley, the Portuguese Joao Almeida, who plunged the Italian Vincenzo Nibali (36) in perplexity since, from the According to his trainer Paolo Slogo, the Sicilian "Squale" has shown a level of performance that is substantially comparable to past years.

"The years plead for them. There is a change of generation which is taking place", could not help but notice Nibali, the only rider with the Briton Chris Froome and the Spaniard Alberto Contador to have won the three big laps ( France, Italy, Spain) since the turn of the century.

- Suspicions and explanations -

If Contador has retired, Nibali and Froome are continuing their careers, at least for 2021. The Italian, who should go to the Giro next spring, is thinking of the Tokyo Olympics.

The Briton clings to his dream of winning the Tour for the fifth time.

But, at 36 years old next summer, and especially after his serious accident in June 2019, the operation is a challenge.

Is the hierarchy identified in 2020 final?

Apart from the world champion, the French Julian Alaphilippe, and the world number one, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, who is over thirty but started his career late, the new wave has swept everything in this year with benchmarks definitely upset by stopping competitions for more than four months.

Against the backdrop of performances of a very high level which raised questions.

For the most suspicious, the drastic reduction in doping controls during the period would explain the phenomenon illustrated by the omnipresence of Belgian Wout van Aert between August and October or even the triumphant time trial of Slovenian Tadej Pogacar in the Tour.

Others prefer to insist on factors specific to the 2020 season, since riders with an unblemished reputation, such as Romain Bardet and Guillaume Martin, have improved their records.

- The unknown Evenepoel -

"This mandatory truce gave runners a second wind," said Jean-Baptiste Quiclet, who heads the performance department of the AG2R La Mondiale team.

On the same line, Frédéric Grappe, his counterpart from Groupama-FDJ, "hardly surprised" by the "predictable" performance of the Tour, believes that "2020 will mark a turning point in all sports, not just cycling".

A turning point, yes, but after?

Will the rejuvenation of the yellow jersey on the Champs-Elysées continue?

Christian Prudhomme, Tour director, points to a historic reversal: "In 2019, Bernal was the youngest post-war winner. In 2020, Pogacar was the youngest winner since 1904. It will be difficult to do better."

Unless the most astonishing of all, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, who is working to recover from his fall in the Tour of Lombardy ("I lost a year and I am impatient", he warns), decides to start from next year in its first big tour.

With two individual time trials on the program, the Grande Boucle is made for him and on July 18, 2021, the day of the Tour's arrival, Evenepoel will not even be 21 and a half years old.

Six months less than the incredible Pogacar!

© 2020 AFP