The Tour de France is the biggest race on the calendar, and for many riders, it’s an honor to be selected to compete. That’s why, in many teams, there’s an intense race before the race, in which riders do their best to earn a spot on their team’s squad for the French grand tour.
And it’s become harder than it once was: starting in 2018, grand tour rosters were cut from nine riders to eight. For some teams, the impact was minimal, but for others–especially teams with multiple leaders and/or goals–it caused headaches. Coupled with the fact that riders get sick, hurt, and just plain slow down, one can easily understand the delicate balancing act that team directors face when reconciling egos with aspirations–including the expectations of sponsors and fans.
This year’s Tour was no different, with several riders being left home as rosters were announced in the week leading up to this weekend’s Italian “Grand Depart.”
Here’s a rundown of eight riders who–for various reasons–won’t be riding the 2024 Tour de France:
Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step)
France’s Julian Alaphippe won six stages at the Tour de France from 2018 to 2021 and famously wore the yellow jersey for 14 days in 2019, ultimately finishing fifth overall. But it’s since been a rough couple of years for the former two-time world champion, thanks in part to a crash at Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2022 that left him with two broken ribs, a broken scapula and a collapsed lung. After missing the race in 2022, the Frenchman returned to last year’s Tour de France, but was clearly a step or two below where he once was–much to the dismay of his team’s general manager, Patrick Lefevere.
However, things seem to be looking up for the 32-year-old. In May, he took a fantastic stage win at the Giro d’Italia in a ride that called to mind his glory years. But with his team going all-in on Belgian Remco Evenepoel’s bid for a podium finish at the Tour de France, there was no place for the Frenchman.
Chris Froome (Premier Tech)
Four-time winner Chris Froome will not be competing at the Tour de France for the second year in a row. And while it’s sad to see the 39-year-old on the outside looking in, it makes sense: Israel-PremierTech has won three stages in the last two Tours de France and seems to have found a winning formula by coming to the Tour de France with a roster filled with versatile opportunists who can win stages on all sorts of terrain.
And the Briton has done little to earn a spot on the team’s eight-man roster. He’s barely raced this season (or last season, for that matter), and when he has, he’s never come close to the top of the results. Froome’s story seems to epitomize the fragile nature of professional sports stardom: one minute, you’re on the top of your game, and before you know it, you’re an afterthought.
Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates)
American Brandon McNulty raced the Tour de France in support of Tadej Pogačar in 2021 and 2022. Still, the 26-year-old will miss the French grand tour for the second year in a row after the team stacked its roster with three of the team’s other grand tour contenders who will support the Slovenian in his bid to win the Tour de France less than two months after winning the Giro d’Italia.
Missing the Tour again has to be a disappointment for the American, who’s won seven races so far in 2024 and seems to be getting better each season. He’ll likely use the time to prepare for the upcoming Olympic Games, where he’ll shoot for a medal in the individual time trial.
Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick-Step)
Another casualty of Soudal-Quick Step’s bid to put Evenepoel on the Tour de France podium, Merlier–who won a stage with Alpecin-Fenix in 2021 and three stages at the Giro d’Italia this spring–will miss the French grand tour for the third year in a row. It’s likely that the team was clear with the Belgian that this could be the case when they signed him prior to last season, but it’s an omission worth keeping in mind as we all watch Evenepoel try and become the first Belgian to win the Tour since 1976.
Stage wins are valuable commodities at the Tour de France, but leaving someone like Merlier home is a calculated risk that teams like Soudal-Quick Step feel they must take to finish on the final podium. But if Evenepoel falters–and Quick-Step goes winless at the Tour for the first time since the late 90s–the team’s critics will be justified in asking why the Belgian sprinter was left at home.
Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike)
Kuss was expected to be Jonas Vingegaard’s top lieutenant again at this year’s Tour de France. And with Visma-Lease a Bike besieged by injuries heading into the Tour–including those sustained by Vingegaard himself in a crash at the Tour of the Basque Country in early April–the team needed all the help it could get heading into the Tour.
Well, things went from bad to worse after Kuss–who won last year’s Vuelta a España–abandoned the Critérium du Dauphiné with a cold and then two weeks later was ruled out of the Tour de France after testing positive for COVID-19. It’s a sad turn of events for a rider who played a central role in each of the team’s seven grand tour victories, and hopefully, the 29-year-old can recover in time to prepare to defend his title at the Tour of Spain later in the summer.
Daniel Martínez (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)
Martínez took second at the recent Giro d’Italia–the best grand tour finish of the 28-year-old Colombian’s career–but was still left off the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe roster for the Tour de France. That says less about Martínez than it does about the depth of the German team, which has the luxury of heading to the Tour with Slovenia’s Primož Roglič leading the team and a former Giro d’Italia champion in Australia’s Jai Hindley and the sixth-place finisher at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, Russia’s Aleksandr Vlasov supporting him.
If it’s any consolation, missing the Tour puts Martínez in the driver’s seat to lead the team at the Vuelta a España–assuming everyone else buries themselves to help Roglič win the Tour.
Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale)
O’Connor’s been featured in the first two seasons of the Netflix docuseries Tour de France: Unchained–and the producers haven’t always cast him in the best light. Sensitive, explosive, and sometimes downright bratty, he was a hard rider to like for most of the series–at least until the second half of the second season, in which he finally stopped thinking of himself as a GC rider and instead starting racing to win stages–either for himself or on behalf of his teammates.
But the 28-year-old–who won a stage and finished fourth overall at the Tour de France in 2021–won’t be riding the French grand tour this year after leading the team at the Giro d’Italia this spring. Taking a break from the Tour de France pressure cooker was obviously the right move for the Australian: he finished fourth overall at the Italian grand tour, no doubt increasing his value heading into the off-season. At that point, he’ll be free to sign with another team.
Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek)
In the last two years, Milan has won four stages and twice won the Points Competition at the Giro d’Italia, which might lead some to think he’s ready to try his hand at winning field sprints at the Tour de France. Well, those folks obviously don’t run the show at Lidl-Trek because the team is waiting at least another year before sending him to the Tour–most likely so he can spend time preparing to win a gold medal on the track at the Summer Olympics.
Whit Yost
Contributing Writer
Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.
