December 29, 2022
The young guns who made a name for themselves during the 2022 season
A neo-pro is a rider who is in the first year of their professional contract, experiencing life in WorldTour races for the first time and finding their feet on cycling’s biggest stages. Some neo-pros struggle to drop into the ebb and flow of the professional peloton, straining to keep up, or even position themselves in the bunch. Others, however, take to it like a duck to water. With the growing trend of young riders performing at the highest level, neo-pros are getting better than ever, both on the men’s and women’s side of the sport. Here are the neo-pros who stuck out to us in the 2022 season, riding with maturity beyond their years.
Arnaud de Lie, Lotto-Soudal
Easily the most prolific winner of this year’s take of neo-pros, Arnaud De Lie racked up a whole nine wins, a total bettered by only a select few in the pro peloton. Despite only turning 20 in March, his sprinting success in the Belgian semi-classics made him Lotto-Soudal’s most important rider in their fight for World Tour survival, even more so than the team’s established stars Philippe Gilbert, Tim Wellens and the injury-beset Caleb Ewan. His efforts weren’t quite enough to retain the team’s World Tour status, but a bright future surely awaits.
Tobias Halland Johannessen, Uno-X
Delivering on the promise shown by winning the Tour de l’Avenir in 2022, Johannessen was one of the breakthrough stage racers of the year. The Norwegian first caught the eye by placing third overall and winning a stage at Etoile de Bessèges, then competed alongside the very best at WorldTour level with top-ten finishes at the Volta a Catalunya and the Critérium du Dauphiné. Along with hi brother Anders, the Johannessens look poised to become the best pair of cycling twins since Simon and Adam Yates.
Charlotte Kool, DSM
The NXTG Racing development squad has proven to be a fertile environment for promising talent to emerge, and of the 2021 graduates, both Shari Bossuyt and Charlotte Kool successfully stepped up to the elite level this year for Canyon-SRAM and DSM respectively. Kool mostly impressed as a lead-out rider for her team’s star sprinter Lorena Wiebes, but, when given the opportunity, flourished herself in the sprint finishes, winning the GP Eco-Struct, a stage of the Simac…