In this week’s edition of the Cyclingnews podcast - brought to you by Sportful and Pinarello - we hear from Nicolas Roche about his season and Team Sunweb. The Irishman played a significant part in the team’s success in 2020, which included three Tour de France stage wins, and he talks about his road captain role and plans for next season.

We also hand out season review report cards for Sunweb and AG2R La Mondiale, and we ask our listeners to record a new version of the Cyclingnews podcast theme tune.

With just 5 wins this year, which was a third of what they won in 2019, AG2R La Mondiale had a tough season.  Their standout riders were Nans Peters at the Tour and then Benoît Cosnefroy, who took three of their wins. At 25, he’s really starting to fulfill the potential he showed when he won the World U23 title in 2017. However, the team as a whole struggled, losing Romain Bardet at the Tour to a crash, and then missing out on a glut of victories in smaller races in France after the majority of them were cancelled. We review their year, Ed Pickering from Procycling awards them a grade, while we also cast our eyes over their 2021 roster.

Over at Sunweb, the German registered team won 16 races, which is their most since 2014 when they had 41 wins. They won three stages in the Tour, Fleche Wallonne, finished second in the Giro d’Italia, and had two of this year’s breakthrough riders in Jai Hindley and Marc Hirschi.

The Cyclingnews Podcast is brought to you by Sportful and Pinarello. To subscribe to the Cyclingnews Podcast, click here.

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