Bahrain-Victorious is enjoying a stellar 2021
Sonny Colbrelli's Benelux Tour triumph on Monday underscores squad's recent success
Photo by:
Sirotti
On Monday, Sonny Colbrelli of Bahrain-Victorious took the Benelux Tour title on a day that his teammate Matej Mohorič won the final stage. What was unusual about Colbrelli’s victory is that it was his team’s first 2021 WorldTour race win, although it has claimed plenty of WorldTour stage race stages this season. As of Monday, Bahrain-Victorious finds itself the UCI’s fifth-ranked team, with all the outfits above it having taken Grand Tour GC wins, or in the case of Deceuninck-Quick Step, six of the twenty-six rounds. In 2019 and 2020, Bahrain was ranked 13th.
The team just came off its greatest success of the season at the Vuelta a España, where Jack Haig was third and Gino Mäder was fifth and took the white jersey for best young rider. Only three teams–Bahrain-Victorious, Ineos and Jumbo-Visma–have placed riders in the top-10 of all three 2021 Grand Tours and only two–Bahrain and Ineos–have had four riders in those top-10s. In May, Damiano Caruso was the surprise package of the Giro d’Italia in coming runner-up to Egan Bernal, and Pello Bilbao placed ninth in the Tour de France, where his team snagged three stage wins. Bahrain-Victorious also won the Vuelta’s team competition.
The five-year-old team has great depth and this is reflected in nine riders contributing to Bahrain-Victorious’ hoard of 25 wins in 2021. Its biggest UCI points earner has been Mohorič, second-place to Colbrelli at the Benelux Tour. Mohorič has three victories this season including a brace at the Tour de France. Not only was he runner-up at Benelux, but he was also second in the WorldTour Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa one-day race. Currently ranked 10th by the UCI, Mohorič is the third Slovenian in the individual rankings top-10 after leader Tadej Pogačar and third place Primož Roglič.
It’s German Phil Bauhaus who has the most wins for the team this year, with six, but only one of those is WorldTour. Ukrainian Mark Padun took two Critérium du Dauphiné stage wins in a row, Dylan Teuns gave Bahrain-Victorious back-to-back victories in the Tour de France, and even seemingly snake-bit Mikel Landa, who was supposed to be the protected rider at both the Giro and Vuelta but didn’t finish either, contributed with a Vuelta a Burgos title just before the Spanish Grand Tour.
Where Landa couldn’t excel at the Vuelta, Haig and Mäder, both new additions to the squad, did. Haig crashed out of the Tour de France on Stage 3 with a broken collarbone, but bounced back to become the first Australian on the Vuelta podium since Cadel Evans in 2009. Mäder, who also won Stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia, is the first ever Swiss to take a Grand Tour young rider title.
As of Tuesday, Sonny Colbrelli and Matej Mohorič have the fourth and fifth best betting odds of winning the road race world championship on September 26.
