Consistent performances during the 2024 season brought France a fifth win in the UCI Nations’ Cup Men Junior, a competition they already dominated in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2022. With a tally of 183 points, French youngsters got the better of Spain (164 points) and Czechia (134 points). Meanwhile, a dominant season by Cat Ferguson (120 points) led Great Britain to their third consecutive win at the UCI Nations’ Cup Women Junior.
A collective effort by France
The successes from different riders throughout the season were the key for France to win the UCI Nations’ Cup Men Junior. Three riders stood out with general classification (GC) victories to make the difference in a wide calendar which started with Paris-Roubaix Juniors (France, 7 April), won by Slovenian Jakob Omrzel.
Spain started the season in dominant fashion. Héctor Álvarez (101 points at the end of the season) was GC winner at Eroica Juniores – Nations’ Cup (Italy, 18-21 April) thanks to great performance in the last of the race’s four stages. Álvarez repeated success with a second GC win at the last event of the season, the Nation's Cup Hungary (14-15 August).
In between, the current Junior road race UCI World Champion Albert Withen Philipsen (54 points) also showed his class to conquer the historic Course de la Paix Juniors (Czechia, 2-5 May). Already Junior individual time trial (ITT) European Champion, the Danish multi-discipline athlete has impressed with his abilities on and off road. Indeed, the future Lidl-Trek rider was recently crowned - in Pal Arinsal, Andorra - Junior XCO UCI World Champion for the second consecutive year.
Another young Spanish star, the talented climber Adrià Pericas Capdevila (62 points), claimed the GC win at Italy’s G.P. F.W.R. BARON - Trofeo "Comune di Pieve del Grappa" (11-12 May) to put Spain at the head of the standings. However, May was the month where French riders started to take the reins of the UCI Nations’ Cup Men Junior standings.
Axel Bouquet (50 points) started the winning streak when he ruled the Trophée Centre Morbihan (France, 18-19 May). That was just a week before Paul Seixas (41 points) showed his climbing potential with victory in the Tour du Pays de Vaud (Switzerland, 23-26 May), where he mastered the Swiss mountains to take the overall standings ahead of Pericas Capdevila and Omrzel.
After that, Belgium’s Jasper Schoofs (73 points) made the most of his skills on hilly terrain to conquer the GC of the five-stage LVM Saarland Trofeo (Germany, 30 May-2 June). And at the Medzinarodne dni cyklistiky Tlmace a Podhajska (Slovakia, 12-14 July), Czechia’s Pavel Šumpík (93 points) was rewarded with victory after a consistent season (third at Course de la Paix Juniors, fifth at the Tour du Pays de Vaud, and stage winner at both).
Ellande Larronde put the icing on the cake of France’s season with his dominant performance at the Tour de l'Abitibi (Canada, 16-21 July), where he won three stages to claim 55 important points, taking France to the top of the standings.
Cat Ferguson takes it all
Great Britain claimed victory in the UCI Nations’ Cup Women Junior for the third consecutive season, leading the rankings over France (124 points) and the Netherlands (102 points), five-time winners of the competition.
Already an essential figure in last year’s success, Cat Ferguson led the way for the British team with a prolific season where she scored 120 points. After finishing second behind her countrywoman Imogen Wolff at the first race of the season, Italy’s Piccolo Trofeo Alfredo Binda - Valli del Verbano (17 March), the future Movistar Team rider achieved an impressive series of victories.
Runner-up at last year’s Junior UCI World Championships on the road and in cyclo-cross in what was her first year in the category, the now 18-year-old started her winning streak with the EPZ Omloop van Borsele (Netherlands, 19-21 April), where her compatriot Carys Lloyd took two stages after Ferguson’s early rise to power.
After that, it was time to show some climbing skills at the Tour du Gévaudan Occitanie Femmes (France, 4-5 May), which she dominated with impressive wins in the two stages, including a finish at the renowned Montée Jalabert in Mende. Ferguson showed the same dominance to take the GC and the two stages of Bizkaikoloreak (Spain, 20-21 July).
Neither France’s Célia Gery (106 points), who came second at Bizkaikoloreak, second at EPZ Omloop van Borsele and third at Tour du Gévaudan, nor some of the Dutch young prospects such as Megan Arens (39 points, third at Bizkaikoloreak), Puck Langenbarg, (31 points, second and stage winner at Watersley Ladies Challenge in the Netherlands) or Fee Knaven (24 points, third at EPZ Omloop van Borsele) could rival with the British super-talent.
The season recently ended at the Watersley Ladies Challenge (30 August-1 September) where Spain’s Paula Ostiz reached a breakthrough international success in her first season in the Junior ranks to take the GC after a very consistent year where she scored 58 points.
Photo credit: Ivo Delahaye