Fabio Jakobsen began 2022 atop QuickStep-AlphaVinyl’s sprinting depth chart and his fast start to the season suggests that he will still occupy that position when the Tour de France gets underway in Copenhagen on July 1.
The Dutchman surged to his fourth victory of the new campaign on stage 3 of the Volta ao Algarve, where he uncorked a bracingly potent sprint on the gently climbing finishing straight on Avenida Calouste Gulbenkian. As in Lagos on Wednesday and in Valencia earlier in the month, his superiority brooked no argument.
Even so, one debate seems likely to continue all the way to July, given that the man vying with Jakobsen for the role of QuickStep's sprinter at the Tour is one Mark Cavendish. The Manxman performed a most unexpected comeback to win four stages on last year’s Tour, after all, and he started the new season with a win of his own in Oman. For now, however, Cavendish is scheduled to ride the Giro d’Italia, while Jakobsen has been pencilled in for his Tour debut.
“The Tour de France is on the plan, but that means you need to be good when the Tour de France starts. I’ve got that in the back of my mind but I don’t look that far ahead,” Jakobsen told reporters in Faro on Friday evening. “First it’s the spring and after that comes the summer. I missed half of last year, so I really want to do well this spring and that’s why I’m already at this level now.”
Last spring, Sam Bennett – now at Bora-Hansgrohe – was the man in possession at QuickStep, but a nagging knee injury in early summer forced him out of the Tour, leaving Cavendish to assume the mantle and equal Eddy Merckx’s all-time record of 34 stage wins in the process. While Alpecin-Fenix will find room for both Tim Merlier and Mathieu van der Poel in their Tour squad, it seems likely that QuickStep will make a straight choice between Jakobsen and Cavendish, separated by a decade in age but closely matched in speed.
“Well, that depends…” Jakobsen said when asked if two sprinters could co-exist on the same team in July. “I think in QuickStep we usually go with one sprinter. but that can always change. It’s not my decision. We have a long list with I think fourteen names. I’m not the only sprinter on that list.
“But it’s on the planning, which means I don’t prepare for the Giro, I prepare for the Tour. And if I’m not good enough, then I don’t go. I guess we’ll see. The summer is still a long way away and you never know what happens. But I’m now in the Algarve and I’m enjoying it. The summer is something next.”
Jakobsen has every reason to savour the here and now, of course. In August 2020, when he lay in an induced coma in a hospital in Katowice after an horrific crash at the Tour de Pologne, it was unclear if he would ever ride a bike again, far less return to this level of competition. Twelve months ago, his very presence in the peloton already felt something akin to a miracle. Now, buoyed by a hat-trick of wins at last year’s Vuelta a España, he appears to be the fastest man in the peloton.
“It’s amazing, you know, because last year around this time I went for my second surgery and now I already have four victories,” Jakobsen said. “It’s a big difference, I’m just happy and grateful to be here.”
After fulfilling his brief by winning both the bunch finishes in the Algarve, Jakobsen will turn his attention northwards in the coming weeks. He will be QuickStep’s designated sprinter at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne next weekend, and he will then look to continue his winning sequence at Paris-Nice.
“They are the big goals of the start of the season,” Jakobsen said. “We call [Valencia and Algarve] preparation races because if you want to be at your best you need to practice a bit and these are races where we get going again. It’s perfect for building the shape, perfect for building shape for what’s to come in Belgium and France.”
