2013 UCI World Tour - The ten best pro-cyclists in the world

 

What follows will be the second, in ten portraits, covering the UCI’s top ten World Tour riders, their 2013 season, and their future prospects. This article will be about Rui Costa, the world’s ninth best professional cyclist.

 

Additional articles in the series: Richie Porte #10, Nairo Quintana #8, Fabian Cancellara #7, Daniel Marin #6, Vincenzo Nibali #5, Peter Sagan #4, Alejandro Valverde #3, Chris Froome #2 & Joaquim Rodríguez #1.

 

Rui Costa, Movistar – #9 / 352 points – 2013

 

Rui Alberto Faria da Costa, born 1986, started cycling at the age of eleven due to his father enamoration with the sport. He won the fifth race in which he participated, and has loved riding his bike ever since. He is one of Portugal’s most famous athletes,  and even though the country is not a hotbed of cycling he still managed to become “Athlete of the Year” in 2012, ahead of Real Madrid’s Ronaldo. With his accomplishments this year he must surely be on his way to supplant Ronaldo once again.

 

Three short facts:

 

He has won consistently in all types of bike races, since age eleven.

 

He gained about 40.000 new friends on Facebook after winning the World Championships.

 

Allegedly possesses the largest upper incisors (front teeth) within the peloton.

 

S.L. Benfica

 

In 2007 Rui Costa joined the ranks of professional cycling, and signed with S.L. Benfica. Although having been in existence on and off since 1906, the Portuguese team had just been recreated, and centered around superstar José Azevedi.

 

In his first year Rui Costa managed an overall win at the Giro delle Regioni (u23), and proved to be a skilled domestique in lumpy terrain.

 

His breakthrough came in 2008 where he managed a second overall at Tour de l'Avenir (English: Tour of the Future). The l’Avenir is known to be an incubator-race for future stars, and amongst its winners you will find numerous Grand Tours winners and contestants (e.g. Felice Gimondi, Joop Zoetemelk, Greg LeMond, Miguel Indurain and Laurent Fignon, who went on to win 12 Tour de France between them).

 

In 2008 Rui Costa also managed to win his first ITT (at the Coupe des Nations Ville Saguenay), and placed eighth in the ITT u23 World Championships, proving that he is a rider who does well against the clock. A subsequent fifth in the WC road race emphasized his diverse skills.

 

Caisse d'Epargne

 

Rui Costa’s success did not go unnoticed, and in 2009 he was enrolled by Spanish Caisse d'Epargne. He won the 4 Jours de Dunkerque against a number of established stars, and did well in the Tour de Suisse with an overall twelfth place. With a solid performance in his first Tour de France, and a second place in the national Portuguese road race, Costa looked to be well on his way within the ranks of cycling.

 

This was confirmed by his 2010 season. Costa won the small Spanish one-day race Trofeo Bunyola, placed sixth overall at the Volta ao Algarve and did well again in the 4 Jours de Dunkerque with an overall second. His breakthrough came with a win during the eighth stage of the Tour de Suisse (where he beat Maxime Monfort and teammate Rojas), by collecting the national ITT title, and by doing a decent job at the Tour de France.

 

Then disaster struck.

 

Rui Costa tested positive for Methylhexanamine, along with brother Mario. The tests were conducted during the Portuguese championships.

 

The two brothers claimed that they had unwillingly ingested the prohibited Methylhexanamine by the use of a food supplement. Luckily a Belgian laboratory supported their claims.

 

"We have proven that we took a contaminated nutritional supplement and that the label does not contain anything illegal,” read a statement from the Costa brothers to biciciclismo.com. “We never dope. We are athletes who are anti-doping, honest and loyal."

 

In a later interview with Bike Pure (an organization with adherence to an open honor code, and a pledge towards riding clean), which he had recently joined, Costa reiterated his stern stance on doping: “I am completely against it. That’s why I joined the Bike Pure because I identify myself with its principles.”

 

Reportedly in dispute with Caisse d'Epargne boss Eusebio Unzue, Rui Costa did not ride again in 2010.

 

Movistar

 

Due to the doping incident Costa’s career was threatened, but he managed to secure a three-year contract with his old team (now Movistar). He did not disappoint, and proved at the age of just 24 that he was well worth the new 2011 contract.

 

Costa took the overall at the Vuelta a Madrid, and then won a career-changing eighth stage of the Tour de France, ahead of Samuel Sanchez, Cadel Evans and Philippe Gilbert. With his subsequent win at the first edition of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, Costa again proved his tactical prowess against specialists.

 

2012 saw Costa compete as a favorite in numerous one-day races, and in the shorter stage races. He collected his first serious mountaintop win during the Tour de Suisse, and this also enabled him the overall victory.

 

With several big wins on his palmarès, and younger than most of his rivals, Costa looked ready to continue his path towards cycling’s stars.

 

Rui Costa’s 2013 season, and the reason as to why he is currently considered #9 in the world

 

Rui Costa took his first win of the season – the Klasika Primavera – in style, and despite being caught by a large group, sprinted his way to the finish line and won comfortably.

 

Few weeks after, at Liège - Bastogne – Liège, he clocked his first top ten in one of the Monuments (surely not the last). He continued his good shape in the Tour de Romandie, placing third overall, behind Chris Froome and surprise Simon Spilak.

 

Costa’s evinced his consistency at the Tour de Suisse, winning the seventh stage, as well as the overall. Another Portuguese ITT title added to an already impressive season.

 

Then came the Tour de France. As Movistar’s team included both Valverde and Quintana, Costa was again in the role of a domestique. This was affirmed during the catastrophic thirteenth stage, where Valverde lost ten minutes (due to a broken wheel - and a later crosswind struggle, initiated by Belkin and Omega Pharma-Quickstep). Costa was sent back to help his captain, leaving Quintana the sole Movistar rider to remain with the other favorites. Movistar fought to bring back Valverde, but to no avail. The decision to send back Costa to help Valverde could in fact have cost the Portuguese rider a top overall result; especially as he had arrived to the Tour de France in unparalleled shape.

 

Costa took his revenge on the sixteenth stage, where he as part of a breakaway group won his second Tour stage. It was furthermore a class act, with Costa arriving more than 40 seconds before runner-up Riblon. Two Tour flukes in total for Costa?

 

Nope…

 

Three days after Costa repeated his lone win; this time beating Klöden, again with more than forty seconds. This second win made Costa a Tour star, and measured in success rather than fame he was perhaps only rivaled by the podium’s top three, and fast man Kittel.

 

After a few months of rest Costa undertook an unlikely journey towards proving that his season could become even better.

 

He placed fifth and sixth in Canada’s two Grand Prix, and affirmed that he was in good shape. Then came… (drumroll please)

 

The World Championships!

 

With Spain as the hot favorite and Italy, England, Belgium and the Netherlands to make it hard, the WC did not look as it favored smaller nations.

 

This proved true, and the final kilometers featured two Spaniards and a Italian (super-finisher Valverde, Rodriques the puncheur, and falcon-like Nibali). Victory to one of these three was certain (at least according to most commentators and experts).

 

Costa, in an interview with bicycling.com:

 

“Confident? No, not at all. And to be honest I didn’t know I would win until I caught Rodriguez in the final meters. But after he attacked I knew that I had to surprise the others if I wanted to bridge up to him, and I knew Alejandro would be on my wheel. But I knew that a sort of double S-turn was coming up and right before the final curve I jumped on the inside so that it would be hard for Valverde to follow before Nibali closed the door. And it worked. I got a 20-meter gap coming out of the turn and that was all I needed.”

 

Asked about his tactical skills he answered: "... let me say that strategy is not something you learn. It has to come naturally. To win you have to be instinctive, you have to be able to improvise because improvisation is an important part of cycling. You always have to be lucid, even when you are really going hard, even when you are really hurting. You have to be able to look at the race from a larger perspective."

 

And thus Costa claimed one of cycling’s most important jerseys, and improved a stellar 2013 season. Not bad.

 

 

2014 and the future

 

Costa has affirmed and reaffirmed his status as one of cycling’s rising stars. He is an incredibly one-day rider, and it is just a matter of time before he wins one of the really big classics.

 

He is a seasoned stage rider, having already won the Tour de Suisse twice, and has done well in many other medium-length races.

 

Costa is also fast, capable of winning from larger groups, and most importantly perhaps; he has a natural instinct to win, and keeping his cool, in the heat of the battle, comes easy to him.

 

There is just one thing he has not already proven and that is how consistent he can be in a Grand Tour; riding like captain, and being supported by an entire team.

 

A GT result is exactly what Costa wants.

 

“That is why I am going to Lampre, to see just how good I can be in the Tour de France because, well, it is the Tour that motivates me the most. But I am taking on this new role as team leader without stress, knowing that I have two or three years ahead of me to really see what kind of a rider I can be in the Tour,” Costa said to bicycling.com.

 

“I am only 26 and I am still improving.”

 

Good for him. Now lets see how he handles the curse of the WC jersey.

 

Costa’s Palmarès

 

2007

1st Overall Giro delle Regioni

 

2008

2nd Overall Giro delle Regioni

1st Stage 4

2nd Overall Coupe des nations Ville Saguenay

1st Stage 4 (ITT)

2nd Overall Tour de l'Avenir

5th World Road race Championships U23

8th World Time-trial Championships U23

 

2009

1st  Overall Four Days of Dunkirk

1st  Youth classification

3rd Overall Vuelta Chihuahua Internacional

1st Stage 3

1st  Mountains classification

 

2010

1st Trofeo Deià

1st Stage 8 Tour de Suisse

1st  National Time Trial Championships

2nd Overall Four Days of Dunkirk

1st  Youth classification

6th Overall Volta ao Algarve

 

2011

1st Overall Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid

1st Stage 8 Tour de France

1st Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal

 

2012

1st  Overall Tour de Suisse

1st Stage 2

2nd GP Ouest-France

2nd Trofeo Deià

3rd Overall Tour de Romandie

3rd Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec

4th GP Miguel Indurain

5th Overall Volta ao Algarve

8th Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal

9th Overall Tour of Beijing

 

2013

1st  World Road Race Championships

1st  National Time Trial Championships

1st  Overall Tour de Suisse

1st Stages 7 & 9 (ITT)

1st Klasika Primavera

Tour de France

Stages 16 & 19

Combativity award – Stage 16

3rd Overall Tour de Romandie

4th Overall Tour of Beijing

4th Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana

5th Overall Volta ao Algarve

5th Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec

6th Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal

9th Liège–Bastogne–Liège