Saitama, edition 10
October 17 th 2024 - 17:03 [GMT + 9]
The 10th edition of the Saitama Criterium will be held on 2 November. The past and present stars have answered the call, particularly the very best sprinters in the 2024 peloton. The Tour de France green jersey victor Biniam Girmay will line up against rival Jasper Philipsen and the greatest stage winner in history, Mark Cavendish.
Following his final Tour de France, Romain Bardet, its first leader, has chosen Saitama to conclude his last complete season in the international peloton. Chris Froome and Primoz Roglic will also participate.
Six of the nine former winners of the event have answered the call: Chris Froome (2013), John Degenkolb (2015), Mark Cavendish (2017), Yukiya Arashiro (2019), Jasper Philipsen (2022), and finally the 2014 winner and ambassador of the Tour de France J:COM Saitama Criterium, Marcel Kittel.
The Tour de France J:COM Saitama Criterium peloton always features a concentration of champions who excelled on the roads of the Tour de France a few months earlier. This year, the winners of ten stages meet up in the neighbouring city of Tokyo. In order of appearance on the 2024 list of winners, Romain Bardet had the privilege of wearing the Yellow Jersey when he won the stage in Rimini. He will be back in Japan in a familiar setting, as he rode in the first-ever Criterium in 2013, the year of his first Grande Boucle, finishing 15th and highest-placed French rider. Biniam Girmay offered Eritrea a first-ever stage victory on the third Italian stage of the 2024 Tour de France before taking his tally to three victories and the green jersey, awarded for the first time to an African rider.
The sprinter from Intermarché-Wanty has circled Saitama in his calendar but could find some resistance if the race ends in a hard-fought battle. Girmay will cross paths with Mark Cavendish, who scored his record 35th victory on stage 5 in Saint-Vulbas. The British rider won the 2017 edition of the Saitama Criterium. Still, as he did this summer, he will have to contend with Jasper Philipsen, winner of three more stages in the Tour, and who has also featured prominently in the Japanese record books since his success in 2022. Anthony Turgis, who outdistanced all his rivals on the gravel sections leading to Troyes, will undoubtedly need to change tactics to try and win on the Saitama city circuit. The equation will be just as complex for Belgium’s Victor Campenaerts, the 2023 Tour's super combative rider whose perseverance paid off in Barcelonnette.
As the Saitama Criterium is a crossroads for generations of champions, the entry list also includes some familiar faces, starting with four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome. While they may not have left their mark on the Tour to the same extent, several other riders have created memorable moments in the race. Such is the case of Primoz Roglic, who consoled himself for his withdrawal from stage 13 by winning the Vuelta for the 4th time. The successes of John Degenkolb (2015), Ben O'Connor (2021) and Pello Bilbao (2023) complete the panorama: in total, the riders in the peloton have won 60 Tour de France stages.
Main riders: Romain Bardet, John Degenkolb (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL); Yukiya Arashiro, Pello Bilbao (Team Bahrain Victorious); Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty); Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team); Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe); Anthony Turgis (Team TotalEnergies); Chris Froome, Ben O'Connor, Victor Campenaerts (TdF Legends)