Hear the Cry, Hear the Cry of Youth (Tour de L'Avenir)

Amidst this Vuelta business down in L'España, the U23 riders are just about ready to start their version of TdF: The Tour de L'Avenir.

From 5 to 12 September the biggest young prospects will battle for the right to write their name in a list which includes Romain Sicard (2009), Jan Bakelandts (2008) and Bauke Mollema (2007) in recent years. The stage winners, too, will sound familiar to many a ear. Rein Taaramae, Tejay Van Garderen, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Nicholas Roche, Tyler Farrar, Bradley Wiggins, Philippe Gilbert... the list goes on and on.

For a full overview, click here.

Stages

Sept 5: Vierzon - Vierzon (7,8 k)- Prologue

Sept 6: Vierzon - Saint-Amand-Montrond (144,5 k)

Sept 7: Saint-Amand-Montrond - Cusset (148,5 k)

Sept 8: Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule - Col du Béal (157 k)

Sept 9: Ambert - Vals-les-Bains (183 k)

Sept 10: Vals-les-Bains - Loriol-sur-Drôme (153 k)

Sept 11: Saillans - Risoul (204 k)

Sept 12: Guillestre - Risoul (14 k) - ITT

The stages on Sept 8 and Sept 11 both have a MTF, and the final ITT is straight up a mountain as well, so the winner will have some serious climbing legs in him.

via romainsicard.free.fr

Start list

The Tour de L'Avenir is done with national, not trade teams. A full start list can be found here. 

Some interesting names to look out for are (this list is not exhaustive)

France A COURTEILLE Arnaud - has signed for FdJ in 2011

The US of A PHINNEY Taylor - you know this kid, right? He acts like a teen girl on twitter (seriously), wins races left, right and centre and all the teams want him. TALANSKY Andrew - has signed for Garmin in 2011 before they merged with Cervélo. Now you'd think he won't get a spot now that all the classy Cervélos are coming, but to have a 30 man squad at least two of those need to be neo pros.

Germany DEGENKOLB John - two top ten spots in the U23 RVV, a third spot at the World Champs in Varese and a pro contract at HTC Columbia, this kid can't be bad.

Equipe Mixte TEKLEHAIMANOT Daniel - Imagine finally getting a stagiaire spot at a pro team, only for the team to disband a month later. This Eritrean who learned the trade at the UCI development school is currently wearing a Cervélo uniform. Where he'll be next year is still unclear.

Spain IZAGIRRE INSAUSTI Jon - A Basque named Jon strikes me as odd, but a Basque he is. He'll be a Bleedin' Carrot next year and is at Orbea - Euskaltel's feeder squad - at the moment.

Belgium They all rock. Every single one of them. But these rock the most. EIJSSEN Yannick - Young kid, BMC-bound for 2011 (argh). Good climber, he won the Tour the L'Isard this year, was sixth in U23 LBL and third in Tour des Pyrénées (beaten by Barle and Lampre-bound Niemic). DEBUSSCHERE Jens - second in U23 PR and off to Lotto in 2011. DE VREESE Laurens - supposedly the next big thing in Belgium, though there's plenty of those around, he's got a second spot in the U23 Omloop and third in Flèche. He'll be at TSV next year. The

Netherlands VERMELTFOORT Coen - He's Dutch, so it irks me to praise him, but damn he's good. He comes from Rabobank Continental and is going to join the big boys next year (same path for Tom Jelte Slagter, who'll also be at L'Avenir). He's won a stage in L'Avenir in 2008 and is a former U23 Paris-Roubaix champ. DUMOULIN Tom - He was heavily rumoured to be at Cervélo next year, but I think we can agree that ain't happening. The 19 year old is a time trial specialist, as evidenced by his GiroBio ITT win.

Australia MATTHEWS Michael - Name doesn't ring a bell? Well he is at the relatively unknown Jayco Skins, but his palmares is impressive. A stage in the very hard 2.HC Langkawi and 2nd in the U23 RVV are most notable in 2010.

Great Britain Andrew DOWSET Alex - He's at Trek Livestrong this year and the rumour mill has him at Sky (a Brit talent, it's a logical conclusion). He's the U23 European ITT champ too.

Slovenia KUMP Marko - Oh Marko. I've been advocating someone snatch this kid up since the beginning of the year, and Geox is the team that took my advice. A win in the 2010 U23 RVV, the 2.1 Coppi e Bartali and three top fives at last year's Tour de L'Avenir will tell you why I'm a fan.

Poland KWIATKOWSKI Michal - Who, try as I might, I could not describe better than UrlaubInPolen did:

He can TT, which is why the Shack like him (they boasted of him as a TT specialist), but has shown a fair bit of climbing talent this year too, being off the front in almost every stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y León and the Vuelta a Asturias. He was 4th in the Szlakiem Grodów Piastkowich (a 2.1 race in Poland) racing with very little support in the national team (remember, most of the riders that make up the fairly successful Polish national team in the Tour of Poland come from the Continental teams he was facing), and 7th in the Volta ao Alentejo, ahead of some of the big names of Portuguese cycling, including Santi Pérez and Constantino Zaballa. He also managed a top 10 in the GP Llodio and a top 20 in the Vuelta a La Rioja, mountainous one-day races in the early season in Spain.

He was signed to Caja Rural to learn for a year but was under Eusebio Unzué's wing - Caja Rural's team are based just down the road from Abarcá Sports and are seen as something of an unofficial feeder team. He was all primed and set to ride for Movistar next year when suddenly Telefonica demanded a Brazilian, an Argentinean and a Mexican on the Movistar lineup in order to correspond to their holdings in Latin America, meaning that there wasn't room for him on the roster.

I would not be surprised at all, however, if Radioshack pulled out of the sport at the end of 2011 and Kwiatkowski was back under Unzué's wing for 2012 - Unzué hasn't been as keen on a young rider since Urán.