Elia Viviani warned that pure sprinters are an endangered species in the pro peloton, adding that fast finishers must add more strings to their bow in order to thrive in this era.

"Pure sprinters will disappear," Viviani told La Gazzetta dello Sport (open in new tab). Viviani told La Gazzetta dello Sport (opens tab). The route is getting more difficult and recently we have had sprint finishes with an altitude difference of 2,000 meters. Sometimes the sprint finish comes after 2,000 meters of altitude gain.

"Sprinters are struggling more and more. The race explodes after just one kilometer of climbing."

Viviani has won stages in all three Grand Tours throughout his career, but did not compete in the three-week race in 2022 when he returned to Ineos Grenadiers. Given Ineos' overall ambitions in each race, that was not entirely surprising, but Viviani noted that even the sprinters selected for the Grand Tours were racing with reduced lead-out trains.

"Teams are never built to support sprinters," he said. At most you can count on two or three teammates for sprints, and not even that in the Grand Tours...In an eight-man team, there are three GC men for the mountains, two to get through the first week, and the other two, one of whom will be the sprinter."

Throughout Viviani's career, there have also been fewer obvious sprinting opportunities in the Grand Tours. In this year's Tour de France, only four stages were decided by a group sprint, but after the 2023 route was announced, Mark Cavendish expressed optimism that there would be seven or eight chances. Still, most of the sprints likely to occur in the 2023 Tour will happen after the race passes through the Pyrenees.

Viviani noted that Alpecin and his former team, Quick Step, are among the few WorldTour teams that give sprinters a privileged position.

"However, with so many athletes vying for those races, the competition is getting tougher and tougher to win.

Meanwhile, when asked who is currently the fastest sprinter in the peloton, Viviani chose former Quick Step teammate Fabio Jacobsen. In the flat sprints, Jacobsen is unbeatable in the last 200 meters. The most complete in the future is (Olaf) Kooij. He already has consistency and will improve further.