Four-time Tour Champion Chris Froome is seemingly out of shape. The Briton may not even be nominated for the Tour of France. After the compulsory Corona break, young stars like Egan Bernal, Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel are shining instead.
Berlin (dpa) - The supervisors of the British super racing team Ineos had to wait a long time before they could receive Chris Froome.
The four-time Tour de France champion trundled into the finish line on Saturday's mountain stage of the Tour de l'Ain more than twelve minutes behind the lead, and the deficit was also large on Sunday. "A debacle," as the French sports newspaper "L'Equipe" wrote. Froome shone again with absence. And so, three weeks before the Tour of France starts, rumors persist that the Briton will not even be nominated.
According to the Italian "Gazzetta dello Sport", seven of the eight places in the team should be taken. So Froome, who has not been in shape since his bad fall over a year ago, as well as Tao Geoghegan Hart and newcomer Andrey Amador are fighting for the last right to start. The latter would be the ideal helper for his South American colleague and tour winner Egan Bernal, who fought a duel with the Slovenian ex-ski jumper Primoz Roglic for victory in the Tour de l'Ain, which is a foretaste of the cycling highlight in Could have been France. In the end, Roglic won by 18 seconds.
The strong performances by Bernal and Roglic were almost exemplary for the weekend. The new generation takes command. Bernal, 23 years old, seems even stronger than last year and symbolizes the future - especially since Froome is also leaving the team. And Roglic, already 30, but only part of the professional circus for a little over four years, is a real contender for the big coup.
The young stars also shone elsewhere. At Milan-Sanremo, 25-year-old Wout van Aert celebrated his first classic victory a week after triumphing in the Strade Bianche gravel race. And on the Tour of Poland, Remco Evenepoel, only 20 years old, who is celebrated in his Belgian homeland as the new Eddy Merckx, made an impressive 51-kilometer solo ride on the king's stage.
Evenepoel's lead was so great that he was able to calmly dig the start number 75 out of his back pocket and remember his team-mate Fabio Jakobsen, who had a bad fall on Wednesday. "Fabio was in my head the whole time. The pain I had today is not comparable to Fabio's. It gave me strength," said Evenepoel, who is not yet scheduled for the tour.
Jakobsen had been pushed into the barricade by his Dutch compatriot Dylan Groenewegen in the sprint and had suffered serious facial injuries. After a five-hour operation, the sprinter is now conscious again.
The bad crash in Poland had also preoccupied the peloton in Italy, especially since van Aert's team-mate Groenewegen was the cause. "The mood was bad on the bus when this news arrived. We were all the more relieved when there were more positive reports of Fabio's healing process in the last few days," said van Aert, who defeated last year's French winner and tour hero Julian Alaphilippe in Sanremo . "He can do everything. He can climb, he can rely on his sprint, he is simply extremely versatile," said his helper Timo Roosen of the dpa.
Van Aert saw it similarly: "With the exception of the big tours, I can be at the front in all other races. He does not yet know his limits himself. "It gives me great pleasure to discover what else I can do. I come from cyclocross, and now I win at the highest level on the road. Today I won my first monument, last year my first Tour-de-France Stage. My dream is to have a career with many different successes, "said van Aert. There may be big duels with Bernal or Evenepoel in the future - probably less with 35-year-old Froome.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200809-99-101291 / 3
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