Cycling News:
Lotto Soudals Tim Wellens returns to the Ruta del Sol on Wednesday as the defending champion, but having only recently recovered from illness, the Belgian has humbly said that taking the overall title is less of a goal, and that the Spanish stage race will allow him to get back into a racing rhythm ahead of the spring Classics. Wellens has already tasted victory this season, at the Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana – part of the Challenge Mallorca series – in early February, but was hit soon afterward...
AG2R La Mondiales Romain Bardet will set his season in motion at the three-day Tour du Haut Var, which begins in Vence, near Nice, in southern France, on Friday. Bardet brought the curtain down on his 2018 season when he was a non-finisher at Il Lombardia in mid-October, and so is now champing at the bit to get racing again after four months away from competition. Im happy to get back to racing. Since turning professional in 2012, Ive never started a season so late, Bardet said on his teams we...
Trek-Segafredos Markel Irizar has announced he will end his 16-year stint in the professional peloton at the Clásica San Sebastián this year. The 39-year-old has raced with the Trek-Segafredo outfit and the RadioShack team that preceded it since 2010, and before that spent six seasons with Euskaltel-Euskadi. A loyal domestique, Irizars wins were few in number, with a time trial victory at the 2010 Tour du Poitou Charentes and the overall win in the 2011 Ruta del Sol his only individual results...
Can anyone beat Alexey Lutsenko Thats the big question at the Tour of Oman ahead of the decisive summit finish on Green Mountain on Wednesday and, while some are trying to cling onto some sense of optimism, the general consensus is that something extraordinary will have to happen for the Kazakh rider to be toppled. Lutsenko came into the race as the de facto favourite, given he won the title 12 months ago, and that billing has only strengthened as he helped himself to back-to-back stage wins. L...
Movistar Team Womens 12 riders united at a pre-season training camp in Alicante in preparation of the European season opener at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana held from February 21-24. Sheyla Gutierrez will make her debut with the Spanish outfit, and play a valuable role in the teams hopes for stage success in the four-day race. Gutierrez joined the team after spending three seasons with the US-based outfit Cylance. She signed for Movistar Team Women partway through the 2018 season before it was a...
Sonny Colbrelli scored his first victory of the season for Bahrain-Merida in the final sprint of stage 4 at the Tour of Oman.The Italian beat Greg van Avermaet (CCC Team) and Clement Venturini (AG2R La Mondiale), in what was a hotly contested sprint that also included Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates). Kristoff was the favourite to win the day but finished a disappointing fifth. In the final kilometres of the 131km stage, the peloton hurtled along the wide open and flat roads toward the fi...