Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Monday, August 12, 2024
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2024 Tour de France | 2024 Giro d'Italia
Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. - Rabindranath Tagore
Les Woodland's book Cycling's World Championships: The Inside Story is available in print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
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Current racing:
- August 12 - 18: Tour of Poland
Upcoming racing:
- August 13 - 16: Tour du Limousin
- August 14 - 18: PostNord Denmark Rundt
- August 17 - Sept 8: Vuelta a España
Latest completed racing:
- August 11: La Polynormande
- August 10: Clasica San Sebastian
- August 5 - 9: Vuelta a Burgos
- August 4 - 7: Arctic Race of Norway
- July 27 - August 4: Olympic cycling
- July 22 - 26: Tour de Wallonie
- July 23: Vuelta a Castilla y Leon
- June 29 - July 21: Tour de France
- June 9 - 26: Many National Championships
- June 15 - 18: La Route d'Occitanie Cancelled because security forces busy with Olympics
- June 9 - 16: Tour de Suisse
- June 12 - 16: Baloise Belgium Tour
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We posted the report from winner Paul Lapeira's Team Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale with the results.
Here's the report from Pascal Eenkhoorn's Team Lotto Dstny:
Pascal Eenkhoorn racked up the second place in the French one-day race, after attacking from the early breakaway with two other riders. Paul Lapeira (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) won.
Paul Lapeira was the first of the breakaway trio across the line.
In La Polynormande the riders got an up and down course of 170 kilometers. Lotto Dstny chose to jump after 30 kilometers, with Pascal Eenkhoorn. The 27-year-old Dutchman got three other riders with him. A bit later, his teammate Liam Slock joined the front with some other riders. The breakaway worked well together, and in the peloton the Lotto Dstny Team made sure they could stay upfront.
In the final the breakaway got reduced to six riders, with Slock and Eenkhoorn. The last one rode away with Paul Lapeira and Brieuc Rolland (Groupama – FDJ). Lapeira was the fastest, Eenkhoorn took a nice second spot and in the back Slock strongly finished fourth.
“We started with a lot of motivation. We knew we had to make the race hard”, Sports director Nikolas Maes explained after the strong team performance. “Liam and Pascal were part of a strong breakaway. The team did a great job in the bunch making sure Pascal and Liam stayed in the front. In the end Pascal could ride away with Lapeira and Rolland, finishing second and Liam fourth. We rode a strong race, we did what we had to do and we are satisfied.”
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Here's the team's preview:
Monday sees the start of the 81st ‘Tour de Pologne’, and Bahrain Victorious will take to the start as reigning champion after Matej Mohorič’s phenomenal overall victory. Matej will be on the startlist again this year, and the team travels to the seven-day event with lofty ambitions again.
Matej Mohoric winning stage two of the 2023 Tour of Poland.
As usual this is the only World Tour race between the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, and always attracts a high quality field of all kinds of top class riders. The 2024 edition is no exception, which means the battle for both stages and classifications will be fierce.
Monday’s opening stage is already a chance for the General Classification contenders to put down a marker, as it finishes with a tough climb to Karpacz. Karpacz was the location for the finish of S2 in 2023, which saw Mohorič take the stage and the leader’s jersey, which he held on to until the end. The finish is slightly different this time: 7.2 km at 4.3%, but gets steeper as it goes on. The last 1.3 km averages 8.3% with some sections as much as 10%.
As well as the Slovenian, who will be the leader again, Pello Bilbao will return to Poland, having finished on the podium on his only other participation in 2022. He is co-leader, and is aiming to return to form after sickness forced him to abandon the Tour de France last month.
Helping those two riders on the GC days will be Italian Edoardo Zambanini, who continues his impressive season and will add great value in on the climbs. And with ‘Zamba’ comes the experience and cool head of home rider Łukasz Wiśniowski.
Lead Sports Director for the week is Michal Golaś, who says,
“The race is a bit harder this year compared to 2023. We have a couple of rolling stages with short, steep climbs, and stages 1, 3 & 6 plus the time trial, will be the important ones for GC. Matej is the defending champion from last year and he won it by a single second, so we know how important the bonus seconds can be.”
“The finish of stage 2 is the same as the previous day, but comes at the end of at 15.4 lm individual time trial which is uphill from start to finish. After the first two days, the GC will be taking shape, before Wednesday’s from Walbrzych to Duszniki-Zdrój, which is potentially the toughest test of the week. There are over 3,100 vertical metres in the 155.5 km route, including a very challenging last 900m with maximum gradients of 14%.”
Stages 4 (Kudowa-Zdrój – Prudnik, 194.7 km), 5 (Katowice – Katowice, 187.3 km), and 7 (Kopalnnia Soli Wieliczka – Krakow, 143.1 km), are flatter profiles, and offer chances for classics riders or sprinters. This is where Phil Bauhaus, Fred Wright, and Andrea Pasqualon will come to the fore. Bauhaus is the designated sprinter of course, and will be hoping to find his race rhythm after participating at both the Giro and the Tour already this season. ‘Pasqua’ will be his last man in the finales, and as such a versatile rider, Wright will be crucial support every day as well as having the chance to make breakaways.
The ‘Queen’ stage is the penultimate one, and sees the peloton once again have over 3,100m of climbing ahead of them. The toughest ascent crests with just 12km remaining, and while the average gradient isn’t too daunting, it does go over 20% in places.
Golaś concludes, “With Matej and Pello coming from the Tour, and Zamba to help in the mountains, I think we will be competitive, and I would like to do well on GC again. We also have a couple of good chances for Phil so we will support hime as much as we can, and I think the team is good enough to make a good lead out to fight for sprint wins.
“It’s a classic Tour of Poland parcours, and another nice week ahead. The race will be decided by a few seconds again, but the nature of the Time Trial could make more of a difference than in previous editions.”
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Here’s the team’s statement:
Women’s cycling has been progressing rapidly over the last few years, but there is still a way to go for women’s elite racing as a whole to reach true equality. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL is happy to announce that they are enhancing their efforts to close the gender gap in the professional peloton.
A pioneer in the sport, the team has been a forerunner in women’s cycling, setting up their very own Women’s program in 2011. This was further expanded upon in 2017 with the introduction of their Development program; highlighting the team’s will to provide a platform for riders of both genders and multiple ages to develop, perform and compete.
The incredible growth of the women’s side of the sport in the past years is something to be applauded. Racing has quite frankly never been more exciting. This can be seen with the massive interest and viewing figures for some of the biggest races on the calendar.
Charlotte Kool winning at the 2023 UAE Women's Tour.
All three programs operating under the same umbrella allows all of the team’s riders to benefit from shared expertise and knowledge of the ever-changing and expansive world of professional cycling. And it’s not just expertise and scientific knowledge that is shared, resources and materials are too. This can be seen for example with personalised nutrition during Grand Tours, altitude camps for the most advanced training and optimal preparations for the biggest races with the best equipment.
However, for the sport to continue to progress, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL believes that more action needs to be taken.
With the help of our co-title partner PostNL, who share the same ideology on sustainability, health, inclusiveness and outlook on equal chances in life, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL can proudly announce that from next year the minimum salary for World Tour neo-pros and World Tour elite contracts will be the same for both their Men and Women programs.
Steps to bridge the payment gap like this are crucial to further develop and professionalise the sport alongside its commercial growth, to give female athletes access to the same resources as their male counterparts and enable them to make a genuine and comfortable living from doing what they love the most.
Step by step
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL Head of Finance and Operations Marloes Poelman: ‘’There is still a way to go to for women’s elite racing as a whole to professionalise and reach true equality. We must consider important aspects such as improving safety standards, the economic model underpinning this professional sport, TV coverage, accommodation of team personnel and facilities at races, and modernising the global cycling calendar for men and women’s events to better coincide and complement one another; to name a few examples. These are all steps that we hope to see in the upcoming years and that we will play our part in to help progress.
“Giving athletes the same opportunities and access to the same resources is something that we have always believed in – you see this with our Women, Men, and Development programs all intertwined and operating underneath the same umbrella. Having PostNL on board as co-title partner provides us with the opportunity to make a step towards closing the gap in a financial respect. We feel it’s a logical step and hope to build on this together in the future with the rest of the sport.”
PostNL CEO Herna Verhagen concluded: “We’re a proud partner of Team dsm-firmenich PostNL and we’re happy to see a very important next step will take place starting January 2025. Amongst many other actions to further support the development of female cyclists, equalising the minimum salaries for the Women and Men programs is a very important step. At PostNL we ensure equal pay for equal work. Closing the financial gap between male and female employees has been a crucial aspect to start the partnership with Team dsm-firmenich PostNL.”
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