Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Friday, August 15, 2025
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2024 Tour de France | 2024 Giro d'Italia
Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. - William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
Current Racing:
- August 12 - 16: Tour of Denmark
- August 15: Circuit Franco-Belge
Upcoming racing:
- August 17: Hamburg Cyclassics
- August 17: La Polynormande
- August 20 - 24: Renewi Tour
Latest completed racing:
- August 4 - 10: Tour of Poland
- August 7 - 10: Arctic Race of Norway
- August 5 - 9: Vuelta a Burgos
- August 6 - 8: Tour de l'Ain
- August 3: Circuito de Getxo
- August 2: San Sebastian Classic
- July 26 - July 30: Tour de Wallonie
- July 27: Vuelta a Castilla y Leon
- July 5 - 27: Tour de France
We posted the report from second-place Alec Segaert's Team Lotto with the results.
Here's the Tour of Denmark report from stage winner Jakob Söderqvist's Team Lidl-Trek:
Jakob Söderqvist came out on top in the hotly-contested third stage time trial at the Tour of Denmark. Winning in the Swedish national colors, he finally put an end to the 10 year wait for a Swedish professional victory. Söderqvist completed the 14km course six seconds ahead of second-placed Alec Segeart (Lotto), and 14 seconds ahead of teammate and GC leader Mads Pedersen.
Jakob Söderqvist enjoys his stage win.
Heading into tomorrow’s queen stage in Vejle, Pedersen has a 10 second advantage in the general classification. Not far behind is Söderqvist (3rd, 34”), Søren Kragh Andersen (8th, 1’01”), and Mattias Skjelmose, who was victim of a crash on Stage 2 (11th, 1’04”).
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“It’s a good day for Sweden in Denmark!” said Jakob Söderqvist. “We haven’t been a strong name in cycling in the last decade or so, but it’s really nice to be able to grab a win like this and also show it in the national jersey makes it almost twice as special. On this day we try to celebrate Swedish cycling in a country where cycling has grown really big in the last couple of years.
“It was short enough to not be too much about pacing. I went out aggressive, and I tried to finish aggressive, but maybe I could have spent a little bit more in the tougher headwind parts, but this is a small detail for the next races. I tried to get into the TT mindset again after not too many races this season and I’m trying to make everything perfect ahead of Worlds, but I think we are on a good way.”
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Team Visma | Lease a Bike posted the Tour of Denmark report:
Team Visma | Lease a Bike was unable to surprise in the time trial of the Tour of Denmark. The six riders of the Dutch squad certainly didn’t falter, but a spot in the top ten proved out of reach today.
In the flat 15-kilometre test, Dylan van Baarle finished as the team’s best-placed rider, crossing the line in eighteenth position. Axel Zingle, who took third place in stage 2, also finished inside the top thirty.
Dylan van Baarle (shown racing in the 2024 Dauphine) was Visma | Lease a Bike's best-placed rider. Sirotti photo
“Unfortunately, no top result for us”, admitted sports director Maarten Wynants. “We had secretly hoped for an exceptional performance, but that just wasn’t in the cards today. Dylan and Axel put in solid rides and essentially performed as expected. Our focus now shifts to tomorrow’s queen stage, where we’ll be aiming for a strong result with Axel.”
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Here's the team's news:
Having kicked off the second half of the season between Spain and Denmark, Team Polti VisitMalta is now ready to take on two one-day races in the heart of cycling’s Europe. Tomorrow comes the long Circuit Franco-Belge: over two thousand metres of elevation gain split between Flemish and Walloon terrain, with ninety flat kilometres before a fivefold sequence of three climbs, culminating in an explosive finish atop the first of them. On Sunday, the action will move from southern Belgium to northern France for La Polynormande, which also features a sequence of three climbs, but in a much more compact format: the series of walls will begin almost immediately and will be tackled seven and a half times.
To face such similar and closely scheduled events, Polti VisitMalta will field the same lineup for both. Two fast finishers — Giovanni Lonardi and Javier Serrano; two climbers — Alex Martín and Davide Bais; two long-range attackers — Andrea Pietrobon and Samuele Zoccarato; and a new rider: stagiaire Charlie Meredith.
Javier Serrano racing in the 2024 Czech Tour.
The story of 27-year-old Englishman Meredith is one worth telling. After winning extensively in the UK and Ireland in the youth categories, and then completing his U23 years with British and French clubs, he hung up his bike in 2020 following a serious injury and took on sales and business office roles in various companies back home. In April 2024 he returned to competitive training and scored numerous amateur victories, earning a place back in the peloton this year with the Basque squad Eulen Nuuk. There, he claimed two stage wins at the Bidasoa Itzulia (one time trial and one road stage) catching the attention of the ProTeam led by Ivan Basso and the Contador brothers, who decided to give him this opportunity.
The sports director will also be the same for both competitions: Jesús Hernández, according to whom “the Circuit Franco-Belge will be selective with its repeated accelerations and narrow roads, but it’s still within reach for resilient sprinters like ours; La Polynormande will be tougher, but we’ll have the right mix of riders to aim for the best possible result”.
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