The most successful sprinter in the 2016 Tour de France, André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal), warned his rivals he is back in good shape and ready to do battle in the Giro d’Italia after an injury-blighted first half of the season.
Never one for hyperbole either in victory or defeat, ears in the Lotto-Soudal pre Giro press conference pricked up when Greipel, categorically described his 2016 spring campaign as “the worst since I started racing as a bike rider.”
“Now I’ve got good race condition, and all I need to be is lucky, not to be on the ground,” the 33-year-old added.
ADVERTISEMENT
Following two early wins in the Mallorca Challenge in January, Greipel looked set for a great year. But a little over a week later in Portugal Greipel crashed badly in stage 4 of the Volta ao Algarve. “I thought I had broken one rib, and we got that cured,” he told Cyclingnews on Wednesday. “But then for Paris-NIce, I was a bit too optimistic and opted to take part. I did one sprint, I was third, but I knew immediately afterwards there was something still wrong and we found after further examinations that in fact it was three more. So that made four broken ribs.
“That meant I had to spend more time off the bike, again. I had to just do a different race program. Of course I crashed in the Tour of Turkey too, which didn’t make things easier” - after winning a stage, nonetheless - “but I could at least race the five stages I wanted, and I got the form I needed to come here and be ready to race.”
It’s perhaps understandable that Greipel should be keen to return to the Giro d’Italia whatever. After racing the Italian Grand Tour for the first time in five years in 2015, taking a stage win - the third of his career - and racing the first two weeks, Greipel went on to his most successful Tour campaign ever, winning four bunch sprint stages last July, including on the Champs Elysées. This time round, the German says there are “perhaps six or seven opportunities” for wins in this year’s Giro d’Italia, which sounds like a lot. But with up to 10 potential rivals, including fellow-German Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) on the Giro's starting grid in Appeldoorn, it will certainly be no easier for the Lotto-Soudal leader to triumph than in 2015 and perhaps harder.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1TmMG0O
No comments:
Post a Comment