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Thursday, 27 April 2017

Voeckler relishing Tour de Yorkshire defence

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Defending champion Thomas Voeckler is hoping to go out on a high as he continues to wind down his career at this weekend's Tour de Yorkshire.

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Tour de Yorkshire 2017 to get under way

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The cycle race returns for its third year, with elite riders gearing up for three days of competition.

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2017 Tour de Yorkshire start list

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You can read more at Cyclingnews.com

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Tom Dumoulin: I go to the Giro with GC ambitions

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This time, it's for keeps, but when Tom Dumoulin came within a mountain pass of winning the Vuelta a España in 2015, he was, by his own admission, something of an accidental Grand Tour contender. After abandoning the Tour de France with a broken collarbone – right when he was on the cusp of becoming the first Dutchman to wear yellow since Erik Breukink in 1989 – Dumoulin arrived at the Vuelta with the vague aim of building towards the World Championships and the more precise brief of preparing sprints for John Degenkolb.

A stinging attack on the short, sharp haul to Cumbre del Sol changed everything. Dumoulin's stage victory there put him into the overall lead at the end of the opening week, and seemed to press fast forward on his career plans. Like any fine time triallist with the ability to climb, there had been murmurs about Dumoulin one day targeting Grand Tours, but then the same thing had, at various times, been said of men like Chris Boardman, Fabian Cancellara and Tony Martin. That Vuelta, where Dumoulin's eventual 6th place finish was scant reflection of the quality of his display, demonstrated far more than mere potential.

Even so, Dumoulin refused to allow himself to be painted into a corner. His long-standing plan for 2016 had always been to target the Olympic Games time trial in Rio, and he would spend most of his tenure in the pink jersey at last year's Giro d'Italia insisting – truthfully as it turned out – that he had pressed pause on his Grand Tour ambitions until 2017. Having almost stumbled into Vuelta victory two seasons ago, Dumoulin arrives at this year's Giro having meticulously planned his assault at the summit.

"Honestly, I really didn't go to the Vuelta in 2015 with the ambition of doing the GC. I wasn't even feeling so good at altitude camp before that Vuelta, so it was really a surprise for me to end up going for the GC there," Dumoulin tells Cyclingnews from Tenerife, where he put the finishing touches to his Giro build-up. "That will definitely be different at the Giro this year. I am going there with GC ambitions. That's the objective, and that's what the team is built around. That's definitely new for me."

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One of the tell-tale signs that Dumoulin's tenure in the red jersey at the 2015 Vuelta was wholly unexpected was his level of engagement each day in the race leader's press conference. Thousand-yard stares and banal answers are the norm, and Dumoulin's eye contact and lengthy responses were all the more striking given that his chief rival's public thoughts rarely extended beyond a variation on ‘We'll see.'

Montefalco

Dutch contenders

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com

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Luke Rowe: Tour of Britain on Team Sky rider's 'radar'

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Team Sky's Luke Rowe hopes to compete in this year's Tour of Britain, which will finish in his home city of Cardiff.

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Kung claims victory in stage two of Romandie

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Switzerland's Stefan Kung wins the second stage of the Tour de Romandie, with Chris Froome now 29 seconds off the overall pace.

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Küng wins snowy Tour de Romandie stage to Bulle

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Stefan Küng (BMC) gave the Tour de Romandie its second home stage winner in the space of two days as the Swiss rider got the better of Andriy Grivko (Astana) in a two-up sprint at the end of Thursday's stage 2, which was shortened due to snowy conditions.

Küng and Grivko were the last survivors of the day's four-man breakaway, and their almost slow-motion final sprint – along with the fact they had escaped the clutches of the peloton in the first place – gave an indication of the exertions of what must have been a miserable day in the saddle.

Grivko led under the flamme rouge but soon Küng was ushered through to the front. He didn't panic and calmly led the way on the drag to the line before upping his effort in the final few hundred metres. Grivko was in the wheel but simply didn't have the strength to come round and mount a serious challenge.

Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Merida) finished third as the peloton, which had already swallowed up the other two members of the break – Frederik Veuchelen (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Sander Armée (Lotto Soudal) – crossed the line 20 seconds down. Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo) was safely in there to retain his overall lead in the race, with no change to the top of the general classification.

"I think the other guys suffered more than me. I think a 50kg climber suffers more than me in conditions like that. I know the roads here and I knew the last climb, so I told myself to go for it,” said Küng, who took a stage win at Romandie in his neo-pro season two years ago.

"I knew that I had to be first in the last corner. The finish rose slightly and so that helped me at the front. I've been practicing my sprint with Greg Van Avermaet for the Classics and that boosted my confidence for winning a sprint like that.”

How it happened

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com

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