The first major stage race of the year starts on Sunday outside Paris and makes its way to Nice. It’s the “Race to the Sun, with the emphasis on the preposition “to” as before the riders feel the sun on their backs and pedal past palm trees there’s plenty of tricky terrain to cover.
There will be daily stage previews here and ahead of the race here’s a look at who might win the race overall.
Tiesj Benoot ditches Romain Bardet and Wout van Aert on the final section of sterrato. This was the moment the race was won. Amid a galaxy of star riders Benoot was not the obvious pick at the start in Siena but five hours later there was no doubting his strength.
Lotto are stepping down from sponsoring Dutch team Lotto-Jumbo. Their contract is up at the end of the year and that’s enough for them. The good news is co-sponsor Jumbo has said it will step up and become the main sponsor and even increase the budget to somewhere north of €15 million.
On the same day Michael Valgren won the Omloop, Astana team staff got an email saying their employer was waiting for sponsorship cash and the team later confirmed it is in financial difficulty. This followed news on Friday night on Vesti.kz where team manager Alexandr Vinokourov warned his team had not received its funding for 2018 and was paying travel costs out of “savings”.
The team’s not bankrupt but management must be nervous: why make this public because even if the promised cash shows up it will only deter riders from renewing or joining the squad?
Michael Valgren has gone solo and Sep Vanmarcke gives chase in the final straight. The strongest rider didn’t win, the strongest team did.
The season goes up a notch with the start of the cobbled classics this Saturday and racing that supplies action for hours rather thanks to the tricky course and the ferocity of the peloton as it twists around the Flemish countryside. More than ever the Omloop is a mini Tour of Flanders and all the better for it.
This Saturday is openingsweekend and the start of the cobbled classics season with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. It’s an old race but a copycat contest too that has found its place on the calendar by constantly frontrunning the Tour of Flanders. So much so that this year’s Omloop poaches the beloved old roads of the Ronde.
Having covered the Pro Continental team sponsors yesterday a reader emailed in to ask what makes a team “Pro Conti”. Good point, the label gets used a lot but what does it really mean? How does a team get this status, which races can take part in and what is a typical budget? All this and more explained below.
You might know what the likes of Trek, Sky or Sunweb do but do you know Aqua Blue from Aqua Protect, CCC from Crelan, Verandas Willems from Veranclassic? I didn’t and set out to find out what all the sponsors of cycling’s second tier teams are about. While the World Tour is fixed with 18 teams, the Pro Continental ranks have grown by five teams to reach a total of 27 squads this year. It’s an interesting glimpse into the sport with health insurance, hedge funds and law firms sponsoring US teams; rural suppliers of verandas and animal feed in France and Belgium. All share the same struggle to get noticed with Pro Conti teams winning just four World Tour races last year.
With a brief pause in the racing today, here’s the first look at team standings in 2018 and as ever a chance to look at the squads and stories around them.