As expected, Postlberger falls off GC today and Lutsenko climbs a place to take yellow. Slightly less expected was 41 year-old Alejandro Valverde winning the sprint so easily!

An excellent win for Mark Padun there - 30 mins down on GC but managed to attack the main group at a key point! Porte finishes second and takes the yellow jersey from Lutsenko (although he's still in second after a good result from him)

Mark Padun does the near-impossible and wins two Alps stages in a row so there's a name for the future there! The rest all come in together, giving us a Porte - Lutsenko - Thomas top 3.

 

Also must have gone under my radar but we're getting a women's Tour de France in 2022! :cheer: Let's hope ITV4 actually broadcast it.

 

Chris Froome will race at this month's Tour de France, but only as a domestique.

 

His Israel Start Up Nation team announced Canadian Michael Woods will instead try to win the Grand Tour event.

 

Four-time winner Froome will be road captain in the eight-man squad for the race, which begins on 26 June.

Geraint Thomas will lead Ineos Grenadiers' bid for Tour de France victory in a squad which also contains Tao Geoghegan Hart.

 

Ecuador's Richard Carapaz will also be a leading force in the British team, which could win the yellow jersey for an eighth time.

 

"We have changed our race philosophy to being more open and aggressive," said team boss Sir David Brailsford.

I'll create a thread later but Ineos' decision to send four Grand Tour podium finishers to the Tour is certainly an interesting one. Yes, since they don't have either of the two strongest riders they will need a strong team to beat them, but surely there are going to be power struggles within the team? Particularly if Thomas doesn't come out of the first few days ahead of the others.

Random thought - I've just realised that Annemeik Van Vleuten is 38 years old, which surprised me a bit as I always thought of her as the younger of her and Anna Van Der Breggen!

Mountain Bike World Championship currently be shown on the BBC Sport website:

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cycling/58251269

Great Britain's Evie Richards won gold in the women's cross-country at the Mountain Bike World Championships.

 

She finished in one hour, 23 minutes and 52 seconds to claim the rainbow jersey in Italy and become the first British female cross-country world champion.

 

The 24-year-old finished ahead of the Netherlands' Anne Terpstra (second) and Sina Frei of Switzerland (third).

The Tour de Yorkshire cycle race has been cancelled for a third year in a row, its organisers have announced.

Irish cyclist Dan Martin has announced that he will retire at the end of the season, calling time on a 14-year career.

 

The 35-year-old has won stages of all three Grand Tours.

 

Martin will compete for Israel Start-Up Nation at the Tour of Britain, which begins on Sunday, but confirmed his retirement at the end of the season.

 

"After 14 seasons as a professional cyclist, I have decided to call it a day," he said.

 

"Though this huge decision has taken much thought, I feel that the time is right to move on as I want to achieve so many other things in life."

 

Martin has won stages of all three Grand Tours, including the Tour de France in 2013 and 2018, the Vuelta a Espana in 2011 and 2020 and the Giro d'Italia in May 2021.

The Tour de Yorkshire cycle race has been cancelled for a third year in a row, its organisers have announced.

That's disappointing, it is such an event and one of the few that they still showed on ITV4 :( Let's hope they'll air the Women's Tour de France to make up for it.

Love this! *.*

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-58503012

 

@1436695550599041028

A touch of class there - and to think that earlier in the year they tried to ban giving bottles away!

 

Sadly I've not been following the Tour of Britain this year, too much going on and the coverage never grabs me as much as the Tour/old Vuelta coverage!

Danish former professional cyclist Chris Anker Sorensen has died at the age of 37 after being hit by a vehicle during a ride in Belgium, the International Cycling Union (UCI) says.

 

Sorensen was due to commentate on the Road World Championships, which begin in Flanders on Sunday.

 

A stage winner in the 2010 Giro d'Italia, Sorensen retired from professional cycling in 2018.

Wasn't aware of him as a rider but always awful to see a cyclist pass away like that :(

 

World Championships underway now! Looking forward to catching up with them.

Caught the Time Trials from the Worlds - enjoyed watching them a lot, it made it more interesting that some of the bigger riders were earlier starters so it didn't feel as though you were watching a 2-hour preamble before the final three riders inevitably ended up being the top 3!

Marta Bastianelli sprinted to a first-ever stage win in the Women’s Tour of Britain in Banbury, as a last-gasp breakaway was reeled in after attacking on the final climb of stage one, to Sibford Ferris.

 

The Italian, fifth in Saturday’s Paris-Roubaix Femmes behind race winner Lizzie Deignan, was the fastest finisher after the peloton had caught a five-rider attack on the run-in to Banbury and will now defend the leader’s jersey in Tuesday’s second stage, a circuit starting and finishing in Walsall.

General classification of Women's Tour of Britain

 

1. Clara Copponi (Fra/FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) 6 hours 22 mins 34 secs

2. Amy Pieters (Ned/SDWorx) Same time

3. Sheyla Gutierrez (Spa/Movistar Team) +6 secs

4. Demi Vollering (Ned/SD Worx) +9 secs

5. Juliette Labous (Fra/Tream DSM) +10 secs

6. Elise Chabbey (Swi/Canyon SRAM Racing) Same time

7. Aude Biannic (Fra/Movistar Team)

8. Pfeiffer Georgi (GB/Team DSM)

9. Nina Kessler (Ned/Team TIBCO/-SVB) +38 secs

10. Marta Bastianelli (Ita/Ale BTC Ljubljana) +40 secs

 

Stage two results:

 

1. Amy Pieters (Ned/SD Worx) 2 hours 38 mins 3 secs

2. Clara Copponi (Fra/FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) Same time

3. Sheyla Gutierrez (Spa/Movistar Team)

4. Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Fra/Trek-Segafredo)

5. Pfeiffer Georgi (GB/Team DSM)

6. Elise Chabbey (Swi/Canyon SRAM Racing)

7. Maaike Boogaard (Ned/Ale BTC Ljubljana)

8. Aude Biannic (Fra/Movistar Team)

9. Juliette Labous (Fra/Tream DSM)

10. Demi Vollering (Ned/SD Worx)

Elinor Barker has announced she is expecting her first child. We're just 2 months past Tokyo, so she may well have been pregnant when she did the team pursuit there.