{"id":1312122,"date":"2019-07-05T11:56:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T17:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/cyclings-new-generation-ready-to-deliver-at-tour-de-france\/"},"modified":"2019-07-05T11:56:01","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T17:56:01","slug":"cyclings-new-generation-ready-to-deliver-at-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/cyclings-new-generation-ready-to-deliver-at-tour-de-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycling\u2019s new generation ready to deliver at Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kazakhstan’s Alexey Lutsenko rides with teammates during a training session, in Brussels, Friday, July 5, 2019, ahead of upcoming Saturday’s start of the race. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRUSSELS \u2014 No matter who wins, this year\u2019s Tour de France will see a changing of the guard.<\/p>\n

And if the names of Wout Van Aert, Kasper Asgreen, Enric Mas or Caleb Ewan don\u2019t ring a bell now, they might soon be on everybody\u2019s lips.<\/p>\n

In the absence of many stalwart riders who have stamped their mark on cycling\u2019s marquee event in recent years, new faces will emerge this summer.<\/p>\n

There is a long list of top riders missing the Tour, which starts on Saturday from Brussels with a 194.5 kilometer (120.8-mile) stage through Flanders and back to the Belgian capital, and that number includes:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Four-time champion Chris Froome, who is missing out for the first time since 2011.<\/p>\n

\u2014 2018 runner-up Tom Dumoulin.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Primoz Roglic, a fourth-place finisher last year.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Former world champion Philippe Gilbert.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ace sprinters Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and Fernando Gaviria.<\/p>\n

The generational change is likely to be the most visible in the fight for the race leader\u2019s yellow jersey, as 22-year-old Egan Bernal seems ready to take over from his leader at team Ineos, defending champion Geraint Thomas.<\/p>\n

In the wake of an already successful season during which he won the Paris-Nice and Tour de Suisse weeklong races, Bernal has been elevated to a co-leader status after Froome, who also rides for Ineos, was ruled out because of a horrific crash last month.<\/p>\n

Despite his lack of experience \u2014 he will start his second Grand Tour \u2014 Bernal is showing an impressive maturity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you have a physical age and a mental age, but when you\u2019re ready, you\u2019re ready,\u201d Ineos team boss Dave Brailsford said on Friday. \u201cHe\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many former Tour winners including Eddy Merckx and Alberto Contador have picked Bernal as their favorite to win a race that features several grueling mountainous stages this year. They expect the diminutive Colombian climber to grab the spotlight when the Tour reaches the high-altitude summits in the last 10 days of racing.<\/p>\n

Before that, there will be many opportunities for the 33 riders making their first Tour appearance to show off their skills and challenge the supremacy of their elders \u2014 starting Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see riders who dare to attack, who try their luck, riders who race in an old-fashioned way,\u201d Tour director Christian Prudhomme said.<\/p>\n

The opening stage features two short climbs usually taken during the one-day classic Ronde van Vlaanderen and a stretch of cobblestones and also passes through Merckx\u2019s childhood home. The day\u2019s main difficulties come too early to have a real impact on the final result, though, and the stage is likely to end in a bunch sprint that could award the first yellow jersey to a Tour debutant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a stage that I can win and I know the team and I really want to win the first stage,\u201d said Ewan, Australia\u2019s new sprint sensation.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Ewan, who rides for Belgian outfit Lotto-Soudal, is among an exciting group of competitors that will try to derail three-time world champion Peter Sagan\u2019s ambition to claim a record seventh green jersey, which is awarded to the best sprinter.<\/p>\n

A colorful character with a spectacular style of racing, Sagan has been the fastest man in the Tour peloton in recent years. Since 2012, he has failed to win the green jersey just once, when he was disqualified following a crash with Cavendish two years ago.<\/p>\n

But Sagan has been struggling with form this season, boosting the hopes of younger rivals including Ewan, who already posted stage wins at the Giro and Spanish Vuelta.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive motivation for me that it\u2019s in Brussels,\u201d Ewan said. \u201cObviously it\u2019s never going to start in Australia so the next best thing would be to start in the home country of your team, and it\u2019s pretty special my first stage is this one. If there was any stage I would pick to win this year, it would be this one, because it means the yellow jersey too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among others riders ready to surge to the fore, Van Aert is certainly the most promising. A three-time cyclo-cross world champion, the 24-year-old from Belgium is riding his first Grand Tour this summer after claiming two stage wins \u2014 a sprint and a time trial \u2014 at the prestigious Criterium du Dauphine in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cWout Van Aert is part of a terrific generation,\u201d Prudhomme said. \u201cHe won back-to-back stages at the Dauphine. He was formidable. I don\u2019t know who will be wearing the yellow jersey on July 19, but I have an idea about the favorite of the individual time trial scheduled that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Aert\u2019s versatility and physical skills make him dangerous on all grounds except the high mountains, although his lack of experience should limit his ambitions to a second-fiddle role in support of Jumbo-Visma team leader Dylan Groenewegen. The 26-year-old Dutch rider is another who has a good chance of being covered in yellow after Saturday\u2019s opening stage. He claimed two stage wins last year and has 10 victories to his name in 2019.<\/p>\n

The Deceuninck-Quick-Step team is also bringing a pair of 24-year-old newcomers to the Tour \u2014 Mas and Asgreen. In his first full professional season, Asgreen won the time trial at the Danish championships and finished runner-up at the Ronde van Vlaanderen. He will ride in a domestique role for Mas, the runner-up at last year\u2019s Vuelta.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kazakhstan’s Alexey Lutsenko rides with teammates during a training session, in Brussels, Friday, July 5, 2019, ahead of upcoming Saturday’s start of the race. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)AP | AP BRUSSELS \u2014 No matter who wins, this year\u2019s Tour de France will see a changing of the guard. And if the names of Wout Van Aert, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 04:22:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}