Hive Weekly Cycling News - June 15 2023

The build races to the Tour de France are currently underway with a lot of the big names and teams fine tuning their race plans and making final preparations for the biggest race on the cycling tour. The Tour de Suisse is underway and the Criterium du Dauphine has also been run bringing the usual contenders to the front of the pack. Last week I made mention of the Netflix series of the 2022 Tour, “Tour de France: Unchained” has released and I have started to watch the series. One interesting comment made by Wout van Aert, who is unhappy with the way he was portrayed in the series with his relationship with his Jumbo-Visma team and the team leader Jonas Vingegaard. I don’t know van Aert besides his cycling history, so cannot comment, so if anyone has any thoughts on his comments, I would love to hear it. The following is the article I read regarding his comments from SBS Cycling: https://www.sbs.com.au/sport/article/its-quite-disturbing-van-aert-unhappy-with-netflix-tour-de-france-series/leffwytlr?fbclid=IwAR0vpzA-3mI9ifzoe-uLGA5x70Bf61iIznx5fXgwrOOZWDItHdgciX2WKQk

I’ve mentioned the Cycling Community on Hive previously, and if you need to get a run down of all the great articles posted, checkout the new weekly rundown of posts in the Community. The most recent run down is featured here and glad the Hive Cycling Weekly News Made the cut: https://hive.blog/hive-177745/@hive-177745/featured-cycling-posts-of-the-week-24

EF Education-Easypost Men’s Team To Start A Women’s Team Is Great News…But?

The mens racing team with riding stars such as Richard Carapaz and Rigoberto Gran, is set to start up a women’s team for the 2024 season. The team released a statement last week stating that the languages education company, which is the title sponsor, will own and manage a professional women’s team, racing under the name of EF Education Cannondale.

This is great news to have a new women’s team joining the tour for 2024, especially from one of the bigger teams on the tour. But there already is a women’s team called EF Education-Tibco-SVB. So what does this mean for the current women’s team? This is unclear as the current statement of the new women’s team makes no mention of the existing EF Education-Tibco-SVB team, nor has the current women’s team made any announcement or statement regarding the new team or changes to their current sponsorship naming rights. Again, we are just going to have to wait and see how this one plays out and hopefully it will be for the benefit of women’s riding in the long run.

Olav Kooij Wins Final Stage And Overall ZML Tour

The ZML Tour is a four day stage race starting in Belgium, with riders travelling through the country side and finishing in the Netherlands. Olav Kooij of Jumbo-Visma travelled up the overall standings with a second place on stage two of the race and getting a number of time bonuses in the process. This left him as the overall leader heading into the final stage of the race. With a flat 158km ride for stage 4, it was always going to come down to a sprint finish, which also decided the overall tour winner. Kooij was led by two of his teammates into the final corner and crossed the line ahead of Sam Welsford of Team DSM and Jokub Mareczko of Alpecin-Deceuninck who finished third. Kooij had actually needed to change his bike twice during the stage but managed to keep with the peloton for the stage, winning the overall victory as a result, with Sam Welsford finishing second overall

[Image Courtesy Team Jumbo-Visma]

Jonas Vingegaard Wins The 2023 Criterium du Dauphine

The Criterium du Dauphine is an eight day stage race across France, Germany, Switzerland and finishing in Italy. The stage race is a major warm up race to the Tour de France and gives a really good indication to show who of the main GC contenders are, and what form they are in and highlights who will be difficult to beat when the Tour de France commences. Over the eight stages, there were a number of different winners to the stages but Jonas Vingegaard of Team Jumbo-Visma, had impressive wins to both stage five and seven, and was second in stage four. These three stages set him up for the overall win to the 2023 event. His overall victory was over two minutes, and was the biggest lead since 1993, which puts him in a great place leading into the Tour de France and will probably have him sitting as favourite. Adam Yates of UAE Team Emirates was second overall, followed by Ben O’Connor of AG2R Citroen Team.

[Image Courtesy Getty Images]

Tour de Pyrenees Féminin Final Stage Cancelled But Overall Winner Crowned

Day three of the stage race was cancelled by the UCI due to safety concerns, but the race director of the event has put the blame on the riders. Stage one went ahead as planned but was marred by a number of dangerous incidents and close calls for riders during the 129km stage to Lourdes. Incidents included oncoming traffic on the road route and parked cars blocking parts of the roads, saw Ashleigh Moolman of AG Insurance-Soudal Quick Step win the stage ahead of Anna Henderson of Team Jumbo-Visma. The riders took the safety issues into their own hands in stage two, effectively protesting and riding together over the 96km stage, until the final climb of the day. The final hill climb saw only three riders able to break clear with Marta Cavalli of FDJ Suez taking the mountain top finish ahead of Ashleigh Moolman and Antonia Niedermaier of Canyon-SRAM. With the UCI then deciding to cancel the third stage, it was Marta Cavalli who was leading and given the overall victory for the 2023 race.

Dwars Door Het Hageland Women's Race Won By Lotte Kopecky

This is the third year of the 176km, one day Dwars Door Het Hageland Women's race. The race is known for chaos and is one of the most popular one day classics racing across Belgium. It is known for is gravel sections, repeated hill climbs and cobbled streets. Lotte Kopecky of Team SD Worx took the lead up the final 500m climb to claim the victory for the 2023 event. Christina Schewinberger of Fenix-Deceuninck came through the cobbled stone finishing street in second place and Pfeiffer Georgi of Team DSM finishing third overall. Of the 130 starters to the 2023 race, 59 riders did not finish.

[Image Courtesy Getty Immages]

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The Vespa OFM Podcast

This week Vespa OFM Podcast is interviewing Vespa / OFM Ambassador Bree Lambert Sanders, who is a nutritionist and coach in the San Jose area. Bree who, at 54 years young, still competes at the elite level including winding up with an overall win or a place on the podium.

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I am a DevOps Engineer, Endurance Athlete, Biomechanics Student and Author. We can all achieve amazing things, it's just a matter of trying, I want to change the world, one run at a time.