Greipel and Arkea-Samsic eye wildcard for Tour de France

12 January 2019 09:20
When the Santos Tour Down Under starts on Tuesday, André Greipel (Arkea-Samsic) may be the most obvious gap in the usual line-up of sprinters. But, although he recognises he’ll miss the Australian event, the veteran German sprinter says he is too immersed in his new challenges to get overly nostalgic. Greipel has won the Tour Down Under overall on two occasions, and two stage victories last year on the opening and closing days increased his record total of stage wins in the Australian event to 18. But following his move to French Pro Continental team Arkea-Samsic from Lotto-Soudal, Greipel is now following a very different run-in to his season. The opening part of his year will have a very different feel, too.ADVERTISEMENT “For sure, I’ll miss the Tour Down Under,” Greipel told Cyclingnews from the Arkea-Samsic training camp in Britanny. But that’s not a problem, you cannot take part in all the races.” Greipel says he will not be pulling any all-nighters to watch the TDU stages, although he added, “I might watch the reviews.” Instead, Greipel will kick off with the Tropicale Amissa Bongo stage race in Gabon on January 21-27, followed by much more familiar terrain in the last day’s racing in the Mallorca Challenge (February 3), where he has four wins in different events in the series, the earliest back in 2010. Winning wildcards You can read more at Cyclingnews.com.read full article

Source: Cycling News