The Tour de France has only just started its second week, but already Fernando Gaviria has had one of the races of his life. The Colombian sprinting sensation, still only 23 years old and making his debut in the world's biggest race, won the opening stage to take the first yellow jersey of this year's Tour, spending a day in the maillot jaune before winning his second stage three days later. Procycling sat down with the rider who has long been hailed as sprinting's next superstar, and found that behind all his victories – 34 before the Tour began – Gaviria is a complex and enigmatic character. As well as discussing his competitive streak and acclimatising to being a Colombian rider far from home on a Belgian team, Gaviria also told Patrick Fletcher about coping with fame in a wide-ranging interview. "At the start, no one wanted an interview with me, no one wanted a photograph with me, because no one knew me. Now I have to take much more time out – time when I could be resting – to share out between journalists or fans," Gaviria says. "It's all time that I'm losing, but at the same time I understand that I'm winning because they're the people who allow us to grow as sportspeople."ADVERTISEMENT From one sprinter to another, Sam Bennett enjoyed his Grand Tour breakthrough at the Giro d'Italia this May, just as Gaviria did the year before. Bora-Hansgrohe's Irishman has long been a prolific winner, but has been hunting for the really big victories that would elevate his career to the next level. After repeatedly coming so close but falling short at last year's Giro, he finally got the monkey off his back on stage 7, sprinting to the win ahead of Elia Viviani, and would go on to end the race with three stage wins, including the final day in Rome. He tells Sam Dansie how he changed his fortunes. With the Tour de France in full swing, all of the riders on the start line will have hoped they got their training right, and have peaked their form perfectly for one of the biggest races of the year. But just how does a rider time their form so they hit their best at the exact right moment? Sam Dansie finds out how riders get the balance right when managing their condition. Geraint Thomas is one of those riders currently racing at the Tour. But before he arrived in the Vendée, Team Sky's Tour 'plan B' to Chris Froome's 'plan A' secured the biggest stage-race victory of his career to date at the Critérium du Dauphiné. Daniel Friebe was there to witness Sky's heir-in-waiting win, and to assess the significance of the result and what we can learn from the race itself.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com.read full article
