Daily News Digest -

Jumbo-Visma’s Tour de France roster and Canyon-SRAM’s new look: Daily News Digest

Hello again, CyclingTips readers,

In the news today Jumbo-Visma announces their 2021 Tour de France roster, more yo-yo-ing from the Olympics, racing Down Under continues, and Canyon-SRAM unveils their otherworldly 2021 look.

Read on for the latest from the world of cycling.

Abby Mickey
Associate Editor

What’s news?

Jumbo-Visma announces Tour de France team led by Roglic, Dumoulin, and Kruijswijk

Jumbo-Visma is once again leading the peloton, this time in terms of roster announcements. The Dutch team has announced their intended roster for the 2021 Tour de France before a single race has even taken place in Europe. One leader of the team will be Primoz Roglic, who plans to come at the race through France with a point to prove after narrowly losing out on the victory in 2020, but Roglic will not be the only yellow jersey prospect for Jumbo-Visma. Yellow jersey as in purely yellow, not yellow and black.

Tom Dumoulin and Steven Kruijswijk will also play a vital role in the team’s strategy. “With three we can push the others to do more things, then it’s not just on me to control,” Roglic said. “Tom or Kruijswijk can do things, and then the others need to move. We just need to keep the race moving in our direction.”

The rest of Jumbo-Visma’s Tour de France lineup includes Wout van Aert, who won two stages in 2020 and was also a key teammate to Roglic on every type of terrain, and climber extraordinaire Sepp Kuss. Robert Gesink, Tony Martin, and Mike Teunissen round out the rest of the squad with a range of different strengths.

International Olympic Committee address rumours of cancellation

Shortly after the reports that the Tokyo Olympics are likely to be cancelled the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, put out a statement to the contrary.

“Some news reports circulating today are claiming that the Government of Japan has privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be cancelled because of the coronavirus. This is categorically untrue,” the statement read.

The statement went on to say that, “we will be implementing all possible countermeasures against COVID-19 and will continue to work closely with the IOC, the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in our preparations for holding a safe and secure Games this summer.”

Reports of whether the Games will go ahead or not have been bouncing around since the pandemic hit in 2020 with the IOC and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee coming to the conclusion that they would push the event one year, with the opening ceremonies taking place on July 23rd, 2021.

Gigante and Plaap win stage 2 of the Santos Festival of Cycling

Australian up-and-comers Sarah Gigante and Luke Plapp have taken victories on stage 2 of the Santos Festival of Cycling in Adelaide.

In the women’s race, Gigante blasted her way into the leader’s jersey with a long-range solo victory. The 20-year-old forced a move over the QOM with roughly 50 km left to race, dragging two other riders with her, but Gigante was soon on her own and sailing toward the finish.

The Aussie time trial champion crossed the line nearly two minutes clear of a BikeExchange-led peloton. Gigante’s teammate Georgia Baker won the sprint for second ahead of stage 1 winner Peta Mullens.

In the men’s race, Plapp capitalised on a strong ride from his Garmin-Australia teammates – including Tour de France podium finisher Richie Porte – to take an imposing solo win. With the day’s breakaway caught, Plapp came to the fore on the final climb, just inside 10 km to go. The Australian U23 time trial champion rode his rivals off his wheel to open a gap by the KOM line, then time-trialled his way to the finish.

Read the full report from Matt de Neef here.

Canyon-SRAM show off 2021 Rapha kit

While at team camp in Girona, Spain Canyon-SRAM dropped their new look for 2021. The kit is the more confident older sister version of their 2020 look, with more colour, and more pazazz. Rapha leaned into the galaxy vibe that they explored last season giving us this beauty to get to cheer for in 2021.

Vuelta a Andalucía hopes to postpone race to May

Yet another upcoming race is looking at postponing their event to May amid COVID-19 surges in Europe. The Vuelta a Andalucía, set to take place from February 17-21, may be forced to shift dates to late May, Ciclo21 reports.

“Effectively we are postponing the race because of the current COVID-19 situation, and because of what we can see is coming up in the next two to three weeks. All of that means that the start on the 17th would have been uncertain,” Vuelta a Andalucía race organiser Joaquin Cuevas told Cyclingnews. “For this reason, we’ve reached an across-the-board agreement to delay the Vuelta a Andalucía to May 24-28. The request has been made to the UCI and we are waiting for the confirmation of the new dates.”

If the race is indeed postponed it will be the second early-season stage race in two days to do so, after Volta ao Algarve announced their new dates yesterday.

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