Milan-San Remo route unveiled: Daily News
Hello again, CyclingTips readers,
Thursday brought the route reveal for this year’s edition of Milan-San Remo, which will skip the Passo del Turchino after a landslide but will return to racing on the Capi climbs after not doing so last year.
Also in the cycling headlines, Tao Geoghegan Hart has announced that he will sponsor a spot on the Axeon team to increase diversity in cycling.
Read on for the latest from the world of cycling.
Dane Cash
News Editor
What’s news?
Milan-San Remo route revealed
Milan-San Remo organizers revealed the route of this year’s edition of the race on Thursday, confirming that the Italian Monument will not be visiting the Passo del Turchino after a recent landslide. Instead of taking riders over the Passo del Turchino, the race will traverse the Colle del Giovo, with the top of the climb coming 172.8 km into the 299 km event.
2021 will thus mark the second straight year that the race will not visit the Passo del Turchino, following a 2020 edition that saw significant route changes after the mayors of several towns refused to allow the race to pass through. This year, however, the last 112 km of Milan-San Remo will return to the roads that the race traditionally traverses, with three “capi” climbs ahead of the Cipressa and the Poggio and then a finish on the Via Roma.
Tao Geoghegan Hart will fund a spot on the Axeon team to increase diversity
Giro d’Italia champion Tao Geoghegan Hart said on Thursday that he will fund a spot on the Axeon Hagens Berman team in what he is hoping will be “the beginning of a joint effort to increase racial diversity within the amazing sport of cycling.”
Announcing the news via an Instagram post, Geoghegan Hart said that he would work with Axeon team manager Axel Merckx “to identify, coach and mentor the person, and athlete, to join the team on August 1st.” Geoghegan Hart was a member of the Axeon Hagens Berman squad, one of cycling’s premier development teams, from 2015 to 2016 before he joined the Sky/Ineos organization.
“Cycling has a problem with diversity and inclusivity,” Geoghegan Hart wrote. “This is a fact. It is not unique within sport, but we must face it head on all the same.”
Olav Kooij joins the Jumbo-Visma WorldTour squad
Jumbo-Visma announced on Thursday that it had called up Olav Kooij to the WorldTour from its development squad.
The promising young Dutchman, who took a stage win at the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali last year, will make his WorldTour debut later this month at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Report says DSM viewed Hirschi as a ‘risk’
Because Marc Hirschi and DSM have agreed not to talk about his departure from the team, we may never get the full story of why he left DSM for UAE Team Emirates earlier this year, but occasional reports continue to emerge on the subject. On Thursday, Dutch outlet Algemeen Dagblad reported that Hirschi did not want to depart from the squad, but that team management saw him “as a risk – both for the reputation of the team itself and for the sponsors.”
Further information on that topic would be helpful to understanding the split, but the Algemeen Dagblad report was unable to add much more detail as to what it was that led DSM management to feel that way. The report also noted that neither rider nor team were saying more, so it’s not clear whether we’ll get those details any time soon.
Dwars door Vlaanderen announces team selection
Dwars door Vlaanderen, which is set to run on March 31, announced the team selection for its men’s and women’s races on Thursday.
On the men’s side, the 19 WorldTour squads, Alpecin-Fenix, and Arkéa-Samsic will be joined by B&B Hotels-KTM, Bingoal WB, Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise, and Total Direct Energie.
Eight of the nine Women’s WorldTour teams will be in attendance for the women’s race, with BikeExchange the lone top-division team that will not make the start.
Also racing the Belgian one-day will be Arkéa, A.R. Monex, Bingoal Casino-Chevalmeire, Bizkaia-Durango, Ciclismo Mundial, Cogeas Mettler Look, Doltcini-Van Eyck-Proximus, Drops-Le Col, Hitec Products, Lotto Soudal, Lviv, Massic Tactic, Multum Accountants, NXTG, Parkhotel Valkenburg, Jumbo-Visma, Strade Rochelais Charente-Maritime, Rupelcleaning-Champion Lubricants, Tibco-SVB, and Valcar-Travel & Service.
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