Berlin (AFP)
Several big names in world cycling, including Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe and Briton Geraint Thomas, will be at the start of the Tour of Germany, a four-stage race that starts Thursday in Hanover and arrives Sunday in Erfurt.
Back in the calendar in 2018 after ten years of absence due to doping cases, this event offers a high plateau, with the presence of many riders accustomed to play the leading roles in the great Tours.
In addition to Alaphilippe and Thomas, Italy's Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida), Ireland's Dan Martin (UAE Emirates Team), Australia's Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) and local star Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) will come out on German roads, one month away from the World Cycling Championships that will be held in Yorkshire, UK.
"We will have a strong team at the start, some of the guys (Alaphilippe and Enric Mas) will be back in the competition after a tough Tour de France, but they will have the same motivation as the rest of the team," said manager Davide Bramati. sportsman of the Deceuninck? Quick-Step, who will also be able to count on the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, recent European champion of the time trial.
If the first day of racing seems to be conducive to a group arrival, the three other stages a little more hilly should allow the fighters to pull themselves together.
The route of the 2019 edition will pay homage to the fall of the Berlin Wall, bending in both directions the route of the former Iron Curtain dividing RFA and GDR and crossing the former German internal border several times.
Last year, Slovenia's Matej Mohoric won the event ahead of Germany's Nils Politt and Maximilian Schachmann.
Since 2008, the race was no longer organized and it was the French company Amaury Sport Organization, owner of the Tour de France, which took the project of a new Tour of Germany, in collaboration with the German cycling federation.
Steps:
1. Hanover - Halberstadt (167 kms)
2. Marburg - Göttingen (202 kms)
3. Göttingen - Eisenach (189 kms)
4. Eisenach - Erfurt (159.5 km)
© 2019 AFP