Brussels (AFP)
The cycling team Total Direct Energie will not participate in the Tour of Italy 2020, because it does not have a workforce "enough provided", she announced Thursday in a statement.
"With a squad of 24 riders, the Team Total Direct Energie can not participate in all major races of the season," said the French formation in this statement published "to put an end to all speculation around the 2020 calendar." "The Team is therefore forced to not honor his invitation for the Giro this year".
With its first place in the 2019 ranking of the 2nd division of world cycling, TDE is invited in 2020 on all events of the elite, including the Tour of Italy, which will take place from May 9 to 31.
But "we would put ourselves in danger sportingly if we went there," said manager Jean-Rene Bernaudeau.
"The squad is not enough to be able to claim to perform on Milan-San Remo, the Flanders races, the Giro and the Tour de France," he said in the release.
The team includes in particular French Lilian Calmejane, stage winner on the Tours de France and Spain, and the Dutchman Niki Terpstra, laureate of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, two of the five "monuments" cycling.
© 2019 AFP