Bahrain Victorious set for Tour de France

TDT | Manama                                                               

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Team Bahrain Victorious kick off the 2023 Tour de France today. They are competing with an eight-member squad, to be led by Spaniard Mikel Landa. The event marks the 110th edition of the world’s most famous road cycling race.

It will have riders take on 3,404 kilometres and over 55,000 vertical meters of climbing across 21 stages, which only includes a hilly 22km time trial on stage 16. With only the one time trial, this year’s Tour de France takes the peloton from across the mountains, starting in the Basque Country and the Pyrenees, across to the Alps, Jura and Vosges.

With few coastal roads and no cobblestones or dirt roads, it seems a more suited course for the pure climbers. Landa will be joined by German teammates Phil Bauhaus and Nikias Arndt, Australian Jack Haig, countryman Pello Bilbao, Slovenian Matej Mohoric, Dutchman Wout Poels, and Briton Fred Wright.

Speaking ahead of the race, Landa commented: “The depart in the Basque Country is going to be really exciting! I’ve already been feeling the passion and excitement of the fans. They are supporting me already. I think it’s going to be a big celebration of cycling, so I’m really happy to be a part of that.”

Bahrain Victorious’ riders paid tribute to their late teammate Gino Mader in the official pre-race teams’ presentation. The team and the crowd on hand paid tribute to Mader’s memory by observing a minute of silence. The team will also be riding with bibs 62 to 69, with bib 61 not being used this year in honour of Mader.

Landa said: “This year the team and all of us have been impacted by the loss of our friend and teammate, Gino. We need to look at this for extra motivation and to be at our best every day and try and race for him and honour him.”

The Tour de France is the second of three Grand Tour events on this year’s Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Tour. A Grand Tour event is a road cycling race that is one of the three major European professional stage races. The first of the season was the Giro d’Italia held in May, and the third, following the Tour de France 2022, will be the Vuelta a Espana from August 26 to September 17.