Landis will take a pass on Giro
Tour de France hopeful Floyd Landis has ruled out competing in the Giro d'Italia as part of his preparation to bid for the yellow jersey in July. Recent Paris-Nice winner Landis, who finished ninth overall on the Tour de France last year, had planned to compete in the three-week Giro (May 6-28) to fine tune his form. Phonak team manager John Lelangue said Sunday there had been a change of plans for July's big race. "Floyd has had a great start to the season so it's better that he has a more relaxed approach to the Tour," said Lelangue, who affirmed however that Phonak would not
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By AFP
Tour de France hopeful Floyd Landis has ruled out competing in the Giro d’Italia as part of his preparation to bid for the yellow jersey in July.
Recent Paris-Nice winner Landis, who finished ninth overall on the Tour de France last year, had planned to compete in the three-week Giro (May 6-28) to fine tune his form.
Phonak team manager John Lelangue said Sunday there had been a change of plans for July’s big race.
“Floyd has had a great start to the season so it’s better that he has a more relaxed approach to the Tour,” said Lelangue, who affirmed however that Phonak would not be riding in Italy just to make an appearance.
“But we’ll be sending a competitive team to the Giro,” added Lelangue who will build a team around Colombian Victor Hugo Pena and Belgian Axel Merckx.
Landis, 30, is a former teammate of now retired seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, with whom he had a spat at last year’s race while he was riding for his new Swiss team.
This year, Landis should be aiming for a place on the podium of the Tour and with this in mind will spend May riding some of the key stages of the Tour (July 1-23) before racing the Dauphine Libere (June 4-11).
The main favorites to win the yellow jersey are last year’s runner-up Ivan Basso of Italy and Germany’s 1997 winner and five-time runner-up Jan Ullrich.