CYCLING NEWS ROUND-UP: IRISH PROFESSIONAL Philip Deignan will begin the third Grand Tour of his career tomorrow when he starts the Giro d'Italia.
The gruelling three-week event begins with a 20.5-kilometre team time-trial in Venice, then features three mainly flat stages before an early rendezvous with the mountains on Tuesday at San Martino di Castrozza.
The 25-year-old Letterkenny rider is competing with the Cervélo Test Team and, as such, will be lining out alongside the 2008 Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre. Deignan’s main goal is to assist the Spaniard, but he may have an opportunity to chase personal ambitions on a stage.
“My form is pretty good now so hopefully I get a good Giro in,” he said in recent days. “I haven’t raced since Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I had a few days easy [after the spring classics], then did a good three-day block of training.”
Sastre will be aiming for a top-three overall. He’s achieved podium positions in the other Grand Tours, winning the Tour de France last summer and netting second overall in the 2007 Vuelta a España. He’ll be up against riders such as Ivan Basso (Liquigas), Damiano Cunego (Lampre) and the Astana duo of Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong.
Armstrong is riding the Italian event for the first time and has said he is targeting a stage win rather than overall victory. He broke his collarbone in March and feels he does not have the necessary fitness.
In other news, four of the five riders for the An Post M Donnelly Grant Thornton Seán Kelly team were yesterday named in the squad for the FBD Insurance Rás. Irishmen David O’Loughlin and Paídi O’Brien will join Belgians Niko Eeckhout and Benny De Schrooder for the eight-day event, which begins in Kilcullen on Sunday week. The final place will be confirmed after the weekend.
Defending Rás champion Stephen Gallagher will not be part of the squad. He has not raced much this season and the team will instead choose between Irishman Mark Cassidy and the Belgians Jef Peeters and Steven Van Vooren.
The final place will be picked on the basis of performances in a Dutch race this weekend. Team manager Kurt Bogaerts said yesterday: “I have three riders in mind, Mark Cassidy, Jef Peeters and Steven Van Vooren, but I want to wait to see what happens at the Omloop Der Kempen before making my final decision.”
Cassidy was an early leader in last year’s race but crashed out while in the yellow jersey.
Bogaerts would love the team to win again. “The ambition of the team is to win stages, as was the target last year. We didn’t win stages in the end, but took the final classification. That is the goal. If it turns out Paídi or David can win the Rás, that would be great, but I realise it is a very difficult race to win. We will do our best to first of all take stages, and then see after a few days how it works out.”
FIXTURES: Tomorrow: Groucho's Grand Prix, Richhill, starts 12.30; Ras Chonamara youth race, Oughterard, starts 4pm; Connacht youth league, Ballinrobe race course, starts 10am. Sunday: Noel Hammond and Kieran Hammond Memorial, Ballyboughal, starts 11am; Kelly Pharmacy GP, Dungarvan, first races at 11.50am; MTB XC-travaganza, Three Rock Mountain, starts 11am; Tour of the Mournes, starts 10.30 (new time); Rás Chonamara, Oughterard, first races at 10am; IVCA 80km, Kentstown, starts 9.15.
