Heroes of the Tour de France have a few things in common. Most are white men, and they tend to hail from European nations with strong cycling cultures and robust infrastructure for developing professional racers. Over the event’s 121-year history, riders from France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy have dominated.

Perhaps that’s why fans of the sport were so enthralled by one rider at the 2024 Tour: Biniam Girmay. The 24-year-old comes from Eritrea, a mountainous country on Africa’s Red Sea coast and one of the poorest nations in the world.

At this year’s race, Girmay won three stages and claimed the green jersey, awarded to the best sprinter. These accomplishments etched Girmay into the Tour’s history books. He became the first Black cyclist to win a stage and to claim one of the event’s four jerseys.

Girmay told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that he wants his victories to lead more Black racers to the Tour. “I hope more professional teams will give opportunities to African riders,” he said. “The talent is there, but more investment needs to be done.”

Girmay’s accolades were oft repeated during the Tour’s broadcast, highlighting pro cycling’s notorious lack of diversity. Other Black cyclists have competed in the race, but their contributions were always in supporting roles. In 2015 another Eritrean rider, Daniel Teklehaimanot, wore the polka dot jersey—given to the top climber—for several stages before relinquishing the lead in that competition. Colombian rider Egan Bernal became the first South American rider to win the race overall in 2019.

Professional cyclists of color have also faced blatant racism. In 2017, Frenchman Kevin Reza, who rode the Tour three times, was called a racial slur by Italian cyclist Gianni Moscon during the Tour de Romandie, a weeklong event in Switzerland.

Girmay’s path to the Tour wasn’t easy. Cycling is popular in Eritrea—a by-product of its colonization by Italy in the late 19th century. But because of the country’s largely agrarian economy and paltry racing infrastructure, even the best Eritrean riders rarely reach the big European leagues. Girmay grew up in the capital, Asmara, the son of a carpenter. His father loved cycling and began showing the Tour broadcast to Girmay when he was 11. Girmay began racing mountain bikes at 12, before switching to road racing.

He showed immediate talent, quickly rising to the top of the country’s road-cycling leagues. At 18, he was selected to train and race in the Union Cycliste Internationale’s World Cycling Center in Aigle, Switzerland, as part of a program that offers coaching and racing opportunities to up-and-coming riders from under-resourced nations.

The jump to Europe wasn’t easy. “The solitude was hard,” he told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. The new climate was also challenging. “I still struggle to perform optimally in the rain,” he added.

Girmay learned quickly and advanced rapidly. In 2021, three seasons after moving to Europe, he finished second in the under-23 world championships. The following year, he won the historic Gent-Wevelgem in Belgium. He also won a stage of the Giro d’Italia, becoming the first Black cyclist to do so at one of cycling’s Grand Tours. The 2024 Tour de France, with its history and significance, presented the next barrier. And Girmay broke through.

The post How Biniam Girmay Made History at the 2024 Tour de France appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Close your eyes and picture the following scene:

The starting gun sounds at the New York City Marathon and elite runners sprint over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and into Brooklyn. Suddenly, and a small group of pre-race favorites stop at a bodega—they sip coffees and munch bacon, egg, and cheeses while the mid-pack guys gallop out of sight. One minute goes by, then three, then five.

Finally, Kipchoge and his pals pay their bill, jog onto the course, and begin chasing after the leaders, leaving bewildered fans to wonder if they can close the gap before Central Park, or if they’ve been undone by Napoleon-level hubris.

Sounds pretty improbable, right? Well, that scenario is currently playing out at cycling’s three-week , and hardcore cycling fans—including yours truly—are transfixed by this race across Spain between a proverbial tortoise and hare.

After 11 of 21 stages, Slovenian racer Primoz Roglic, a three-time Vuelta champion, and the other pre-race favorites trail an Australian cyclist named Ben O’Connor, who is no slouch, but also isn’t a top-tier star. Roglic and his rivals essentially took a siesta on the race’s sixth stage and allowed O’Connor to get a massive head start in the battle for the red jersey—the getup worn by the race’s overall leader.

And now, they must chip away at O’Connor’s advantage, one stage at a time.

The Tour’s Drunk Uncle

Fans of the Tour de France are accustomed to the predictable ebb-and-flow that occurs during each stage. Shortly after the racers start, six or seven lesser-known riders accelerate up the road to form the day’s breakaway, while the stars of the sport stay in the peloton. For the next few hours, the race’s worker bees, or domestiques, ride a steady tempo at the front of the peloton to keep the breakaway’s advantage to no more than three minutes.

Then, as the race approaches the finish, or a major climb, the peloton accelerates and reels the group back in, setting up star riders to battle for victory. Bing, bang, boom. This controlled style of racing is especially evident during the Tour’s first half—the overall winner is crowned on cumulative time, so star riders tend to keep an eye on each other and wait for the mountains that come in weeks two and three.

The Vuelta a España is like the Tour’s drunk uncle—unpredictable and impossible to control. Some days the breakaway will swell to 20 or 30 riders. Oftentimes the peloton will simply give up and allow the front group to contest the victory. And every so often, a guy with a legitimate shot of winning the overall will slip into the breakaway and get a huge advantage on his rivals.

During last year’s Vuelta, American racer Sepp Kuss gained a huge advantage over the pre-race favorites by joining a big breakaway on stage 6. Kuss then defended his advantage from his own teammates and eventually won the overall by just 8 seconds.

Situations like this one are why hardcore cycling fans often prefer the race around Spain to the Tour de France. It’s harder to predict, and almost every year something completely out of left field occurs, like a , or a poorly-organized finish line, or a .

Why is the Vuelta so kooky? The stakes are lower in Spain than in France, so the desire to control every inch of the course is less intense. Some riders are exhausted from the long season, while others are fresh. And temperatures regularly soar into triple digits, which saps people’s legs, lungs, and willpower.

History Repeats Itself

Kuss’ winning strategy was front-of-mind during stage 6 of this year’s Vuelta. Roglic began the day in the red jersey and appeared to be the strongest guy in the race. But then he got careless or tired.

After a frenetic early half of the stage, a breakaway formed with 34 riders in it, among them O’Connor. Behind, Roglic’s Red Bull-Bora team refused to set the pace for the peloton, and the main group dropped way behind. At times, Roglic and other riders in the main pack looked like they were sightseeing. The breakaway, meanwhile, opened a seven-minute gap over the field.

When the peloton finally snapped out of its slumber and mounted a chase, it was too late. O’Connor accelerated out of the breakaway and won the stage, and the peloton limped across the finish line six minutes later. In the new overall standings, called the general classification, O’Connor led Roglic by 4:51—a massive head start.

“KAPOW BEN O’CONNOR BRINGS IT IN!”

Ben O’Connor shocks the peloton and rides his way into the leaders jersey at La Vuelta. He now has a win in all three grand tours what a ride!

— Eurosport (@eurosport)

Underestimating Ben O’Connor

Why did the peloton give Ben O’Connor so much time? He’s no slowpoke: O’Connor finished fourth overall at both the 2021 Tour de France and 2024 Giro d’Italia.

My sneaking suspicion is that Roglic and the Vuelta stars held a viewing party for season two of Netflix’s cycling docuseries Unchained: Tour de France, which aired back in June. One of the season’s eight episodes focuses almost entirely on O’Connor and his rollercoaster-like emotions. Clips show O’Connor erupting with f-bombs, slamming car doors, and generally acting like a frustrated toddler when things go wrong at the Tour. Interviews with O’Connor’s coaches present the conundrum that his French team, called Decathlon AG2R, must manage: O’Connor has the talent but not the temperament to win.

“Ben is an aggressive rider with a strong character, who sometimes struggles to control his emotions,” team manager Julien Jardine says in the episode.

“We are working with Ben so he can control his emotions when things go wrong,” Jardine adds.

An explosive temper may seem trivial, but controlling one’s emotions is a huge part of winning a grand tour. Every rider faces at least one setback during a three-week race—a crash, flat tire, or mental lapse—but the sport’s very best know how to stay cool amid calamities and limit their losses to just a few seconds here and there. Whether or not O’Connor can keep his calm during the final half of the Vuelta only adds to the intrigue.

The Margin Narrows

After 11 stages, Roglic and the other top riders have already taken a big bite out of O’Connor’s advantage. On stage 8, Roglic dropped O’Connor and took back 56 seconds; on stage 11 he grabbed another 37. O’Connor’s gap has tumbled from 4:51 to 3:16, and there are ten hard stages left to go. Every one represents an opportunity for Roglic to attack and bring himself closer to the red jersey.

… and Roglic and Mas are off!

ÂĄY se marchan y !

— La Vuelta (@lavuelta)

This is one of the reasons why hardcore cycling fans like myself often prefer the Vuelta to the Tour. During the Tour, organizers chart out flat stages, mountainous routes, and individual time trials—each different type of route has its own controlled style of racing.

But at the Vuelta, organizers like to toss in a super steep climb near the finish of each stage as a way to inject unpredictability and action into the race. On long, grinding climbs in the Alps, dropped riders can pace off of their teammates to catch back on; that’s not the case on a 22-percent ramp. Short and sheer ascents often boil the race down to mano-a-mano clashes, and a rider suffering from bad legs can hemorrhage time.

Yep, even a hare who is minutes behind can catch a tortoise.

The post The Vuelta a España Is More Exciting than the Tour de France. Here’s Why You Should Watch. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

The third week blues have hit Uno-X Mobility leader . No, he wasn’t sad today at the start of stage 16; in fact he was his usual jovial self.

So why is he blue? Well, his mustache is.

The prototypically blonde Dane is known for sporting a signature ‘stache as he fights for the break.

The thick streak of golden hair on his lip has become such an identifying feature that it attracted a bet from a well known Danish , who has 1.3 million followers — extra impressive considering he posts in Danish, a language spoken by about 6 million people.

The terms were simple: If Hemmingsen could help Cort reach 200,000 followers on Instagram — at the time it was at 146,000, Cort says — then Cort would have to dye his mustache a particularly bright shade of blue.

“It only took him 24 hours,” Cort said Tuesday morning at the stage start. “Now I have to keep my word.”

After Hemmingsen’s legions of followers boosted Cort’s account, the only thing left to do was decide a color: red, yellow, or blue? Winning with 45 percent of the vote, conducted via Instagram poll, blue was the answer.

Cort took Monday’s final rest day as an opportunity to follow through on his side of the deal.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

It has turned out to be a rather small price to pay for one of the most valuable currencies in the modern world, social media followers. has skyrocketed to to 229,000 and counting.

Now all those new followers will get to enjoy Cort’s of the Tour de France’s infamously French accommodations.

Perhaps the ‘stache upgrade will be the performance boost Cort needs this week to earn his third career Tour de France stage victory. Regardless, everyone’s a winner in this situation.

The post Why Is Magnus Cort Racing the Tour de France with a Blue Mustache? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

“No one has done the Giro-Tour double since 1988.”

Cycling commentator Phil Liggett said this the other day during the broadcast of the Tour de France, which these days is beamed live on NBC’s streaming platform Peacock. He was referring to race leader chances of winning the Giro d’Italia and the Tour this year—a Herculean feat totaling some 4,000 miles of over nine weeks of racing. At any rate, Phil was wrong by a decade. Italian cyclist Marco Pantani last did the Giro-Tour double in 1998.

Hardcore cycling fans know this wasn’t the most egregious of gaffes, especially considering it was made during the heat of a live bike race. But alas, for the 80-year-old Liggett, it was par for the course. Dates, locations, statistics—Liggett often blunders these basic details during the Tour broadcast. Watch the Tour long enough and you’ll hear Liggett call a current racer the name of some guy who retired eons ago. Google Phil Liggett, and you’ll get Reddit threads and other forum rants ranging from the polite, “…” to the blunt, “.”

Yes, Phil Liggett is increasingly prone to what seems like amnesia. But I still love the guy, and will defend him and his cycling commentary against even the staunchest critics. Here’s why:

Back in the day, before Lance Armstrong took cycling mainstream in America, Liggett and his longtime co-host Paul Sherwen were our spirit guides into the wonky netherworld of European professional bike racing. Coverage was scarce at best, even as late as the mid-nineties. In those mostly pre-Internet days, I’d get my fix from monthly issues of VeloNews, mainlining the black and white broadsheet as if it were contraband. I was a cycling junkie, thanks in part to my European father, who’d passed on the bug, filling my head with stories of Eddy Merckx and Francesco Moser. Liggett took care of the rest.

For three weeks every July, he’d narrate my summers in his lyrical British accent, dropping metaphors and knowledge every few minutes. He’d chant the names of my heroes with perfect diction—Claudio Chiappucci, Gianni Bugno, Laurent Jalabert, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov (trying saying that one three times fast)—and I’d parrot them back to my parents, or to myself. When I’d head out for long, lonely rides, my only companion Liggett’s voice in my head calling play by play: “and there he is, James Jung, the young usurper from America, the angel of the mountains!” At age 12, I knew what words like “usurper” meant because Liggett used them and I’d later look them up.

Liggett taught me other things, too. History lessons about cycling legends of the past—Federico Bahamontes, nicknamed the “Eagle of Toledo” due to his climbing prowess; Raymond Poulidor, the “Eternal Second” because he never won the Tour. Through Liggett, I learned that 51 is the race number with the most Tour wins, that Napoleon was exiled on the Italian Isle of Elba, and that a palindrome is a sentence that says the same thing forwards as it does backwards. Normal American boys had John Madden; I had Phil Liggett.

My father and I ordered video cassettes of Liggett calling other races that you couldn’t catch on TV—grand tours like the Giro d’Italia, and one-day spring classics like Paris-Roubaix and Liege-Bastogne-Liege—as if we were both part of some cult. One summer, when Dad was out of work and put the family on a strict budget that meant canceling cable, we swallowed our pride and went over to the neighbors to watch the Tour, rather than go Liggett-less all July. It was there that I remember, Dad and I rapt on the old couple’s loveseat, watching our hero Miguel Indurain drop the entire peloton on the finishing climb to La Plagne, sealing his fifth consecutive overall Tour de France victory. “Enough is enough!” Liggett shouted, narrating what he believed to be going through Indurain’s mind at the moment of the vicious attack.

My father loved it, and for the rest of his life he would repeat the catch phrase in his thick Austrian accent whenever things got tough, looking at me mischievously with his bright green eyes. Between Dad and I, Liggett was our love language.

Of course, as you age, your tastes change. While I enjoyed the increased coverage that came with Armstrong’s seven-year reign, I grew tired of his bravado and that of his fans, many of whom seemed to be the type of red-blooded American dudes who used to shame me for wearing lycra and shaving my legs. Liggett and Sherwen became their guys, not mine, like when your favorite band gets too commercial. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű even profiled the announcing duo in a 2004 print feature. Liggett also, as some people criticize, graduated from objective cycling journalist to Armstrong fanboy, never once questioning the Texan’s ethics at the race. Why would he? Armstrong was good for business. Rather than gripe, I moved on from Liggett thanks to the proliferation of pirated online streaming feeds, instead watching illicit broadcasts of races called by equally eloquent Brits like Eurosport commentators Carlton Kirby, Brian Smith, and Irishmen Sean Kelly—announcers who get their facts right. During this era I acted like a snobby record store clerk out of High Fidelity. “Oh you like Phil Liggett,” I’d think when around the rubes. “Me? I listen to commentators you’ve never even heard of, maaaan.”

In recent years, however, I’ve returned to Liggett. Snobbery is something you should let go of in your forties, and besides, geo-fencing has gotten much better online. Rather than stream pirated feeds, I’m glued to NBC’s coverage. Things have changed since Liggett was the voice of the Armstrong era—tragically, Paul Sherwen died in 2018 of heart failure at age 62. These days, Liggett’s dulcet voice echoes through my home every July, his cringe-inducing metaphors filling the living room, his mistakes unfurling from the TV speakers, one after the other. My wife groans, just like my mother once did. My two boys, ages six and three, recognize his lilt as well. To me, it’s a lilt that sounds like summer.

My father is no longer alive to hear Liggett—Dad died almost five years ago. I miss him daily, but it is during the Tour de France that I feel his absence most acutely. I find myself reaching for my phone anytime something surprising happens—an attack, a dramatic finish, a white-knuckle descent—wanting to hear Dad’s voice, to laugh and marvel at whatever athleticism we’ve just witnessed.

Instead there’s Phil Liggett, talking to me from the TV, mistakes and all, just like he has nearly every summer since I was a boy. I’m glad we still have him.

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The daily menu of a rider is a multi-course, 8,000-calorie gut-buster cooked up by science and flavored like carbs.

From early morning rice binges to late-night pasta parties, , , and the Tour de France peloton get little respite from meal plans that are interrogated to the macronutrient and managed to the micro level.

In a sport that’s reduced to the finest margins, nutrition has become as essential as VO2 max, aerodynamics, and race craft. are just as much a part of the Tour de France entourage as mechanic stations and massage tables.

The pressure to achieve perfect fueling means a Tour de France daily menu is as complex as a six-month training schedule or a mechanic’s Di2 manual. They’re the product of nutritionists and physiologists as much as a team’s own Michelin-level chef.

Here’s how a day on Tour might taste:

T-minus Three Hours to Stage: A Breakfast that Looks like Dinner

The breakfast buffet:

• For the new-school: Rice, pasta, noodles, quinoa, eggs, fruits, juices/smoothies, electrolyte and prebiotic drinks, coffee.
• For the traditionalist: Oatmeal, cereals, bread, pancakes, eggs, cold meats, yogurts, fruits, juices/smoothies, electrolyte and prebiotic drinks, coffee.

A rider could burn more than 5,000 calories during the hardest stages of the Tour de France.

That enormous energy demand means the gruppetto awaits anyone who missed a few mouthfuls that morning.

Resultantly, breakfast is a multi-course banquet devoted to the church of carbohydrates.

“In general, most riders will have four times their body weight in grams of carbohydrates at breakfast alone,” Israel Premier Tech nutritionist Gabriel Martins said.

“I dare a normal person to try to eat this amount of food at breakfast,” he said. “Most of us would struggle to do that in a whole day.”

The peloton is divided into two echelons of breakfast preferences.

For some, “breakfast” is a morning meal that looks and tastes like dinner. Bulging bowls of rice, pasta, noodles, and quinoa provide an easy energy fix.

For the diminishing resistance that maintains 9 am is no time for rice, oatmeal, breads, and pancakes are the centerpiece of a “traditional” tasting morning meal.

“Rice is now the preference carbohydrate for us, and we encourage it for our riders. It’s perfect race food. It’s super carbohydrate dense, gluten-free and so it is easy to digest,” JAyco-AlUla nutrition scientist Laura Martinelli told Velo. “We encourage it for any, or all, the meals of the day.”

Whatever a rider’s preference, breakfast serves as the final phase of a 24/7 “carb load” that ensures grand tour riders are ready to race for three weeks straight.

Most riders in the Tour peloton will aim to chow 10-12 grams of carbohydrate per kilo of body mass in the 24 hours before any stage that’s expected to be a sufferfest.

For ~60kg Jonas Vingegaard, that’s a 600-720g “carb load”, the equivalent of approximately 2,500 calories. In real terms, that’s a gut-wobbling three kilos of cooked white rice.

There is some respite from all things starch and sugar.

Nutrition-packed smoothies and small serves of muscle-saving protein accompany the carbohydrates and provide a welcome break from bowls of beige.

“We have to make sure food remains interesting to riders, especially on a grand tour when they eat so much every day,” Martinelli said. “The colors and flavors, even the textures, need to be varied and bright. Otherwise riders get ‘bored’.”

T-minus 30 Minutes to Stage Start: A Caffeine Boost and a Sugar Rush

The tank-topper:

• Rice cakes, wraps, energy bars.
• Espresso, espresso, espresso!

Just a few short hours and a bus ride after breakfast, it’s time to eat again.

Riders slam several espressos and chew on energy bars, bananas, and rice cakes while they pin numbers and ratchet shoes in buses that serve as kitchens, bathrooms, and lounges.

Those final espressos aren’t just a token nod to cycling tradition.

Caffeine is one of the few legal ergogenic aids. A dose of 3-6mg/kg body mass is proven to boost endurance, enhance cognition, and benefit perceived exertion.

Every rider will have established their caffeine limit during training and will buzz their way toward that threshold at breakfast, on the bus, and finally on the bike with a pocket full of rocket-fuel caffeine gels.

During the Stage: The Carb Frenzy

In the bottles, musettes, and jersey pockets:

• Energy gels, chews, bars.
• Carbohydrate and electrolyte drinks.
• Rice cakes, wraps, mini cokes.

Aero bike frames, electronic gearsets, and have made the Tour de France a totally different sport from that of even a decade ago.

In-race fueling strategies progressed just as fast.

This decade has seen a that shifted the dial on what’s possible for performance.

Energy gels and drinks pack improved carbohydrate ratios and hydrogel technologies that allow riders to take down sugars at unprecedented rates.

“Carbohydrate targets during racing increase year by year” Jayco-AlUla’s Martinelli said. “I started working in cycling in 2013, and at that time, 70-80 grams of carb per hour was the ideal target to be competitive. Nowadays, you need 100-110g at least.”

The rise of gut- and pallete-friendly gels and drinks has driven the pace of the pro peloton.

Riders can push thresholds higher in training and recover faster from their efforts to achieve an upward spiral of progress.

They can be more aggressive in racing, for longer periods.

The era of gut-rotting GI distress and race-ending “bonks” is long gone.

“The ability to tolerate carbs is becoming one of the biggest factors in winning or losing,” Astana-Qazaqstan trainer Vasilis Anastopoulos said.

Most riders now rely almost purely on energy products to power a day in the saddle.

Gels and bars are easy to eat, carb-dense, and pocket-friendly. Energy-packed drinks can meet fueling and hydration needs with a few thirst-quenching sips.

A rider aiming at the new “gold standard” of 120 grams per hour of carbohydrate might be slurping three or more energy gels per hour for a constant flow of fast fuel that guarantees they’ll never be hit by “the hammer.”

The musette picnic of rice cakes, wraps, and cokes so central to the Chris Froome era are now just a decorative cherry on top of the synthetically produced cake.

“’Normal foods’ go into the race bags as much to help a rider’s morale as anything,” Lidl-Trek nutritionist Stephanie Scheirlynck told Velo. “There’s not much performance benefit, but they do no harm and keep riders happy, so why not?”

At the Finish Line: A Recovery Kick-starter of Ketones, Carbs, Sodium

Drinks from the bar:

• Water, sodas, juices, ketone mixes, hydration mixes.
• Haribos!

Riders are met at the finish line of the Tour de France by a stocked bar of recovery-boosting drinks.

Staffers laden with bottles of water, soda, and ketone mixes hustle out to riders and thrust drinks their way before they’ve barely caught breath. Bags of candies serve as the finish line finger-food.

“Riders now mostly get a juice after races. The main thing is to provide them with simple sugars; glucose and fructose to start replenishing the glycogen stores,” Bora-Hansgrohe nutritionist Tim Podlogar told Velo.

“Sometimes the juice is cherry juice as there is some evidence that this can help with recovery,” he said. “Then, they usually get some gummies or dates. Again, it’s simple sugars.”

Ketones, the peloton’s , are also a part of the mix.

This so-called “fourth macronutrient” rose to the headlines off the back of its perceived impact on performance, but the peloton now chooses ketones primarily for recovery.

“Ketones help recovery and lower chronic inflammation and oxidative stress,” Alpecin-Decuninck team doctor Peter Lagrou said. “Both are very important in the prevention of illness, injuries, overuse, mental and cognitive fatigue.”

One Hour Post-Stage: A Bus Ride Buffet for Rapid Replenishment

The post-ride picnic:

• Protein shake: Whey, optional aminos, and maltodextrin (sugar).
• Carbs: Rice, pasta, potatoes.
• Lean proteins: Chicken, fish, eggs.

The team bus provides riders sanctuary from the melee of bike-mad crowds and pesky media crews.

Nowhere is safe from the full-time requirement to fuel, however.

“It’s crucial the guys eat on the bus,” Lidl-Trek expert Scheirlynck said. “Dinner won’t be for many hours, and the faster they can start to reload their energy, the better it is for recovery. It simply can’t be missed in a three-week race.”

A pre-shower smoothie ensures riders hit the benchmark 20 grams of protein required for rapid muscle synthesis before an on-board meal continues the replenishment process.

Intriguingly, protein is less a priority in a  than the shelves full of protein shakes, snacks, and supplements at your local health store may have you believe.

Protein isn’t the priority for an endurance athlete who burns days’ worth of energy in a few breathless hours of WorldTour racing.

“We have to prioritize carbohydrate in the hours after the stage, so we keep protein intake to about 30-40 grams in total,” Israel Premier Tech nutritionist Vanessa Zoras said. “We then aim for riders to consume at least 2-2.5 grams per kilogram over the rest of the meals and snacks throughout the day.”

A shake and a a shower later, it’s finally time for “real” food.

“Each rider will get a fresh pre-packed meal on the bus that was prepared by our chef, or there will be dishes on board,” Martinelli said. “It’s usually rice, pasta, or potatoes, with a protein accompaniment like chicken or tuna.

“We also make sure it’s colorful with vegetables, and make sure it’s pleasing to eat,” she said. “It can be hard for riders to ‘force’ food in after these races, so the meal has to look and taste good.”

This post-race meal isn’t the type of go-til-you-blow affair that rewards an amateur warrior after their big weekend ride.

Nutritionists like Martinelli and Scheirlynck extrapolate “workload” scores from power meters into portion sizes and protein-carb-fat ratios that perfectly offset a rider’s exertions of the day.

“We calculate riders’ recovery targets rather than leave them to go by ‘feel’ or hunger cues,” Jayco-AlUla’s Martinelli said, referring to the re-feeding process. “When a rider is very tired, and their appetites are suppressed, they could very easily get it wrong.”

Four (ish) Hours Post-stage: A Dinner Tailored to the Next Day

A dinner for the next day:

• Pre-mountain stage menu: A calorie-dense meal focused on carbohydrate, with minimal vegetables and lean protein: Rice, pasta, potatoes, chicken, fish.
• Pre-sprint stage menu: A high-volume, lower calorie meal rich in nutrients, lower on carbohydrates: Salads, soups, pulses, grilled or steamed vegetables, quinoa chicken, fish 
 and of course, rice, pasta, potatoes.
• Pre-rest day menu: Home-made burgers, pizza, lasagne, barbecues.

The evening meal is designed with both recovery and refueling in mind.

Like how the post-ride meal reflects the demands of that day’s stage, the evening meal reflects what’s to come.

When a climbing stage that might burn 5-6,000 calories is on the horizon, riders eat a suitably mountainous meal focused on energy-rich carbohydrates.

Vegetables, salads, and proteins make only a small proportion of a meal designed to take riders toward the crushing carbohydrate benchmarks set on the Tour’s hardest days.

The script is flipped the evening before an “easy” sprint stage.

“When we think of grand tour menus, it’s about ‘function’ for the mountains, and ‘health’ the rest of the time,” Scheirlynck said.

“But we think about satiety, too. On a mountain stage we try to create a small volume of food that’s packed with energy,” she said. “Conversely, before a sprint stage, we look to proteins, big salads, and soups to help make riders feel full without overloading on calories.”

Team chefs even consider the weather when concocting their multi-course menus.

Riders will be met with cold soups and iced deserts after a scorcher on the Cîte d’Azur, but hearty broths and warming stews after a rain-soaked stage up in Brittany.

Nutritionists pull at the three levers of nutrition – carbohydrates, proteins, and fats – when they design every meal.

Fiber is another variable that’s carefully fine-tuned.

Fibrous vegetables and salads are scrapped the evening before a mountain stage in that prevents riders from retaining water and gaining weight.

A pre-mountain day dinner is a dreary affair of beige “fuel” rather than an Instagram-worthy rainbow plate of health-supporting nutrients and vitamins.

The “good stuff” a rider’s mom would have them eat – multi-color vegetables, healthy fats, and pulses – is reserved for other evenings.

“We look at nutrition across the grand tour as a whole and balance it across that whole period,” Lidl-Trek expert Scheirlynck said.

“The meals on some days may seem plain, maybe unbalanced. But across the three weeks, we ensure riders get everything they need in terms of vitamins and minerals.”

And the evening before a rest day or perhaps the night of a team victory?

There’s no trip to the nearest “Golden Arches” or pizza joint. Fatty patties and pepperoni parties have to wait for when riders start fueling for stage 22.

Instead, team chefs serve their own take on a Tour de France “cheat meal”.

Homemade burgers, tacos, and lasagnes using lower-fat, higher-nutrition recipes feel like a celebration but don’t overdo the calories. Some teams serve up some bubbly, while others maintain policies to abstain.

Just a few episodes of Netflix and a 10-hour sleep later, and the fueling frenzy starts all over again.

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VALLOIRE, France – ’s seven grand tour wins have been based around the strength of their team – and having supporting their leaders in the thick of the action.

Think of the mob-handed Col du Granon masterplan in the 2022 , Primoz Roglic and taking Pogacar over his head before the finale, or their 2023 Vuelta a España evisceration.

Not for nothing is the squad’s motto the Dutch phrase samen winnen – winning together, the concept that nobody is above the unit, that the hive’s hard work and cohesion will make the difference.

However, on stage 4 of the Tour de France, the Dutch “Killer Bees” were more like harmless flies. Rivals Team UAE Emirates swarmed at the front of the race and , eking out a 45-second lead.

Wilco Kelderman, suffering from a crash on the race’s opening day, and Jan Tratnik drifted back on the Lautaret, while American Matteo Jorgenson was last man standing for his leader Vingegaard.

He supported the Dane until dropping back 4 kilometers from the summit of the mighty Col du Galibier. At that point, Pogacar still had Juan Ayuso and JoĂŁo Almeida alongside him, racing with intent and .

Asked how he judged the team performance post-race by media, Visma-Lease a Bike coach Grischa Niermann said: “Today, we saw that we miss an in-form Sepp Kuss in this race.

“But we knew that when we had to take the decision he’s not coming, because we don’t have a climber like Sepp next to Jonas on the team,” Niermann said.

An absentee after failing to recover from a COVID-19 infection, mainstay Kuss has been a team member on all of the team’s seven grand tour wins, pace-setting and supporting Vingegaard and Roglič over the years.

“I think Matteo, maybe he expected a bit more [from] himself, but in the end, he finished with the group going for ninth place,” Niermann said. “He was up there and there were other guys also getting dropped.”

Jorgenson’s Bad Day

A new signing to the team in 2024, 25-year-old Jorgenson has stepped up to be Vingegaard’s right-hand man at the Tour.

“It was a learning experience, I guess,” Jorgenson told Eurosport and assembled media afterwards. “It was not the best day for us.”

“I don’t think the numbers were anything ridiculous. When I was looking at my power meter, I wasn’t like, ‘Wow, I can’t hold this pace,’ I was more within my limits. I just wasn’t on that great of a day.

“Generally, Jonas could probably have used a higher pace to reduce the explosivity of Pogacar. That’s kind of my bad for not being there to be able to do it,” he added.

He explained that the Visma-Lease a Bike team wanted to set a harder tempo on the Galibier, but didn’t have the numbers to do it after the Col du Lautaret precursor.

Sporting a bandage on his right elbow , Jorgenson rued that he didn’t have his best legs: “It’s just two days after the crash, I had a bit of a bad day. But in general, we did our best as a team.”

“I lost two and a half minutes or something on Pogacar, so it’s not great. And I also wasn’t there when Jonas needed me. Hopefully it gets better.”

Minutes before Jorgenson spoke, his team leader Vingegaard, 50 seconds behind his Slovenian adversary on GC, .

Jorgenson has won Paris-Nice and finished second at the Critérium du Dauphiné in a breakout year, but it seems that the pre-race possibility of him challenging for GC as Plan B will surely go to the back burner.

After stage 4, the Idahoan is positioned 11th overall, 3:21 behind race leader Pogačar after finishing in a seven-strong group which included Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) and the Ineos Grenadiers pair of Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal.

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The relentless pace set by the squad on Tuesday did more than just platform ’s stage winning attack: it devastated many big names in the .

Several key riders found themselves dealing with big time losses after stage 4 of the race, cracking on the Col du Galibier and conceding time in the first serious day in the mountains.

Overnight race leader was one of the biggest casualties, slipping back early on and trailing in only 32nd, 5:10 back.

The EF Education–EasyPost rider received the backing of teammate Ben Healy in the chase but tumbled from first to 22nd overall, his yellow jersey and any GC hope gone.

Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) was another surprise, losing 11:44 after cracking early on. He had spoken earlier this year of wanting to chase a high overall result; that ambition is now over.

Dropping Seconds and Minutes

Pogacar’s Galibier surge and lightning descent opened solid time over every other rider in the field. Defending champion (Visma–Lease a Bike) handled his rival’s acceleration best, fighting to hold his wheel for several hundred meters and then going over the summit several seconds back.

However he yielded further ground on the descent, likely still nervous after his crash in April, and was caught by several others before the finish in Valloire.

(Soudal Quick-Step), who had started the day level on time with Carapaz, Pogačar and Vingegaard, was also there and won the sprint to the line, 35 seconds back. That earned him second place on the stage and ensured he ended the day second overall.

(Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) also finished in this group, a good turnaround after cracking on the climb but recouping time on the descent.

“That was enough. I am satisfied with today,” he said to RTV Slovenija, while admitting his form is not where he expected it to be.

“In the climb, I was battling with myself. Tadej set the pace, which was clearly the best thing for him.”

Still, he believes he can and will do more in this Tour. “I’m slowly getting better, I’m still here.”

Vingegaard and Ineos Grenadiers leader were fifth and sixth, conceding a further two seconds to the Evenepoel/Roglic group when a gap opened just before the line.

The latter is now his team’s undisputed leader, as both Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal finished 2:42 behind.

They won the race in 2018 and 2019 respectively, but unless one or both can regain significant time in a breakaway, they will be backing RodrĂ­guez for the remainder of the race.

After going in with four possible leaders, Ineos Grenadiers is down to one.

Jorgenson, Yates Under Pressure

The devastation handed out by UAE Team Emirates put other big names in the red.

Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale leader Felix Gall also finished in the Thomas-Bernal group. American rider was similarly present.

Jorgenson, winner of Paris-Nice and second overall to Roglič in the CritĂ©rium du DauphinĂ©, was seen as a possible GC alternative if Vingegaard lacked fitness after his Itzulia crash.

He will now be fully committed to the resurgent Danish rider.

Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) also finished in this selection. The Briton was third overall last year despite having ridden for Pogacar.

Some felt he could podium again after a dominant ride in the Tour de Suisse, but instead he is almost three and a half minutes adrift after four stages.

That’s down to an off day but his team boss Mauro Gianetti told Velo’s Andrew Hood after the finish that UAE Team Emirates still had a big day in the saddle.

“The plan was to see the level of each team, not only the leader of the team,” . “We wanted to see how many riders of each team could be at the top of the Galibier.

“The three leaders of Red Bull, the leaders of Ineos, and at Visma,” Gianetti said. “We put a very big pace to push.”

The goal was completely successful.

With Alesandr Vlasov and Jai Hindley losing 3:05 and 4:01 respectively, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe was another team which saw GC options reduced to just one rider.

They, Ineos Grenadiers and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have now just one contender each in the GC, with plan B’s and C’s out the window, barring a big breakaway comeback.

It was a day to remember for UAE Team Emirates in eliminating so many rivals. They will welcome that Tuesday evening, and so too the fact that Evenepoel and Vingegaard are the only riders who remain within a minute of Pogačar.

It may be only day four of the Tour but already all of the Slovenian’s rivals have a mountain to climb.

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and UAE Emirates ruled the Galibier but they’re not the kings of the just yet.

For yellow jersey Pogacar and his great nemesis , the three-week Tour de France has only just begun.

“Everyone did five-star work today and we can do that again,” UAE Emirates director Joxean Fernández Matxin told after he orchestrated the team’s Alpine assault Tuesday.

“Whether the Tour has already been decided? No, of course not. That’s only in Nice,” Matxin said. “And it will be a very long time before we get there.”

UAE Emirates obliterated everyone on the hulking Hors Categorie Galibier with on Tuesday’s fourth stage.

Visma-Lease a Bike melted away from Vingegaard, was on the ropes, and even the most dogged version of struggled to hold on.

Yet Pogacar’s 45- and 50- second classification advantage over Evenepoel and Vingegaard respectively means nothing in a race that will be decided in the PyrĂ©nĂ©es and Alps of week three.

“We came here believing we’d lose time in three of the first four stages, so to lose time on just one is pretty good in my opinion,” Vingegaard said after he was distanced on the fast downhill to the line Tuesday.

“We thought we might lose two minutes or more, so only 50 seconds behind is quite good,” Vingegaard said.

“Our time will come.”

What Trajectories Will the Big 4 Follow?

There’s no doubt “Slovenian Slayer” Pogacar looks well on track for his historic quest for the Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double.

Imperious Pogcar is the puppet master of an armada of elite climbers.

UAE Emirates is with three riders in the top-10 with Juan Ayuso and João Almeida behind Pogacar in third and eighth. 2023 Tour podium finisher Adam Yates isn’t much further behind.

By contrast, Visma-Lease a Bike is a shadow of Jumbo-Visma and is , Dylan Van Baarle, and Steven Kruijswijk.

Yet a largely benign second week will afford Pogacar’s Basque-battered, training-lite rivals the breathing space to ride themselves into the race, right on time for when mano-a-mano mountain battles will be just as decisive as collective team muscle.

“I’m slowly getting better, I’m still here,” Roglic insisted Tuesday after he was pressured on the Galibier.

The stage 7 time trial on Friday is the only true GC appointment before the mountains arrive en masse with stage 14 next weekend.

For Vingegaard, Roglic and Evenepoel, any creases in condition could be ironed out in time for when the race returns to the high peaks – although of course, there’s always the risk things get worse.

“It’s always a good thing when you finish second behind the best rider in the world,” Evenepoel said Tuesday. “It was a very good day for us. There was nothing to criticize.

“I feel like I’m getting better,” Evenepoel said after he led the chase behind Pogacar. “Now I’m already focusing on Friday’s time trial.”

Meanwhile for Pogacar, the great unknown of post-Giro d’Italia fatigue shadows every passing stage.

Visma Vows to Keep swinging: “We Believe in our Plan”

In true Pogacar fashion, he started his grand tour in sixth gear and came away rewarded.

Yet he’s done similar at the Tour twice before, only to be blown away by one disaster day in the back-half of the race.

Sure, the Visma-Lease a Bike of 2024 is not the Jumbo-Visma that tore Pogacar apart in 2022 and 2023 with blitz offenses from Kuss, Roglic, and Wout van Aert.

But the “Killer Bees” are promising it still has sting.

“I was doubting myself going into this Tour but it’s not like he was a lot stronger uphill,” Vingegaard said after the stage Tuesday. “I would have liked to close the gap instead of it opening. I would have liked to stay with him but that’s life.

“The Tour is long and we’ll do our best,” said the defending champion. “We know what to do. We believe in our plan, like in the last two years and we’ll see at the end of the Tour.”

Vingegaard will need to brush away any descending demons left from his Basque crash to ensure “The Bees” have venom ahead of the mountain-packed crescendo of the Tour.

Re-measuring After the “Race of Truth”

The stage 7 time trial Friday will be a crucial measuring stick for who wears the maillot jaune in Nice later this month.

It’s not called “the race of truth” for nothing. There’s no better marker of physiological prowess and the ability to suffer than a lonely 25km against the clock.

Vingegaard hasn’t been able to train on the TT bike during his long comeback from injury like he would have wanted, but his history against Pogacar in grand tour time trials is telling.

Time trial world champion Evenepoel, who’s after four days of racing, could slash his 45-second deficit to Pogacar in half on Friday’s ~30 minute individual test.

“I think it’s not really decided who is where [on GC],” Pogacar said Tuesday after he donned his second yellow jersey of the 2024 Tour.

“For sure, you see the level a little bit,” he said. “But in three weeks some days can be better for some riders, and other days can be better for others.”

How the GC looks Friday will be the best barometer of the favorites we’ll get until the race hits the PyrĂ©nĂ©es more than a week from now.

“Maybe someone wasn’t feeling great or super good today,” Pogacar said. “In three weeks, things can change a lot.”

It might have looked like Pogacar buried the Tour de France on Tuesday. But in reality, the race is only just getting started.

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There was a time in the not-so distant past when British cyclist seemed to have a better shot at winning a bowling tournament or a game of darts than claiming another stage at the Tour de France. Cavendish, perhaps the best pure sprinter in cycling history, spent the 2017-2020 seasons struggling with illness and injury and various other setbacks.

Cycling journalists, myself included, watched as these calamities tore Cavendish apart from inside. He’d , y, and regularly . In 2019, Cavendish could barely stay with the peloton at the Tour of Slovenia, let alone thrive at the Tour de France. This fallow period came during his mid-thirties, the age when most pro cyclists ride off into the sunset.

But one goal kept Cavendish coming back to the sport in lieu of the losses and heartache: his dogged pursuit of the Tour de France’s record for most stage victories. Since 1977 that number had held at 34, set by the greatest all-around cyclist of all time, Belgian legend Eddy Merckx.

SIR MARK CAVENDISH

— Tour de France (@LeTour)

And then, Cavendish’s form returned. During the 2021 Tour, Cavendish scored an amazing four stage wins, which brought him even with Merckx. The history books seemed within reach. And then, more setbacks. His Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl team left him off the Tour roster in 2022 in favor of the younger sprinter Fabio Jakobsen. He returned to the Tour with a different team, Astana Qazaqstan, in 2023, only to crash out of the race on the eighth stage during what was supposed to be his final season.

I, along with a few other cycling pundits, assumed Cavendish would simply retire after that heartache, content to be tied with Merckx in the history books. Boy were we wrong.

On Wednesday, Cavendish unleashed a sudden burst of speed in the waning moments of the Tour’s fifth stage to win the stage, vaulting him past Merckx in the history books as the Tour’s most prolific winner.

The victory showcased Cavendish’s brains and brawn as a racer: after he lost touch with his teammate in the chaotic gallop to the line, Cavendish found the wheel of the sport’s new dominant sprinter, Jasper Philipsen of Belgium, and then bolted around him just before the finish.

The 39-year-old Cavendish was mobbed after crossing the line, first by his Astana teammates, and then by other Tour riders as he celebrated his milestone. He brushed back tears during his post-race television interview, and shook his head in disbelief as he replayed the win.

“It’s how the Tour de France is. You sprint as hard as you can until you get to the finish line. And maybe your life changes”

Mark Cavendish talks to Matt after winning his record breaking 35th Tour de France stage

— ITV Cycling (@itvcycling)

“You sprint and go as hard as you can until you get to the finish and maybe your life changes if you cross that line first, maybe it doesn’t if you don’t,” Cavendish said. “That is the nature of this race and what makes it so beautiful.”

It’s also been the nature of his career. Cavendish has raced in the pro ranks since the 2006 season. For context, the Tour’s current leader, Tadej Pogacar, was eight years old back then. He won his first Tour stage in 2008, which kicked off a six-year run of dominance, before enduring winless streaks, returns to greatness, and more fallow times.

Over that span Cavendish has battled multiple generations of rivals: Erik Zabel, Robbie McEwan, Marcel Kittel, Peter Sagan, Dylan Groenewegen, among others. He’s enjoyed longevity as a sprinter—a chaotic and dangerous profession that rewards strong legs, daredevil attitudes, and a big ego.

Two memories popped into my head as I watched Cavendish celebrate his historic win—scenes that reminded me of Cavendish’s good times and bad. The first came from stage 11 of the 2018 Tour, which finished high in the alpine ski resort of La Rosiere. Half an hour after stage winner Geraint Thomas had finished the stage, Cavendish huffed and puffed up the long ascent by himself, the final rider to finish. I stood alongside a handful of journalists as we watched him ride across the line.

He crossed it well past the elimination time cut, which mean he was disqualified for the remainder of the Tour. It was a yet another setback during Cavendish’s four-season fallow period, and it stung.

Cavendish cursed and spat and rode straight past his Dimension Data team bus and the gaggle of journalists standing out front, and beelined it straight to the hotel. His poor team director at the time, Douglas Ryder, had to answer for him. “Mark is bitterly disappointed,” Ryder told those of us gathered at the bus.

The next memory comes from the final stage of the 2013 Tour—a race where Cavendish collected two stage wins and challenged for the win in three others. Cavendish didn’t win the final sprint along the Avenue du Champs Elysees in downtown Paris, but still he was still encircled by adoring fans along the historic avenue. Whatever disappointment he felt seemed to melt away, and he enjoyed the attention, smiling and signing autographs. At the time he was 28 and still dominating the Tour’s sprint stages, and the Merckx record seemed like an inevitability.

We now know that the record wasn’t predestined—but rather something Cavendish would spend the next 11 years chasing. And the struggles he endured to get back to the Tour’s winning circle, in my mind anyway, make his accomplishment all the more worthy of praise.

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It was all summed up in the excited, booming Dutch voice of IntermarchĂ©-Wanty teammate Mike Teunissen as he grasped stage 3 winner by the shoulders: “You make history! You know—it’s for Africa, for IntermarchĂ©. We’re so proud of you!” Yes, Girmay had just, indeed the first Black man from any continent, and also the first IntermarchĂ© rider, to win a stage of the . And he did it with the utmost skill and speed, first losing the wheels of his lead-out train around the last two turns and then, doing what his boyhood hero Mark Cavendish does so well, freelanced his way along the leeside of the other sprinters before making a late, full-speed acceleration to win by a clean bike length.

It was the victory of a true pro, a win that would make any seasoned European sprinter proud, let alone a rider from Eritrea, where the average per capita income is less than $1,000 a year. Indeed, his has been a long, quite remarkable, against-all-odds story.

Girmay grew up in Asmara, a city of 1 million people, with four brothers and a sister. “We lived in a small but nice house,” he told me last year. “The best part [was] that we can play in the streets in Asmara, there are not that many cars. After school we could play football for hours.” Because of the empty streets and the temperate climate—Asmara sits at 2,325 meters,7,628 feet, above sea level—the city has been called a cyclist’s paradise. Also, during 50 years of colonial rule, Italians made cycling a popular sport. Today, Eritrea has 1,000 licensed bike racers and about 100 races a year.

Girmay said his father got him into the sport: “Every Sunday we have a race in Asmara. Mostly I went with my father to see the races. If there was a grand tour on television, we watch in coffee bars or sometimes we go to the cinema to watch the Tour de France.” Besides cycling, his father insisted that his son learn English at school—“he imagined that it was one way of succeeding later on [in life].”

As part of a large family, Girmay’s first bike was a hand-me-down; then his dad bought him an “expensive” bike. Sometimes, they’d ride the ten kilometers to his dad’s carpentry business. When still in the junior ranks, Girmay said, “I started out in mountain biking at age 13 for two years before going on the road. I quickly became the No. 1 junior in the country.” He was helped by Meron Teshome, a good friend, who was the African time trial champion in 2017. “We still train together,” Girmay told me. “sometimes we go for a mountain bike ride in the mountains around Asmara.”

On Girmay’s first trip out of Eritrea, in 2018, for the African junior championships in Rwanda, he won three gold medals: the road race, time trial and team time trial. “The UCI were interested in me right away,” he said, “and wanted me to go to the World Training Centre in Switzerland, where I went before the summer,” and where he perfected his English.

At one of his first European junior races, the Tour de la VallĂ©e de la Trambouze in France, Girmay won the opening stage in a 20-strong uphill sprint. A week later, he won the opening stage of another junior race, Aubel–Thimister–Stavelot in Belgium, this time in a two-man breakaway ahead of another (very special) junior: Remco Evenepoel. In that first European foray, Girmay also took podium spots at races in Italy and Switzerland. Presciently, he said: “My dream is to one day start the Tour de France.”

Girmay was offered his first pro contract by the second-tier French team Delko Marseille after winning a Tour du Rwanda stage by out-sprinting Delko’s Rwandan, Joseph Areruya. Girmay went on to ride the 2019 Tour de l’Avenir. He was well down on GC but was fifth on the toughest alpine stage over the Col de la Croix de Fer to a mountaintop finish at Le Corbier. Recalling that under-23s stage race, Girmay said, “I remember the stages before—it was cold and rainy. The last stages, the weather was getting better, and I started to feel good. That’s why I tried to follow the GC guys in the last stage [and finished eight seconds ahead of overall race winner Tobias Foss]. I can’t say that I look forward to the mountain stages in the Tour de France, but I think the fans can help me get over the mountains.”

In 2020, at age 19, Girmay’s pro career began better than that of any previous Black cyclist from Africa, when he placed second in Italy’s Trofeo Laigueglia behind local standout Giulio Ciccone; he was also second at the Tour du Doubs and fourth at the Tour of Tuscany in that pandemic-shortened 2020 season. A year later, after transferring to the IntermarchĂ© team mid-season, he won his first European pro race, the hilly Classic Grand Besançon Doubs in eastern France, out-sprinting a five-man break that included Thibaut Pinot.

Three weeks (and five more races) after that outstanding victory, Girmay lined up for the 2021 under-23 worlds road race with 173 others. The 161-kilometer race was dominated by a strong Italian team that propelled Filippo Baroncini to the rainbow jersey; but just two seconds back it was Girmay who outkicked 32 others in the uphill sprint in Leuven to earn the silver medal—the first Black cyclist to podium at any world cycling championship. On his arrival back home, Girmay said, “I was proud to see all the former great champions come to congratulate me, notably Daniel Teklehaimanot and Natnael Berhane.”

Those Eritrean luminaries, along with thousands of fellow citizens, would again be out in the streets of Asmara in late March 2022 to welcome Girmay home after his . Leading up to that spring classic, Girmay raced 23 times in two months, taking one victory (at January’s Majorca Challenge) and six top-ten results. His most significant result came in his first monument, Milan-San Remo. He followed the best on the closing climbs, the Cipressa and Poggio, and rode into the finish with a second chase group to take 12th place.

Six days later, Girmay rode his first cobbled race as a pro, the E3 Saxo Bank Classic
and seemed right at home. When Wout van Aert and teammate Christophe Laporte made their winning attack on the ultra-steep Paterberg, Girmay was on the point of joining them before fading near the top. But he stayed with the eight-man chase and took fifth on the line. Ghent–Wevelgem was two days later.

Van Aert raced like the No. 1 favorite that day, breaking clear on the day’s last climb, the cobbled Kemmelberg. After being joined by two chase groups, the Belgian champion moved to Plan B by sending Laporte on the attack. Girmay immediately jumped on the Frenchman’s wheel, followed by Belgian veterans Jasper Stuyven and Dries Van Gestel. Working together, the four stayed clear. Laporte was tipped to win, but Girmay showed his tactical nous by staying at the back, jumping clear with 300 meters left and holding off the pursuing Frenchman.

Girmay returned to Asmara to a hero’s welcome with a parade through a packed downtown: “Bini! Bini! Bini!” the crowds chanted. And there were family celebrations with his wife Saliem, baby daughter Leila—and his jubilant dad. Girmay’s month back home was also an altitude camp, given Asmara’s high elevation. In a typical training ride, he’d descend to the Red Sea at Massawa, “where you can ride in the wind before climbing back 70 kilometers to Asmara,” he said. “I train with six others, maybe even 20 at times.” He returned to Europe for the Giro d’Italia, riding Germany’s Eschborn–Frankfurt classic five days before starting his first three-week stage race.

It’s now part of cycling history that Girmay was the first Black cyclist to win a stage of a grand tour on stage 10 of the 2022 Giro—though many people better remember that, as he was celebrating that victory, the cork from the oversized bottle of Prosecco . “The cork hit me in the eye at very high speed,” he said, “so it could have been much worse. For 10 days I was afraid I was going to lose it
. It was of course hard to leave the Giro with an injury.”

At the time, Girmay was upset by reactions on the web: “They continued to laugh about the situation on social media, to the point of forgetting that I won a stage.” And it was a tough stage, 196 kilometers from Pescara to Jesi. Half a dozen climbs in the last 80 kilometers split the peloton, and a full-out GC battle on the final hill left just 30 riders to contest the finish.

“It was a hard stage, but thanks to my teammates I could stay in contact with the front group,” Girmay remembered. “And even the GC guys helped me to control the group
and Pozzo did a great lead out.” That would be the veteran Italian Domenico Pozzovivo, a climber, who put his teammate in great position for the slightly uphill sprint. It quickly became a two-man battle between Girmay and Mathieu van der Poel—just like that 2022 Giro’s opening stage on a hilltop finish in Hungary, where the Dutch superstar outkicked the grand tour debutant by a bike length. This time, in Jesi, Girmay made a perfect sprint to win by several lengths. On crossing the line, a beaten van der Poel showed respect for his rival with an unexpected thumbs-up.

Then came the podium and the Prosecco cork shooting into Girmay’s face. He graciously continued the ceremony, waving to the crowd while holding a hand over his injured eye, before going to the hospital to have the hemorrhage treated. Girmay even celebrated that night with his teammates, who toasted him with glasses of bubbly.

Bad luck again plagued Girmay’s 2023 season, starting on April 2, his 23rd birthday. Five hours into the Tour of Flanders, as the race approached the Molenberg with Girmay in the fast-moving group of favorites two minutes behind the early break, the birthday boy touched wheels with Matej Mohoric. They both hit the tarmac. Riders crashed into and over Girmay at high speed. With a concussion and extensive abrasions, his race was over
and his plans for a smooth transition toward his first Tour de France were scuttled.

“I have no memories from the crash or even the trip to the hospital,” Girmay said from his home in Eritrea. “The recovery from the concussion in the days after the crash was quite okay. However, I had many severe wounds, making the recovery process very long.” Indeed, his team’s communications chief Sarah Inghelbrecht, who saw him in the hospital, told me, “He had deep wounds everywhere on his body. He had stitches in the face. A nurse or our team doctors came every day to take care of his wounds
10 days just to be healed enough to go home, that’s quite a long time.”

After two months off the bike, returned to racing only three weeks before his debut Tour. He did win a stage of the Tour de Suisse—ahead of Arnaud DĂ©mare and Wout van Aert—but he started the Tour de France with less than perfect form. He did finish his first Tour, with best placings of third at Bordeaux (behind Jasper Philipsen and Cavendish) and sixth in Paris. He has had better fitness this year, starting with a victory at Australia’s Surf Coast Classic in January. He returned to the Giro, got third place on stage 3 (behind Tim Merlier and Jonathan Milan), but then crashed twice of greasy roads on the next stage, and was again forced to pull out of the race.

He returned to racing in late May and had a strong of good results, with second place at the Rund um Köln, victory at the Circuit Franco-Belge in an uphill finish, and another second place at the Brussels Cycling Classic. He returned to Eritrea for his national championships (his sixth place showed how the standards are improving there) and he stayed there for more altitude training on his favorite roads.

Girmay doesn’t have a home in Europe. “Biniam’s home is basically where the team is,” Inghelbrecht said. “Sometimes he stays in our family hotels in Belgium
or in Italy with his cycling friends in Lucca. He has a long-term visa, which requires him to leave the Schengen zone [27 European countries] every three months. If Biniam returns to Asmara frequently, it’s because he wants it.”

Asked about his family, Girmay said, “I know my wife already for a long time. She loves life in Asmara [with our daughter], so we don’t plan to move to Europe. We didn’t apply for a visa. But maybe they come one time, maybe not.” What is certain is that his family, along with thousands of Eritreans, are now celebrating his historic stage win at Turin in this 111th Tour de France. It’s been a long journey.

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