Eddie Dunbar has gotten the call up for the Team Sky line-up for Amstel Gold this weekend.
The Irish rider had been flying in the early races of the season only to be derailed by a crash in Portugal.
But Team Sky clearly feels he's fully back on form and has included him in its Amstel Gold line-up.
While Dunbar has ridden the race before, this weekend will be very different as Team Sky will be aiming to win the classic.
The 22-year-old Irishman is named in the team with 2015 Amstel Gold winner Michał Kwiatkowski.
Also selected are: David De la Cruz, Michal Golas, Wout Poels, Diego Rosa and Dylan van Baarle.
Dunbar rode Amstel Gold, with Aqua Blue Sport, last year. He surged clear in the breakaway and spent most of the 263km race, which featured 38 climbs, up the road.
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He was caught by the group of favourites behind with 17km remaining; Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) leading the group past the Irish rider.
However, despite riding as hard as he did, Dunbar didn’t
fold. He got in with a large group and finished in 81st at 3:26.
It was a spectacular debut at WorldTour level and one he learnt
a huge amount from. Not only did he ride in the escape; he looked very strong
and, crucially, finished the race.
Indeed, Eddie Dunbar and Larry Warbasse were the only two Aqua Blue riders to finish on the day.
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Amstel Gold is on Sunday and takes the riders on a 265.7km course starting in Maastricht and finishing Berg en Terblijt; a course littered with punchy climbs all day.
Dunbar had enjoyed a very strong start to the season at Tour de la Provence back in February. He made the select group on all of the hilly stages and was one of the race’s main animators.
Indeed, on the final stage he made a very impressive late attack in a bid to win the stage and was only caught in the last kilometre.
He finished 7th overall and was 2nd in the young rider classification. Dunbar also assumed team leadership during the race; a very significant development so early in his tenure with Team Sky.
He came out of the French stage race looking like a big win was imminent. But then he went to Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta (2.HC) and suffered misfortune.
During the opening stage of that race in late February he crashed hard and was forced to spend a full five weeks away from racing action.
It was a disastrous stroke of bad luck for him, especially as he had looked so strong in France.
But he returned to racing action at Coppi e Bartali (2.1) in Italy last month, which should have sharpened him up again.
And though the final stage was almost three weeks ago,
Team Sky clearly believes he’s in great shape and so have called him up for
Amstel Gold.
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