Dan Martin will definitely not share team leadership at the Tour de France with Fabio Aru. The Italian has confirmed he will not ride the race.
Dan Martin will not share Tour team leadership with Fabio Aru
Just days after the Italian media reported Fabio Aru would skip the Tour de France; the rider has confirmed the news himself.
And he has also said he will not ride the Italian national championships. That race, which he won last year, is on this weekend.
After winning the title 12 months ago Aru went on to take a stage at the Tour. Furthermore, he held the yellow jersey for two stages and was 5th overall.
The fact he is not riding the Tour de France appears to be good news for Dan Martin. The Irish rider signed for UAE Team Emirates specifically to be leader at the Tour.
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Aru is also a new signing this year. And while the Giro was always presented as his main goal, the team refused to rule him out of the Tour.
That raised the prospect of Martin being force to share team leadership at on the race.
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But Aru abandoned the Giro last month having endured a poor performance. And he has now said he has physical problems he must resolve before he races again.
It means he misses the Italian nationals and the Tour. But he intends to be back for the Vuelta and World Championships.
He said he really wanted to ride the Tour but needed a rest. Gluten intolerance was at the root of his dismal Giro showing, he believed.
“I only made it to stage 19 thanks to my mental strength and desire to fight on,” he said of that race.
“In truth, I had about an hour of riding in me. In the final stages of the Giro I felt empty, swollen and lacking energy.
“I was retaining liquids and never felt good. I’ve rarely given up in races. I know how to suffer and hope that things get better.
“This time things just got worse and my Giro turned into a nightmare.
“I discovered intolerance to gluten three years ago. But I never really got to the bottom of it.
“Perhaps I didn’t feel the effects until this year,” Aru said, adding he had also spent too much time at altitude and trained too hard before the Giro.
As a result he now plans to spend less time away training. Instead, he will stay home for longer periods but race more.
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