2 weeks before the start of the Tour de France: the troubled peloton | Tour

On Friday July 1, the Tour de France starts with a time trial of 13.2 kilometers in Copenhagen.

That should be right up the alley of Filippo Ganna, who would finally make his Tour debut at the age of 25.

Note the conditional mood, because Ganna surprised friend and foe by announcing last Wednesday after his time trial victory in the Dauphiné that his selection for the Tour is not yet set in stone.

“We’ll see if I’ll be there in Copenhagen,” Ganna said in the flash interview. A slip of the tongue or is Ineos Grenadiers shaking his plans vigorously?

It may need to do that even more, because regular Michal Kwiatkowski left the Dauphiné with knee pain and in Switzerland Dylan van Baarle seems to be searching fruitlessly for his spring form.

To top it all off, Tour leader Adam Yates disappeared from the Swiss stage race on Thursday with a positive corona test. And substitute leader Dani Martinez also has homework.

The time trial in Copenhagen is almost the common thread in the doctor’s waiting room. Rohan Dennis was one of Ganna’s biggest competitors on paper, but Dennis’ participation is also hanging by a thread.

In January Jumbo-Visma said that Dennis was one of the 6 certainties for the Tour, but in the meantime that shortlist was actually adjusted to a longlist of 3 subscribers and 7 options.

The Dutch take into account bad luck, illness and corona and want to prepare a larger ensemble for the Tour.

A justified tactical intervention, as it turns out, because Dennis has been struggling with stomach and intestinal problems for several weeks.

The Australian had to break off his internship on the Sierra Nevada and fights a personal battle in Switzerland every day. During the opening ride, he even had to find a toilet on the side of the road.

Mike Teunissen and Nathan Van Hooydonck are also drumming for one of the last Tour cuttings, but their chances also got a blow after a corona infection in the Tour of Norway a few weeks ago.

Moreover, it seems as if Jumbo-Visma has a crystal ball: it left the Tour of Switzerland yesterday after an internal corona infection. That is a line through the plans of Tour candidates Dennis, Teunissen, Van Hooydonck and Sepp Kuss.

The Grand Départ on Danish territory was also supposed to be a three-day festival for Kasper Asgreen, but the Dane is highly uncertain after a heavy shift in the Tour de Suisse on Tuesday.

Asgreen, who was already sick in the days before Switzerland, is riddled with scrapes and burns, but his battered knee is a particular concern for the Danish speeder. On Wednesday he was examined in Herentals.

The time trial had become a semi-obsession for Asgreen, who had even rented an apartment in Copenhagen to study the circuit in detail.

His absence could be a serious blow through the account of Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl, as team boss Patrick Lefevere counted on the home driver to freeze a high classification in the first days, not a superfluous luxury with the order of the support cars in mind. the cobblestone stage of Wednesday 6 July.

At the team leaders meeting next Monday, the knot around Julian Alaphilippe must also be cut.

After his very heavy crash in Liège-Bastogne-Liège on April 24, the rehabilitation of the world champion went quite well, but is a 3-week training period on the Sierra Nevada enough to make it to the Tour? Alaphilippe would make his comeback at the French road championship next Sunday.

Trial and error, you no longer have to teach Enric Mas the tricks of the trade. In Tirreno-Adriatico, the Tour of the Basque Country and the Dauphiné, the Spanish leader of Movistar lost a good classification time and again due to a crash.

Mas continues to smile as he always does, but his battered left shoulder once again forced him to dismount early. Fixing work is needed, presumably not just physically.

Benoît Cosnefroy ignored the preparation race in his homeland, but does not bake anything in the Swiss oven.

The French puncher should have been a guarantee in the hill stages in recent days, but – sweating like a cow – is invariably among the early releases in the pack.

The Swiss sweat also seems to paralyze a volatile Ion Izagirre and Marc Soler, Gino Mäder even gave up due to dehydration.

Chris Froome dropped out in the Dauphiné en corona has also reached the DSM camp: Søren Kragh Andersen, Cees Bol in Casper Pedersen are out. UAE and EF-EasyPost also share in the blow.

And finally, do we see the recovering Simon Yates and Miguel Angel Lopez even set foot on Danish soil after their retirement in the Giro?