{"id":7025,"date":"2024-07-19T14:24:30","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T12:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/?p=7025"},"modified":"2024-08-07T14:25:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T12:25:35","slug":"girmay-set-to-become-first-african-rider-to-win-a-grand-tour-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2024\/07\/19\/girmay-set-to-become-first-african-rider-to-win-a-grand-tour-jersey\/","title":{"rendered":"Girmay Set to Become First African Rider to Win a Grand Tour Jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>When Biniam Girmay crashed with 2km left to ride on stage 16 of the Tour de France, the race for the \u0160koda Green Jersey was transformed from a near-to-certain victory to a cliffhanger. The Eritrean\u2019s only rival for the points classification victory, Alpecin-Deceuninck\u2019s Jasper Philipsen, won that stage thanks to another powerhouse lead-out by world champion Mathieu van der Poel, and a lead that had been 86 points, 363 to 277, had melted to 32.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fortunately for Girmay, he was not injured in the crash and that was the last sprint to the finish left in the race. Only three intermediate sprints (IS) remained for Philipsen to defend the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2022\/07\/18\/its-exhausting-on-fighting-for-the-skoda-green-jersey-with-andre-greipel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u0160koda Green Jersey<\/a> he had won last year. It was also fortunate for the green jersey leader, who is a better climber than his rival, that the stage 17 IS came on a gentle ascent. He won the sprint easily, adding a point to his lead.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That left two intermediate sprints for sprinters remaining in the race, with the stage 20 IS coming midway up the category 1 Col de la Coliane (7.5km @ 6.9%), not long after the category 1 Col du Turini (20.8km @ 5,8%), therefore not intended or even possible for sprinters. As a result, if Philipsen wanted to take over the \u0160koda Green Jersey lead, he had to win or place second on both the stage 18 and stage 19 intermediate sprints, and hope that Girmay did not take any points.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, on stage 18, all the IS points were taken by a 36-rider breakaway, effectively ending the Belgian\u2019s chances for a green repeat. As it turned out, a big breakaway also took all the points on stage 19, with Bryan Coquard crossing the line first, securing his third place in the points classification standings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All Girmay now has to do is finish the race to claim a historic victory as the first Black rider to win a jersey in any Grand Tour race \u2013 and not just any race, the grandest of the three, <a href=\"http:\/\/letour.fr\">the Tour de France.<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, the 24-year-old Intermarch\u00e9-Wanty leader is conscious of the historic significance of his marvelous performance in this Tour. \u201cI just want to thank my family, my wife, all the Eritreans, and Africans,\u201d a weeping Girmay told journalists on July 1, after becoming the first Black African to win a Tour de France stage. \u201cWe must be proud; now we are part of the big races; now it\u2019s our moment, our time. I want to say congrats to my whole team because we didn\u2019t have a victory yet [in the Tour de France]. But now is our moment, and I\u2019m super happy. This win is for all Africans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He was more activist after winning his third Tour stage 10 days later. \u201cThis year I\u2019m the only Black rider in the peloton,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not nice, to be honest, so I wish there were more Black riders in the peloton.\u201d He added that by having greater diversity, road racing could finally become a true global sport and that he was \u201csuper happy to show and deliver so that cycling can be more global.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Girmay currently leads Philipsen by 387 points to 354, which will almost certainly be the final rankings. His final margin is small, but it will make a big noise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Biniam Girmay crashed with 2km left to ride on stage 16 of the Tour de France, the race for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":7047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-7025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-the-latest"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Girmay Set to Be The First Black Rider to Win a Grand Tour Jersey<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2024\/07\/19\/girmay-set-to-become-first-african-rider-to-win-a-grand-tour-jersey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Girmay Set to Become First African Rider to Win a Grand Tour Jersey\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Biniam Girmay crashed with 2km left to ride on stage 16 of the Tour de France, the race for [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2024\/07\/19\/girmay-set-to-become-first-african-rider-to-win-a-grand-tour-jersey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling - 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