For the first time in history, three Quebec cyclists will take part in the Tour de France. In addition to Hugo Houle and Antoine Duchesne, Guillaume Boivin is called in to replace a potentially positive COVID-19 teammate.
Posted at 11:50 a.m.
Three days after his second place at the Canadian championships in Edmonton, Boivin has already arrived in Copenhagen to be at 109e start of the Tour, which will be given on Friday in the city center. He will accompany his team to the official presentation on Thursday evening in Tivoli Gardens.
His team, Israel-Premier Tech (IPT), announced Wednesday that the Quebecer would take the place of the Israeli Omer Goldstein, deemed a “high-risk contact” by management. The presence of South African veteran Daryl Impey is also considered uncertain.
This will be Boivin’s second participation in the biggest cycling event in the world. Last year, the sprinter joined Paris at 105e overall rank. The 33-year-old athlete, ninth in Paris-Roubaix last year, was accompanied by Hugo Houle, who was then driving for Astana and with whom he then competed in the Tokyo Olympics.
First substitute for IPT, the Canadian champion of 2021 was very disappointed to miss the selection of the Israeli-Canadian formation. His participation in the Critérium du Dauphiné, a preparatory stage race, had been canceled so that he could line up in lesser races in Belgium. IPT made this decision to accumulate UCI points and avoid relegation from the WorldTour category next year.
Boivin and Houle will wear the colors of IPT, as will Michael Woods, originally from Ottawa, but who now has a residence in the Gatineau region. For his part, Duchesne will line up with Groupama-FDJ for his second Tour after that of 2016.
David Veilleux is the first native of Quebec to have taken part in the Tour de France in 2013. Pierre Gachon, a native of Paris who emigrated to Quebec as a teenager, is the first Canadian to have started in 1937.
The seventh wave of COVID-19 and its many variants in Europe have teams fearing the worst with 48 hours to go. Most of them hold their opening press conference virtually. Ag2R-La Mondiale was one of the few teams to show up at the press center, but the riders all wore an N95 type mask. The Luxembourger Bob Jungels, suspected case, stayed at the hotel.
After a 13.2 km time trial on Friday, the next two stages will also be presented in Denmark. The peloton will transfer to Dunkirk on Monday for the fourth stage.