"Must prove himself": Buchmann's Tour participation questionable

Former overall fourth-placed Emanuel Buchmann must fear for his participation in the Tour de France starting on 1 July.

"Emu is on the long list. But he knows it himself. He has to prove himself for the Tour squad. Our goal is to ride the Tour with a sprinter. Some places are already taken anyway," said team boss Ralph Denk on the sidelines of the Giro d'Italia. Buchmann is still chasing his best performances this year.

"Emu is a really hard worker. It would be nice if he could build on the successes of 2019. We don't really have an explanation," added Denk, who is concerned about other German riders: "Buchmann, (Max) Schachmann and (Nils) Politt weren't as good as in the past in the spring. Everyone has their own story. It's just a shame to drop down in the national rankings."

The Bora-hansgrohe team is puzzling over the reasons for Schachmann's constant health setbacks. "He falls from one infection to the next and can't really get out of it," said Denk. Sprinter Sam Bennett from Ireland and classics rider Bob Jungels from Luxembourg have also hardly been able to show anything this spring due to illness.

"These are top performers, where it hurts when the direct debits arrive at the end of the month," said Denk, who does not want to think about salary adjustments: "Our philosophy is that you don't renegotiate. It would also destroy trust to a certain extent."

Copyright 2023, dpa (www.dpa.de). All rights reserved