Cycling: Freire off Tour de France

PARIS: Top Spanish sprinter Oscar Freire will not race this year’s Tour de France as his Dutch team Rabobank focus on the yellow jersey ambitions of all-rounder Robert Gesink, according to a report. Freire is a former three-time world road race champion who won the Tour de France green jersey for the race’s points competition in 2008. However, the Sporza.be website quoted Freire as saying he would not race this year’s edition as Rabobank put all their resources into Gesink, who is considered an outside bet for the race’s yellow jersey. “I won’t be going to the Tour,” Freire told the Dutch newspaper NUsport.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2011.