Full Gas
Come Saturday 29th August 2020, 11 weeks after its original start date, the 107th Tour de France sets off from the cycling playground that is Nice on the south coast. Stage 1 is 156km long and contains a few punchy hills scattered along the route, but a lengthy downhill run-in to the finish should ensure that any speculative breakaways are reeled in and the peloton arrives back in Nice in one big bunch. This is a stage for the sprinters.
As a breed, sprinters are unique and they require a unique set of skills. They have to be physically capable of riding the same distances and climbing the same mountains as the rest of the peloton, and yet still have enough in the tank to be able to produce over 1,000 watts in the final 200m. They need to be able to plan race finishes with military precision and organise their troops, yet be tactically astute enough to change the gameplan at a moment’s notice while doing 70kmh inches from other riders. They also need to be fearless, charging headlong into a maelstrom of flesh and carbon that presents a very real chance of serious, even life-threatening, injury.
What does it take to be a sprinter? Cyclist talked to some of the world’s best to find out.
The training
‘We do sprint-specific work all year round, starting with the pre-Christmas training camp [which Cyclist attended in Mallorca, 2019],’ says arguably the strongest sprinter in the world right now, Caleb Ewan of Lotto-Soudal. ‘We practise
