Cycling

Defending champion Egan Bernal says pain from a back injury is bothering him on the eve of the Tour de France. However, the Colombian was forced to withdraw early from the Criterium du Dauphine on 15 August with a bad back. “I hope during the Tour to be working hard and trying to recover, especially

“Nobody knows” if the Tour de France will reach the finish on 20 September following an increase in coronavirus cases in the country, says Ineos Grenadiers boss Sir Dave Brailsford. The three-week race, originally set to start on 27 June, gets under way on Saturday in Nice – one of 19 new regions to be

Sport just isn’t the same without fans. Even the Champions League final didn’t seem to matter as much. A lack of occasion repeated across all major stadia, racing circuits and golf courses this summer. So the delayed Tour de France this year has an important role to play. Following the inevitable postponement from its original

Sir Dave Brailsford says his relationship with Chris Froome is “as good as ever” despite leaving him out of Team Ineos’ Tour de France squad. The rescheduled Tour begins on Saturday in Nice and runs until 20 September. “We have given Chris a bit longer to continue his recovery,” team principal Brailsford told BBC Breakfast.

The Tour de France will travel for 21 days around a whole country, passing through towns and cities and thousands of people. Normally you would expect plenty of people along the route, packed in squares, millimetres away from the riders at the tops of climbs. Less of this will happen in 2020, a year which

McLaren will end its title sponsorship of cycling team Bahrain McLaren, the team Mark Cavendish rides for, at the end of the 2020 season. The British company, which also builds supercars, will return its focus to motorsport. In June McLaren agreed a £150m loan with the National Bank of Bahrain, to ease cash-flow problems related

The manager of German-based cycling team Bora-Hansgrohe has raised concerns about the validity of the coronavirus testing that will be used at the Tour de France, which starts on Saturday. Ralph Denk withdrew his team from Tuesday’s Bretagne Classic because of a ‘false positive’ test result. One of his riders was told they had tested

Lizzie Deignan clinched a third GP de Plouay title as she led home fellow Briton Lizzy Banks in miserable conditions in Brittany. Deignan, 31, was too strong for Banks in a sprint to the line with Italy’s Chiara Consonni finishing third. With the one-day race now in its 19th edition, Deignan is the only woman

Britain’s Mark Cavendish has been left out of Bahrain McLaren’s Tour de France squad. It is the second year in a row the 35-year-old has missed the Tour, having not been selected by previous team Dimension Data in 2019. The sprinter has won 30 Tour stages, four short of Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 victories.

Any team that returns two positive coronavirus tests within a week during the Tour de France will be removed from the race, say organisers. This year’s delayed three-week race starts on Saturday, 29 August and runs until 20 September. Riders and team staff will be in a bubble from the day they arrive in Nice

Britain’s Adam Yates will leave Mitchelton-Scott to join Team Ineos from next year. The 28-year-old has signed for the British team on a two-year deal. It means he will no longer race for the same team as twin brother Simon, who on Wednesday signed a new two-year deal to stay with the Australian outfit Mitchelton-Scott.

Team Ineos rider Pavel Sivakov wants the UCI to rethink race barrier safety following the “scary” crash which left sprinter Fabio Jakobsen in a coma. “I hope the UCI will rethink security measures for the riders because that kind of thing shouldn’t happen,” said the 23-year-old. Deceuninck Quick Step rider Jakobsen will require several facial

Britain’s Adam Yates is set to battle for stage wins rather than focusing on the general classification standings at this year’s Tour de France. The 28-year-old has been selected in Michelton-Scott’s eight-man line-up for the Tour’s start on 29 August. Yates will “approach his first Grand Tour in several years without general classification ambitions” say

Britain’s Simon Yates signs a new two-year deal to stay with Mitchelton-Scott, the team with whom he won the 2018 Vuelta a Espana. The 28-year-old had been linked with a move away after a takeover bid for the team fell through earlier this year. “The journey with the team has been great so far. I’ve

Chris Froome has been left out of Team Ineos’ Tour de France squad. There had been some doubt four-time winner Froome had the form to make the squad following injuries from a crash a year ago. Geraint Thomas, who won in 2018, also misses out, with the team focusing on last year’s winner Egan Bernal

Italy’s Mattia Cattaneo became the fourth Deceuninck-Quick Step rider to suffer a major accident in two weeks as he crashed at the Giro dell’Emilia. Cattaneo, 29, has a fractured vertebra but will not need surgery and must rest for six to eight weeks. Team-mate Fabio Jakobsen was badly injured in a crash at the Tour

Fabio Jakobsen will require “multiple facial surgeries” after his crash at the Tour of Poland, but says he is “glad to be alive”. The Deceuninck Quick Step rider was involved in a horrifying crash during a sprint finish two weeks ago. He was pitched through a barrier and into spectators following a tangle with Jumbo

Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel has vowed to come back stronger after his crash during Saturday’s Il Lombardia race. The 20-year-old suffered a fractured pelvis when he crashed on a descent, striking the wall of a bridge before somersaulting on to his back and over the edge. The Deceuninck-Quick-Step rider was flown home from Italy on