Live

LIVE: OTB Breakfast

07:30 AM-10:00 AM

LIVE: OTB Breakfast
Advertisement
Other Sports

Irish rider Dunbar earns Giro spot

Eddie Dunbar has earned a late call-up to ride in this year's Giro D'Italia. It will be the Cork ...



Irish rider Dunbar earns Giro...
Other Sports

Irish rider Dunbar earns Giro spot

Eddie Dunbar has earned a late call-up to ride in this year's Giro D'Italia. It will be the Cork native's first appearance on a Grand Tour.

Dunbar replaces Egan Bernal in the Team INEOS squad. Bernal was forced to withdraw after suffering a broken collarbone in training last week.

A former rider for the now defunct Team Aqua Blue, Dunbar has been in superb form of late. On Sunday, he completed a third-place finish at the Tour de Yorkshire. Starting Sunday's final stage in 9th on general classification, Dunbar was close to claiming the overall win before helping team-mate Chris Lawless take the win. That performance in Leeds came on the heels of a 7th place finish in the Tour La Provence.

With no Geraint Thomas or defending champion Chris Froome, the former Team Sky will be led by Pavel Sivakov and Tao Geoghegan Hart. Team Principal David Brailsford says his young team can challenge in Italy over the next three-weeks, despite the loss of Bernal, "Egan’s injury is a real shame as he was to lead the team in a Grand Tour for the first time. However, I’m sure he will be fighting fit come July."

The 2019 edition of the Giro D'Italia gets underway on Saturday with an 8.2km individual time trial around the streets of Bologna. Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) are the only former winners of the race in this year's field.

 

Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!

Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.


Read more about

Chris Froome Cycling Dave Brailsford Eddie Dunbar Geraint Thomas Giro D'Italia Tom Dumoulin Tour De France Vincenzo Nibali