Thomas and Sagan head to Shanghai

October 11 ^th 2018 - 14:33

The second Tour de France Skoda China Criterium will take place on the grounds of the Expo 2010 in Shanghai on 17 November. Yellow jersey Geraint Thomas, green jersey Peter Sagan and white jersey Pierre Latour will bring down the curtain on their 2018 season in the largest city in China. Joining the three distinctive jerseys of the Tour de France will be Romain Bardet, sixth overall and best French rider in the July race, as well as Marcel Kittel and European champion Matteo Trentin.

Shanghai will set the stage for the grand finale of the season. The Chinese city will again roll out the red carpet for the stars of the Tour de France in their final outing before starting to prepare the 2019 season. About four months after parading around the Champs-Élysées at the end of the final stage, Geraint Thomas will pull on the yellow jersey in the heart of Shanghai to cap what has been his most successful season to date, in which he also won the Critérium du Dauphiné. In China, the Welsh rider will clash with some of the protagonists of last summer, including Peter Sagan, who also stepped onto the podium after claiming his sixth green jersey.

White jersey Pierre Latour, thirteenth overall and best young rider in the Tour, and his AG2R leader Romain Bardet, sixth overall in the Tour and silver medallist in the Worlds in Innsbruck, Austria, are also heading east. Among the other big names of the July race, Marcel Kittel has no fewer than fourteen stage wins under his belt, while European champion Matteo Trentin has two. It’s twice less than what is on Luis Leon Sanchez resume, who had made himself a specialist of barouder stages with downhill finish between 2008 and 2012. Time to head to Shanghai!

Main contenders (as of 11 October)
Team Sky : Geraint Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Owain Doull, Jonathan Castroviejo
AG2R La Mondiale : Romain Bardet, Pierre Latour, Alexis Vuillermoz, Axel Domont
Katusha-Alpecin : Marcel Kittel, Rick Zabel, Nils Politt, Marco Mathis
Bohra-Hansgrohe : Peter Sagan, Juraj Sagan, Erik Baska, Daniel Oss
Bahrain-Merida : Sonny Colbrelli, Antonio Nibali, Giovanni Visconti, Meiyin Wang
Astana : Jakob Fuglsang, Tanel Kangert, Alexey Lutsenko, Luis Leon Sanchez
Mitchelton-Scott : Matteo Trentin, Mathew Hayman, Luka Mezgec, Carlos Verona