South Africans chasing glory at the Tour de France

Eighteen years since Robbie Hunter became the first South African to ride the Tour de France, two of his countrymen and one SA  team will represent the nation at the 106th edition of La Grande Boucle.

Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) and Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg (Team Dimension Data) will line up for the first stage in Brussels for their seventh and fifth Tours respectively, each hoping to become the second South African after Hunter to win a stage as an individual.

Impey has a stage win to his name, the team time trial on the fourth stage in 2013, a win that set him up to eventually pulling on the leader’s jersey for the sixth and seventh stages. Impey goes into the Tour as the leader of an Australian team that has been built around supporting Englishman Adam Yates as he attempts to win the race.

“Daryl will be our captain on the road,” said Matt White, head sports director at Mitchelton-Scott, of the team selection. “He is the oldest and most experienced, and he is no stranger to the Tour de France and how we operate and I have a lot of faith in him and his decision-making.

"Besides being a super teammate, and one that has been part of many of our successes over the years, he is a guy that can be looking for opportunities throughout the month for a stage win.”

Those opportunities will come on some of the “lumpy” stages in one of the toughest Tours in years. Just seven of the 21 stages are designated “flat” with five described as “hilly” by the organisers.

Ryan Gibbons, Team Dimension Data’s young South African rider who took three top 10 places in the Giro d’Italia in May and is being groomed as a future Tour competitor, said some of those stages could suit Impey, Janse van Rensburg and his Norwegian teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen.

“While there are just a handful of pure sprint stages, most of them have a bit of a kick in the final with a bit of a hill towards the end,” said Gibbons. “I like stage three. Eddy [Boasson Hagen] is in great form after the Criterium du Dauphine where he won a stage and wore the yellow jersey. Some of those stages are made for him.”

Steve Cummings, the Liverpudlian who won two stages for Dimension Data in 2015 and 2016, is another who will fancy the “bumpy” stages.  Impey finished second behind him on the seventh stage in 2016.

Dimension Data took the big, and somewhat controversial decision to leave out their star sprinter Mark Cavendish from their eight-man team, which the Brit said left him “heart-broken”.

Doug Ryder, the team principal, made the final call on the omission of the rider who has won 30 stages at the Tour. Ryder said the team was built on being opportunistic, which meant not committing riders to a lead-out team for Cavendish in the final sprint. His team is one equipped to recognise and exploit the big moments.