Following a successful first part of the season, in which Tadej celebrated 7 victories in 14 days on competition (the last one was on April 27 at the Liege–Bastogne–Liege race) and a month and a half of competitive break, he returns to the races. Tomorrow he will start at the Critéruim du Dauphiné, the traditional rehearsal before the Tour. »We’ve just come off a really solid block of altitude training with the team and I’m feeling good. The legs are there, and the motivation is high. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to the Dauphiné and we’re excited to be there and racing again after many weeks of training all together. We have a very good ambience in the group, and we’re ready to pin on race numbers and show what we can do,« said Tadej before the eight-day test, in which he has only competed once before.
In the shortened five-day race in the corona season of 2020, he finished in 4th place, this time he will be chasing victory in extremely strong competition, as among many other strong riders, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick Step) will also be at the start. Last year they shared the Tour winners’ podium with Tadej and will likely be among his main competitors again this year.
At the Critéruim du Dauphiné, the tension will be rising in the fight for the yellow jersey i. »The first three stages will be varied and at times probably also nervous due to some narrow roads. In the fourth stage, there is a time trial, the first real test of readiness for the Tour de France. Then three alpine tests follow. The competition will be very strong, so we will see where everyone stands. According to the tests we conducted during the preparations, we are on the right track, but only the race will show how ready are we,« sports director Andrej Hauptman said about the plans of the UAE team, in which, in addition to Tadej, there will also be Jhonatan Narváez, Domen Novak, Nils Politt, Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler and Tim Wellens.