Welsh teen Matondo’s the quickest City slicker
SOUTH African Daryl Impey won the first stage of the Criterium du Dauphine in a sprint finish.
The Mitchelton-Scott rider, 33, beat Julian Alaphilippe and Pascal Ackermann on the 179km stage from Valence to Saint-Just-SaintRambert.
Team Sky’s Michal Kwiatkowski, who won Sunday’s prologue, finished in the group on the same time and leads Impey overall by two seconds.
Britons Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates remain 21 seconds behind Kwiatkowski.
“I didn’t feel too good,” said Impey. “I surprised myself. I found myself in a good position and decided to go.”
Thomas is leading Team Sky in the absence of compatriot Chris Froome, who won the Giro d’Italia in May.
Froome has won the past three editions of the Dauphine.
Tuesday’s second stage takes the riders 180.5km from Montbrison to Belleville.
The eight-day race, which is regarded as a measure of riders’ form before July’s Tour de France, finishes on Sunday.
Having won the Critérium du Dauphiné five times in the past seven editions (with Bradley Wiggins in 2011 and 2012 and Chris Froome in 2013, 2015 and 2016), Team Sky lined up for the first time since 2011 without their designated leader for the Tour de France.
“The Dauphiné is an important race and it’s always important to win”, said sport director Servais Knaven.
“We have a good team but it won’t be easy to control the race with all the top mountain finishes suitable for climbers to get a lot of time back.
“It would be nice to win the Dauphiné with Thomas or Kwiatkowski before the Tour.” MANCHESTER City aren’t just champions, they also have perhaps the quickest two players in the Premier League in their team in Kyle Walker and Leroy Sane.
But even those two top speedsters have been left stunned after realising they are NOT even the fastest players at the club.
The honour, instead, goes to largely unknown Welsh teenager Rabbi Matondo, who wowed manager Pep Guardiola as the champions held their end-of-season tests.
According to a report in the Sun, the 17-year-old winger set a new record for a 20-metre sprint with a time of just 2.62 seconds... eclipsing the figure achieved by first-team speedsters Walker, Sane and Raheem Sterling.
Guardiola timed the players before they went away on their summer break and was wowed by Matondo’s efforts.
Matondo is from Cardiff and was viewed as the brightest prospect to emerge through the Bluebirds’ Academy since Aaron Ramsey.
Cardiff were loathe to lose him, but the pulling power of Manchester City swayed the day. Manchester United were also interested.
Matondo has been part of the same young Wales side from which Ben Woodburn and Ethan Ampadu emerged, and is seen by the Welsh age-grade set-up as having something different to the rest of the players with his trickery and pace down the flank.
He has already been elevated into the Wales Under-21 team and is on the radar of senior team boss Ryan Giggs, who was a similar type of player.
Guardiola is keeping a close eye on Matondo’s development at Man City, the Welsh teen having shone for the under-18 and under-23 sides.
Like Woodburn, Ampadu and David Brooks he is another of the Welsh young guns to have dual qualification because of Liverpool roots, but appears to be set on the red of the dragon.
Meanwhile Sane has been omitted from Germany’s World Cup squad.
The 22-year-old was named the PFA young player of the season after a superb campaign in which his contributions to City winning the Premier League title were significant, but it has not been enough for him to travel to Russia.
He was included in manager Joachim Low’s initial 27-strong provisional squad but it was unexpectedly announced on Monday morning that he had been cut alongside Bernd Leno and Jonathan Tah of Bayer Leverkusen, and Freiburg’s Nils Petersen.
Sane’s omission also comes despite 14 goals during the past season and is proving even more of a shock amid the inclusions of Marco Reus, who has long struggled with injuries that meant him missing the past World Cup and Euro 2016, and Leverkusen’s Julian Brandt.
He had even played the opening 67 minutes of Saturday’s 2-1 friendly defeat by Austria.
Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who on Saturday returned from nine months out injured, is therefore among those retained, as are Sane’s fellow Premier League representatives Antonio Rudiger, Ilkay Gundogan and Mesut Ozil.
That the 32-year-old Neuer has been included means he is expected to remain as captain, and first-choice goalkeeper, ahead of Barcelona’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen.