Yates to compete at Giro d’Italia after route unveiled
SIMON Yates has confirmed his intention to race the Giro d’Italia this season after race organisers unveiled a favourable route.
The Italian Grand Tour will include six mountain-top finishes and only 38.4 kilometres of time trials, a balance which has offered encouragement to the 2018 Vuelta a Espana winner.
“The 2021 Giro route looks really nice, there’s a good mix of stages and there’s even some gravel roads thrown in for good measure,” Yates said. “As always with the Giro, the final week looks hard and with only a small amount of time trial kilometres I think that is where the race will be decided.”
The 28-year-old was waiting for the route to finalise his plans to target the Giro before racing at the Tour de France.
“The last two or three years haven’t gone as I would have hoped with a combination of bad luck and some mistakes along the way,” Yates added. “All I hope for is to have a clean run in 2021 without these things and that I can show myself in the best way possible.”
With the Giro route also including 34km of gravel roads on a stage to Montalcino in Tuscany, Yates said he will begin his season on March 6 at Strade Bianche.
THE Six Nations appeals panel, which started considering Zander Fagerson’s four-match suspension on Tuesday, finally delivered its verdict yesterday evening, but failed to fully clear up where the Scotland prop currently stands.
The panel upheld the suspension which was handed down after the prop was sent-off during Scotland’s round two clash against Wales on February 14, ruling that Fagerson’s shoulder had made contact with opposite number Wynn Jones’ head as he cleared out a ruck during the second half, and confirming that the offence merited a red card, but then ruled that the panel “had not given appropriate weight to the evidence before it about the matches to be covered by the period of suspension”.
The initial panel stated that Fagerson was “suspended for four weeks and, given his playing schedule, he will miss the three Scotland matches in the Guinness Six Nations Championship against France (February 28), Ireland (March
14) and Italy (March 20), and one further match to be determined.”
However, the appeal panel stated that Glasgow Warriors’ two matches against Ulster (February 19) and Zebre (March 6) on the Six Nations’ fallow weekends should count towards the ban alongside the France and Ireland matches, thus freeing Fagerson to play against Italy if selected.
If that was all pretty straightforward and clear-cut, then news that Scotland’s match against France was being postponed to a date yet to be decided threw a spanner in the works.
“Due to the postponement of the France v Scotland match, the Appeal Committee will have the opportunity to review Mr Fagerson’s playing schedule and consider the consequences of the postponement,” said a statement from Six Nations, which hardly cleared that matter up.