Digest CYCLING
IRISHMAN Dan Martin will target pink at the Giro d’Italia in May as he makes his first return to the Italian Grand Tour since a brief and miserable experience in 2014.
Martin has raced in the Giro only twice, finishing 57th early in his career in 2010, before crashing out in the opening team time trial of the 2014 edition when it began in Belfast.
“It feels like unfinished business there as, well, I guess everybody knows the story,” the Israel Start-Up Nation rider said.
“I arrived at the start in Belfast in excellent form and crashed out halfway through the TTT in stage one. It was tough for me to watch the race that year, but I have always been a huge fan of the [Giro].
“After completing it in 2010, it has just never fit with my goals or the team’s ambitions since then for me to be at the Ardennes classics and the Tour.”
Martin has prioritised the Tour de France every season since 2014, recording three consecutive top 10 finishes between 2016 and 2018. He intends to be on the start-line again in July, riding alongside new team-mate Chris Froome.
ATHLETICS
TEAM GB racewalker Tom Bosworth believes it will take winning an Olympic medal in Tokyo to surpass his experience of the last Games in Rio.
And the 31-year-old is grateful that the global showpiece was delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic after catching the virus left him feeling like he’d been “run over by a bus – twice”.
“There was no way I would have been competing last summer if they went ahead, it would have been gutting,” said Bosworth, who had set British records over 5km and 10km before falling ill last year.
“I messaged the doc saying I think I’ve got it, I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus, twice. And last week I was in the form of my life, what on earth is going on?
“I felt normal again by the end of April so May was pretty steady training, but that left me again feeling I was really really broken by the end of it.
“I’m glad those Games were cancelled because it did take that pressure off really rushing back because I could have probably done myself more damage.”
Bosworth came out in 2015 and is currently the only openly gay male athlete on the British athletics team. And having proposed to his boyfriend Harry on Copacabana beach after finishing sixth in the 20km walk in Rio, it is no surprise that Tokyo will be a hard act to follow.
“Even if the Games had been totally normal, for me personally, bar winning a medal there’s not much more that can top Rio,” Bosworth added. “It was the best 10 weeks of my life and I loved it.”