The Coffee Ride: Roaming Peter Sagan’s meeting with Pope after Tour Down Under
GET your Coffee Ride fix every day during the Tour Down Under as Reece Homfray and Val Migliaccio find the best of what’s brewing behind the scenes.
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MEETING THE POPE
WHERE do you go and who do you meet when you’re the biggest superstar in world cycling?
The Vatican and the Pope of course.
Peter Sagan’s entourage has confirmed to The Coffee Ride that he will travel to Rome to meet Pope Francis when the Tour Down Under finishes on Sunday night.
Given he’s already won the past three world championships and has six green jerseys from the Tour de France, it’s a frightening prospect for the peloton that he may be about to receive even more divine intervention.
NO STOPPING STORER
FIRST-year Australian professional Michael Storer is clearly a tough cookie.
The 20-year-old has his appendix removed in hospital in Adelaide on Monday night and is set to start the Tour Down Under this morning.
Storer, from Perth, rode the TDU with UniSA-Australia last year and has signed a pro contract with Team Sunweb to work with Australian director Luke Roberts.
He rode the national championship road race on Sunday and finished the 186km epic after helping teammate Chris Hamilton right until the final lap but began experiencing pain when he arrived in Adelaide the following day.
“When he arrived in Adelaide he had a bit of abdominal pain and we got the doctors to check it out, and it turned out it was an appendicitis,” Roberts said.
“So he had the operation on Monday night to take the appendix out, and the surgeons and a couple of other doctors are confident he can start on Tuesday so we’ll give him the opportunity to kick off his season in Adelaide and begin his pro career.
“He’s bounced back well, we decided to rest him from the crit last night to give him the extra day without any intensity and we expect the first stage of the race won’t be so intense.
STOP THAT CAR
Uh oh... Hopefully this guy isn’t racing @tourdownunder 😳 pic.twitter.com/8bbPIxYkWu
— Richie Porte (@richie_porte) January 10, 2018
RICHIE Porte thinks he’s solved the mystery of who took his Strava records on Old Willunga Hill this week.
Porte posted a picture of his Strava notifications on the weekend informing him that his KOM on the iconic hill had just been beaten by wait for it ... 6mins 58secs.
“Uh oh hopefully this guy isn’t racing @tourdownunder,” Porte wrote on Twitter.
Asked whether he’d found out who knocked him off top spot on the weekend, Porte said:
“Yeah I think it was a car.”
It seems the Strava menace has been busy with Luke Roberts also revealing one of his KOM’s had been smashed as well
GOT TO HAND IT TO HIM
UNFORTUNATE luck for Team Sky rider Kristoffer Halvorsen who crashed on debut for the team in Sunday’s People’s Choice Classic and will miss the TDU when it starts today.
Halvorsen hit the barrier in the finishing straight of the 51km criterium and scans later revealed a fractured hand.
“I was coming from behind on the right side. A few of the guys started going to the right and I ran out of space. I went into the barriers. If I hadn’t broken my hand it would have been OK - I have hardly any scratches on me.”
SURGERY FOR STEWART
THE women’s peloton didn’t escape the damage either from crashes during the week with Tasmanian track cyclist Macey Stewart’s Stage 1 fall proving more serious than she first thought.
Stewart crashed in the final 5km of Stage 1 at Gumeracha last Thursday and was initially ruled out of the rest of the race with concussion. But her recovery could now be longer than expected.
“Turns out things were a little more serious than first thought after my crash on Thursday. Now in a moon boot and awaiting plastic surgery on my eye socket within the next week or so ... I don’t have much to say right now other than I’ll write a f***ing good autobiography one day,” she posted on social media.
TWEET OF THE DAY
I dedicate my first victory of the year to my son Marlon and my wife Kate. They might be thousands of kilometres away from me but they are always in my heart.
- Peter Sagan after winning the People’s Choice Classic on Sunday night.
Originally published as The Coffee Ride: Roaming Peter Sagan’s meeting with Pope after Tour Down Under