South African Ryan Gibbons hopes to take his chances in the sprint stages during the seven-day Volta a Catalunya, which starts in Calella, Spain, today.
Gibbons has had a strong start to the season when he racked up two top-10 finishes at the Tour Down Under in January.
South African Ryan Gibbons (pictured) hopes to take his chances in the sprint stages during the seven-day Volta a Catalunya this week. Photo: Getty Images
He followed the season’s first WorldTour race up with a fourth in the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race the following week.
Only Daryl Impey got the better of him in the SA national road champs in Pretoria in February on a course that did not play to his strengths.
Last month, the DiData sprinter collected three more top-10 stage finishes at the Tour of Oman before narrowly missing out on the podium in the African road champs road race last week.
Team Dimension Data will hope that Gibbons’ consistency will lead to a better pay-off in the Spanish tour.
“I’m looking forward to a good week here,” said Gibbons. “It’s been a while since my last race and I’m eager to see how the form is after a solid start to the season.
“It’s a very strong field here this year, but we have a good group of climbers and I’m confident I’ll be in the mix on the sprint stages.
“The weather is also forecast to be pretty good, so fingers crossed it stays that way and we can have a successful week here in Spain.”
Australian Ben O’Connor will most likely be DiData’s go-to rider in terms of the general classification after placing 11th last year.
“It’s going to be a really hard week in terms of the parcours,” O’Connor predicted.
“Last year I surprised myself when I finished 11th, so it’s a main aim now to try and get into the top 10.
“The group we have is super strong, with Ryan also our man for the few sprints.”
He added that this tour would offer a good gauge ahead of the Giro d’Italia, which starts in May.
“It’s one of the main goals going through into the Giro, so it will be great to come out of this with smiles, some results and boxes ticked.”
Team line-up:
Ben O’Connor
Ryan Gibbons
Jacques Janse van Rensburg
Enrico Gasparatto
Danilo Wyss
Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier
Gino Mader
