Tour de France shorts: “almost” a new sponsor for Giant?

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Giant-Shimano with “almost” a new sponsor

With the news that Team Belkin has apparently found one or two new sponsors for the coming year, ensuring that it will continue, attention has turned to Giant-Shimano. The other Dutch team that is also looking for new sponsors for 2015 and beyond.

They may have found it. In a column in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf said that team owner Iwan Spekenbrink “has almost secured a second sponsor”.

A team spokesman told Cyclingnews that a sponsor announcement would not be made today.

Bike producer Giant has already said that it would continue to be a sponsor, but the team continued to look for a secondary sponsor. Cyclingnews spoke to Spekenbrink who said that the team have a "number of options on the table" but that nothing had been signed yet.

Grivko riding for peace in Ukraine

Pro cyclists generally don’t take political stands, but Astana’s Andriy Grivko isn’t afraid to speak out on the situation in his native Ukraine. "I feel a bit alone to tell the truth but it's important that I'm here on the Tour to carry a message of peace," he told L'Equipe.

"Above and beyond my work for Vincenzo, I see my presence on the Tour as a mission,” said the only Ukrainian rider in the Tour de France.

His family still ives in the Crimea. "It's hard to concentrate on cycling when you know your family is still over there," he said. "I've tried to speak to them regularly since the start of the Tour. I found out my sister was fighting to refuse the Russian passport they're trying to impose on all inhabitants.”

"The Russian dictatorship is being implanted in my country while I'm pedaling the roads of France."

Devenyns heading home

Dries Devenyns is on his way home to Belgium, and doesn’t expect to return to racing action again until September. The Giant-Shimano rider crashed out of the Tour de France on Saturday’s stage 14.

"Dries Devenyns has a reasonable night behind the hospital Gap," team manager Aike Visbeek told Sporza.be. He suffered a concussion, which required him to be held in hospital overnight. He also had a minor collapsed lung, a fractured right shoulder blade, and an AC joint luxation, a dislocation of the joint between the collarbone and the shoulder blade. No surgery is expected.

The Belgian was to have been the team leader in the Clasica San Sebastian. “But there are still plenty of important races in September, which we are aiming at.”

He will be off the bike entirely for a week to ten days, and not expected to return to racing for five to six weeks.