{"id":759964,"date":"2026-06-25T19:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T19:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/759964\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T19:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T19:20:09","slug":"bahrain-victorious-loses-key-rider-before-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/759964\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain Victorious Loses Key Rider before the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/bahrain-victorious\" title=\"Bahrain Victorious\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bahrain Victorious<\/a> will not be able to count on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/pello-bilbao\" title=\"Pello Bilbao\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pello Bilbao<\/a> in the Tour de France. The 36-year-old Spaniard was set to ride his very last Tour de France, as he is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/basque-climber-and-leading-activist-pello-bilbao-36-to-retire-at-the-end-of-2026\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">retiring from professional cycling after this season<\/a>. However, a viral infection he contracted during the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes has thrown a wrench in his plans.The Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, formerly the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, has turned out to be quite a damaging race in retrospect. The French stage race was rife with serious crashes, with Oscar Onley (after falling into a ravine) among the major casualties. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/another-leadership-blow-for-ineos-oscar-onley-confirmed-out-of-the-2026-tour-de-france\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">He will miss the Tour de France<\/a>.Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) also took a hard fall and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/decathlon-cma-cgm-provide-update-after-seixas-dnf-the-pain-came-back\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">did not finish the race<\/a>. At Onley\u2019s Netcompany INEOS team, there are also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/netcompany-ineos-suffer-another-setback-before-tour-de-france-difficult-decision-but-health-comes-first\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">concerns about K\u00e9vin Vauquelin<\/a>, who fell ill after the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes.Iv\u00e1n Romeo, in turn, had already been ruled out by his Movistar team, also due to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/movistar-dealt-major-tour-de-flance-blow-as-spanish-champion-withdraws\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a severe case of the flu<\/a>. Of the 154 riders, only 91 ultimately finished the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes. Bilbao did make it to the finish in Nice, but fell ill after the race.<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n<p>Bilbao has only the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a left as a Grand Tour option<\/p>\n<p>It indicates that, of the 91 finishers in France, a handful of riders also fell ill. Bilbao was so badly affected that he lost too much of his fitness to compete well in the Tour de France. \u201cHe didn\u2019t recover in time to be selected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pello will now take a short break before he begins his preparation for his goals later this season,&#8221; said <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BHRVictorious\/status\/2070188364519641364?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2070188364519641364%7Ctwgr%5Eb74d458af470cdd0022127da0d69da69cfce8f0b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdashboard.indeleiderstrui.nl%2Fadmin%2Farticle%2F102233%2Fedit%3Fdraft%3D1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bahrain Victorious<\/a>. Bilbao is expected to compete in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, which will be his very last Grand Tour.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran has competed in seventeen Grand Tours so far in his career. In the Giro d&#8217;Italia, he finished fifth twice and sixth once. He also won two stages there. In the 2023 Tour de France, he also finished sixth and won a stage. He hasn\u2019t competed in the Vuelta since 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bahrain Victorious will not be able to count on Pello Bilbao in the Tour de France. The 36-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,173901,784,363020,85,346968],"class_list":["post-759964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bahrain-victorious","tag-cycling","tag-pello-bilbao","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}