{"id":719888,"date":"2026-07-30T22:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719888\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T22:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:41:12","slug":"gillespie-to-sit-out-tour-de-france-as-team-aims-for-overall-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719888\/","title":{"rendered":"Gillespie to sit out Tour de France as team aims for overall win"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Lara Gillespie has enjoyed a very strong seaon, but in a very hilly Tour de France, her team has opted for a general classification line-up (Photo: Thomas Braun)<\/p>\n

Lara Gillespie (UAE Team L\u2019IMAD) will sit out the Tour de France, a year after making her debut in the race after her team has named a selection set to target the general classification, rather than flat stages, at next week’s race.<\/p>\n

Though the UAE-backed team has looked to Italian veteran Elisa Longo Borghini for general classification results, its Spanish rider Paula Blasi is now one of the hottest properties in cycling; perhaps cycling’s breakthrough rider of the season, male or female.<\/p>\n

Blasi has already won a stage and the overall at La Vuelta this year, as well as Amstel Gold and a stage and the overall at CIC-Tour F\u00e9minin des Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es (2.Pro).<\/p>\n

She goes into this Tour as one of the favourites to win and then looks set to leave the team, a year early, for Movistar on a salary reported to be almost \u20ac1 million.<\/p>\n

Longo Borghini has won the Giro d’Italia twice and at the start of the season won UAE Tour, as well as taking a stage at the Giro and 4th overall.<\/p>\n

With world class general classification and climbing talent at its disposal – including Tour 2025 double stage winner Maeva Squiban – UAE Team L\u2019IMAD has opted for a general classification line-up.<\/p>\n

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That is no surprise considering this is set to be a very hilly edition of the Tour, one unsuited to a classics rider and sprinter like Gillespie.<\/p>\n

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Paula Blasi is perhaps cycling’s breakthrough rider of the season and, having already won La Vuelta, she has a strong chance of success at the Tour de France (Photo: Antonio Baixauli)<\/p>\n

Irish rider Gillespie told stickybottle early this year she would not be doing the Tour, and confirmed that during a recent round of interviews with Irish news publications.<\/p>\n

In Gillespie’s absence from the race, Ireland will still have two riders on the start list in Lausanne on Saturday; Mia Griffin (Picnic PostNL) and Fiona Mangan (Mayenne Monbana My Pie).<\/p>\n

Gillespie will look to the Tour of Britain, which starts in three weeks, as a main assignment for the latter half of the season, and will go into the race tipped for stage win success.<\/p>\n

She won both the TT and road race at last month’s National Road Championships in Co Mayo, before debuting her new Irish champion’s livery in Belgium Argenta Classic-Deurne (1.1), which she won in a bunch sprint.<\/p>\n

Last week, Gillespie rode Tour de Pologne, placing 2nd and 3rd and stage as well as 3rd overall, the best general classification result of her career.<\/p>\n

The UAE Team L\u2019IMAD lineup for the 2026 Tour de France Femmes is:\u00a0Dominika Wlodarczyk, Elisa Longo Borghini, Silvia Persico, Mavi Garcia, Maeva Squiban, Paula Blasi and Brodie Chapman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lara Gillespie has enjoyed a very strong seaon, but in a very hilly Tour de France, her team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-719888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}