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Nacer Bouhanni's Tour de France dreams are over, after surgery on his hand ruled him out. The reason he needed this surgery? Fighting some drunk people at his hotel before the French championships, last Saturday. This is another in a series of incidents with the Cofidis sprinter, on the bike, and off it. None of it, I gather, is endearing him to the general public.
Bouhanni will be replaced on he Cofidis lineup by Nicolas Edet, who though a respected rider - with the Vuelta's climbing jersey to his name - can't hope to have the impact on the Tour de France Bouhanni seemed set to have, winning sprints all year for Cofidis, and aiming for his first Tour stage after crashing out of two Tours de France.
INFO #TDF2016 Nacer Bouhanni forfait pour le Tour de France, @NicoEdet le remplace. Toutes les explications ici https://t.co/Q8TozbtgKT
— Team COFIDIS (@TeamCOFIDIS) June 29, 2016
This is a huge blow for Team Cofidis, who have been riding the Tour since Jan Ullrich was a thing, and haven't really done anything there in recent years, unless you count Dani Navarro's amazing, invisible top 10 in 2013. I certainly know that if I were Yvon Sanquer, I'd be more than a bit annoyed at Bouhanni, who has messed up Cofidis' chance to be noticed at the tour royally. And really? Who have they got now? Navarro's hardly likely to repeat that ninth place, they have an unheralded four-man sprint train who have just lost their sprinter, and their best climber is Arnold Jeannesson. Will a seventh place from the breakaway on stage 8 be the highlight of their Tour?
In less serious news, Giant-Alpecin have unveiled a new jersey for the Tour de France, which is of course because their old one was just unusable in this circumstance. What's that? It's a meaningless publicity move? Really?
For @LeTour we'll race in a special "July Kit" which symbolizes a fresh start to the season. https://t.co/2MTB3b1e92 pic.twitter.com/ft8lCH4Pum
— Team Giant-Alpecin (@GiantAlpecin) June 29, 2016
There is is, for your viewing pleasure. Basically, the reversed the old one.
Finally, Orica-GreenEDGE are on the verge of becoming Orica-Bike Exchange. Which hopefully means they're going to exchange their bikes for something or other. Bike Exchange, affiliated with team owner Gerry Ryan, already sponsors the team in a small capacity, which will obviously increase in some way, changing the team's kit.