Without the best records this season, the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz has been leading the EF Education-EasyPost team since July 1st on an adventure in Tour of France who hopes to finish on top of the podium at the end of the 21 stages.

The team arrives with “lots of ambitions” to fight for the overall rankingsaid the Olympic winner this Friday from France in contact with the world cycling media, less than 24 hours before the start of the 110th edition of the Grande Boucle.

Tour de France 2023 promises ‘fire’ from the opening stage

“We have the best mood for the Tour, We had good preparations and there is a lot of ambition. We hope for a good race, we will try to do our best,” said Carapaz.

Olympic champion He admitted that he did not arrive at his best moment, with little prominence in his six races in Europe this year, with just one win in the Mercan’Tour Classic Alpes-Maritimes (France), a second tier race. His last appearance was at the Critérium du Dauphiné, where he finished 36th overall.

“I did not perform well in the Dauphiné. I started very well, but it was a bit difficult for me, I had a lot of problemsI couldn’t recover well from some health problems and I didn’t finish as I would have liked, but I’m here hoping to have the best legs and be the best possible in the race,” said Čarčanin.

With exhaustive preparations in recent months, with high-altitude work in team camps, Carapaz said he will put the first semester of the year behind him and come with “the intention of doing a good tour and to find the best legs for that. Physically and mentally I am very well, I hope that I will be lucky in the race and that I will be able to develop everything in the best way”, he said.

Ecuadorian, arrived at EF in 2023, talked about the difficulty of commanding the American team, struggling at the bottom of the UCI WorldTeam classification, cycling’s highest category, which was in danger of relegation last year.

“We have a great responsibility with the team, I tried to prepare in the best way for this Tour and achieve a positive result in Paris. There are many goals that need to be achieved, and we hope that we will be in the main one, which is the fight for the general classification.“, said the Ecuadorian.

Through the 110th edition of Grande Boucle, Carapaz commented that it would be “quite difficult”, but that it comes with “a good team, that’s good support, we hope to achieve many positive things for everyone“, concluded the national champion who will wear the tricolor on the roads of Spain and France in this race. (D)