Eddie Dunbar has earned a late call-up to ride in this year's Giro D'Italia. It will be the Cork native's first appearance on a Grand Tour.
Dunbar replaces Egan Bernal in the Team INEOS squad. Bernal was forced to withdraw after suffering a broken collarbone in training last week.
A former rider for the now defunct Team Aqua Blue, Dunbar has been in superb form of late. On Sunday, he completed a third-place finish at the Tour de Yorkshire. Starting Sunday's final stage in 9th on general classification, Dunbar was close to claiming the overall win before helping team-mate Chris Lawless take the win. That performance in Leeds came on the heels of a 7th place finish in the Tour La Provence.
Quick chat with Eddie Dunbar who I we’ll remember attacking his first Tour de Yorkshire for NFTO #tdy pic.twitter.com/esf9EokZpJ
— British Cycle Sport (@VeloUK) May 5, 2019
With no Geraint Thomas or defending champion Chris Froome, the former Team Sky will be led by Pavel Sivakov and Tao Geoghegan Hart. Team Principal David Brailsford says his young team can challenge in Italy over the next three-weeks, despite the loss of Bernal, "Egan’s injury is a real shame as he was to lead the team in a Grand Tour for the first time. However, I’m sure he will be fighting fit come July."
The 2019 edition of the Giro D'Italia gets underway on Saturday with an 8.2km individual time trial around the streets of Bologna. Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) are the only former winners of the race in this year's field.
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