jaylew said:
Not very many Luxembourg riders participating, huh? Looks like only 5. An no Lux winner since 1983. Interesting that neither Schleck bro nor Kirchen has ever won.
Until tomorrow...
There are not many Luxembourg riders participating because we really don't have all that many that can ride at that level. We have one Continental team that participated, but they also have German, French and Swedish riders that are pretty good. Kim Kirchen hasn't raced in the TdL for at least since he signed with T-Mobile I'd say, they just never participated. Last year, Benoît Joachim (former domestique of Lance Armstrong) was on the Astana team, but he didn't get a contract for this season and has inofficially finished his career. The last Luxembourgish winner before Fränk Schleck was Lucien Didier, a domestique of Bernard Hinault. After he stopped riding we never really had a rider who turned pro until the early 2000's. His son Laurent Didier rides for Team Designa Kokken in Denmark and has good chances of getting a contract with Saxo Bank (he already rode a couple of races with them last year as a Stagiaire). U23 rider Ben Gastauer of Chambéry CF (which is associated with AG2R) will most likely turn pro in the next years as well, he just won the Tour des Pays de Savoie and took second in the Flèche Wallone.
The Tour de Luxembourg is a great race through a cycling-crazy country. Even though not that many big names are participating, there are tons of people on the roads cheering for the riders. I was at the prologue in Luxembourg-City, as well as on the stage where Fränk Schleck won, and it was both times a ton of fun. Can't wait for next year!