De Gendt defends Vuelta a Espana king of the mountains victory
Belgian responds pointedly to Van Impe's cr🍎iticism
168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Thomas De Gendt (168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Lotto Soudal) has responded sarcastically to Lucien Van Impe’s dismissal of his victory in the king of the mountains classification at the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Vuelta a España. The Belgian pointed to his own palmarès, which includes a victory on💜 Mont Ventoux and a podium finish at the Giro d&🏅rsquo;Italia.
In an interview with Sporza, Van Impe – a six-time winner of the polka-dot jersey at the Tour de France – complained that “the🐎 mountains jersey is no longer worth the same as it used to be.” While the 1976 Tour champion stressed that he respected De Gendt as a rider, he noted that the best climbers are no longer attempting🙈 to win king of the mountains competitions at Grand Tours.
“I have a lot of respect for him, he tries to grab that mountain jersey at almost every race,” Van Impe said of De Gendt, but added: “The real climbers are not fighting for the mountains jersey. Maybe they have ꧋to inv🐟ent something else; I know how I won my jerseys.”
Van Impe had already expressed a similar point of view when Richard Virenque overhauled his and Franco Bahamontes’ joint re💃cord of polka-dot jerseys on the Tour in 2004, and again in 2010 when the hitherto unheralded Anthony Charteau carried the jersey to Paris.
De Gendt took to Twitter on Monday to o😼ffer a pointed rebuttal of his fellow countryman’s critique of his king of the mount🐼ains victory.
“I am a little ashamed that I have won it,” De Gendt wrote. &ꦿldquo;I am sorry to be on exclusive lists where I do not belong. (Stage winner 3 Grand Tours, podium Giro, mountain jersey Vuelta) #everythingwasbetterinthepast”
De Gendt ha♔s 👍carved out a reputation as a breakaway specialist over the course of his career and has scored some of his most noteworthy victories in the high mountains.
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In 2012, De Gendt soloed to victory atop the Stelvio on the penultimate stage of the Giro d’Italia, a performance that he💮lped him reach Milan in third place overall. On the 2016 Tour, De Gendt🅰 beat Serge Pauwels and Dani Navarro to stage victory at Mont Ventoux on a day where the headlines were dominated by Chris Froome and Richie Porte’s collision with a motorbike.
De Gendt completed a full set of Grand Tour stage victories by winning into Gijon on last year’s Vuelt🐓a. In this year’s race, he overhauled Luis Angel Maté (Cofidis) in the final week and then held off Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) to win the king of the mountains competition🔯 for the first time in a Grand Tour.
“I’m very proud of this jersey. It’s a jersey I’ve fought for in several other Grand Tours, so I’m really happy I finally can take this one home," De Gendt said on Sunday. "As it was really🐎 hard to win a stage, I started focusing on the KOM classification from the 13th stage onward."
