Juan Pedro López confirms his presence in the Tour de France before the queen stage of Dauphiné: "If nothing happens I will be at the start in Bilbao"

Juan Pedro López, key rider of the Trek-Segafredo team in the Criterium du Dauphiné as Giulio Ciccone's high mountain gregarious, has talked about his feelings of the French race so far and wanted to confirm his presence in the Tour de France 2023.

"A week that has gone very fast, very hard, yesterday we started the mountain, I think every day I'm feeling better, finding my pedal stroke. I'm happy," he commented on the first days of competition. Regarding his team's strategy, Juanpe gives Jonas Vingegaard's Jumbo-Visma a piece of cake, although he makes it clear that if things go their way at Trek, both he and Ciccone have carte blanche to try to win Saturday's stage in the Dauphiné:

"Today is a real high finish, we'll see what the Jumbo men want to do, if they want to control or if they want to let the breakaway go and if we have a chance we'll try to take it, both Giulio and I." He was asked if he saw any cracks in Jumbo-Visma ahead of the queen stage of the Dauphiné, something the Andalusian rider denied:

"For now we have seen that no, that it has no weakness, that it is a fairly stable, fairly strong team and today they might prove it again in the stage we have."

Finally, he confirmed his presence in the next Tour de France: "The preparation has been hard, I've been at altitude for a few days, now in Dauphiné, then I'll return to the Tour for a few days and if nothing happens I'll be at the start in Bilbao in the Tour de France".