Vaughters confirms Tour de France should be main goal for Carapaz - "The Tour definitely favors Richard’s abilities more"

Richard Carapaz has for the last few years transformed into one of the leading figures in the Grand Tours, achieving consistency and climbing performance that few others can in the peloton. Moving to EF Education-EasyPost in 2023, his plans may change however, but the Tour de France seems to be the main goal at first sight.

“Our first performance team meeting is in London on November 10 and then the first team get-together is in December but looking at the routes for the Giro and the Tour, the Tour definitely favors Richard’s abilities more," Jonathan Vaughters, manager of the American team, told VeloNews. "Definitely everyone, including Richard himself, is leaning towards him doing the Tour de France."

The route features only one time-trial of 22 kilometers which is highly difficult. It is a route where the time-trials hold almost no meaning, and the race will be decided in the many mountainous stages. This is definitely to the liking of Carapaz, an outstanding climbers who has finished on the podium of a Grand Tour every years since 2019, including all Grand Tours.

“We’ll have to see how he’s performing during the year to determine the goal," Vaughters continued, hinting the decision has not yet been made. "He’s really versatile as a rider, and he’s ridden GC before but the way he rode the Vuelta, where he got the mountains jersey and won three stages, from a sponsor’s perspective, that’s a lot more spectacular than following the GC riders,"

“So, we’ll have to take into account how he wants to race the Tour, and then we’ll have to take into account how the sponsors feel about that. Then we’ll come up with a plan. I’ve become a bit less of a fan of just focusing on GC in grand tours, just because it can be a bit dull," he continued, likely suggesting that a GC tilt may not take place, and with the team preferring to have riders chasing stages at the Grand Boucle.

“It has to be a decision we take with him, and it’s a complex decision. That being said, it’s highly likely that he’ll do the Tour de France. Watching him race the Vuelta made me think about whether it’s best to focus on GC. The way he raced the Vuelta was super impressive, so if he could transfer that to the Tour de France, that would be incredible. There’s a decision to be made there," he said.

In October and with the off-season still in it's early phase, it's not yet the time for riders to worry about their form. The planning will begin for many however, but not for EF Education-EasyPost: “It’s a long discussion and we’ve not had that yet but it’s been in our nature to have an attacking team that goes after the race. We put riders in breaks and give guys the chance to go for stage wins,” he said.

“We saw with Jumbo-Visma that they were able to let Wout van Aert go and do his race and still achieve their goals as a team. I don’t think we need to change the history of our team for the last 15 years and go all-in on an attempted GC. I’m not ruling out going all-in Carapaz but it’s not how we’ve raced the Tour in the past," he concluded.

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