Cycling news - Tom Dumoulin worried lack of altitude training could hamper Tour de France chances

The Jumbo-Visma rider has been out of action since suffering a knee-tendon injury at the Giro d’Italia last year.

He plans to ride the Tour, which has been rescheduled to start in late August, but admits his targets might be affected by restrictions on his training.

“If I can't do an altitude camp, then I can't see myself winning the Tour de France,” he told cyclingnews.

“I mean, going for the GC at a Grand Tour asks for specific preparation, and especially requires an altitude camp. That is definitely a necessity to be able to fight for the victory. If it's not allowed to go to an altitude camp this summer, I will probably still be at the Tour de France, but maybe with a different mindset or a different goal.

"You have some riders who are living in Andorra who can't go outside at the moment, but probably from May or June onwards it will be possible again.

“We will see how that evolves, but if they can go outside from May or June, they will definitely have some good preparation because they can train in the mountains and they can train at altitude. So they actually have an ideal preparation for the Tour de France.

“I'm in Belgium at sea level, so I can't do long climbs. That would be a complete difference in build-up towards the Tour.”

Dumoulin also said that concrete training plans are on hold due to the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Considering the circumstances, I'm fine, but it's a strange world at the moment," he said.

“At the moment, I'm just keeping myself fit, so I'm not training super hard and I'm not training for long. I'm just training enough to be able to step up when necessary. We don't know enough about the whole programme yet to really make a final plan for the last part of the year, but assuming the season actually starts with the Tour de France in the last part of August, we'll soon be planning some sort of preparation for that.

“But at the moment, nothing is certain, and there is also the possibility, of course, that the pandemic doesn't go away as we hope it will, and that racing doesn't continue at all. We just have to keep a good mindset and hope for the best, and we'll start planning soon.”