On the eve of the 10th edition of Tour de France J:COM Saitama Criteriumwhich will be held this Saturday, November 2, the runners who shone on the roads of the Large Loop last July were able to meet numerous Japanese and international media, before taking part in sporting and musical discoveries at Saitama University. The green jersey and triple stage winner Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) was able to reconsider its Tour dream, just like Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) who appeared there for the last time in his career and experienced the joy of wearing the Yellow Jersey.
Video – Roglic, Bardet, Cavendish… having fun in Japan
Beautiful people at the start
The city of Saitama, which wishes to honor its prestigious visitors, organized a ceremony to take the footprints of the former winners of the event present this year, namely Chris Froome (winner 2013), Marcel Kittel (2014), John Degenkolb (2015), Mark Cavendish (2017), Yukiya Arashiro (2019) et Jasper Philipsen (2022), will be exhibited in a lounge at city hall. The runners will decide between themselves this Saturday on a 3.6 km circuit to be covered 17 times, for a total of 61.2 km. The 25 world elite riders will be joined by 26 Japanese competing in local teams. Among the stars of the peloton, Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), Mark Cavendish (Astana Kazakhstan), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) or encore le local Yukiya Arashiro (Bahrain Victorious) will notably be present.
