You're reading: Crimea native Andriy Grivko only Ukrainian to compete in Tour de France

After winning silver at the Baku 2015 European Games, cyclist Andriy Grivko will for the eighth time compete in the prestigious Tour de France, which starts on July 4. He will be the only Ukrainian competing in this year’s race.

On July 4, 198 riders will take the start from the Dutch city of Utrecht, and will race for three weeks in 21 stages over France, but also the Netherlands and Belgium, alternating between lowland and mountain terrain. Among them will be 31-year-old, Simferopol native Andriy Grivko of Crimea.

He is a four-time Ukrainian champion and silver medalist of the Baku 2015 European Games. Like last year,he will ride in the Kazakh Astana Team, with 2014 Italian winner Vincenzo Nibali, helping him to carry the mythical yellow jersey up to the Champs-Elysées, in Paris, where the race traditionally finishes.

“My main task will be to help Vincenzo Nibali in the overall standings,” Grivko said, a task he knows well after the 2014 victory of the Astana team.

“We work together by reflexes, he knows that I am always here at his side,” he told French sport daily L‘Equipe, recognizing his admiration for the Italian racer.Yet, he has also his own ambitions, and hopes that his team will let him try to win a stage during the three-week competition.

“There will be the strongest athletes, so we are very proud that our Andriy Grivko will be among them,” stated Ukrainian Cycling Federation president Aleksandr Bashenko.

He hopes that in a few years more Ukrainians will compete in the Tour de France. However he recognized there is still a lot of work to be done.

During the last edition of the bicycle race, Grivko was placed under the media spotlight, being the only Ukrainian competing, and in the context of war in eastern Ukraine. A native of Simferopol – Crimea’s capital – he told French sport daily L’Equipe, “it’s difficult to concentrate on the bike when you know that your family is there,” referring to the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in March 2014.

He also said Russian riders had been teasing him about when he would get a Russian passport. He ignored the questions.

The racer, who describes himself as a “true Ukrainian patriot,” told the Xsport TVchannel he would auction the bike he rode during the 2014 Tour de France in support of Ukrainian wounded soldiers, following the example of his compatriot and colleague Yaroslav Popovych.

The 102nd Tour deFrance will finish in Paris, on the world famous Champs-Elysées, on July 26. The Astana team with whom Grivko competes hopes to retain its title from last year.

Yves Souben can be reached at [email protected].