It is hard to believe that Biniam Girmay is still only As the brightest star of African cycling, he has been in the spotlight since joining the WorldTour in Little matter if he is making history by becoming the first African to win a major Classic, or crashing in the Tour de France , the Eritrean attracts attention.
At times, he admits, it can be daunting. And after winning three stages, as well as the green points jersey in the Tour, it is safe to say that such goals are paying off with big dividends. Girmay burst into the big leagues after winning Gent-Wevelgem in , followed by a stage in the Giro d'Italia the same year. But the season was filled with far more setbacks than success, as he crashed heavily in the Tour of Flanders and struggled in his first Tour de France. But he learned valuable lessons that helped guide him to his stellar Tour.
As he enters , Girmay is focused on another goal: winning his first Monument. I was learning how to train. I was learning how to deal with the pressure from the press or the expectations of the fans. In bike racing, you have good races and bad races, but whenever you have good races, people just seem to expect more. And then there was the stress that I put on myself, because me, I always want to improve. After that season, however, Girmay sat down with his team to learn from their errors and improve.
With his trainers I focused on giving Biniam a harder, more structured training program. We really looked at the maximum number of training blocks we could fit in and just made every day count. Visbeek underlines, however, that numerous other issues were studied, from his leadout train, to eating and drinking in races. But everything I learned from the past years paid off.
As a result, my confidence increased and boom, I had very good results. In many ways, his was the feel-good story at the Tour. As a result, everybody seemed happy each time he raised his arms in victory. Visbeek admits that three wins were more than he or the team could ever have hoped for, but he also knew that Girmay was primed for Tour success. Take his first victory in stage three for example.
