There are only two Canadian riders in the Tour de France, both racing for the same team – and both have connections to Langley.
Christian Meier and Svein Tuft of the ORICA-GreenEDGE team are still well back of the main field, but both have hung in there as exhaustion and injuries have knocked out many other riders, including major contenders for the overall victory.
Meier and Tuft both previously trained and raced for a regional team based in the Lower Mainland, and Tuft was born in Langley.
Meier currently sits at 133rd in the overall standings and Tuft at 140th, out of 180 remaining riders. More than 200 started the race 10 days ago.
The 21-day race, with a few rest days, is notoriously difficult, including flat sprint stages where raw speed is the key, and mountain stages that involve hours of climbing and which can break otherwise powerful cyclists.
Tuft, a Canadian road racing and time trial champion, is a time trial specialist. He will have to survive to the second-last day of the race to demonstrate his skills this year in the individual time trial event.
Meier got to show his stuff as part of a chase group on day nine of the tour, as the group tried to chase down the eventual stage winner Tony Martin.