Following those of Wout van Aert and Oscar Onley, another rider who could have played a leading role at the upcoming Tour de France will not be competing in France. Like the Belgian and the Englishman, Pello Bilbao has been forced to withdraw from the imminent Grande Boucle, a race that the thirty-six-year-old from Guernica had put back on his schedule this season two years after his last participation.

"Unfortunately, due to a viral infection contracted during the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Pello Bilbao was unable to recover in time to be selected for the Tour de France" his team, Bahrain-Victorious, announced. "Pello will now take a short rest period to fully recover and then begin preparation for the objectives that await him for the rest of the season".

These objectives, barring any further setbacks, should be represented by the Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa and the Circuito de Getxo - Memorial Hermanos Otxoa scheduled for August 1st and 2nd respectively, dates on which the class of '90 will certainly have set aside the bitterness of missing the Tour to conclude his professional cycling career in the best possible way.

As he himself stated, at the end of this season Pello will hang up his bike after 16 seasons among the cycling elite, a span that the veteran Iberian will seek to end on a high note by helping his teammates as best he can and perhaps adding to his career tally of victories (currently 17), which includes two stage wins at the Giro and one at the Tour.

There are, however, no victories at the Vuelta España in his palmares, a race in which Pello, revising his schedule, could also line up at the start on August 22nd in Monte Carlo, dreaming of completing, with a scalp on the roads of his homeland, the much-coveted trilogy.