German national champ Emanuel Buchmann had hoped to be gearing up for the Giro d’Italia right now, but he has instead found himself left off of Bora-Hansgrohe’s roster for the Italian Grand Tour. Rather than making preparations to head to Turin for the Grande Partenza this week, the German national champion and former fourth place Tour de France finisher has used some of his unwanted free time to express his disagreement with the decision on social media.
“I can not [describe] my disappointment and frustration [to] be not nominated for the @giroditalia this year,” Buchmann wrote on Instagram. “All year was planed [sic] for the Giro and even @borahansgrohe promised me the Co-Leadership for the GC. The training went well, the shape is good.”
Buchmann, whose Instagram handle is “@emubuchmann,” even took the opportunity to craft the handy hashtag “#freeemu,” evoking memories of “freelanda” hashtags that have intermittently cropped up in recent years in support of Mikel Landa. He also worked in a “#bandofbrothers” at the end of the post in what may have been a less-than-earnest use of Bora-Hansgrohe’s own go-to social media hashtag. In short, Buchmann seems displeased with the decision made by the only WorldTour team he has ever known.
Apparently, Bora told Buchmann of the Giro plan a little over two weeks ago. The team officially unveiled its roster on Monday. That roster includes Daniel Martínez, Giovanni Aleotti, Jonas Koch, Florian Lipowitz, Ryan Mullen, Maximilian Schachmann, Danny van Poppel, and Patrick Gamper. Sam Welsford, like Buchmann, was also conspicuously absent from the Giro start list after initially being expected to be on the squad.
According to reporting by GCN, Bora has said that it altered its plans for the Italian Grand Tour after Lennard Kämna sustained numerous injuries when he was hit by a driver at the start of the month.
Buchmann will at least have a chance to get in some WorldTour racing this week. He is set to line up at Eschborn-Frankfurt on Wednesday.
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