Canada’s national champion Svein Tuft heading to the Tour de France

Canada’s newly minted time trial and road race champion, Svein Tuft, is heading to the Tour de France. On Tuesday, the Australia-based WorldTour team Orica-GreenEdge named its squad for the 101st Tour de France, which starts Saturday. The list also includes Jens Keukeleire, Luke Durbridge, Mathew Hayman, Michael Albasini, Michael Matthews, Simon Clarke, Simon Gerrans and Simon Yates.

Tuft made his Tour de France debut in 2013. He was integral in helping team win the Stage 4 team time trial and putting his teammate Gerrans in yellow. La Grande Boucle was a challenging race for Tuft. He ended up finishing last, earning him the distinction of the lanterne rouge. This past May, Tuft was at the Giro d’Italia, where he had some ups and down. He won the pink jersey on the first stage at team time trial on his 37th birthday. He also had a crash on Stage 6. Throughout the Italian Grand tour, Tuft’s teammates seemed to drop off one by one. At the end, only he and Michael Hepburn finished the race out of the original squad of nine riders.

This past Thursday, Tuft won the elite men’s Canadian time trial championship, for the ninth time, and the road race, for the second time. In the time trial, he finished 2:03 faster than his nearest rival, Hugo Houle of Ag2r-La Mondiale. He won the road race after spending more than 100 km away from the bunch on the hilly roads north of Lac-Mégantic, Que.

Orica-GreenEdge seems to like debuting older riders at the Tour. In 2013, Tuft was the oldest Tour rookie of the modern era. This year, Mathew Hayman, a senior Orica rider at 36, will be riding the Tour for the first time.

“He now takes the record off Svein Tuft as the oldest debutant,” said Matt White, the team’s directeur sportif. “He might not have done the Tour de France, but he has done nearly every single race on the calendar. It’s his first Tour de France, but he is more than ready. He is a very good tactician, a calming influence and a strong leader.”

White went on to praise Tuft. “Svein is one of the lynchpins in the team,” he said. “He’s a very positive influence on our young guys. With Svein and Hayman, we’ve got great leadership. We have a very young team with some old heads to guide them.”

The team also has riders who have won Grand Tour stages. Gerrans won Stage 3 at 2013’s Tour de France. This year he notched a Monument win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Michael Matthews will be in his third straight Grand Tour. He won two stages at 2013’s Vuelta a España and one at this year’s Giro, which earned him the pink jersey.