Duchesne to race first stage race of 2018 WorldTour for new squad FDJ

As individual WorldTour riders begin to declare their targeted Grand Tours for next season, the lineups for the first races of the 2018 WorldTour calendar are also beginning to take shape. On Friday, FDJ, soon to be Groupama-FDJ, announced its first five riders for the WorldTour kickoff, the Santos Tour Down Under starting January 16, and new addition Antoine Duchesne has been given the nod to start. Also on Friday, the organizers of the first one-day event of the WorldTour, January 28’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, has invited Israel Cycling Academy, the team of Ben Perry and Guillaume Boivin.

Here we come Australia! We are honoured to be invited ????? #yallaAcademy https://t.co/5vxrqkwvVp

— Israel Start-Up Nation / Israel Cycling Academy (@YallaIsraelSUN) December 15, 2017

Duchesne joined FDJ after four years with Europcar/Direct Energie. He raced two Grand Tours with the French Pro Continental squad, the 2015 Vuelta a España and the 2016 Tour de France.

Down in Australia Duchesne will join another new FDJ fellow, Austrian Georg Preidler, who transferred from Sunweb, along with Swiss Steve Morabito, Norweigan Daniel Hoelgaard and Frenchman Anthony Roux. Duchesne’s best WorldTour result in 2017 was 37th in Stage 3 of Paris-Nice, a race in which he took the mountains competition in 2016.

Reigning TDU champion Richie Porte will have two other former winners, Rohan Dennis and Simon Gerrans, on his BMC squad in January.

Soon after the Tour Down Under on January 28 comes the Cadel Evans race, which joined the WorldTour last year. In Geelong sixteen of the 18 WorldTour squads will be racing, along with Israel Cycling Academy, Aqua Blue Sport, Roompot and an Australian national squad. Sunweb’s Nikias Arndt is the reigning champion. In 2017 Boivin participated in five WorldTour one-day races with I.C.A., while Perry competed in six.