Richard Karapas was a surprise selection for the Ineos Grenadiers at this year's Tour de France.

The Ecuadorian native put his country on the cycling map with victory at last year's Giro d'Italia, but when he turned pro in 2017, he was already breaking new ground as the first rider from South America to make it to the World Tour. 27-year-old will be in Italy next month to defend his title was scheduled to defend his title in Italy next month, but he was drafted into the Tour and Geraint Thomas will go to the Giro instead.

Speaking exclusively to Procycling, Alasdair Fotheringham said Carapas: "I can't just say Giro, Giro, Giro for the rest of my career. I want to go there, and if it turns out to be lucrative, I want to try to win."

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Also in this month's magazine is an interview with Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, one of the stars of the female peloton. She talks to Sophie Halcomb about her FDJ Nouvelle Aquitanie Futuroscope team and why she enjoys the atmosphere of the French team she joined this year.

Uttrup Ludwig is known for her cheerful personality on and off the bike, and she talked about what it feels like to have a post-race interview go viral. Uttrup Ludwig said: "Because that's me in that moment, when I'm super happy. Eventually I think people will come to know that I don't give crazy interviews when things don't go well."

There have been reports about the return to racing after the pandemic, and Peter Kosins has an analysis of a particularly tough and unique edition of the Criterium du Dauphiné. The traditional Tour warm-up race was shortened to five days, but featured 27 categorized mountains, and 18 of last year's top 20 Tour finishers were on the start line.

In 2020, the "Black Lives Matter" movement came to the forefront in the United States in the wake of George Floyd's murder in May. The lack of racial diversity is particularly evident in cycling, where only one black racer out of 178 in the peloton started this year's Tour. Dr. Marlon Moncrieff, a former elite-level British racer and scholar, explores why there has never been a black British racer in the Tour de France and when that will change.