Japan will be represented in the Tour de France by Yukiya Arashiro, whose participation in the great stage race was confirmed by his team’s sporting director Dominique Arnould on Monday.
Arashiro, who was recruited in the close-season, is among six of the eventual nine cyclists who will ride for BBox-Bouygues Telecom team at the 2009 race, which begins in Monaco on July 4.
“He has integrated well,” said Arnould. “Since the Four Days of Dunkirk at the beginning of May he has been there, he’s been doing his job. We’ll talk about him in the Tour, and not just because he’s Japanese.
“He rides really well, he rarely misses a breakaway and he goes pretty quickly.”
Arashiro, 24, will not be the first Japanese rider to compete in the Tour de France, but none of his predecessors, including Kisso Kawamuro (1926 and 1927) and Daisuke Imanaka (1996), have managed to complete the race.
According to recent reports in France Fumiyuki Beppu, who joined his Skil-Shimano teammates for a 10-day altitude training camp in Austria, is also in line for a place on the Tour.