Win one and the rest will follow. That is the mantra Tom Steels has for Quick-Step Floors´ Tour de France debutant sprinter, Fernando Gaviria. The Colombian heads towards July´s main event with some large shoes to fill after the team´s former lead sprinter, Marcel Kittel, won five stages in 2017. However, Steels has stressed that Gaviria must remain cool under pressure and believe in his ability, even if a first win doesn´t come in the opening batch of sprint-friendly stages. Steels won nine stages in a three-year period at the Tour de France between 1998 and 1999, but his first Tour de France in 1997 was memorable for all the wrong reasons after he was ejected from the race on stage 7 for hurling a bidon at sprint rival Frederic Moncassin (Gan). A year later Steels returned to the infamous 1998 Tour and won four stages. At the recent Tour de Suisse, the Belgian looked back at his debut in the race. `I thought I was ready, but I wasn´t. But you learn, and you figure out how to turn the switch, especially in the final 20 kilometres, and then you find your calmness back,` Steels told Cyclingnews.ADVERTISEMENT Gaviria is no stranger to Grand Tour success, having won four stages in last year´s Giro d´Italia. Those performances in Italy effectively convinced Quick-Step to build a team around the Colombian, while Kittel moved to Katusha-Alpecin. Steels was adamant that Quick-Step would have a team able to support Gaviria in the sprints, but the Tour de France is a race burdened with a level of pressure Gaviria will not have experienced until now. `There is a big difference but it´s so difficult to explain,` Steels said. `It´s a race, and the competitors and the courses are similar but it´s still a different race. The biggest difference is the stress in the group because you´re riding with all the spectators always around you, and then you´ve got the teams for GC on the front, kilometre after kilometre, handlebar to handlebar. So, the concentration needs to be at ...
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