Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou admits he is “not relaxed” by the uncertainty over the future of Harry Kane and wants the issue sorted as soon as possible.

England captain Kane has emerged as a prime transfer target for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich this summer.

The 29-year-old is out of contract at the end of the season but, while Bayern continue to push to secure his services and have reportedly lodged two bids for the forward, Spurs’ stance remains the same, they have no intention of selling Kane.

Tottenham’s record goalscorer has also been offered a new contract that is a significant increase on his current £200,000-a-week terms, the PA news agency understands, although reports claim
Kane will not sign a fresh deal this summer.

Postecoglou, who was appointed as new Spurs boss ahead of the new campaign, conceded the situation is not a welcome one. He told reporters, via football.london: “Fair to say I am not relaxed about it!

“It’s not something you go: ‘Ah, well, you know if it does or doesn’t happen!’ I mean it’s a very important part of this football club, not just the team, but the football club.

“So, you’ve got to deal with it, and I think, for everyone concerned, we don’t want to be doing it for too long. I don’t think that is good for anyone. I don’t think it is good for Harry, I don’t think it is good for the club, because as laser focused as we want to be, you end up sort of repeating yourself along the way.

“But the flip side of that is I don’t want to put a deadline on it, because that adds even more pressure. You want these things to happen for the right reasons. The reality of it is he’s still a contracted player at our football club, so that’s the way I see him.

“It’s not like his contract is ending on the 12th [of August] and he’s got to make a decision, he’s got another year.”

Stay Alert looks set to head to France in a bid to gain some form of compensation for her unfortunate runner-up effort in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh.

The Group One contest produced a somewhat messy conclusion as the George Boughey-trained winner Via Sistina drifted across the track in the final furlong, impeding the placed horses in winning by two lengths under Jamie Spencer, who was suspended for six days.

Ben and Sir Martyn Arbib, who own Hughie Morrison’s second-placed Stay Alert, appealed against the decision not to revise the placings, but to no avail.

Though Stay Alert holds an entry in the Yorkshire Oaks on August 24, Morrison is favouring a trip to the Group One Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville four days earlier.

He said: “Ideally, I would go to France for the Romanet, over a mile and a quarter.

“The Yorkshire Oaks is afterwards and we can go there if we were not happy with something going to France. The Yorkshire Oaks is Plan B.”

One For Bobby is another talented filly at the Summerdown yard and she landed her biggest career success to date in the Group Three Grand Prix de Vichy on Wednesday evening.

Formerly trained by Johnny Murtagh, One For Bobby defeated Bolthole by three-quarters of a length in the 10-furlong contest.

Morrison will try to keep his two talented fillies apart and has not completely ruled out heading to Munich for the Group One Bayerisches Zuchtrennen, over a similar distance, on Sunday week.

“If we can keep them apart we will,” said Morrison. “One goes better on softer ground and one is better on faster ground, but they both go on good ground.

“I will talk to the owners and try to keep them apart.

“Actually, One For Bobby is in a Group One in Munich on Sunday week, because we were keeping our options open.

“If it was in three weeks after that (run), I would probably be going to Munich.

“I haven’t had a long chat to the owner yet, but prior to having won a Group race, (we felt) a Group One place would be at least as good as a Group Two win, so be brave and aim high.

“I think she won in conditions where you’d think she might be better in softer ground. She could win a weak Group One.

“She had been Group Two-placed last year and she is rated 104, so if they take the form at face value, she will go up to 109. The runner-up was rated 111.

“I think Munich is unlikely, but we’ll keep options open. You could go for the Prix Vermeille (at ParisLongchamp in September) and it might suit her, a mile and a half in France, we’ll see.”

Meanwhile, crack stayer Quickthorn, who bounced back to form when making most of the running to beat subsequent Group Two Princess of Wales’s Stakes scorer Israr in a Listed race at York last month, remains on course for the Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup.

Morrison was primed to send the Lady Blyth-owned six-year-old to ParisLongchamp in a bid to win the Group Two Prix Maurice de Nieuil for a second successive season.

However, connections instead favoured a trip to the Sussex Downs for the two-mile Group One contest, for which he is a 10-1 shot with Coral.

“We were going to go to France, but the owners want to have a go at the Goodwood Cup, so that’s where we’re going,” said Morrison. “He’s in good form and that York form worked out pretty well didn’t it?”

American Brian Harman set an impressive pace in the second round of the 151st Open after tournament officials took the unorthodox step of changing the way the bunkers were raked between rounds.

Masters champion Jon Rahm described Royal Liverpool’s 82 bunkers as “proper penalty structures” after having to play backwards out of one during his opening 74, while Rory McIlroy needed two attempts to escape sand on the 18th in his 71.

In response, the R&A instructed greenkeeping staff to build up the edges of the bunkers to allow more balls to roll back into the centre.

“Yesterday afternoon the bunkers dried out more than we have seen in recent weeks and that led to more balls running straight up against the face than we would normally expect,” the R&A said in a statement.

“We have therefore raked all of the bunkers slightly differently to take the sand up one revet on the face of the bunkers.

“We routinely rake bunkers flat at most Open venues but decided this adjustment was appropriate in light of the drier conditions which arose yesterday.

“We will continue to monitor this closely for the remainder of the Championship.”

Even those players who managed to successfully escape from the bunkers on day one had expressed their concerns, with former champion Stewart Cink speaking out following a bogey-free 68.

“Eventually it’ll catch up with you,” the 2009 winner said. “The bottoms of them are so flat that if a ball comes in with any momentum, it’s just going right up to the lip and stop.

“There’s not a little upslope that helps you at all. They are very penal.”

Harman initially had no problems with the bunkers as he made four birdies in succession to surge into the lead, the left-hander holing from 20 feet on the second and similar distances on the third and fourth before hitting the pin with his chip to the par-five fifth to set up a simple tap-in.

Even when he had to play backwards out of a bunker on the 12th and missed the green with his third shot, Harman promptly chipped in for par to remain eight under, four clear of American Max Homa and Scotland’s Michael Stewart.

McIlroy began his second round in ideal fashion with a birdie on the first and, after missing from four feet on the third, got up and down from a bunker on the par-five fifth to improve to two under.

Australia’s Min Woo Lee had set the early clubhouse target on three under following a 68.

Paul Wellens has urged his all-conquering St Helens squad to draw on the memory of recent heartbreaks if they wish to avoid adding an unwanted chapter to Challenge Cup history when they face Leigh in Saturday’s first semi-final.

Wellens’ men might have amassed a glittering pile of silverware but remarkably they will barely start favourites against Adrian Lam’s side, who only last season were celebrating lifting the 1895 Cup for second and third-tier sides at Wembley.

A revolution led by owner Derek Beaumont has catapulted the club to second place in their first season back in Super League – four points and two places above Saints – and within 80 minutes of a first Challenge Cup final appearance since they sunk Leeds at Wembley in 1971.

With the sport’s established order increasingly being stood on its head, it is perhaps no surprise that Wellens wants his players to forget their recent prize haul and focus on rare setbacks, such as their stunning semi-final defeat to Catalans Dragons in 2018.

Seven members of Saints’ current squad were involved in that game, which the French side won after blazing into a 27-0 half-time lead, and Wellens stressed: “A lot of of our group have won big matches but they have experienced a fair bit of heartbreak as well.

“Losing in the Cup semi-final to Catalans was an experience they have learned from, and has shaped them in terms of the way they approach big games. Sometimes out of those negative experiences, you can draw a lot of positives.”

Saints, who head into the game on the back of a gruelling Super League defeat to the French side which robbed them of influential duo James Roby and Mark Percival due to failed head injury assessments, certainly hold no fear for Lam’s buoyant side.

Lam’s men hit back from a 12-point half-time deficit to sink Saints 20-12 in their previous meeting in March, and have since forged a remarkable run of 12 wins in 13 games which has seemingly cemented their improbable place in the end-of-season play-offs.

For the Leigh-born former Saints hero Tommy Martyn, Lam and Beaumont have breathed new life into a club and a town for so long considered a “laughing stock” in rugby league circles for their inability to hold down a regular top-flight place.

Martyn, who played in Saints’ victorious 1996 and 1997 Challenge Cup final wins and also won Grand Finals and the World Club Challenge before ending his career with his home-town club, told the PA news agency: “It is the only thing anyone in Leigh is talking about.

“When I was growing up it was a golden era, winning the First Division title in 1982, and the town was booming then like it’s booming now. For so long the club was seen as a laughing stock. What Derek and Adrian have achieved is remarkable.”

Leigh’s stunning rise has been built on solid foundations, from a front row featuring stand-out prop John Asiata and mercurial hooker Edwin Ipape, to the flair in their three-quarters including the current joint-top Super League try-scorer, Josh Charnley.

But in a warning to Saints and the other clubs whom they must still face in their unlikely quest for silverware this season, Lam believes his side are still searching for their best.

“We pride ourselves on our identity but there are also one or two more levels we can keep improving on, and everyone agrees about that, so that’s the exciting part,” said Lam.

“We know the challenge ahead of us, we know it’s a massive mountain to climb, but the way this season has been rolling, if we can turn up and give our absolute best and be that same consistent side, I know we will give ourselves a chance.”

Truthful will continue her education in Listed company at Newmarket on Saturday with William Haggas content to take things gently with a filly whom he likes “a lot”.

Owned by Highclere Thoroughbred Racing, the three-year-old daughter of Sea The Stars will take on 13 rivals in the Ric And Mary Hambro Aphrodite Fillies’ Stakes over a mile and a half, bidding to remain unbeaten.

She made a belated debut in May when scoring by a head from Mantoog in a 10-furlong novice at Salisbury, before impressively beating previous winner Shagpyle by two and three-quarter lengths when stepped up in an extended one-mile-three-furlong fillies’ novice at Haydock.

With Tom Marquand, who has been on board for both her victories, required for duty at Newbury, where he rides Weatherbys Super Sprint Stakes favourite Relief Rally for the Somerville Lodge yard, Cieren Fallon takes over on Truthful.

Haggas said: “She is a work in progress and this is sort of the logical next step for her, and we will see whether she is up to it.

“We like her a lot, we think she’s a good stayer and I hope she will run a good race.”

However, plans are fluid thereafter and while she holds entries in both the Group Two Lillie Langtry at Goodwood and the top-class Yorkshire Oaks, the master conditioner is in no rush to pigeon-hole bigger targets for her.

“There are not really any long-term targets,” he added. “When you are training a filly like that for Highclere, we will go nice and gently and see where we are with her. She can go anywhere if she is up to the task.”

Truthful’s rivals include the highly-tried Novakai from Karl Burke’s yard and the four-year-olds Time Lock and Sound Angela.

England goalkeeper Mary Earps has expressed her dismay over the “very hurtful” decision not to put her replica shirt on sale ahead of the World Cup.

The Manchester United star was named the world’s best goalkeeper in women’s football by FIFA in February, and was also appointed vice-captain by England boss Sarina Wiegman for this global showpiece.

Earps claimed she only realised her shirt would not be made available by manufacturer Nike in April, and said she has since been “fighting behind closed doors” to find a solution before England open their campaign on Saturday against Haiti but to no avail.

The Euro 2022 champion said: “I can’t really sugar-coat this in any way, so I am not going to try. It is hugely disappointing and very hurtful.

“It is very, on a personal level, it is obviously hugely hurtful considering the last 12 months especially – and also I think there has been an incredible rise in goalkeeping participation over that year.

“I go into grassroots clubs and I am asked to bribe people to go into goal, and I have been to more clubs recently and that’s not been the case.

“A lot of that has come off the back of the Euros but also some of my success this year.

“For my own family and friends and loved ones not to be able to buy my shirt, they are going to come out and wear normal clothes and I know that sounds like: ‘Oh Mary, what a horrible problem,’ but on a personal level that is really hard.

“You know, (England captain) Millie  (Bright) spoke to me a couple of weeks ago or maybe a bit longer and said: ‘Mary, my niece is desperate to get your shirt, where can I get it?’.  I was like: ‘Yeah you can’t, it doesn’t exist’.

“I think that is a huge problem, and I think it is a scary message that is being sent to goalkeepers worldwide that you are not important.

“(Kids) are going to say: ‘Mum, dad, can I have a Mary Earps shirt?’ And they say: ‘I can’t but I can get you an Alessia Russo 23 or a Rachel Daly 9.’ And so what you are saying is that goalkeeping isn’t important but you can be a striker if you want.”

England men’s keeper Jordan Pickford also does not have a replica goalkeeper shirt available for purchase on the England store.

Earps claimed she offered to fund the shirts herself and that the Football Association (FA) has supported her efforts, but said she was ultimately forced to produce her own limited edition t-shirt because she at the very least “wanted to create something that people could have for themselves” at the World Cup.

The PA news agency understands that while the FA is involved in the design of England kits, the manufacturer ultimately determines the commercial direction of what is produced.

PA has contacted Nike for comment.

Tournament officials have changed the way the bunkers are raked for the 151st Open Championship following complaints from players that they were overly “penal”.

Masters champion Jon Rahm described Royal Liverpool’s 82 bunkers as “proper penalty structures” after having to play backwards out of one during his opening 74, while Rory McIlroy needed two shots to escape a greenside trap on the 18th.

In response, the R&A instructed greenkeeping staff to build up the edges of the bunkers to allow more balls to roll back into the centre.

“Yesterday afternoon the bunkers dried out more than we have seen in recent weeks and that led to more balls running straight up against the face than we would normally expect,” the R&A said in a statement.

“We have therefore raked all of the bunkers slightly differently to take the sand up one revet on the face of the bunkers.

“We routinely rake bunkers flat at most Open venues but decided this adjustment was appropriate in light of the drier conditions which arose yesterday.

“We will continue to monitor this closely for the remainder of the Championship.”

Even those players who managed to successfully escape from the bunkers on day one had expressed their concerns, with former champion Stewart Cink speaking out following a bogey-free 68.

“Eventually it’ll catch up with you,” the 2009 winner said. “The bottoms of them are so flat that if a ball comes in with any momentum, it’s just going right up to the lip and stop.

“There’s not a little upslope that helps you at all. They are very penal.”

American Brian Harman was having no issues with any bunkers as he carded four birdies in succession to surge clear at the top of the leaderboard.

Harman holed from 20 feet on the second and similar distances on the third and fourth before hitting the pin with his chip to the par-five fifth to set up a simple tap-in.

At eight under par the left-hander led by three shots from Tommy Fleetwood and South African amateur Christo Lamprecht, with Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo falling out of an overnight share of the lead following a double bogey on the second.

McIlroy began his second round in ideal fashion with a birdie on the first to improve to one under.

Sean Woods could step Savvy Victory up in class for next week’s Sky Bet York Stakes.

The four-year-old came from last to first under Tom Marquand to take the Listed Gala Stakes at Sandown earlier this month and may now test the water at Group Two level in the feature event on the final day of the Go Racing In Yorkshire Summer Festival.

Savvy Victory’s clear-cut Sandown success was just compensation for a luckless run at Royal Ascot when badly hampered at a crucial stage in the Hampton Court.

Woods is now scouring the programme book after his charge was hiked 6lb in the weights, with an appearance on the Knavesmire at the forefront of the Newmarket handler’s mind.

He said: “He has taken his run at Sandown very well and is back cantering. We are just waiting to see what options we have. We don’t have many options being rated 111 now.

“So, he will have an entry at York and will have an entry at Haydock (Betfred Rose Of Lancaster Stakes, August 12). Depending on the ground and opposition, we will make out minds up after that.”

Woods added: “We’ll put him in the York Stakes over 10 furlongs, but that ground can be a bit iffy sometimes.

“He likes cut in the ground and the weather is messing up everything at the moment. I had 11 entries for Saturday and I run one!

“If either one isn’t good, there is a Group Three at Windsor (Winter Hill Stakes, August 26), but he will be stepped up, rather than running again in a Listed race. He will be stepped up to a Group Two or Group Three.

“It’s a nice problem to have, so I’m happy.”

England’s unlikely World Cup mascot will be watching the Lionesses from his forever home as Dave the cat settles into his new surroundings.

While football might not have come home from Qatar, stray cat Dave did after the friendly feline became a firm favourite of the squad as he roamed freely around England’s Al Wakrah training base.

Manchester City duo John Stones and Kyle Walker were pictured with Dave on most evenings and the latter said the team would adopt the cat if Gareth Southgate’s men won the World Cup.

Despite their quarter-final exit at the hands of France, Dave was still given the chance to travel to the UK and was eventually rehomed by the Football Association’s media operations manager Anna Bush and her family.

“There was a discussion around wanting Dave to end up with a family with young children, so I put my hand up and volunteered and my children are absolutely delighted,” she told the PA news agency.

“They’ve never had a pet before and what a first pet to have! They (the players) are aware and delighted. He’s got a new home and a family to look after him.”

He left Al Wakrah in December, just two hours after the squad had departed for home, and headed to a veterinary clinic where he had blood tests and vaccinations.

After being in quarantine for months he was welcomed by his new family, instantly taking to his  surroundings and showing he picked up a keen eye for football after his stint as England’s top cat.

While Dave lived the life of a stray during the men’s World Cup, he can watch the women attempt to follow up their Euros success from last summer in the comfort of his new home.

The Bush family even have a way of making sure Dave – who now has his own Instagram page – is part of any success Down Under as he offers up his match predictions, with a little incentive to back Sarina Wiegman and her team.

“He has settled in so well,” added Bush.

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“He loves the surrounding area and loves it in the sun – he is finding his feet and absolutely loves watching my two boys play football in the garden.

“One of them actually coloured in both of the crests ahead of the Champions League and wanted Manchester City to win so he put a few treats down (on the City crest) and so Dave predicted that Man City were going to win the Champions League final and they did!

“Now we have to start doing that for the Women’s World Cup I suppose – bring on England on Saturday.”

Claire Williams said selling the family’s Formula One team is a grief that has been difficult to come to terms with, admitting it has felt like someone cut her heart out and never gave it back.

Claire, 47, has been an F1 outsider for coming up to three years following the sale of the team founded by her father Sir Frank Williams to American investment firm Dorilton Capital for £136million.

She resigned as de facto boss at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix, while Frank – who extraordinarily took his motor racing team from an empty carpet warehouse to the summit of the sport – died a year later.

“When I left in Monza it felt like someone cut my heart out and it has never been returned,” said Claire, in an interview with the PA news agency ahead of Williams’ 800th race at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

“You just have to find something to put in its place. But it was very difficult then and three years on, it is still really hard.

“It is just one of those griefs that is really difficult to get over, or to come to terms with. Now we have lost Dad, it sometimes feels as though it was just a dream. Did that period in our lives really happen?”

Sir Frank oversaw 114 victories, 16 drivers’ and constructors’ world championships and became the longest-serving team boss in the sport’s history.

His story is made all the more remarkable by a horrific car crash which left him with injuries so devastating doctors considered turning off his life-support machine.

Until his death in 2021, he was recognised as the world’s oldest surviving tetraplegic.

Frank, who lived at the team headquarters in Grove, Oxfordshire, handed over the managerial baton to daughter Claire in 2013.

She guided the team to a brilliant third in the constructors’ championship, behind the financial muscle of Mercedes and Ferrari over the following two years, before a lack of major investment contributed to Williams’ decline. A decade has passed since a Williams driver last won a race.

“There was so much that went on in those last few years, which to this day I will never be able to talk about,” continues Claire.

“But I saw the team through three very difficult seasons and I was able to hand over something that was still living and still breathing to someone with deeper pockets than us. We kept everyone in jobs, we didn’t go into administration and I am very proud of that.

“When I have challenging circumstances I bury my head in jobs and when we sold Williams, my next concern was, where did Dad go?

“As much as Dorilton were kind enough to say he could always live at the factory, I needed him close to me. And coincidentally the house next door to us came up for sale, so we moved Dad in.

“I managed his care team. I made sure he was happy and comfortable in his new home and we went off and did some nice stuff together. He would pick up my little one, Nate, from nursery.

“But then he got sicker, greater care was required to look after him and he passed away. But for the next six months, we organised this wonderful memorial service. We then decided to move house, renovating our old house in Ascot and our new home in South Downs.

“So, I am the master of distraction. Life carries on. And as much as I miss Williams, and I miss Formula One dreadfully, there is a whole other world out there. You have to go and find happy elsewhere. That is what I have done.”

However, Claire discovered her zen state is disrupted by watching the sport she loves.

She will not tune in on Sunday to see Alex Albon and rookie Logan Sargeant scramble for a point or two under the tutelage of new team principal James Vowles – an appointment Claire said her father would have approved of – in Williams’ landmark race.

“I turned on the TV to see Alex had scored a point in Australia earlier this year,” she continued with a broad smile.

“Ted’s Notebook was on and Ted [Kravitz] grabbed James and said, ‘mate, congratulations, you are only Williams’ third team principal and you have got a point. How does it feel?’

“And I was like, third team principal? That is Frank, that is Jost [Capito] and that is James, what about me? Ted has just cancelled me on national television!

“I may not have been called team principal but I operated that way and I have literally just been erased. I turned it straight off and vowed never to watch again.

“But I tried watching the last race at Silverstone. I thought to myself, ‘Right, I am going to do this. Come on’. But I watched the formation lap and that was that. I lasted five minutes.

“I don’t know what it is, but if you talk to any person who has worked, lived and breathed Formula One – no matter if that is for 20 years or 20 minutes – it does something to you. It absorbs you, and when you leave, particularly involuntary like I did, it is very difficult to watch it and not feel that loss.”

Claire dovetails speaking engagements and “top-secret television projects” with her role as brand ambassador for Williams Advanced Engineering.

Earlier this year, she launched the Frank Williams Academy in her father’s honour. The project aims to raise £1.5m to help educate and train those affected by spinal cord injuries. She also revealed Sky offered her the chance to return to the F1 paddock as a pundit.

“It was too soon,” said Claire. “It is better when you leave, you leave.

“Unless someone said to me, ‘Come back and be a team principal and you can have Williams back’, I don’t necessarily think there is a job I would want, but never say never.”

England boss Sarina Wiegman vowed the Lionesses would do “everything” they can to bring home a first World Cup when they begin their campaign against Haiti in Brisbane on Saturday.

Wiegman also provided a welcome update on captain Millie Bright, who is fit to start tomorrow’s contest after concerns she was still recovering from the knee injury she sustained in March which required surgery.

The World Cup trophy is one that has so far eluded both England and Wiegman, who led the Netherlands to the final four years ago in France but fell to defeat at the hands of the United States.

Asked if England could lift the trophy this year, she said: “We’re here and we have a dream, and of course there’s always a chance to win the World Cup, and many more countries can win the World Cup I think, but of course we’re going to give our everything starting tomorrow.”

FIFA world number four England are ranked 49 places above Saturday opponents Haiti, who beat Chile in the qualifying play-off to reach a maiden World Cup.

The Lionesses are heavy favourites to top Group D, which also includes 13th-ranked Denmark and number 14 China.

Wiegman, however, was quick to dismiss the idea that facing lower-ranked opposition puts England in a position of having more to lose, perhaps more so than when they kicked off their winning Euro 2022 campaign against Austria last summer.

“The pressure is always something. Everyone expected England to win anyway. This is for tomorrow and also last year, and that was also for the Austria game for the European Championships,” she added.

“So that’s not different. What we’re just trying to do is play our game and focus on what we have to do and how we can win, and that’s basically what we do all the time, so bring it back to what actions we need to take as a team.”

Wiegman said she has “basically decided” on her starting XI for tomorrow but would not reveal whether or not the players had already been informed.

The Lionesses begin their sixth World Cup still having not come to an agreement with the Football Association over issues surrounding performance-based bonus payments and commercial structures.

On Tuesday, Bright posted a statement on Twitter on behalf of the team which said they were “disappointed that a resolution has still not been achieved” but would “pause discussions, with full intentions of revisiting them following the tournament”.

The skipper, who will wear a FIFA-sanctioned ‘Unite for Inclusion’ armband in Saturday’s contest, reiterated that those discussions are now fully parked.

“Obviously it’s not a situation everyone wants to be in, but I think as players we’re not just programmed to play football,” Bright said.

“Sometimes we have to have these conversations. But we have a very professional group and football is always at the front of everything. So as players now our heads are in the game, they always have been on the game.

“Everything is on hold with those sorts of questions. We’ll address the situation at a later date, but for now it’s all about the tournament.”

Earlier, Haiti manager Nicolas Delepine took a lighthearted stab at the Lionesses, who have not scored in their last three matches including the behind-closed-doors training game with Canada on the Sunshine Coast a week ago which ended in a goalless draw not for official records.

He told a press conference: “It’s going to be a difficult game, for sure. And if I have to talk about the strengths of England, I’ll be here all day.

“In big competitions England are tough opponents. They played well in the European Championships.

“We’re expecting a high intensity game. They are a difficult team to play against, they are attacking with threats everywhere but they maybe have a problem with finishing.”

Natalie Grinczer has taken a difficult road to get to the start line of her second Tour de France Femmes.

At the start of this month the 29-year-old Brit was worried she would not see out the season after French team Stade Rochelais ran into financial problems and she was left scrambling for a new employer.

Trying to find a contract during one of the busiest periods of the season was far from easy. Grinczer struggled to get answers while teams were focused on the Giro Donne, the Italian Grand Tour, but she has landed on her feet by signing for Lifeplus-Wahoo for the rest of 2023.

And just days after her deal was announced, Grinczer was named in the British team’s seven-strong Tour de France Femmes line-up.

“If you’d asked me two or three weeks ago about the Tour I would have told you no,” Grinczer told the PA news agency. “Having no team and all the stress that comes with that, and now I’m in the Tour…one day I’ll write a book about it.”

Grinczer started the season well, feeling settled in her second year with Stade Rochelais and earning top-10 finishes at the Vuelta Extremadura Feminas, the Grand Prix Feminin de Chambery and the Gran Premio Ciudad de Eibar.

But by the time she finished sixth at the British national road race in Saltburn at the end of June, Grinczer was talking to Lifeplus-Wahoo boss Tom Varney about an answer to her problems.

“There was maybe a week and a half of uncertainty where I was putting myself out there, talking to people I knew from previous years and asking if they had any spaces,” she said. “I couldn’t even think about 2024 because my immediate problem was not having any races now.

“I started speaking to Tom after the nationals and he came back to me to say they had a space for the rest of the season so I was really lucky with how it panned out.”

Grinczer balances her career on the bike with her job as an NHS physiotherapist. After doing her last shift on Tuesday, she headed to Clermont-Ferrand on Thursday to prepare for the opening stage of the Tour on Sunday.

Grinczer started the inaugural edition of the revamped race in Stade Rochelais colours 12 months ago, getting a taste for what instantly became the biggest race on the calendar, but it sadly proved short-lived as she crashed out on stage three.

“Everyone came to the Tour in the best shape, with the best equipment and a lot of new kit and everyone went all out for it,” Grinczer said. “On the first day we signed on in front of the Eiffel Tower and went through the famous tunnel on to the Champs-Elysees and it was really cool.

“Unfortunately I crashed along with about 100 other people – I don’t know who didn’t crash in that peloton. It was frustrating. I’ve never been in a race where there seemed to be no etiquette.

“Normally there is a little bit of etiquette in the peloton but everyone was taking increased risks and it was a hostile place to be. Maybe after a couple of days it would have settled down into more of a rhythm but I didn’t experience that. Hopefully this time I’ll get a bit further and find out.”

Grinczer puts that hostility down to the huge importance of the race, which attracts a spotlight unlike any other, and she is prepared for the same again this time.

“It’s a bit of an all or nothing race for the riders,” she said. “You want to do the best you can and if that involves taking risks or riding differently to normal then you do that.”

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