Aussie Stuart O’Grady and Italian Davide Viganò lead Luxembourg’s season opener
Stuart O’Grady and Davide Viganò will lead team Luxembourg when it makes its season debut at the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia, next month.
Adelaide’s O’Grady won the race’s first edition in 1999 and again in 2001. He has also won three stages of the Tour de France, the Paris-Roubaix and a gold medal in the Madison at the 2004 Olympics.
“We had imagined that Stuart O’Grady would fight for the overall,” Lars Michaelsen told Politiken, “but after his crash during our camp early this month in Switzerland, it is more likely that he is concerned primarily about getting going again.”
O’Grady broke two ribs in a skiing accident last week in the Swiss Alps. However, he still plans to participate in his home race.
“Although it’s obviously not a good thing to happen, looking at the positive side I had a good long solid season, and a very good base in November,” O’Grady told Velonation. “So even though it will put me out of contention for the GC at the Tour Down Under, I will hopefully be 100% for the Classics and I’ll be there when it counts. It’s only two bones this time!”
Michaelsen will direct the new team at the Tour Down Under, January 16 to 23. William Clarke, Martin Pedersen. Martin Mortensen, Stefan Denifl and Bruno Pires will join O’Grady and Viganò.
“With sprinters like Germany’s André Greipel [Omega Pharma-Lotto] and Brit Mark Cavendish [HTC] and many other tough sprinters in the field, we will keep our expectations at a moderate level,” added Michaelsen. “Maybe Viganò, who is fast, can make a good effort, but we have no doubt that there will be other and considerably greater chances later.”
General Manager Brian Nygaard will present the team on January 6 in Luxembourg. He denied reports that the team will be called Leopard True Racing.
Andy Schleck and Fabian Cancellara are the team’s top cyclists, helping it top an internal team ranking system put out by the International Cycling Union (UCI) on November 2. The rankings were based on the cyclists’ results over the past two seasons.