Australian Cervélo Test Team rider believes course suits his abilities
Providing he is back in peak form in time for this year’s world road race championships, Heinrich Haussler is feeling bullish about his chances of taking a medal – or perhaps even the rainbow jersey – on home soil in two months’ time.
“If I get selected it’s a course that suits me perfectly,” the Cervélo Test Team rider told the Geelong Advertiser.
He was named recently as part of the Australian squad for the race, with the long list due to be announced shortly. He knows that there is a chance he could be passed over due to the injury-enforced absences from racing he has experienced, but selectors should be able to see that a fit Haussler could be a perfect fit for the demands of the course.
“If I don’t ride of course I’ll be disappointed but I haven’t been racing that much this year and I haven’t had a chance to prove myself.
“I know if I do get into form then there’s not many people that can beat me on that course. There’s maybe only (Belgian Philippe) Gilbert, it’s hard to say, the only person I can see is Gilbert. If I didn’t have top form I wouldn’t have a problem riding for the others.”
Haussler finished second in the 2009 Milan San Remo and went on to win a stage in the Tour de France. He’s had knee problems this year but has nevertheless managed to pick up second in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, third in the Grand Prix Kantons Aargau and the sprint classification in the Tour of Qatar. More recently, he grabbed a stage win in the Tour de Suisse and could possibly have taken another had he not collided with Mark Cavendish (HTC Columbia).
That crash aggravated his almost-healed knee problem and he ended up missing the Tour de France as a result.
Many of those who are aiming for the worlds will ride the Vuelta a España but Haussler said that he’d prefer to give the Spanish race a miss and concentrate on other events.
“Some riders they use the tours to find their form and get their strength, but I can find my form just by training,” he explained. “If we got any news in the next one or two weeks that I would be riding then I’d do everything for the worlds. I’d go up to high altitude training for three or four weeks, come down do maybe a tour or a couple of one day races and then fly back to Australia and get adapted. To do the Vuelta, it’s pretty risky to come back from a knee injury and do, straight away, a three week tour.”
He feels the wiser course of action is to build up gradually rather than strain his knee in rushing to get ready for the Vuelta, then riding hard every day in Spain. He said that riding at high altitude suits him better than competing in a Grand Tour, in terms of building form.
Haussler previously competed with a German licence but this year has completed the process of declaring for Australia. His mother is from there and he grew up Down Under before moving to his father’s country of Germany.
The elite men’s world road race championships will take place on October 3rd. It will begin in Melbourne and include eleven laps of a Geelong circuit, totalling 260 kilometres in total. Feedback from those who have seen the course back up Haussler’s assessement that it won’t be a bunch sprint, but rather a smaller group of riders who will fight it out for the victory.
That marks himself, Cervélo team-mate Thor Hushovd, Gilbert, Tyler Farrar and three-time champion Oscar Freire as some of those who should be in contention.