Dutchman suffering from flu, team plays it safe
Robert Gesink’s goal of targeting his home race, the Amstel Gold Classic, remains unchanged despite the Dutchman deciding not to start today’s stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco.
The Rabobank rider rolled in 132nd on yesterday’s stage, his group conceding two minutes and fourteen seconds to the peloton. He’s suffering from a viral infection and his team has decided to play things safe rather than asking him to finish the WorldTour event.
“He was a little bit sick before the race,” team spokesman Luuc Eisenga told VeloNation this morning. “We hoped that it would improve, but that was not the case. He has the flu and that is why we decided to withdraw him.
“He will now recover for a day or two, and instead of racing Robert will do some hard training. His programme remains unchanged – he’ll ride Amstel, then do Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.”
Gesink broke his femur last September and had disrupted pre-season training. However he recovered quickly enough to start racing in in February, placing eleventh overall in the Vuelta a Andalucia, 65th in the Clasica de Almeria and going on to a fine eighth overall in the Vuelta a la Region de Murcia in March.
More recently he rode the Volta a Catalunya, where he was nineteenth.
Eisenga said that his accident is no longer a factor. “He has confirmed already that the effects from breaking his leg in the crash are nil, so that situation is completely healthy,” he said. “That is good. You can’t take that for granted, so it’s great that he’s got no lasting problems.”
Gesink previously finished third in the Amstel Gold Race and fourth in Fleche Wallonne. He was also fifth overall in the 2010 Tour de France. A strong climber, he is regarded as one of the top Dutch talents for Grand Tour races.