Canadian aiming for WorldTour return
GreenEdge Cycling has added Svein Tuft to their line up for next season as it aims to become the first Australian team with a WorldTour licence. The news comes after Tuft soloed to victory in Tuesday’s GP Stad Zottegem in Belgium.
Tuft originally signed for the doomed Pegasus racing project this year but was picked up by the SpiderTech-C10 team after the project failed to get off the ground.
“I owe a lot of thanks to Steve Bauer and Josee Larocque, from SpiderTech-C10, who bailed me out of a tough situation in December and got me a great racing program with a lot of my good friends from Canada,” Tuft said.
“Leaving SpiderTech-C10 has been one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in my cycling career as I think what they are doing for Canadian cycling is fantastic.
“But I had to make a personal decision to get back to the UCI World Tour where I believe I have plenty more to give.”
The Canadian will return to the World Tour circuit where he rode previously for two years with Garmin-Transitions (now Garmin-Cervelo). He was no stranger to success on the team, winning the prologue in the Eneco Tour last year, along with another individual time trial win in the Tour of Denmark. He finished second overall in the latter.
“The thing I’m looking forward to most about being part of a new Australian team is racing the hardest races in the world with a strong crew that I know are capable of winning at the very highest level,” Tuft said.
“I’ll be one of the workhorses on the team but I also have some personal ambitions in shorter stage races that have good time trials in them and, as always, the time trial at the world championships and the 2012 London Olympics are my major objectives.”
Tuft is currently the Canadian road and time trial champion and is a former silver medalist in the world championships individual time trial. He competed in the Olympic Games once before in Beijing where he finished seventh in the time trial.
In a statement sent out by the team, GreenEdge Cycling general manager explained Tuft’s signing. “Svein brings a super hard work ethic to the team, which is an important quality to have, particularly in a new team where we’re building the culture from the ground up.”
The Canadian is currently seeing out the rest of SpiderTech-C10’s European racing schedule and will line up today for the Druivenkoers – Overijse race in Belgium.