New Zealand rider says team will allow him to target London Olympics
Having resigned from Johan Bruyneel’s RadioShack team six years ago, Hayden Roulston appears set to once again work with the Belgian as part of the RadioShack Nissan team in 2012.
The 30 year old Kiwi has been looking for a contract since it was confirmed that the HTC Highroad team would stop and it now, according to the CyclingNz.com site, it appears that he will compete with the new-look Luxembourg squad next season.
Roulston last week confirmed that he had found a ProTeam, but didn’t state the identity. “I just signed my contract [yesterday] morning. I’ll be based overseas again,” Roulston told stuff.co.nz at the recent national track championships. “The team will release that over the next week, I think.”
One consideration was that he wanted the green light to be able to compete in the track events in the London Olympics. “It’s going to fit in well, they’ve okayed everything regarding the track. For me, it’s basically the best of both worlds.”
Roulston has had a successful career despite two significant setbacks. He raced with the Cofidis team between 2002 and 2004, then signed a contract with Discovery Channel in 2005. However he resigned from the latter after being involved in a brawl in New Zealand.
He sought to get things back on track when racing for Health Net in 2006, but was forced to put his career on hold due to heart issues. At one point he was warned that racing again could be potentially fatal due to arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, but he successfully rectified the problem and returned to racing. He won the national championships later that year and took back to back Tour of Southland and Tour of Wellington titles in 2006 and 2007.
He also raced successfully on the track, with fourth place finishes in the individual and team pursuit in 2008 being followed by silver in the individual pursuit in that year’s Olympic Games.
Roulston then returned to the pro peloton in 2009 with the Cervélo Test Team., netting second on a stage of the Tour of California and third on a stage of the Tour de France.
Two years with HTC Highroad were successful, with the Kiwi providing important team support to Mark Cavendish and others, as well as winning the 2010 Tour of Southland, a team time trial stage in the Vuelta a España and a stage of the Tour of Denmark. Roulston was also second in last year’s Commonwealth Games and took another national championship title this year.