Dutchman excited for the possibility to ride for a star like Fabian Cancellara
29 year old Dutchman, Joost Posthuma, has spent his entire career in the Rabobank system, but is headed a bit south in 2011 to test the waters in the new Luxembourg team.
The winner of a stage of the Tour of Austria in 2010 left the Rabobank team frustrated, but hopes to pick up a promising career where he left off a few years back with next season’s audacious new outfit.
Most riders during this wild transfer season have been more than kind to their former teams, showing at the bare minimum a level of respect to their squads for 2010, but Posthuma isn’t above a parting jab.
“It’s not really rewarding when you have to work for leaders who are not even better than you are,” said the tall powerhouse in a conversation with the TC Tubantia newspaper, which was reported on by Wielerland.nl.
Posthuma’s parting words for the team will surely irk the squad’s 2010 classics leaders, Nick Nuyens, Sebastian Langeveld, and Lars Boom. With that in mind, Posthuma isn’t entirely off base in his critique of the orange and blue team. The consistently under-performing Dutch powerhouse has been consistently hounded by fans and media alike for its penchant to not quite get the job done when it comes to big results in the big Classics – of course, that’s not including Oscar Freire. Like always, he proves an exception.
While Posthuma seems to be leaving Rabobank without any kind of parting sorrow, he looks to be eager to take on his new position with Brian Nygaard and Kim Andersen’s new team out of Luxembourg, particularly, if a certain Fabian Cancellara joins the team. Posthuma has become a strong, able-bodied domestique for the Northern Classics. Up to this point, however, he has never had a superstar leader to benefit from the Dutchman’s efforts – Cancellara could easily change that.
“Suppose Fabian Cancellara signs and wins Paris-Roubaix – that will also be thanks to his team. I want to be a part of that.”
Of course, this all depends on whether Cancellara does/did in fact sign for the Luxembourg project. The news should be coming soon.
Currently, the team roster numbers approximately twenty with some of the following riders confirmed and most of the others more or less certainties:
Frank Schleck, Andy Schleck, Daniele Bennati, Davide Vigano, Giacomo Nizzolo, Bruno Pires, Brice Feillu, Jakob Fuglsang, Linus Gerdemann, Dominic Klemme, Anders Lund, Maxime Monfort, Stuart O’Grady, Joost Posthuma, Tom Stamsnijder, Jens Voigt, Robert Wagner, Fabian Wegmann, Wouter Weylandt, and Martin Mortensen.