Australian wants to follow up on Giro success with another KOM title
Several weeks after winning the green jersey as best climber in the Giro d’Italia, the Australian Omega Pharma Lotto rider Matthew Lloyd is looking at achieving the equivalent in the Tour de France.
“My main aim is to win a stage but as you could imagine I have a lot of motivation to bring home a polka dot jersey to go with the green one,” he said on his blog.
He has ridden the race once before, making his debut in 2009. He rode in support of Cadel Evans and Jurgen Van den Broeck, and placed 46th overall. However much of last season was hampered by injuries he had suffered in the Amstel Gold Race, where he crashed heavily.
2010 has seen him in better form, with the Australian building his condition in several events before the Giro d’Italia. Those were the national championships and Tour Down Under back home, then the Volta ao Algarve, Tirreno –Adriatico, the Volta a Catalunya and the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. Once in the Giro, he soloed to a superb solo win in Marina di Carrara, the defended the mountains jersey from that point on. Ivan Basso grabbed it for one stage, but Lloyd wrested it back and wore it to the finish in Verona.
In the Tour, Lloyd is planning on limiting his losses early on, then making a move later on in the race. “It’s fair to say that you shouldn’t be expecting me at the pointy end in the prologue in Rotterdam on Saturday,” he said. “For the first few stages I will look to keep out of trouble. Stage 3 will be interesting – the cobbles will sort a few out…. didn’t think I’d be doing a Roubaix this time of year!. Position will be key on that day and you can bet one of the GC contenders will get caught out.”
Peculiarly, he bucked the usual trend and said that he had tried to put on weight after the Giro. “Leading into this race I would have liked to have been about 10kg heavier,” he said, perhaps referring light-heartedly to the early cobbled stage, where he will be at a disadvantage.
“However the altitude lead up wasn’t what you would call a weight gaining friendly environment …. Despite that everyone has their peaks and troughs throughout the tour and hitting it up late will potentially be more fruitful.”
Lloyd will once again support Van den Broeck in the mountains, but will hope that he also has scope to chase the important points that could earn him the polka-dot jersey.