30 year old Belgian headed to Riis in hopes of better days
After much speculation as to where eternal Belgian hope, Nick Nuyens, would be heading in 2011, the current Rabobank rider revealed his plans in an interview with the Gazet van Antwerpen today: next stop Saxo Bank.
The former Ronde van Vlaanderen runner-up signed a two year deal with Bjarne Riis’s SunGard/Saxo Bank team. SunGard/Saxo Bank will be the fourth team in Nuyens’s career, after beginning his run with QuickStep, then heading to Cofidis, before spending the past two seasons with Rabobank.
Nuyens made the move to Rabobank two years ago to great expectations. A 2nd place in the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 2008 seemingly hearkened in the era of Nuyens, but nothing ever came of the promise from that result or victory at what’s now the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Both parties ended up frustrated and the two sides barely made it to halfway in the year before there was talk of a separation.
Nuyens admits that settling on Bjarne Riis’s Saxo Bank team was not a simple call. He had to make a choice between three very different teams.
“The choice was not easy. I also could have gone to QuickStep or Cofidis.”
Looking closer, Nuyens managed to find out some critical differences and settled on Saxo Bank.
“Both QuickStep as well as Cofidis, I knew would be great. Patrick Lefevere could only offer me one year though, and the French mentality is not my things.”
Nuyens won’t say it, but has to be thinking it – Bjarne Riis has made a career as a manager capable of salvaging riders’s careers when they come to his team. Riis has wielded a magic wand of sorts over countless riders and brought them back to life and to their full potential under his tutelage.
“With Saxo Bank, I found a lot of enthusiasm about my future, also in the entourage of the team, they look forward to my transfer. Moreover, the philosophy of the team speaks to me.”
Nuyens was also likely not perturbed by the fact that the team’s two Classics superstars, Fabian Cancellara and Matti Breschel, were leaving Riis’s stable at the end of the season, opening up a place for him as a Classics captain in one of the sport’s top teams.
Nuyens admits that it was actually a chat with one of the team’s outgoing riders, none other than Fabian Cancellara, that pushed him the last step in the direction toward the Danish team.
“A chat with Cancellara, who is leaving, was convincing.”
The big question now is – can Bjarne Riis work his magic one more time? Nick Nuyens has shown throughout his career, in various sparks and flashes, that he has the raw talent to be one of the best one day racers in the world. Can Bjarne Riis make that eternal hope something real in 2011?