Dutch team to put everything behind Robert Gesink in the Tour but Spanish sprinter wants to ride too
Oscar Freire may com into conflict with his Rabobank team over his race schedule next year. The Spanish sprinter would like to ride a similar programme to 2010, but this may be at odds with the team’s strategy to try to get its Dutch captain on the podium of the Tour de France. The 34-year-old spoke about his hopes for the upcoming season with Spanish sportspaper La Marca.
“I would like a schedule like other years,” he said. “The classics, the Tour, the Vuelta and the Worlds. But this year the team wants to put everything behind [Robert] Gesink the Tour and proposes that I ride the Giro; I’ve never ridden it before, and the 2011 course seems especially hard. In addition, May has never given me good results.”
The three-time World champion was due to be part of Rabobank’s team for this year’s Giro d’Italia but withdrew at the last minute due to problems with sinusitis; he continued to suffer with the condition throughout the summer but was successfully operated on immediately after the Tour de France. Last week he seemed to be looking forward to his first assault on the Corsa Rosa but now seems to have changed his mind.
The Vuelta a España is proving to be a useful preparation race for the World Championships, and Freire’s preferred way to do it is a Tour-Vuelta combintion, rather than Giro-Vuelta.
Despite the sinus problems blighting his summer, Freire’s 2010 season was a successful one. He won the first classic of the year in Milano-San Remo, taking his third victory in La Classicissima, and won the final one in Paris-Tours; in between he won two stages in the Vuelta a Pays Vasco, in addition to the Trofeo Cala Millor in Mallorca and two stge of the Ruta del Sol in February.
It is the World Championships that define the Spaniard’s career though and he hopes to better his sixth place in Melbourne, Australia this year; the course in Copenhagen, Denmark is said to favour the sprinters and this may be his last chance to take an unprecedented fourth jersey.
“I’ve seen the circuit on the internet,” he said, “and it truly does look good for me because it is difficult and, after 250 kilometres, I’m no bad. But the stakes are very high and there is only one winner.”
After hreatening to retire at the end of this year, Freire will likely finally hang up his wheels at the end of next; this does largely depend though, he says, how the 2011 season goes for him.
“In principle 2011 would be my last year,” he said, “but depending on how I am, how I start the year and how I finish, I could ride for one more. Do not rule out anything, because the performance I’ve had this year has been pretty good and although I did not win the World Championship, victory in Paris-Tours has given me great morale.
“If I go as well in 2011 I’ll probably continue next year,” he added.