Belgian champion needs a rest after racing almost every day in July but racing to be World number one
After yet another imperious victory in Saturday’s Clásica San Sebastian, Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) is feeling the accumulated fatigue of a long season. The Belgian champion still has an ambition for 2011 though: to end the year at the top of the International Cycling Union (UCI) WorldTour standings.
Racing the Tour de France, followed by a number of post-Tour criteriums and San Sebastian means that Gilbert could do with some time off.
“I’m longing for a bit of a rest,” he told Het Nieuwsblad. “I’ve pinned a number on my back almost every day for a month.”
The Tour started on July 2nd and finished on the 24th, featuring two rest days. Gilbert immediately followed this with criteriums in Aalst, Roeselare, Kristiansand, Norway, Herentals and Sint-Niklaas, before taking a private plane to the Basque country for the Clásica on Saturday. In the 31 days of July, the Belgian raced on 27.
The big aim for Gilbert’s season now is to get to the top of the WorldTour ranking, although only six of those 27 race days actually scored him points in the series. He picked up twenty for his victory on stage one of the Tour, as well as a further 26 for top five placings during the rest of the race. The largely fixed post-Tour races, of course, don’t count towards any ranking, but on Saturday he racked up another 80 points for his San Sebastian victory.
It’s days like that that he needs more of if he is to take the title by the end of the season; he needs a rest but feels he needs to keep racing to take as many points as possible.
“When the opportunity presents itself you must seize it,” he said. “You can’t end every season as number one.”
The series is currently led by Tour winner Cadel Evans (BMC Racing), who also owes his position to victories in Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie, as well as second place in the Critérium du Dauphiné. The Australian didn’t ride in San Sebastian though, and so in the – as yet unpublished – ranking for this week still has 574 points; Gilbert’s victory edges him closer with 482.
“I’m now in second place, 92 points behind Cadel Evans,” explained the Belgian. “After the Eneco Tour, I still have Hamburg [Vattenfall Cyclassics – ed], Plouay [GP Ouest-France – ed], the two World Tour events in Canada [Québec and Montréal – ed], and Lombardy; that should be enough…”
Since he rode the Tour Gilbert is choosing to miss the Vuelta a España, which he rode last year in preparation for the World championships. Although he won two stages in the 2010 Vuelta, the potential for a rider like the Belgian champion to score points is far better in the one-day races.
“Maybe the average cycling fan doesn’t attach much importance to it, but I do, and so do my colleagues you can be sure,” he explained. They know what it’s worth to be named the number one rider of the season.”
The UCI’s previous season-long competitions – the World Cup, which ran between 1989 and 2004, and the ProTour, which ran from 2005 to 2008 – both had a leader’s jersey. Since 2009 this has not been the case though, which Gilbert regrets in some ways but not in others, since he won his national title at the end of June.
“It’s just a shame that there’s no special jersey that goes with it,” he said. “But then where would I put my driekleur…”