Bjarne Riis, the stoic yet determined leader of the Saxo bank team, put his reputation on the line a few days ago in leaving the Dane Matti Breschel off the squad. Known as one of the best directors in the game of cycling, it is a rare occurrence to see Riis' wisdom questioned. But in leaving Breschel off the Tour de France team, Riis may find himself having to answer some tough questions should the Saxo Bank team have less than stellar results at the upcoming Tour.
Breschel is still young, only 24, so he'll no doubt have many opportunities to ride the Tour in the future. Still, to all appearances it seems as though the Dane is ready now to tackle the toughest bike race in the world. After a breakout 2008 that saw him win the Philadelphia International Classic and take third in the road world championships in Varese, Italy, Breschel came into 2009 looking for big results for his Saxo team.
After a solid early season of build up, Breschel took top ten placings at both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, and just this past week he won stage 4 of the Tour de Swiss. His form seems at a high level, his mind collected, yet he'll still find himself on the sidelines when his Saxo Bank team line up for the prologue at the Tour in 10 days time.
Bjarne Riis is without a doubt one of the top minds in the sport of cycling. His ability to read a race and his riders set him apart from many others in the sport, yet his decision regarding leaving Breschel off the Tour team will have many of us scratching out heads. Hopefully Saxo will, as Riis hopes, dominate the Tour behind stalwarts Fabian Cancellara and the two Schleck brothers. But if they falter, if the wins don't come, there will be a young Dane standing on the outside looking in, wondering what could have been.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Holding the Bag: Fuming Brechel Left off Saxo Tour Team Despite Solid 2009 Results
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2 comments:
Brechel maybe has a slight argument if Saxo Bank was having an off year.
Riis could put him in for the sake of development...but he wants to win this year and his choices were brilliant. You've got your stars in Cancellara, the Schlecks, Voit, and O'Grady; and the rest of the squad is full of experienced time trialers and road racers.
Some of these big sponsored teams have too much talent.
I'm surprised at the news Gerrans is left off the Cervelo roster. I guess they plan to support Hushovd for the Green and Sastre for the yellow, or else it wouldn't make sense.
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