Here we are starting racing again at Critérium du Dauphiné. I will start riding after a great Amgen Tour of Calfiornia, and will participate for the second time in my life. As a French rider I really love this race.
The week of Amgen Tour of California was really incredible. I had a great result and was super happy about what I was able to achieve. It was an experience I will never forget against some strong guys. There was a great emotion. After that performance I came back and I took a few days off. I was near Bordeaux with my girlfriend to take a few days off. We had a really great time working and discovering a new part of France.
One of my passions is to go around and discover my country. We are always traveling with this job, but to be honest there is not a lot of time to enjoy the places where we are because we are so busy. The vacation was perfect. I switched off my brain and I even went to a zoo!
After a great time off, I started training again. We will see what will happen in the next weeks after Critérium du Dauphiné. There will be a European Championship in Baku and then the national championship. I really don't know what I can expect from those races. I'm young and want to pay attention to learning from my experiences first and foremost. For me everything is quite new, and we have to work on managing this situation.
I'm really excited to have been selected for the Championship in Baku. The chance to ride with the national jersey is super nice. It will be a pleasure to ride there. But I'm not sure what I can expected from this race, and to be honest I don't want to think about it right now. It will be a big moment for sure. I've had great experiences from the first part of the season and now I will have also this great opportunity to ride this race. I am definitely curious about it. I don't have big expectation at this moment. We will go step-by-step. I rode a lot this year so I don't know how my condition will be in the upcoming weeks. For sure the will to do well is always there! Then after the nationals together with the team we will make a evaluation and decide the rest of the program for the season.
A lot of Belgians asked me if I will ride Le Tour. No, not this year. Le Tour is a race the French guys of the peloton dream about. One day I wll ride it for sure. Just not this year. The race is really demanding, the teams are really strong, and for me and my calendar it would be too much. So I won't be there, but I won't miss any stages in front of the television. If possible I'd like to go to one stage to say hello to the guys before the race as a spectator. When you are a rider on the road you experience the race in another way. I hope to see a lot of the French public on the roads and I hope the team will have a great result. For now my focus is on Critérium du Dauphiné, and we will see what I can do there. I will learn from each stage and my goal is to ride in function of the team.
A Bientot!
Julian
We came to the Giro d'Italia with big expectations, even if Rigo was sick after the Tour de Romandie. We thought we could do in any case a good Giro, because normally in the first week stages in past years favored a long breakaway or the race wasn't so nervous. The rhythm of the race was high pace from the start this year. There was an immediate fight between the level of Contador and the level of Astana. This put Rigo immediately in difficulties, because Rigo was taking antibiotics at the time, and he couldn't recover.
Photo: Tim De Waele
But we were still fighting. Our goal was to try to arrive at the time trial with a reasonable gap for the pink jersey. I think we made it. Considering the situation of Rigo with the bronchitis and the crash in Imola, until that moment it was kind of a miracle to be there. We lost two riders immediately from crashes, for example. Even the day before the time trial and the time trial itself, it was heavy rain every day and it didn't help Rigo to improve his condition.
But after the TT we decided to wait until Madonna Di Campiglio to decide if Rigo was able to keep pursuing the high placing in the GC or not. But Rigo had a really difficult day. It was a long way to the finish for him. He was without any energy after the TT and he lost a lot of minutes. At that point we decided to switch our tactic. I think as a team and staff we were able to keep the riders motivated, and we changed completely our strategy. We went into breakaways with Keisse in the Lugano stage, De La Cruz the day of Verbania, and then in the last two big mountain stages Rigo put in a great performances both days for us. It was important to show we were alive and that Rigo could have been one of the race contenders without physical problems. Beating a guy like Contador isn't easy. You have to be 110% to beat a guy like him. But a high place in the GC would have been something possible for Rigo with better health. It was a pleasure to see him on Friday and Saturday fighting to go for the stage, but of course in the high mountains you can go full gas, but at the end, when the race is controlled, it's always the guy with the best condition who wins. The guy with the best condition was Aru. But, we were happy with how Rigo performed.
Photo: BrakeThrough Media
On Saturday night before the last stage we had dinner together at the team hotel. It was there we started thinking about the stage on Sunday. Probably people think were a bit crazy, but there was a plan to try and win this stage with Iljo Keisse. We knew he was motivated with good legs, and on a tricky circuit with a few corners he could play a role. The goal was to attack in the last lap or last corners together with Iljo and Fabio Sabatini. But Iljo decided to go before, and it worked out perfectly. There is nothing better than finishing a race like this. After a grand tour where you have trouble, to win a stage that on paper wasn't for you, it was a great achievement. In cycling history not a lot of guys have been able to win the last stage in Milano out of a breakaway. Iljo is a cool guy. Everyone knows him. He was using all his energy and experience to win this race, probably also with the help of somebody in the sky. I believe in that. Iljo was flying in a situation like that. It was really wonderful and he was able to make the right decisions in a short time. As Patrick Lefevere says, when a guy like Iljo wins, it's a victory for the whole team because he embodies the team spirit. He won't be upset with me that I say he is the workhorse of the team that always dedicates all of his energy for the team goals. He deserves this victory because he always goes full gas for everyone else when they have their opportunities.
Photo: BrakeThrough Media
Photo: BrakeThrough Media
So, we close this Giro with a victory and a 14th place of Rigoberto and we kept the leadership in the UCI Team Ranking. There is nothing you can do when you are not healthy, but of course we showed that this team is a bunch of fighters. It's a mentality that is part of the team spirit. So, we can conclude the Giro d'Italia maybe not completely satisfied, but convinced we did all we could have done considering the circumstances.
Let me thank all the riders and staff for their great job and collaboration in these days. It was really a pleasure and a privilege to work with this group of guys.
