This week, captain Denis Menchov will continue his preparation for the Tour. On Thursday and Friday he will explore the
two stages in the Pyrenees with Koos Moerenhout and team manager Erik Breukink. The Russian closely studied the three Alps
stages last week. The stage across the completely unfamiliar Alps giants Lombarda and Bonnette received extra attention.
Menchov told sportwereld.nl during a break on the top of the Colle della Lombarda: "Nice climb. A typical Italian mountain,
more steep as on the French side. You can't compare this with the mountains around Pamplona, where I live. I like this col."
The captain for the flat stages, Oscar Freire, appeared to be in good shape in the Tour de Suisse, with a stage victory
in the first stage.
Sébastian Langeveld and Laurens ten Dam are the debutants in the formation. Langeveld dropped out of the Tour de Suisse
early as a precautionary measure, but he could immediately restart training without any complaints and/or problems once he
got back to the Netherlands.
To Pieter Weening it is his forth start already. Weening missed the entire pre-season and swung into action for the first
time in mid-May. He gave an especially strong performance in the Dauphiné Libéré. In spite of that, however, Weening's selection
was as a very pleasant surprise for him. "I am obviously very happy with this. Excellent. Spring was very heavy, but it went
really well in the Dauphiné. That was a great feeling."
Thomas Dekker was not selected by the Rabobank team management. Although Dekker did not perform well in the Tour de Suisse and even did not start in Saturday's eight stage Dutch media were speculating that there could be other reasons for the team not to select Dekker. Sportwereld.nl was speculating
about a conflict between the team and Dekker and that both parties might part ways after the season althoug Dekker has a contract
for 2009 as well.
