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05.01.2007/ Team Barloworld
moves toward the new season: Robert Hunter will make his debut in Australia, Kroon Back in
Training after Accident, Vinokourov’s team fired up to compete in ‘07, Skil-Shimano starts preseason in Mallorca,
Jens Voigt German rider of the year, Geslin brakes collar bone, Hammond to defend cyclo-cross
title
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Looking back in anger
Team Barloworld moves toward the new season: Robert
Hunter will make his debut in Australia
Team Barloworld
fixed January 9th as departure date from Rome, destination Adelaide for the group of riders (leaded by directeur sportif Alberto
Volpi) taking part to Down Under Classic on January 16th and Tour Down Under from 17th to 21st of January. In the 2007 cycling
season opening races Team Barloworld will line-up four of the new pros joining the squad: South African Robert Hunter, the
young British Geraint Thomas, the experienced Fabrizio Guidi and Paolo Longo Borghini. The team will be completed by Diego
Caccia, Gianpaolo Cheula (Peace Race winner in 2006), the sprinter Enrico Degano (four victories in the past season) and James
Perry.
After these races in Australia, the Barloworld riders will come back in Italy to join their team-mates in the training
camp to be held in Tuscany (Castagneto Carducci) from January 31st to February 9th.
Kroon Back in Training after Accident
During the Christmas holidays Team CSC's Dutch rider Karsten
Kroon crashed on his snowboard and broke his wrist. However he is now back in the saddle and thinks he will be fully recovered,
when the team leaves for training a camp in California later in January.
"At first they gave me a cast on the lower
part of my arm, but that was no good because I couldn't ride my bike. I talked to the doctor about it and he said it was ok
for me to remove the cast, but that it would hurt a great deal and I would have to wear something to stabilize my wrist. I've
followed his instructions and I'm able to continue my training, but there is a lot of pain both in and around my wrist and
also it wrecks my balance on the bike," explains Kroon, who is training in Spain at the moment.
The accident happened,
when Kroon was on holiday in Val Thorens with his family, but he will be joining his teammates for the training camp in California
on January 31st and he will also be in Tour of California after that.
"For me Tour of California is mainly preparation
for the spring classics. They are my main priority this season and also I'm hoping to get to do Tour de France as well. The
Tour is better for me this year, because we're not building the entire team around one person like last year. The route seems
perfect for our team and we should be able to snatch a couple of stages at least," comments Kroon.
Once the California
training camp starts Kroon is hoping to be free of the pains, which he has been told should last for about three more weeks.
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| Karsten Kroon is training again (picture: Cyclingheroes) |
Vinokourov’s team fired up to compete
in ‘07
Alexander Vinokourov’s team, Astana, was registered for Pro Tour competitions by the International Cycling Union
(UCI) on December 20 clearing the way for it to compete in Tour de France and other international contests in 2007.
Vinokourov, the star of Kazakhstan’s cycling and heavily favoured to win the 2006 Tour de France had to miss the
Tour because his former team Astana-Wurth was pulled out of the race after suspicions some Spanish riders, not Vinokourov,
might have used banned substance.
Vinokourov and three other Kazakh riders from Astana-Wurth then pulled out of that team and set up a purely Kazakh team,
with just Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, in the name.
Also in 2006, Vinokourov got some consolation after the non-participation in Tour de France, cycling’s biggest event
of the year, when he won the Vuelta stage race in Spain later.
The last hurdle for Astana’s registration as a professional team was cleared on December 20 when the team’s
manager provided guarantees for 12 million euros needed for its participation in international contests in 2007. The license
from UCI spans four years.
The first training session for Astana is set for January 8 on Majorca, and the new team will be officially presented in
Astana later in January.
Earlier this week Astana signed two young riders: 23 years old Daniele Navarro from Spain and Kazach rider Yevgeny Sladkov,
who is also 23 years old.
Skil-Shimano starts preseason in Mallorca
The Skil-Shimano cycling team starts its preparations for the coming season in Mallorca
this month. The training camp is scheduled for 10-19 January. The Japanese and Chinese riders will not be in Spain however.
The Japanese are riding the Tour of Siam 20-25 January and the Tour of Langkawi 2-11 February ahead of their arrival in Europe
in March. Chinese riders Fang Xu, Jin Long and Ji Cheng hook up with the team in early February.
Jens Voigt German rider of the year
Jens Voigt was honoured for his successful season by the readers of the German cycling magazine Radsport. In the voting
for the Rider of the Year 2006, 36.1 per cent voted for Voigt, who won the 2006 Tour of Germany. Voigt won last years voting
as well.
Vice World Champion Erik Zabel became second with 28.1% of the votes, Gerald Ciolek, who won the U 23 World
Championships in Salzburg, was ranked third (14.4%).
In the women’s voting, vice World Champion Trixi Worrack
(Equipe Nürnberger) won. Cross specialist Hanka Kupfernagel was voted second, Worrack’s team-mate Claudia Häusler third.
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| Voigt during the ceremony for the German TUI cup (picture: Cyclingheroes) |
Geslin brakes collar bone
French rider Anthony Geslin broke his collar bone. Geslin doesn't need surgery and his doctor expect the
Bouygues Telecom rider to be back in training in a couple of days.
Hammond to defend cyclo-cross title
Roger Hammond returns to the Southampton Sports Centre on January 7th not only to defend the national
British Cyclo-Cross championship he won last year, but also to the venue where he took his first Elite title twelve years
ago.
Hammond will also roll out in his new magenta T-Mobile colours for the first time on England’s
South Coast. Having spent two years at Discovery Channel, Hammond is one of the key classics specialists drafted into the
revamped 2007 T-Mobile line-up - and will be hoping that the team change will help him recapture the form that saw him place
third in the 2004 Paris-Roubaix.
Warm-up in Belgium
Hammond arrives in Southampton on
the back of four cyclo-cross races in Belgium in December period, including a seventh place behind cyclo-cross super-star
Sven Nys in Wachtebeke.
“I’m going well, I have trained harder than last year and I’m
looking forward to Sunday,” says the Oxford veteran. “In Diegem and Overijse I punctured at critical moments,
and that left me no chance of getting back into contention, but in Middelkerke and Wachtebeke I had better placings than last
year. Overall, I was pleased with how I went in Belgium.”
On his chances in Southampton, Hammond
is philosophical: “The weather will play a big part. In cyclo-cross you need to be lucky on the day and avoid mechanicals.
If it‘s wet then I expect a real battle of attrition.
Should the conditions be wet and mucky, Hammond
won’t be taking huge risks on the course’s trickier technical areas. “I will be relying on my endurance
and playing it safe. In cyclo-cross, there’s always technical corners where if you're prepared to take risks you gain
5 or 6 seconds. That really adds up if your consider that you are racing 9 or 10 laps of circuit. But it has its risks!”
Despite dominating the event in recent years, the T-Mobile rider will not have it all his own way as
one of the strongest fields for many years take on the flat, fast, technical course: “Liam Kileen will probably be my
biggest rival. He’s really strong and pushed me very close last year. Dave Collins also scored a top ten placing in
Belgium recently, so he’s sure to be in good shape. It will be a tough race.”
Taking the
risk out of cyclo-cross
Cyclo-cross has its ‘dangers’, but Hammond is competing with the blessing
of team management : “Cyclo-cross is part of my road training and even if I wasn’t doing cross races, I would
still train off-road. I wouldn’t change my training. I am still doing endurance training on the road and mixing it with
more intense efforts off-road, two days a week.”
“However, I train on a simple off-road circuit.
It is technically unchallenging, I don’t do anything risky off-road. I am not saying cyclo-cross is ‘dangerous’,
but I do take the risk out of it, to avoid a situation where I pick up an injury and the management are saying that ‘maybe
you shouldn’t be doing cyclo-cross’”.
After defending his championship on Sunday, Hammond
travels to the T-Mobile Team's annual training camp on Mallorca to continue his build-up to the road season which starts for
him at Etoile des Besseges in February.
Source: T-Mobile
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