Episode 3: Tirreno-Adriatico 2015 Pre-race Show The Recon Ride talks route, favorites, and more for the Race of the Two Seas, with a guest appearance by Trek’s Bauke Mollema.
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While some of the peloton’s big names are in France for Paris-Nice, Grand Tour favorites and top sprinters and classics riders alike will take on Tirreno-Adriatico this week. VeloHuman and Cosmo Catalano of Cyclocosm.com delve into the roadbook, discuss the riders to watch, and even talk to GC contender Bauke Mollema of Trek Factory Racing about what to expect in Italy.
Update: this show was recorded and published before a flurry of late changes to the race narrative, among them the withdrawals of Chris Froome and Marcel Kittel, and the modification of Stage 1 from a team time trial into an individual time trial. However, the Recon Ride covers so many aspects of this race that there should still be plenty here to get you prepared for Tirreno-Adriatico.
After a February break, WorldTour racing is upon us again. The 73rd running of Paris-Nice brings time trials and high mountains back into play after a year without them. The 2014 edition of the race favored punchy opportunists with a talent for nabbing bonus seconds, but this year’s event will put the more prototypical General Classification contenders in the best position to challenge for the overall victory. While Tirreno-Adriatico may have drawn the “big four” Grand Tour contenders, there are still plenty of elite talents headed to France this weekend to contest the Race to the Sun. As the European WorldTour opener, and the season-opener for many big names, and with another shakeup of the parcours, Paris-Nice offers plenty of storylines to make for an interesting race (storylines also investigated in further detail in the Recon Ride’s Paris-Nice pre-race show, which you should check out if you haven’t already).
The Route
Paris-Nice opens with a short, flat prologue of 6.7 kilometers. It’s hardly long enough to open big gaps on GC but this should be a close race so the riders hoping to fight for the overall victory here will be on their toes. A flat Stage 1 should go to the pure sprinters, and the fast men will likely get another chance on the similarly flat Stage 2. A very slightly inclined finish on Stage 3 could at least give the lighter sprinters an advantage to mix things up, but it should again be large group that reaches the line together in Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule.
The mountains arrive quite suddenly on Stage 4. Early climbs in the profile could prove a nice launching pad, and late climbs and winding roads a nice buffer, for a strong breakaway, but whether stage honors are on the line or not, the GC battle will be fierce.
Stage 4: Varennes-sur-Allier › Croix de Chaubouret (204 km) – After several day of flat profiles, a summit finish on Stage 4 will suddenly put the GC contenders to the test.
The Cat. 1 closing climb of the Croix de Chauboret doesn’t compare to some of the more grueling climbs these riders will face in the Grand Tours later this season but at the end of a day of constant climb, and this early in the season, it will very likely catch a number of contenders out. It’s a mostly gradual ascent to the summit finish but a high tempo from one of the powerhouse teams is sure to leave big names off the back before the line.
A few bumps along the road to Rasteau and an uphill drag to the line will make Stage 5 an interesting battleground on which sprinters, aggressors, and punchier climbers will all have a chance. The more explosive GC riders could be on the lookout for bonus seconds.
Bonus seconds could also be hotly contested on Stage 6, which is up and down all day long with a total of three Category 2 climbs and three Category 1 climbs. After the last (Cat. 1) climb it’s a long downhill run to the line. If the climbs don’t give the uphill purists room to get separation, a small group could descend the Côte de Peille together, which will guarantee an exciting final few minutes.
Paris-Nice ends with a 9.6-kilometer time trial up the Col d’Éze, also the final battleground for both the 2012 and 2013 editions of the race. The 4.7% average gradient may not look like much but past editions has proven that this is a chrono for the elite climbers.
Stage 7 (ITT): Nice › Col d’Éze (9.6 km) – Past editions of the race have proven that this climb is not to be taken lightly.
Under 10 kilometers though it may be, the Col d’Éze climb is going to open up gaps in the General Classification fight, guaranteeing that Paris-Nice will come down to the very last day.
All told, there’s something for everyone in Paris-Nice. Those battling for overall supremacy will need to battle through a variety of different challenges, against gravity and against the clock, to emerge victorious. Meanwhile, those hoping to come away from Europe first WorldTour race of the year with stage wins will face stiff competition with the long list of strong sprinters.
The General Classification Contenders
More so than the 2014 edition, the 2015 Paris-Nice route is especially favorable to the big engine riders who can fend for themselves in the time trials and long vertical drags. Coming off of a strong performance in the Tour Down Under (where his inability to consolidate bonus seconds left him just off the top step of the podium) Richie Porte is clearly in terrific shape for the year, and Paris-Nice offers him a a golden opportunity to put his National Championship-winning ITT skills on display. His great climbing legs put him in the lead a few stages prior in the 2013 Paris-Nice, and he clinched the overall win on that year’s run up the Col d’Éze, where no one was faster. Two years since then, with that challenging finale returning to the route, Porte’s GC bid will be difficult to overcome in 2015, especially backed by the powerhouse Sky powerhouse lineup that includes Geraint Thomas and Nicolas Roche as dangerous support riders or potential alternatives.
BMC’s Tejay van Garderen is another rider capable of battling with the very best in both the climbs and the time trial. Fresh from the Tour of Oman, where he was a close runner-up, van Garderen looks lean and on-form. In fact, he has a history of performing very well early in the season. The steady gradient of the Stage 4 finishing climb suits him well, both time trials should be opportunities for him to advance on the GC leaderboard, and he even has a bit more explosiveness than many realize should he find himself in a small group with bonus seconds on the line at any point. With Cadel Evans in retirement, now is the time for van Garderen to prove that he can be the sole GC leader of this team, and his combination of skills puts him in an excellent spot to do so here. Van Garderen also has an excellent team around him, with Rohan Dennis, climbing better than ever, as a very strong second.
Rui Costa was 2nd in last year’s race (and in fact racked up a pair of 2nd-place stage finishes along the way) but he has the skill set to thrive on the updated parcours as well, combining great climbing legs with time trialing chops that can’t be overlooked (though they often are) and the explosiveness and aggressiveness to win battles for bonus seconds. With Rafael Valls, fresh off a Tour of Oman victory, here as well, Lampre should be able to hold their own.
Multi-talented Michal Kwiatkowski will look to attack the GC leaderboard early even from the first day of racing, with prologues a particularly forte of his, and he should be in the mix for bonus seconds here and there throughout the race. At times, he has flashed brilliance even on the tough mountain climbs, but he has had a tendency to suffer a bad day in the mountains here and there in his career. If he can avoid that sort of off-day in Paris-Nice and stay close to the best climbers, he will have a great shot at the overall win.
Dutch rising star Wilco Kelderman had a very impressive 2014 and he will look to continue to develop as LottoNL’s GC star this season. Interestingly, he did not quite perform to (high) expectations in the chronos last year, but a 2nd-place ITT finish in Andalucia last month has him looking sharp and ready to race against the clock this year. Ever-improving climbing skills and a fierce finishing kick for the bonus seconds make him a strong competitor.
Rafal Majka of Tinkoff-Saxo will likely do a lot of work for Alberto Contador this season, but the 25-year-old Polish climber, 4th overall in Oman last month, is in great shape at the moment and won’t pass up an opportunity to mix it up in a WorldTour race. He is an excellent uphill time trialist who should perform well on the final stage. Fabio Aru of Astana also knows about being the second of two elite GC riders on one team, and with clouds of uncertainty hanging over Astana, now would be a good time for him to make a statement as the featured GC rider while Vincenzo Nibali is leading the squad in Tirreno-Adriatico. At his best, Aru would rival Porte as a pre-race favorite but his completely unknown form makes him more of a question mark. Teammate Jakob Fuglsang will be an excellent second, 5th here last year on a parcours that did not suit him particularly well. 7th in Oman in February, Fuglsang is the in-form rider. With Lieuwe Westra and Luis Leon Sanchez (two riders with results in Paris-Nice in the past) here as well, Astana will almost certainly be on the move at every opportunity.
Andrew Talansky is a question mark for form at the moment, not having raced at all in 2015, but Paris-Nice was something of a coming out party for him in 2013, and with a similar course he has the skillset to thrive again. Jean-Christophe Péraud was on the podium that year as well, but his form is dubious right now. Teammate Romain Bardet looks like the better option for AG2R. Mathias Frank is a massive talent in the one-week events for IAM Cycling. Warren Barguil isn’t much for the time trials, but with the uphill nature of Stage 7, that may not hurt him too much. He should fight for a Top 10. Katusha’s Tiago Machado, Simon Spilak, and Sergey Chernetskiy should be in the mix on the climbs and with their combined firepower, they have the ability to attack the GC leaderboard from several angles.
Simon Yates of Orica-GreenEdge, Movistar’s trio of Rubén Fernández, Beñat Intxausti, and Ion Izaguirre, and Trek’s Bob Jungels (who has a great shot at winning the prologue) will also hope to get involved in the GC conversation. VeloHuman’s Under-the-radar rider for Paris-Nice is Eduardo Sepúlveda of Bretagne-Séché Environnement. 4th overall in San Luis in January and the winner of the recent Classic Sud Ardèche, Sepúlveda is the complete GC package and sporting great form right now. For his team, motivation to put on a show at the WorldTour level will be high, and the 23-year-old Argentinian has the skillset to take up the charge.
The Stagehunters
The list of top sprinting talents making the start in Paris-Nice seems to go on forever. Though Mark Cavendish and Marcel Kittel won’t set out from Maurepas, the startlist does include André Greipel, Nacer Bouhanni, Alexander Kristoff, Arnaud Démare, Giacomo Nizzolo, and John Degenkolb as the riders likeliest to contend for the sprint finishes. Michael Matthews, Heinrich Haussler, and Ben Swift will hope to get involved on the slightly bumpier days.
Punchy Arthur Vichot, Michael Albasini, Tony Gallopin, Philippe Gilbert, and Tom-Jelte Slagter will look to get into the mix when the road is too hard for the sprinting powerhouses, as may be the case in the finale of the hard-to-predict Stage 5.
The startlist is also overflowing with elite time trailing specialists. In addition to those mentioned as GC contenders, Bradley Wiggins, Tony Martin, Tom Dumoulin, and Thomas De Gendt are among the many in attendance who excel against the clock.
VeloHuman Top 10 GC Favorites
Winner: Tejay van Garderen Podium: Richie Porte, Rui Costa Other Top Contenders: Michal Kwiatkowski, Wilco Kelderman, Rafal Majka, Andrew Talansky, Fabio Aru, Beñat Intxausti, Romain Bardet
Be sure to follow @VeloHuman on Twitter for more Paris-Nice commentary and daily stage predictions, and check back soon for plenty of Tirreno-Adriatico pre-race analysis.
Episode 2: Paris-Nice 2015 Pre-race Show The WorldTour returns, and so does the Recon Ride, previewing the Race to the Sun.
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The WorldTour arrives in Europe this Sunday at the 73rd edition of Paris-Nice. After a 2014 parcours that eschewed the time trials and high mountain finishes, the event is returning to a more familiar route. VeloHuman and Cyclocosm join forces to dig deeper into the storylines of the race.
Back in 2012, Janez Brajkovič began his second stint at Astana with a bang, nabbing a stage win in the Volta a Catalunya and Top 10s in the Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné before picking up an overall win in the Tour de Slovénie and then taking one the biggest results of his career, 9th overall in the Tour de France. It was a big year for the Slovenian all-rounder, 28 years old at the time, but in the two seasons that followed, Brajkovič spent more and more time playing a support role for the Kazakh outfit, as the likes of Vincenzo Nibali and Fabio Aru rose to the fore within the team.
At the end of the 2014 season, with his Astana contract expiring, Brajkovič found himself back on the open market, but he was not without a plan. Having spent a good part of his career riding for American teams, he was hoping to return to that familiar atmosphere, and, as it turned out, there was an American team looking to add a few major talents with high-level racing experience to its roster. Brajkovič signed a two-year deal with UnitedHealthcare in October, and with the agreement in place, the team suddenly found itself with a veteran GC rider for the stage races on its calendar, and Brajkovič suddenly found himself back in a leadership role. It didn’t take long for him to get comfortable with his new surroundings.
“I think I settled in already in December,” Brajkovič told VeloHuman. “It’s just the right fit for me. I get along with everybody. The way I think and others think are pretty much the same. We’re a good group of guys, and also the staff and the management, they’re so awesome. I feel really happy to be here. Happy to be here on this team, and I think this team will continue to grow, and I’ll be a part of this team growing, and hopefully in a year or two we’ll be on a higher level, racing ProTour, with the best teams in the world.”
Currently at the Pro Continental level, UnitedHealthcare made a concerted effort over the offseason to add firepower to the roster, bringing in Brajkovič as well as versatile Italians Marco Canola and Daniele Ratto, from Bardiani-CSF and Cannondale, respectively. For Brajkovič, the opportunity for a fresh start on a team with similar values was a major draw.
“I know for myself, last year in August, it was pretty clear I was not going to stay at Astana, and what I wanted was to sign for an American team. . . . Actually I wanted to sign with UnitedHealthcare, that was the team I thought would be the best for me, just to go back and start all over again, and I think it was a good choice, and I’m happy here,” Brajkovič said. “I’m happy to be racing again, and that’s one of the most important things for myself because even if you have good condition, coming to the race and being depressed is not going to get you results.”
An English-language environment played a significant role in giving Brajkovič an immediate morale boost after a few difficult years at Astana.
“Obviously in Astana there was a language barrier. And this American mentality suits me very well. Spending a lot of time in America is also something I like and so far it’s been great,” he said.
His preparation for the major goals of 2015 is coming around now, but the offseason wasn’t perfect for Brajkovič.
“Actually . . . it was a pretty hard offseason. The weather was pretty bad all the time [in Slovenia where he spent time in December]. Training hasn’t been as I would like it to be, but the training I’ve done, I’m pretty happy with the result. I know that there is a lot of reserves still, and once I start training seriously for Tour of California, and also I think Critérium [International] is a pretty important race for us, I think there’s going to be a lot of improvement as well,” he said.
Decent climbing results in the Tour de San Luis would suggest that his form is trending in the right direction, and Brajkovič is hoping that he’ll be closer to his peak by the time the aforementioned Critérium International and Tour of California arrive. The 2.HC events are major objectives for the American squad this season. Having brought on a few big European names over the winter, there was hope among the team that an invite to this year’s Giro d’Italia might be possible as well, but the race organizers opted to look elsewhere for wildcard invites. While it wasn’t an ideal turn of events, Brajkovič notes that UHC will have their hands full as it is.
“For UnitedHealthcare it’s pretty important to have a result in the Tour of California as well. And yeah, it would be nice to race the Giro but then for the Giro you have to have a team, and that would leave Tour of California with . . . I wouldn’t say bad riders, but probably not the best possible combination of riders, not the best team. So I think we just have to focus on Tour of California and race well there. I think that’s the goal for now, and hopefully we’ll get a Vuelta invitation,” he explained.
The USA Pro Challenge and the Tour of Utah are also in Brajkovič’s sights this season, though he is hoping to lead the team in Spain if a wildcard invite to the Vuelta is indeed in the cards, a possibility that will be more likely if the team can deliver results in stage races in the spring and early summer. For the one-week races in particular, podium performances are both the aim and also the expectation for Brajkovič. And although he has only one GC Top 10 result in his palmares over the last two seasons (he was 3rd in the 2014 Vuelta a Burgos), he remains confident that he still possesses the all-rounder skillset necessary to compete as a featured rider at the highest level in the major stage races on the UnitedHealthcare calendar.
“I still think—actually, I know—that I can race for GC, and that’s the focus. For me, and for the team as well,” he said.
After spending some time playing a support role with Astana, one might expect Brajkovič to feel a bit nervous about carrying the weight of his own and the team’s hopes for the season, but he isn’t showing any signs of that right now, with the positive outlook from joining a new, more comfortable environment taking some of the stress out of his return to the role of team GC leader.
“I don’t feel like a team leader,” Brajkovič said. “We’re like a bunch of guys who get along really well. And yeah, they help me a lot, and it’s amazing to see what they do for me, how much energy they spend for me, so I’m really grateful for that. And pretty soon, I think, we’ll start getting those results we need. But I don’t feel any pressure. Of course there’s expectations but I think if I stay healthy and everything goes to plan, we’ll have results as well, so there’s nothing to be worried about.”
After eight seasons riding for Garmin, Tyler Farrar found himself on the market for a new team last fall. Having just turned 30, and in the middle of a season that included a few strong results but no wins to that point, the American sprinter and Classics specialist was undoubtedly a different rider than he had been in years past. As it turned out, that rider was just what Pro Continental squad MTN-Qhubeka was looking for, as part of the team’s bold push to dramatically upgrade their roster for 2015. Adding to an air of growing excitement around the South African organization, Farrar signed on amid a flurry of other high-profile additions that included Edvald Boasson Hagen, Matt Goss, and Theo Bos.
A little over a month later, Tyler Farrar took on his final event in Garmin kit, the Tour of Beijing. On the third stage of the race, Farrar was the first man across the finish line in a high-speed battle with the likes of Luka Mezgec and Moreno Hofland, taking his first win of the season, and his first WorldTour victory since his Tour de France stage win on July 4th, 2011. With two other strong stage performances in Beijing, Farrar would go on to win the Points Classification in that race as well, adding a new jersey to his collection as he closed out his long tenure with Garmin. At the end of a year of near misses, Farrar’s Beijing performance was the best way to head into an offseason of transition on the right foot, and the Washington state native attributes his ability to close out 2014 with a bang to a rekindled enthusiasm after finding his place on a new team.
“I think it is always nice to finish a season on a high note,” Farrar told VeloHuman from Spain, where he has been racing in this week’s Ruta del Sol. “2014 was a good season for me as a whole, but I had always been close to victories without actually winning. Getting a win in Beijing was really good for the head going into the winter. I think a big part of it was having signed with MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung. I was so motivated for the new project that the results really came around at the end of the season.”
Notching a 2nd-place finish behind rising Australian sprinting star Caleb Ewan in this month’s Herald Sun Tour, Farrar seems to have maintained his enthusiasm and some form through the winter and into 2015, putting him in good shape for the early goings of the season.
“I had an incredibly smooth winter, I stayed healthy and was able to really focus in on my training without any major interruptions,” he said. “I am usually the kind of rider who needs a few races in the legs before I find top form, so to already be up in the mix at my first race of the year in Sun Tour was a really good sign that my work over the winter is paying off.”
He is now part of a somewhat crowded stable of proven sprinting talents on MTN-Qhubeka, but Farrar also has the strength to feature on the spring’s grueling Classics. As such, Farrar has directed his attention towards preparation for a campaign on the cobbles. “I did a ton of threshold and power work over the winter that I hope will really pay off in Belgium this spring,” he said.
Farrar’s main target races begin towards the end of March, with the more sprinter-friendly one-day events like Gent-Wevelgem, where he has had success in the past, getting particular focus, but he is on the lookout for results at every opportunity.
“My number one goal is to be at my best for the major cobbled Classics, starting with Dwars door Vlaanderen and carrying through to Paris-Roubaix,” he said. “I have built my entire winter around it. Of course any results before then will be a nice bonus though! I am not the kind of guy who likes to go to races just for training, so I will race for the win every opportunity I get this year.”
A roster loaded with high-speed talent will make MTN-Qhubeka particularly dangerous in the springtime races catering more to quick men, though the multiplicity of options makes the roles of each potential contender a bit unclear at the moment. Farrar sees this an asset, explaining that roles will be determined out on the road: “I think we have a super strong team for 2015, especially in the Classics. The most important thing in those races is to have good numbers in the final selection so that you have a few cards to play. Once we get into that situation it will come down to who has the best legs on the day.”
Farrar’s aim to prioritize the Classics is somewhat motivated by his own evaluation of his abilities. Though still capable of contending in the pure sprints, as he has shown with plenty of sprint stage Top 5s over the past few seasons, Farrar has not quite been able to muster the same sort of top-end velocity as he once could. However, the 30-year-old American sees his less potent finishing kick as a part of his inevitable evolution as a rider, which has at the same time left him feeling more confident in his ability to survive the tough terrain in Flanders, and which has also given him the sort of experience that might make him a valuable leadout man should his team request his services in that department, a possibility Farrar says he is “really looking forward to.” In short, Farrar, appears to be embracing the evolution as he rides into this new chapter of his career, wearing the stripes of a brand new kit.
“I think we all evolve as riders over the course of our careers,” Farrar said. “While I may not have quite the same raw speed I had a few years ago, I have gotten a lot stronger. That is one of the big reasons I have focused on the Classics this year. I am also really excited to be a part of the MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung project and to help it grow. I think we have the potential to win some big races this year and if I can help make that happen, whether I am the one crossing the line first or helping one of my teammates to do it, I will count 2015 as a success.”
Landing results in the big races is presumably exactly what MTN-Qhubeka was hoping for when they made the decision to bring in Farrar and the rest of their marquee offseason signings. With wildcard invites to Milano-Sanremo, all four WorldTour Cobbled Classics, and the Tour de France, the team will certainly have opportunities to notch those high-profile results, and the veteran presence of Tyler Farrar figures to be a major part of their campaign to achieve them this year.
For the latest installment of the Up-and-comer Q&A Series, VeloHuman talked to Wanty-Groupe Gobert’s Roy Jans. Now in his third year with the Belgian Pro Continental squad, Roy Jans is quickly coming into his own as a fast-finisher and potential contender for the one-day races. Despite being sidelined by mononucleosis early on in 2014 after a strong start to the year, Jans returned to racing midway through last season in the form of his life, picking up a victory in the Gooikse Pijl and nabbing Top 5s in the Belgian National Championship Road Race, Brussels Cycling Classic, and Paris-Tours, among other big races. His 2015 campaign opened with further success at the beginning of February when he took a stage victory in the Étoile de Bessèges. Now he sets his sights on the one-day Classics that are just around the corner, where he hopes to define himself a bit more clearly as a rider. Though still only 24 years old, Jans will have plenty of opportunities to make statements on the Belgian cobblestones and beyond, as Wanty-Groupe Gobert is already making him an integral part of the team plans for the season. Jans talked to VH about his development so far, his program for 2015, and his hopes for the future as a rider.
VH: You won a stage at the Étoile de Bessèges at the beginning of the month, so things seem to be going pretty well already here in 2015. How was your offseason?
RJ: The offseason was really good, with a good break and then starting my training, trying to get to good shape before the season, and everything worked well.
VH: You had a bout with mononucleosis last season. Are you feeling back to full health?
RJ: Yeah, I think so. When I started back racing last season, it was not 100% gone away, but enough to start racing again. Now, it’s completely out.
VH: How do you deal with something that difficult as you are trying to develop as a young pro?
RJ: I realized that it doesn’t need to play in my head. . . . You focus on coming back stronger, and that’s what I did.
VH: Did the results that you were able to land late last season help you return with confidence?
RJ: Yeah. After the disease, I came back stronger than before. With a 2nd place in nationals, that was good for that, and then the other good results, like in France where I beat Cavendish in the sprint [Jans notched a 2nd-place finish, ahead of Mark Cavendish in 3rd, in Stage 3 of the Tour du Poitou-Charentes], and then Paris-Tours, and all those other races, they were really good for the confidence and also for the team.
VH: Given what you were seeing in training during the offseason and the way you rode in Bessèges, do you have confidence in your chances to find further success in the early-season racing to come?
RJ: In the winter I felt really good, and all the training went well. I wasn’t sick during the winter months. So I really had a good winter and now, to win directly in Étoile de Bessèges, it was a good start for me for the confidence, and also for the team it’s really good to begin the season like that.
VH: You have a strong finishing kick and you’ve also shown the sort of versatility necessary to get good results in the tougher one-day races. Is there a particular specialization as a rider that you are working towards?
RJ: For now it’s really to be very good in the final, in the sprints, and also when there is a little climb at the end of the race . . . that’s what I saw in Bessèges already, the stage that Gallopin won [Stage 4] . . . it was really a hard final and I managed 5th place and that was already an improvement in comparison with last season. So I think I think I’ve made a step up and I hope that the other results will follow during the season in some harder races.
VH: As a younger competitor, who did you look up to in the pro peloton as a rider that you enjoyed watching, or a rider you wanted to emulate?
RJ: Óscar Freire.
VH: You’re now in your third year riding at the Pro Continental level. What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned so far as a pro?
RJ: That you really need to do everything for it. And you need to listen to your body, when you are training, when you are home, you need to listen to your body. And if you can start a race with a fresh head and fresh legs, that’s the most important thing.
VH: You signed on for two more years with Wanty-Groupe Gobert at the end of last season. What is it about the team that appeals to you and makes you want to stay?
RJ: I could go to bigger teams but I choose to stay because they give me the opportunity to ride my own races. I can choose my whole program, and also the races that I start, they will ride for me. And that’s important for me, for getting stronger and seeing how far I can come in some races.
VH: You’ve been one of the most successful riders on the team in the past year. Has Wanty-Groupe Gobert told you that they have any particular expectations for you or the role that you’ll play in the near future?
RJ: Not yet. Just for me to win stages. That’s what I want and also what the team wants.
VH: Do you know what your program looks like for the next few months?
RJ: I know my program until the beginning of April. My first Belgian race [after taking on the Volta ao Algarve, which starts Wednesday] will be Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, so that’s already a good race for me I think. I really want to make a good result in that race. And then you have Le Samyn, also a nice race. And then Gent-Wevelgem, also important, and then I don’t ride Flanders this year, because I should be fresh for Scheldeprijs. And then it’s possible that I will ride Roubaix, and then I’ll have a little break and start again in the Tour of Turkey.
VH: Do you have any personal objectives set for 2015?
RJ: Last season I didn’t get to do the spring Classics because of the disease. So now is actually the first time that I will do it in good shape. So just seeing how far I can come, and also for the next few years, if there are races that really suit me and if I can get a good result in some of those races, that’s good for the future. Because I’m still very young, and I’m not yet saying, “that race I want to win,” or, “that race I want to do a good result.” It’s every race I start, I want to give the best of me and then we’ll see what will come.
VH: That said, you’ve ridden in most of the big Classics so far already—which one have you enjoyed the most?
RJ: For me, and for a rider like me, Gent-Wevelgem is a really nice race. It’s also one of the goals of this year and we’ll do our best to come as far as possible.
Often coming down to a sprinters’ showdown, Gent-Wevelgem looks like a prime opportunity for Jans to put his finishing kick on display and notch a benchmark result for the future. Enjoying the support of Wanty-Groupe Gobert, who have invested in his development for a few years now, Jans is motivated to prove his ability this season even as he still learns more about his own strengths as a rider, making it all the more likely that he could feature sooner rather than later in the biggest races on the cycling calendar.
