Speaking after the An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly team announced that it had signed him for the 2012 season, Jonny Bellis has explained why the move could be the best thing for his career at this point in time. Although the team has a Continental licence, two steps below the ProTeam status his former Saxo Bank SunGard team had, its varied race programme will offer him a strong choice of races as he rebuilds his racing form.
“Why do I think it’s the right place to be?” Bellis stated in his latest VeloNation blog today. “Well, it’s down to the race programme they have – there’s a big mix of races. There are quality races there if that is what you want to do…they got invites to some big races in 2011, such as Qatar, Oman and the Tour of Belgium. Then there’s other races a level down. It means that there’s a good programme to choose from, even if it means starting with the smaller ones and eventually building up.”
After suffering head injuries in a bad scooter crash in September 2009, Bellis gradually built up a respectable level of fitness and began racing with the Saxo Bank SunGard team again. However he was missing out on top condition and also had his recovery hampered by a hernia; as a result he found it tough in some races, and didn’t perform as well as he hoped.
This in turn led to infrequent selections, compounding the problem of trying to regain top condition. The An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly team management Sean Kelly and Kurt Bogaerts have told Bellis they will work closely with him to ensure he makes constant progress, and have said they will not put pressure on him to get results.
“There’s flexibility there and it should be good for me, giving me the best opportunity again to re-establish my confidence again,” Bellis stated. “It will allow me to prove to myself that I can do it at the level I want to do it. They also seem right behind me – there is no pressure from their side. So I appreciate Kurt and Sean giving me the opportunity to do it.”
Read Jonny’s full blog here, which talks about this and other subjects: