Renowned cycling commentator, Phil Liggett spoke to VeloNation recently about Andy Schleck’s chances at next year’s Tour de France and whether he should contemplate riding the more climber-friendly Giro d’Italia instead.
The 2012 Tour route was released in October and revealed and increase in time trials from this year. The race against the clock is known to be a weakness for the three times runner up. He lost the chance to win this year’s race in the time trial to Cadel Evans.
“Andy at the moment is like Raymond Poulidor was in the Jacques Anquetil era in the 60’s and 70’s,” he said. “Raymond became more famous by never winning the Tour de France, and he never wore the maillot jaune either. He thought he had on one occasion but he found out he was beaten in a prologue time trial. So he never pulled on the yellow jersey…we all know about Raymond Poulidor,” said Liggett.
“I don’t want to wish that on Andy Schleck.I think he is such a great bloke and a great athlete, and I think one day the Tour route will suit him. But I don’t think its going to be in 2012 because there’s too many time trials and that’s something he can’t do.”
In addition to giving his thoughts on Schleck, Liggett also spoke of the 2011Tour de France, saying it was one of the best he’s witnessed in years. He believes the race was clean. The UCI revealed there was only one positive test of a banned substance, that of Russian Alexandr Kolobnev.
In the interview below, Liggett also admits he thought Cadel Evans was too old and had lost his chance last year of ever winning the Tour de France.
Note: please excuse affected sound quality, which was due to excess background noise