Up-and-coming Belgian rider Jan Bakelants (RadioShack-Nissan) is getting an early start to his first season with Johan Bruyneel’s revamped squad, as the Omega Pharma-Lotto transfer is set to ride the Santos Tour Down Under. Bakelants is a late replacement for Ben Hermans, who has been forced to bow out due to hip trouble.
Bakelants began emerging on the Omega Pharma-Lotto team, now called Lotto-Belisol, in 2011. He finished both the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España, taking 23rd overall in the Giro and 31st in the Spanish Grand Tour. And yet Bakelants signed on with the Luxembourg-based team in the offseason.
“I want to take a step forward on one of the best teams in the pack,” he told La Dernière Heure recently. “I also felt good at Omega Pharma-Lotto and I did not leave without hesitation, but the financial proposal from Johan Bruyneel was something I could not turn down.”
Often exhibiting an attacking style, Bakelants may have to temper his aggression on his new team, as it possesses so many general classification leaders.
“I know I will [work as a domestique] at RadioShack-Nissan,” he continued. “But I guarantee that sometimes I will have the opportunity to go. I think I have the qualities to excel the most in that manner.
“I want to prove myself in 2012, especially in races like the Tour de Romandie, the Tour of Belgium, and the Tour of Switzerland.”
Though he was without a win in 2011, Bakelants picked up a number of top ten finishes. After a slow start in Paris-Nice and a rough go in the Ardennes Classics, the 25-year-old took good form into the Giro d’Italia. He climbed consistently and got into breakaways, eventually taking fourth on stage 17, the same stage that saw Diego Ulissi win over a relegated Giovanni Visconti.
He remarked in December that he might also make the Ardennes one-day races a goal again, but his spring plans may have changed recently.
While he may have garnered selections to the biggest races of the year if he had stayed with Lotto-Belisol, Bakelants knows now that some of these selections may not come right away with RadioShack-Nissan.
“After the training camp in Spain, I have been in excellent condition,” he said yesterday, according to Het Nieuwsblad. “Then I was working toward a solid program for the year, but I may have to pass up on Liege-Bastogne-Liege in order to ride the Giro. In the Giro, I am sure of my place [on the team], while other selections may be difficult with the quality that was injected after the merger.”
No matter where he races this season, Bakelants has a believer in his new team director.
“Every team can use a rider like Bakelants,” Bruyneel said to La Dernière Heure. “And he has room for growth.”