Winner of two stages last year and member of the best overall team, Thor Hushovd will have no such success at this year’s Tour de France with the news that the Norwegian will miss the race.
His BMC Racing Team has confirmed this evening that he will scratch from both that and the Norwegian road race championships, with the Tour de Pologne being his next competitive fixture. He will use that race to try to build up for the Olympic Games.
The 2010 world road race champion moved from Garmin-Cervélo to the BMC Racing Team at the start of the season and his presence, that of fellow new signings Philippe Gilbert and Tejay Van Garderen plus that of Tour de France champion Cadel Evans led to some predications that the team would dominate the sport.
That hasn’t happened, though, with both Gilbert and Hushovd having very quiet early seasons. According to the team, the reason for the latter has now become more clear.
"We did perform some tests at the Mapei Sport Center after the Giro and found that he had signs of a viral infection from earlier in the year," said team doctor Max Testa in the team communication. "But everything now is normal."
Hushovd last competed on stage five of the Giro d’Italia back on May tenth and despite the fact that the team feels he has now recovered, it states that there isn’t sufficient time for the rider to be ready for a three week Tour. “We obviously would have liked to have had him on our Tour de France team,” said directeur sportif John Lelangue said. “But after evaluating everything, we think this program will better help him meet his own goals.”
Hushovd’s revised schedule will see him begin the WorldTour Tour of Poland on July tenth. That will be a stepping stone for one of the biggest targets he has left in his career. "I needed more time to recover and it's always been a goal of mine to do well at the Olympics," he stated. "I also hope to be a part of the BMC Racing Team's team time trial squad at the world championships and to compete in the road race as well. So there are still a lot of goals left to prove to myself this year."
Hushovd’s world championship success and ability to compete with varied terrain means that if he can reach top form, that the Olympic road race title could be an attainable goal. However with plenty of other fast riders in the bunch, he’ll need to get his build-up perfectly right.