Days after the end of a very active race which earned him the award of the most aggressive rider in the Tour de France, Chris Anker Sørensen has indicated he has sufficient energy and motivation to want to also ride the Vuelta a España this year.
The Saxo Bank SunGard rider wants to head to the Spanish tour in order to support Alberto Contador in the latter’s bid to win there for the second time.
“I would like to do the race because I think we have a good chance of winning,” Sørensen told ekstrabladet.dk. “I have not yet ridden on a team in one of the big stage races [Grand Tours – ed.] where we have won. I want to try.”
The Danish climber got a boost this week when he learned that the skin graft he was told he needed has turned out not to be necessary. He was injured during the Tour when a piece of newspaper blew into his front wheel on the seventeenth stage to Peyragudes; he reached down to free it, but got his hand caught in his spokes, tearing off the flesh and reportedly exposing the bone.
He managed to make it to the finish, then to hospital where his injury was assessed. He was able to continue in the race but was told he’d need to be operated on after it finished; now, fortunately, that isn’t the case.
“I have been at the doctor, and it is a relief that I don’t have to be operated on as the Vuelta would have been excluded,” he said.
Contador has said that he’d like Sørensen and Michael Morkov to support him in the Vuelta. Saxo Bank Tinkoff Bank team owner Bjarne Riis is aware that both rode very aggressively in the Tour and is yet to make a definite decision as regards their participation.
Sørensen indicates that he too is yet to make a final conclusion about taking part. “I'll just wait and see. If the hand heals quickly, and I can manage to train, I'm ready to race for Contador,” he said.
The climber battling performance in the Tour was recognised by both that most aggressive rider title and also a new three year contract with the Danish team.