He succeeded in his goal yesterday of becoming the only rider this year to finish all three Grand Tours, has amassed over 15,000 kilometres and has completed almost 100 days of racing, but Adam Hansen has no intention of stopping thus yet.
“Rest is out of question. I have a few more races left, including the world championship and the Tour of Beijing,” he said yesterday, even joking that he might then do the Crocodile Trophy mountainbike race in Australia.
The Lotto-Belisol competitor became just the 32nd rider in history to complete the Grand Tour Treble, and only the second Australian after Neil Stephens. He dedicated himself to the team in each of those races, netting 94th in the Giro despite a big crash on stage twelve, then placing 81st in the Tour de France and 123rd in the Vuelta.
In the past Hansen has taken several strong results, include the Australian TT championship title plus a stage and the overall in the 2010 Ster Elektrotoer. Still, the 31 year old said that he has settled into the role of working for others, such as the team’s top sprinter Andre Greipel.
“Some cyclists are born for winning races. It seems like I’m not one of these guys but I enjoy my career as a domestique,” he said. “My victory is to have finished the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta this year. It’s an enormous pleasure.”
It’s also something he described as ‘stupid hard.’ Yet, while most riders would be broken after the experience, he’s got the focus and energy to keep going to the worlds and Beijing.