Defending champion Frank Schleck would clearly love to take another victory on home soil in the Tour of Luxembourg, and decided to aim for the race instead of joining his brother Andy and the rest of the team’s big hitters in the Tour of California.
However his chances of defending his title have been compromised somewhat due to the fact that Saxo Bank will field six riders rather than eight in the race, which begins today.
The climber will be backed by German hardman Jens Voigt, Dominik Klemme, countryman Laurent Didier, Alex Rasmussen and Kasper Klostergaard.
“It clearly weakens Frank’s opportunities that we are unable to field a full team,” conceded directeur sportif Kim Andersen, according to Politiken.
“We had anticipated that the two Australians Richie Porte and Stuart O’Grady should also have been included here. But after Richie’s amazing Giro, it is obvious that he must relax a little. And Stuart has not yet recovered sufficiently from his crash in the Tour of California, where he broke his clavice.”
O’Grady is still aiming to ride the Tour de France, but will not yet return to racing. “Stuart is on track, but it is too early to send him into competition,” continued Andersen. “With the programme we have, it means that we only have six riders available here.”
The race will begin with an extremely short 2.7 kilometre prologue in Luxembourg, which will suit the sprinters rather than the GC riders. Schleck will hope to make his move on the lumpier stages which follow.
One option would have been to include his brother Andy on the team, but Andersen explains that this would not have worked out in relation to the big goal of the Tour de France.
“We could of course have chosen to start with Andy Schleck at home, but it would not have been serious. Andy is on a completely different programme towards the Tour de France and so it would probably only have disappointed any expectations for him.”
He said that he believed Frank Schleck was in the necessary condition to fight for the overall victory, but conceded that the race is a very difficult one to control. That is even more so the case with six rather than eight riders on the team.
American rider Lance Armstrong will be one of Schleck’s rivals, providing he has the condition. He won the race in 1998, marking the first big victory of his comeback, and would like to show well this week and thus boost his morale.