2006 Tour de France champion Oscar Pereiro has indicated that he is disappointed not to be going to the 2010 Tour de France, and has announced that this will be his final season as a bike rider.
The Galician had considered hanging up his racing wheels at the end of 2009 but was brought on board with the aim of assisting Pereiro in the 2010 Tour. However he has not hit top form this year and when the final deliberation was made as to which eight riders would back Alberto Contador, he was left aside.
“I’m a little annoyed at having to stay at home after working so much,” he admitted to La Voz de Galicia. “I have an unexpected holiday in July.”
The 32 year old said that in April, he fully expected to be part of the Tour team. However things changed slightly then, and he said that he believes the factor of his nationality may be part of the reason he is not heading to France this week. “In May I saw that the list of seven riders had expanded to fourteen and there were many Kazakh cyclists in that. I knew then I had a chance of missing out. But I was confident. I understand that we are a big team and they have to go with the nine that are considered to be likely to do the best job. It is normal that Astana will bet on riders from its country…it’s not a surprise.”
There will be two riders from the country on the squad; Contador will be joined by Alexandre Vinokourov, who is regarded as a very big influence in the team, and Maxim Iglinskiy, as well as Paolo Tiralongo of Italy, Andriy Grivko (Ukraine) and four Spaniards - David De la Fuente, Jesus Hernandez, Benjamin Noval and Daniel Navarro.
This year was expected to be a new beginning for the rider, who admitted that he had become demoralised with the Caisse d’Epargne team. He said that he had trained harder than ever, but his results from the season show few bright moments.
He started things off with 71st in Tour Down Under, then was 93rd in the GP d’Ouverture La Marseillaise. Paris-Nice was also very quiet, with a final placing of 95th overall. He showed some improvement in the Volta a Catalunya, where he was 19th overall, and in the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, when he was 13th and 17th on stages, but 97th in Flèche Wallonne, 82nd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 59th in the Tour de Suisse did not point to a rider on form.
He learned about the decision last Friday morning in Madrid. He said that he had hoped to go, but then conceded that he would have sealed his place had he had better performances. “We must be wise in life,” he said. “Jesus Hernandez had an incredible Dauphiné and that meant he was certain for the Tour. The other riders were very equal. If I had been superior [in terms of form], I could have forced the situation.”
Now resigned to the fact that he will miss out, he is looking to refocus and will hopefully gain the form he needs to fight for the general classification in what will be his final Grand Tour.
“I will not do the Tour and am thinking instead of riding the Vuelta a España, enjoying the season as I have done so far. This is one of the best years I’ve had in terms of training, and it has been nice without the obligation to target the races. I can therefore say goodbye to the bike in a nice way.
“For sure this is the last year I race a bike. During the season I always said that it was possible to continue for another year, but obviously not being at the Tour is a step down for me. I don’t want to take further steps back. In life you have to know when to say ‘enough.’ My sporting career is nice, but I don’t want to prolong it further. I want to give my place to other riders so that they can reach their own goals. If I had been at the Tour, I probably would have changed my mind. But my intention was also to ride with a big team like Astana and leave the bike in that way.”
Pereiro’s best result was in 2006, when he got into a large breakaway, gained serious time and took over the yellow jersey of race leader. He was eventually overtaken in the general classification by Floyd Landis but when the American tested positive, Pereiro became the final winner of the race.
He also finished tenth on three occasions, in 2004 and 2005, and again in 2007. He won a stage in 2005, but suffered a very bad fall in the 2008 event and never got back to his best form after that.
Now it’s time to go, with the rider saying that he is 99 percent certain to stay ‘adios’ to pro cycling. “Following another season like this, I’m probably not psychologically prepared to take it. 2010 is a good time to stop.”