Tour de France podium finisher Denis Menchov has spoken about the possibility of signing for the Katusha team, and said that he will make his decision in the near future.
He confirmed a week ago that his signature was being courted by both the Russian Katusha team and the Kazakh Astana squad, and since then he has had the chance to explore the first of those a little further.
He and Katusha team manager Andrei Tchmil met last Thursday in Spain, where Menchov lives, and discussed the project. Those talks appear to have moved things on a little, and will help the 32 year old weigh things up in the days ahead.
“The meeting turned out to be an interesting one,” he told sovsport.ru, confirming that he was still interested. “I got to know the head of one of the most promising teams and learned how the team operates.”
He will need more time to finalise his plans, but it seems almost certain that he is set to leave his current team at the end of the season. “I will probably not stay with Rabobank,” he confirmed. “A decision will take a week, maybe ten days.”
Menchov is a natural fit for the team, which was announced at the 2008 Tour de France and made its debut at the start of the 2009 season. It stated from the off that its chief goal was to win the Tour, and preferably with a Russian rider.
Given that he has twice placed third in the Tour (the first of those was after Bernhard Kohl’s disqualification in 2008), he is by far the most qualified to lead the team in that race. Menchov has also won two editions of the Vuelta a España as well as the 2009 Giro d’Italia.
A top-level Russian contender is a virtual necessity at this point. The team’s current standout riders are all foreign, with the Spaniard Joaquin Rodriguez sitting second in the UCI world ranking and netting eighth overall plus a stage win in this year’s Tour. The Australian Robbie McEwen and the Italian Filippo Pozzato are two other important competitors.
Notwithstanding the solid performances of those riders, Russian media and the public pay little attention to road cycling. The team needs a high-profile Russian name in the Tour to really ensure support back home.
Menchov has been with the Rabobank team since 2005, having made his pro debut with Banesto in 2000.