Belgian classics star looking to former team after "worst year" of his career at Rabobank
After two unsuccessful seasons at Rabobank, Nick Nuyens is in negotiations with some new teams; he has had interest from Saxo Bank-Sungard, as well as his former teams Quick Step and Cofidis. The Belgian has yet to choose between them, but says that his first choice would be to rejoin the team where he started his professional career.
“My preference is for Quick Step,” he told Sporza, “but I haven’t made a decision.”
He wants to decide on his 2011 destination before the Vuelta a España starts tomorrow.
Nuyens signed on as a stagiere with Domo-Farm Frites at the end of the 2002 and stayed with Patrick Lefevere’s team, as it became Quick Step-Davitamon, in 2003. While there he developed as a strong lieutenant to Tom Boonen, but picked up some useful results for himself including Paris-Brussels and the GP Wallonie in 2004, the Omloop Het Volk (now Het Nieuwsblad), the Tour of Britain and Wallonie again in 2005, and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne in 2006.
Dissatisfied with his secondary role to Boonen though, he quit the Belgian team for Cofidis, where he was to be the undisputed classics captain. His two years with the French team were less successful although he came close to winning the Eneco Tour in 2007, but crashed out on the penultimate stage while wearing the leader’s jersey, and finished second in both the Het Volk and the Ronde Van Vlaanderen in 2008.
He left Cofidis for Rabobank in 2009, where things have not gone as well as he expected. He has been unable to match his results of previous years, with another GP Wallonie in 2009 being the sole victory of his first year with the Dutch team.
His only victory this year so far has been stage 5 of the Österreich-Rundfahrt. “That was a lot of fun,” he said at the time, adding that it brightened up “the worst year of my career.”
While Nuyens’ relationship with his current team is not the greatest, he remains on good terms with both of his former teams.
“I have the best relationship with the teams I left,” he explained, referring to both the Cofidis and Quick Step teams. “When I’m at their bus I’m greeted as a friend. Now that Patrick Lefevere is showing interest in me again, I feel flattered.”
As a classics specialist, Nuyens’ favourite races are those in the spring, particularly the ones in his native Flanders. These are the races that he was expected to excel in when he signed with Rabobank, but a lacklustre campaign this year means that he will no longer be required by the orange team for 2011.
“I had a rubbish spring,” he explained, “I was ready for a good spring but it was a 'crap year' of bad luck, punctures, illness and crashes.”
Sadly for Nuyens though, a rider’s salary expectations are based on their results, not on how strong they were. The bad luck he suffered in the spring affects his chances of going where he wants and earning as much as he wants.
“Everyone saw how strongly I rode, so now when I’m in negotiations I hear ‘well ridden, but no results’; you can buy nothing with that,” he conceded. “That’s how it is in the negotiations; my market value is not what it was.”
A return to Quick Step for Nuyens, to the team that nurtured him as an up-and-coming classics star, would make sense for both Nuyens and the team. Two-time Ronde van Vlaanderen winner and current Belgian champion Stijn Devolder is leaving for Dutch team Vacansoleil; his departure leaves a gap in the Belgian team that might be just right for Nuyens to fill.