Danish Classics specialist Matti Breschel has given the thumbs up to the signing of Luis León Sánchez by the Rabobank team, as announced yesterday. The two are set to move teams at the end of the season, from Saxo Bank and Caisse d’Epargne respectively, and he believes the two of them will sync perfectly together.
“I am happy to ride with Sanchez. He seems very tough, and he is a strong cyclist. He is one of the established riders now and will win some big races,” he told TV2 Sport.
The two riders are part of the reshuffling of the team, which will lose Denis Menchov to Team Geox at the end of the season. The Russian was third in this year’s Tour de France and while it is hoped that Robert Gesink will step up to become a contender in the race, expectations are also high that Sánchez can improve on his eleventh place of this summer, and that Breschel can develop into a big Classics rider.
The 25 year old first showed clear signs of his talent three years ago when he won stages in the Tour of Denmark and Tour of Ireland, and placed 14th in Paris-Roubaix. 2008 was even better, with a bronze medal in the world road race championships and double stage wins in Denmark plus the first of three consecutive points jersey victories there.
He also won a stage in the Vuelta a España plus the Philadelphia International championship.
Since then he has continued to develop; last year he won the national title, as well as stages in the Tour de Suisse, Volta a Catalunya, Tour of Luxembourg and Tour of Denmark. He was sixth in the Tour of Flanders, seventh in a tough world championships and tenth in Paris-Roubaix. And while he was hampered by mechanical issues in this year’s Classics season, he did win the Dwars Door Vlaanderen and was eighth in Gent Wevelgem. A stage win in the recent Tour of Denmark capped things off.
It’s clear that he will be targeting different races to Sánchez, even though the latter showed excellent one-day ability recently when he won the Clasica San Sebastian. “I don’t think we will see each other so much in the Classics,” he said. “He does not ride races like Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders.”
Breschel said that the two of them will appear together in multi-day races, but he is clear about Sánchez’s superiority there. “He is a good cyclist and a good team captain for stage races,” he stated. Because of that, things should fit well; the Dane will aim for strong showings in the Northern Classics, Sánchez can chase success in the Ardennes races, and then the two will come together in bigger stage races. While the Spaniard goes after overall victories and stage success in the mountains, Breschel will take care of slightly flatter terrain.
The riders have yet to speak, but that will doubtlessly happen whenever they are together in the same peloton. Breschel had hoped to ride the Vuelta but was not selected by his Saxo Bank team. He may however meet up with Sánchez before the end of the racing season. “I don’t know him personally, I don’t even know if he can speak English,” he said. “I don’t speak Spanish. But we’ll cope, I think it will be good,” he said, looking forward to the new surroundings in 2011.