Read part one of this interview
It’s been quite a turnaround for Jonathan Vaughters. Twelve months ago, he was fighting a real battle to keep Bradley Wiggins, and ultimately lost the tug-of-war with Team Sky. That left his team without the rider it had helped develop into a fourth-place finisher in the Tour de France, and was a real setback for the squad.
Since then there’s been a lot of change, not least because of the decision of the Cervélo Test Team to stop at the end of the season. The resulting partnership with Garmin sees the Canadian bike company make a considerable financial input into the set-up, as well as coming on board as an equipment supplier for at least the next three seasons.
Equally importantly, the deal sees a host of top riders travel across to the Argyle squad. Heinrich Haussler, Thor Hushovd and Emma Pooley are just some of those making the move, with the latter two winning rainbow jerseys at the recent world road race championships. Together with current riders such as Tyler Farrar, Ryder Hesjedal and Dan Martin, they will ensure that the team receives publicity like never before in 2011.
In the second part of our two-part interview with Vaughters, VeloNation talks with him about the team changes, about the existing riders who will stay on the squad, and about the women’s team. The latter appeared to receive a setback on Monday when it emerged that directeur sportif Egon van Kessel would move to a different squad in 2011. However Vaughters believes that the team will cope just fine without him.
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VeloNation: Thor Hushovd has just won a rainbow jersey; because of the agreement you have reached with Cervélo, he will be a rider with your team from next season. It’s the same with Emma Pooley, who also picked up a win at the world championship. It’s a very exciting time for Garmin…
Jonathan Vaughters: Yes, two world champions….that’s pretty exciting (laughs). I think we seem to have won the transfer season…
VN: Do you see that as a bit of karma after last year? This time last season, it was a pretty exasperating time for you with Sky chasing, and ultimately getting, Bradley Wiggins…
JV: Well, that is just the way the transfer season works. Sometimes you are going to come out good, and sometimes you are not. I don’t know…I think you have to take the good with the bad. I have said this from the beginning – we are about the team, not the individual, and so we have proven that over a period of time. Sometimes the transfer market is going to go well for us, sometimes the transfer market is going to go less well for us.
At the end of the day, I think year for year in the Tour de France and a lot of other races, we have proved that we can win or do well with a variety of different athletes. We are not tied down to one formula.
VN: I presume some of the money to pay for this has come from the so-called ‘Wiggo bucks,’ the money you got for selling him to Sky?
JV: Well…Cervélo has become a very, very important sponsor to us. We should probably just leave it at that…
VN: Looking at the riders, Tyler Farrar is improving all the time and has beaten Cavendish on several occasions. The whole sprinting game looks more open than before. That must be exciting heading towards next year’s Tour, the thoughts that perhaps Farrar could maybe notch the team’s first win there?
JV: Yes, obviously. It is kind of funny (laughs), we have done a lot of great things in cycling, but we have yet to win a stage in the Tour de France. Obviously I think Tyler is a big focus of ours and we will definitely be looking to him to produce a stage win in the Tour next year. Hopefully a few of them.
VN: Do you see him more as a likely green jersey candidate than Hushovd?
JV: Well, I can only go off my discussions with Thor. Thor seems to feel like…well, he has won the green jersey and he certainly sees it as a big honour, but he said to me, ‘I can teach Tyler how to win the green jersey.’
Of course, there are going to be other races where I think it will be his expectation that Tyler will be helping him. But we have to wait also and see what the Tour route is like, what the finishes are like.
I think for Thor, he is making a statement like that as a very, very generous professional person. I certainly need to make sure that he has a lot of opportunities as the defending world champion too. His big thing is he wants to win a Classic, he wants to win Paris-Roubaix.
VN: How big would that be for Garmin-Cervélo?
JV: It would be incredible. After the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix is probably our biggest objective of the year. It is a race that, for one reason or another, this team has always been incredibly passionate about. We haven’t always had an incredibly strong Roubaix team, but now we do. Now is the time to put up or shut up (laughs).
VN: If you look at the rest of the roster, you have Tyler coming through, but you also have guys like Dan Martin who has moved up to a new level this year. That must be pretty exciting for you, as Dan is potentially a big contender in Grand Tours….
JV: Yes…Dan is a unique talent. When he is on, he is on…that is for sure. It is funny…people are always making the comparison between himself and his cousin Nicolas Roche. I have always said that Nicolas Roche is an incredibly consistent rider…he is always there, always there, always there. Dan is up and down, up and down, and all over the place, but when Dan is on, he wins. He is a race winner.
I think it remains to be seen if Dan Martin is a Tour contender, or is he someone who can win Liège-Bastogne-Liège or the Tour of Lombardy. He has these incredibly good days… As for the Grand Tours, I think he is a year or two off from really being able to show his full form.
Sometimes with the explosiveness I see in Dan, I think maybe he is going to be more of a Cunego type rider. I think it is undetermined [how he could do in Grand Tours]. He is young. I certainly wouldn’t want to pigeon-hole him into that. But sometimes when I watch him, I think that you don’t see many Grand Tour riders with that sort of explosiveness. Like I said, he is a guy who on his day, always figures out how to win.
VN: Dan was second last Saturday in the Giro dell’Emilia, and was probably the strongest rider in the race. That’s a very nice result, and shows he has built some very good form…
JV: Yes, sure. Although it is a bit of a pity, as now he is going to be marked in Lombardia. Before, he might not have been quite as marked. He is one of the hot race favourites and I think that the changes they made the course are obviously going to suit him more than they may suit some his counterparts.
For sure, I hope he can pull it off. It is hard – I watched Ryder Hesjedal in those races in Canada. He was so incredibly strong, but also so incredibly marked. That makes it difficult.
Dan is very clever. That is one thing he has in abundance, so I’m sure he’ll figure out the way to make it work to his advantage.
VN: What is also encouraging is that he is able to get himself back into top shape….he won the Tour of Poland and the Tre Valle Varesine, took some time off afterwards, yet has got back up to top condition…
JV: Yes, sure. He is one of those guys that when he is focussed on a goal, it is impressive how he can pull his form together.
VN: Looking at some other riders on the team, does Tom Danielson have a contract for next year?
JV: Yes, he has a deal. He was set to continue past this year.
VN: He had a good Vuelta…maybe he could be a good supporting rider in the Tour?
JV: Well, that race is a long way off, but I am glad to see that Tom really fulfilled the promise that he had when he came to this team. It was great seeing him do such a good Vuelta. I know he worked really hard for that. For a lot of reasons, I am really proud of Tom regarding that result.
VN: Christian Vande Velde went and did the Vuelta, returning to racing despite having had a lot of injuries this year. Do you see him being back on track next season?
JV: Yes, for sure. Had he not gone and finished the Vuelta, getting going again for next year would have actually been a very, very difficult thing for him. But the fact that he did go and he did the Vuelta and he finished it in good spirits and good condition and is moving quite well right now, I think he is going into the off season motivated and excited about cycling once again. That is what we needed to see with Christian.
I kind of felt like the ball was going to break one way or the other with him. After he had to abandon the Tour, it was either going to come to an end or he was going to bounce back. There really wasn’t anything he could do to change that direction.
Christian pulled himself up and got himself going; I think he will be up at the top again in the Tour next year.
VN: You said before that Egon van Kessel would be looking after the women’s team. He previously worked with the women on the Cervélo Test Team, and the idea was that he would help the transition, and also lend his expertise to a team that hadn’t worked with women before.
However he’s just revealed that he is going to Pegasus Racing instead, the new Australian team that is applying for a ProTour licence. What will you do to replace him?
JV: We have a couple candidates that I think will successfully replace him. It is not a real major drama…it’ll just take a couple of weeks to sort it out. There are a lot of capable people out there, for sure.
VN: Are the women already in place and signed up?
JV: Yes, the core of the team – Emma Pooley and her gang are on board. Honestly, I think Egon wanted to work in men’s cycling more than he wanted to work in women’s cycling…at least that is the impression he gave me. And I was not giving him that opportunity in our pro team so, you know, I understand…